"Powerless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... his legislature sent him into Washington by a vote of three to one. He had been there now twelve years and was just entering upon his third term. Moreover, he had fortified his position; his enemies were now powerless to do him harm; and at the time this story finds him he had constructed a machine which rendered his hold upon his State as unshakable as Gibraltar's famous rock. Patrick Henry Hanway might now be Senator for what space he pleased, ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... to stand against it. The sentries were drenched from head to foot. The conditions became so bad that an order was suddenly circulated to the effect that the guard was to be changed every two hours, instead of at four-hour intervals. The sentries were quite powerless to assist us even if they had been disposed to come to our aid to mitigate our wretched condition in any way. One guard, his compassion evidently aroused by a scene such as he had never witnessed before, secured some thin stakes and thrust them through the ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... hand, his friends asserted that his retirement arose from his hatred of the intrigues of a public life, and represented him as panting in the midst of the toils of his office for literary and rural retirement. His own reason, as expressed to a friend, was, that he found himself powerless in his own cabinet. "Single in a cabinet of my own forming," he observed, "no aid in the house of lords to support me, except two peers, [Denbigh and Pomfret]; both the secretaries of state silent, and the lord chief justice, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... Conference which ignored this problem of problems has transformed Europe into a seething mass of mutually hostile states powerless to face the economic competition of their overseas rivals and has set the very elements ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... This minister of state, this high member of the elect, at whose gift are places, peerages, gold-sticks, and ribbons, has nothing at his command for the bruised spirit of the half-pay soldier. Before that poverty, that grief, and that pride, the King's Counsellor was powerless. Only when Trevanion rose to depart, something like a sense of the soothing intention which the visit implied seemed to rouse the repose of the old man and to break the ice at its surface; for he followed Trevanion to the door, took both his hands, pressed them, then turned away, and ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... passenger still capable of reasoning, and even on the whole crew. One instantly observed the excitement that seized upon all at the cessation of the engines, which seemed to turn the vessel into a torpid, powerless thing. Voices cried, women shrieked, steps hurried up and down the gangways. A man tore the door open and indignantly cried, as if imputing to the poor barber the ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... those who should be his true guides. It would be impossible to say when the first wrong impression is made, but it is so early that a true statement of the time could only be accepted from scientific men. For mothers and fathers have often so dulled their own sensitiveness, that they are powerless to recognize the needs of their children, and their ...
— Power Through Repose • Annie Payson Call
... the one dream of my life! I hold you to my heart, acknowledged all my own! Who shall dare dispute the right your lips have given me? Hatred is powerless now; none shall come between me and my own. O Irene! my beautiful darling! not all my ambitious hopes, not all the future holds, not time, nor eternity, could purchase the proud, inexpressible ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... follow the bent of his base inclinations. As supreme Head of the State he ruled autocratically, and set justice and decency at defiance. The Florentines abashed by the pass in which they found themselves, seemed powerless to oppose the Duke's aggression upon their liberties. That had come to pass against which they had striven for hundreds of years—Florence was subject to Il governo ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley
... speech that tortured Isbel. How the shock to him rebounded on her! She gasped as he lunged for her, too swift for her to move a hand. One arm crushed round her like a steel band; the other, hard across her breast and neck, forced her head back. Then she tried to wrestle away. But she was utterly powerless. His dark face bent down closer and closer. Suddenly Ellen ceased trying to struggle. She was like a stricken creature paralyzed by the piercing, hypnotic eyes of a snake. Yet in spite of her terror, if he meant death ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey
... some extent anxious lest another squall should come, but I made the best provision I could in the circumstances, and concluded that by letting go the weather-braces of the top-sails and the top-sail halyards at the same time, I should thereby render these sails almost powerless. Besides this, I proposed to myself to keep a sharp look-out on the barometer in the cabin, and if I observed at any time a sudden fall in it, I resolved that I would instantly set about my multiform appliances for reducing sail, so as to avoid being taken at ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... not stifled, is dethroned; it is become a fugitive Pretender; and that part of them that would desire its restoration is set down as an intellectual malignant, powerless indeed ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock
... himself, could devote to each thing but little time and attention. His task would keep his mind in perpetual unrest, which would prevent him from penetrating to the depth of any truth, or of grappling his mind indissolubly to any conviction. His intellect would be at once independent and powerless. He must therefore make his choice from amongst the various objects of human belief, and he must adopt many opinions without discussion, in order to search the better into that smaller number which he sets apart ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... influence, were discovering that they had set up King Stork in place of King Log; the exactions of an Augustus were as nothing compared with the lawless pillaging of the new feudalism; and elective sovereigns, ruling by the grace of their chief subjects, were powerless for good as well as harm. The lower ranks of laymen had no better cause to be content with the new order under which the small freeholder was oppressed, the peasant enslaved, the merchant robbed and held to ransom. The freedom of the aristocracy spelled misery for every other class. ...
— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis
... be compared to the course of a steamer across an unquiet ocean. The waves raised by a fresh gale on the starboard bow were cleft by the stem, only to reunite behind the churn of the propeller. They were powerless to abridge the day's run by many miles, but they could still swing forwards to the shore. On one occasion the ship was slowed down to a ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... and forwards daily, sometimes twice in the same day, between the camp and the amba. At first, we saw with anxiety the near approach of Theodore and the renewed facility of his communications with us; but as it was an evil we were powerless to contend against, we consoled ourselves as best we could, and though fearing the worst, hoped for the best. One advantage we gained was the facility of corresponding with Mr. Flad, who always, with ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc
... have called a meeting in the Coliseum to protest against the bread-tax. What if the Government prohibits it? Your principle of passive resistance will not permit you to rebel, and without the right of public meeting your association is powerless. ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... sheep, their donkeys, their camels and their elephants are dependent upon certain natural phenomena over which neither rajah nor maharaja, nor viceroy, nor emperor, nor council of state has control, and before which even the great Mogul on his bejeweled throne stood powerless. It is possible to ameliorate the consequences, but it is not possible ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... longings, situated as she is, can never be satisfied in any way except for her own harm. Meantime she eats her own heart, since she has nothing else, and heart-eating produces all kinds of symptoms. I am absolutely powerless in such a case, though sometimes I make a diagnosis which I think may be correct, sometimes I think there is some organic trouble which I can mitigate. But always I fall back upon the miserable truth which I am convinced underlies her whole existence. She is a creature born into a life which ...
— 'Doc.' Gordon • Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman
... of explosive bullets," added Bearwarden, "would have been powerless against this beast, for the armour in many places is nearly a ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds - A Romance of the Future • John Jacob Astor
... learned from the sad experience of centuries that nominal Christianity, which men call religion, is utterly powerless to stop warfare; it may, in a few instances, have lessened some of its horrors, but only a few. The annals of the wars which have taken place for the last three hundred years since the world has improved in civilisation, show that nations rush into war as eagerly as ever, and ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... was aware of merciless blows raining down upon him, battering him to the earth; he felt suffocated, crushed, more utterly helpless and powerless than he had ever done in his life before. Quick thrills of pain were running through him, stars danced before his eyes; and through all this confusion and distress he was yet aware of some terrible danger menacing the prince—danger from which he had sworn to save him at the risk ...
— In the Wars of the Roses - A Story for the Young • Evelyn Everett-Green
... equal place in his father's affections. Yet all these interwoven influences—a deep love of his children and a sincere attachment to his wife, of whom, indeed, he never ceased to speak with respect and regard—were as powerless as in so many thousands of other cases they have been, to brace an enfeebled will to the task of self-reform. In 1807 "respect and regard" had manifestly taken the place of any warmer feeling in his ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill
... some one who loved you as well as I did, and who was less weak and selfish. You must not give me up in spite of my defects. I love you and am proud of you—proud to think that you are doing work among men whom I should be powerless to influence. Easter once more brings new life and hope. May the God of all life, of all peace, of all hope, be with you and all your flock! May He guide pastor and sheep! Don't despair; go on manfully; you are doing ...
— Letters to His Friends • Forbes Robinson
... ear had detected the growl of a lion in that bit of scrub, and he at once started off three of his best dogs to the scene of Archie's adventure. Not two hundred yards away myself, but on high ground, I could see everything, though powerless to aid. I could see Archie hurrying back through the bush. I could see the puma spring, and my poor cousin fall beneath the blow—then the death struggle began. It was fearful while it lasted, which was only the briefest possible time, for, even as I ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables
... little lover, you didn't know what you were saying with your baby wisdom, and your rust-grimy, little paddie burned the sleep-place on my breast like a terrible white heat from which I was powerless to defend myself. You are mine, you are, you are! You are soul of my soul and heart of my heart and spirit of my spirit and—and you ought to have ...
— The Melting of Molly • Maria Thompson Daviess
... appear to be coming any nearer, and his shrill barking was now mingled with the clank of chains. All at once Clay comprehended the situation. The brute was fastened to his kennel somewhere near the gate, and was therefore powerless to do harm. ...
— Canoe Boys and Campfires - Adventures on Winding Waters • William Murray Graydon
... attendants, Aides seized the terrified maiden, and bore her away to the gloomy realms over which he reigned in melancholy grandeur. Helios, the all-seeing sun-god, and Hecate, a mysterious and very ancient divinity, alone heard her cries for aid, but were powerless to help her. When Demeter became conscious of her loss her grief was intense, and she refused to be comforted. She knew not where to seek for her child, but feeling that repose and inaction were impossible, she set out on her weary search, taking with her ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... voice and his blows were powerless to help, as James, in a frenzy of rage and alarm, gripped the girl's wrist, and twisted it. "Let it go! Let it go, you fool!" he cried brutally, "or I ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... Snaggs was dragged down on the deck, raging and foaming at the mouth; when, binding him securely hand and foot, they lifted him up and carried him into his cabin, where they strapped him down in his cot, powerless to do any more injury to himself or anyone else, until ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... will prove very valuable to you in your Christian life if you can only get to fully comprehend it: You can do nothing; your will is powerless without God and his grace, and God can do nothing in you without the consent of your will. God does everything, and we do everything: we are to purify our hearts, and yet it is God who purifies our hearts; we are to make us ...
— Food for the Lambs; or, Helps for Young Christians • Charles Ebert Orr
... asleep on the surface of the water. One of our boats went alongside of him, and two men attempted to turn him over with boat-hooks. He struggled successfully, however, to keep himself "right side up," and, in a few moments, plunged beneath the surface. Once upon his back, he would have been powerless and a prisoner, and we might have hoped for the advantage of his presence ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... minutes of time, while she, with her face hidden, still clung round his knees. "What is it?" at last he said. "I do not understand." But she had no answer to make to him. Her great resolve had been quickly made and quickly carried out, but now the reaction left her powerless. He stooped down to raise her; but when he moved she fell prone upon the ground; he could hear her sobs as though her bosom would ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... dispose of her life as she thinks fit. This being so I have of course no option but to endorse her decision, so far as I have anything to do with the matter. It is a decision which I for some reasons regret, but which I am quite powerless ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... numberless tender things in his mind, which he meant to tell her, but feeling also, while he smarted under the sting of self-reproach (for the indiscretion he had committed), Tai-yue give him a rap, he was utterly powerless to open his lips, much though he may have liked to speak, so he kept on sighing and snivelling to himself. With all these things therefore to work upon his feelings, he unwillingly melted into tears. He tried to find his handkerchief ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... 19, 1861, he wrote, "Now for your book. Truebner is fair-dealing, but powerless as a publisher. All the pushing is done by me. I have had a long and hard fight to get the public here to buy a novel published by him, and could hardly recommend another to go through it. If done on commission and by Truebner, I could take ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... entrance to as many hearts as are taken by the love of gain, or the dislike to labor. We may find in this thought a partial explanation of the fact, that the thrift of the non-slaveholding States contrasted with the stagnation at the South, is so powerless an argument addressed to the slaveholders there; for you have not only to satisfy avarice of the superior profitableness of free labor; you have still to contend with the lust of dominion—the passion for power and superiority. To manage this ...
— The Growth of Thought - As Affecting the Progress of Society • William Withington
... threatened to knock his head off, and he could have sworn that the girl—or woman—had smiled her approbation of the threat. Yet he held no grudge against Bateese. An odd sort of liking for the man began to possess him, just as he found himself powerless to resist an ingrowing admiration for Marie-Anne. The existence of Black Roger Audemard became with him a sort of indefinite reality. Black Roger was a long way off. Marie-Anne and Bateese were very near. He began thinking of her as Marie-Anne. He liked the name. It was the Boulain part of it ...
— The Flaming Forest • James Oliver Curwood
... menacing his feet from the ground. Thinking some fallen enemy sought to strike him at the last gasp, dropping his hold on his musket, he wrenched at the steel, but found that though a brave hand held it, that hand was powerless for ever. It was some British officer's laced sword-arm, cut from the trunk in the act of fighting, refusing to yield up its blade to the last. At that moment another sword was aimed at Israel's head by a living officer. In an instant the blow was parried by kindred steel, ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... crossed Jack's mind. His whole anxiety was for the young boy. Harry, however, seemed unconscious of danger. He was leaning over one of the wounded men, assisting to bind up his arm, when Jack saw his hand drop powerless by his side, while he fell forward. Jack caught him in time. "What is the matter, Harry?" he ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... Vance next produced a handbill, which he said was being widely circulated all over Rubbleford; and which proved to be the composition of Mr. Jubber himself. That ingenious ruffian, having doubtless discovered that "legal law" was powerless to help him to his revenge, and that it would be his wisest proceeding to keep clear of Doctor Joyce in the rectory's magisterial capacity, was now artfully attempting to turn the loss of the child to his own profit, by dint ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... way from the company. All at once then Ernst left off his play, and a change was visible in his whole countenance. I augured something amiss, and would gladly have sprung far, far away, but I felt powerless; and then Ernst spoke so from his heart, so fervently, and with such deep tenderness, that he took my heart at once to himself. I laid my hand, although tremblingly, in his, and, almost without knowing what I did, consented to go through life by ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... marched his men; and that after levying his soldiery and taking a host of wild Arabs[FN200] into service, he had come down upon us with armies like the sands of the sea; their number none could tell and against them none could prevail. They attacked the city unawares; and the citizens, being powerless to oppose them, surrendered the place: my uncle was slain and I made for the suburbs saying to myself, "If thou fall into this villain's hands he will assuredly kill thee." On this wise all my troubles were renewed; and I pondered all that had betided my father and my uncle and I knew not what ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... escape from punishment which was chiefly had in mind. Along with the forensic notion of salvation we largely or wholly discard the notion of punishment. We retain only the sense that the consequence of continuing in sin is to become more sinful. God himself is powerless to prevent that. Punishment is immanent, vital, necessary. The penalty is gradually taken away if the sin itself is taken away—not otherwise. It returns with the sin, it continues in the sin, it is inseparable from the sin. Punishment is no longer ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore
... the old soldier's listeners by this time, and each vied with the other in heaping honors and gifts in place of the disgrace suffered so long; but all that was powerless to make up for ...
— Twilight Stories • Various
... Feckless, feeble, powerless. Fell, strong and fiery. Fey, unlike yourself, strange, as if urged on by fate, or as persons are observed to be in the hour of approaching death or disaster. Fit, foot. Flit, to depart. Flyped, turned up, turned in-side out. Forbye, in addition to. Forgather, to fall in with. Fower, four. ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... she had placed him, impatient of everything, but feeling powerless to move. He heard Miss Pett move about; he heard the drawing to and barring of shutters, the swish of curtains being pulled together; then the spurt and glare of a match—in its feeble flame he saw Miss Pett's ...
— The Borough Treasurer • Joseph Smith Fletcher
... room in waves of splendour. The glad sounds of voices, in the Square, of men and women enjoying the beautiful weather in promenades, were unheeded by him. The great voice of cannon from the Citadel, answering some hostile movement of the enemy, was powerless to arouse him from his torpor. There is nothing so terrible to encounter as the last phases of a moral crisis, nothing so painful as to realize that one has yet two or three points to gain of that fatal resignation which he thought he had mastered. The cup of poison may be dashed off in a gulp ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... weigh down the scale. And so for days after it was—for weary miserable days and nights. The great reaction after the great excitement had come, all consciousness left her, she lay white and still, scarcely moving, scarcely breathing. The one beloved voice fell as powerless on her dulled ears now as all others, the dim, almost lifeless eyes, that opened at rare intervals, were blank to the whole world. She lay in a species of stupor, or coma, from which it was something more than doubtful if she ever would awake. The few spoonfuls of beef-tea ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... in upon me with such force, that my heart almost ceased to beat! I was faint, deadly faint! When I recovered consciousness and afterwards, at our interview, I was absolutely wretched! Your request, added to my anguish. I was powerless to answer, I could only beg for more time. All through that dreadful week, I strove to convince myself that my ears had deceived me, that the voice was not real, only a phasma, a hallucination, born of my fits of melancholy. Unfortunately, ...
— Solaris Farm - A Story of the Twentieth Century • Milan C. Edson
... circumstances," says Castelar, "Savonarola would undoubtedly have been a good husband, a tender father, a man unknown to history, utterly powerless to print upon the sands of time and upon the human soul the deep trace which he has left, but misfortune came to visit him, to crush his heart, and to impart that marked melancholy which characterizes a soul in grief, and the grief that circled his brows with a crown of thorns was ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... furious rending asunder of the fastenings that secured the boughs, and presently the whole went overboard, leaving revealed the tall and picturesque figure of the officer; whose left arm encircled while it supported the reclining and powerless form of one who well resembled, indeed, the spectre for which she had been mistaken, while his right hand was busied in detaching the string that secured a portion of the covering round her throat. At length it fell from her shoulders; and the well known ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... slave territory been nearly doubled in the present century; but by a recent decision of the Supreme Court, every law which has been passed by Congress restricting slavery, is pronounced contrary to the constitution, and therefore invalid. Congress is declared powerless to prohibit slavery from any portion of the Federal Territory, or to authorize the inhabitants to do so; the African race, whether slave or free, are declared not to be citizens, and consequently to be incompetent to sue in the United States' Courts, and ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... wooing. But now his sense of outrage was deep, rancorous, and ever present; he felt that he was a good fellow wronged. As for Madame de Cintre's conduct, it struck him with a kind of awe, and the fact that he was powerless to understand it or feel the reality of its motives only deepened the force with which he had attached himself to her. He had never let the fact of her Catholicism trouble him; Catholicism to him was nothing but a name, and to express a mistrust of the form in which her religious ...
— The American • Henry James
... do about it? Fight him, or what? It's a free country, and the man has a right to his opinions, even if you don't agree with him. Better hush up, Maria. I don't believe in duels, and they are against the law in this country besides; you are powerless, you see." ...
— Divers Women • Pansy and Mrs. C.M. Livingston
... influences the mild governors of North Africa were powerless. They had so long enjoyed peace and friendship with the Mediterranean States, that they were in no condition to enforce order with the strong hand. Their armies and fleets were insignificant, and their coasts were long to protect, and abounded with almost impregnable ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... to be powerless by every one, as they who have no arms or legs to move oppose or injure or deaf or blind &c. &c. cannot be considered and said that they are our enemies even for their madness in vain—it might be considered ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... windows on opposite sides of the room were shivered into fragments, the curtains were jerked down and the black muzzles of a dozen carbines were thrust in. It was like a thunder-bolt from a clear sky, and it was all done so quickly that no one had a chance to move. The five Union men were as powerless for resistance as though they had held straws instead of loaded guns ...
— Rodney The Partisan • Harry Castlemon
... reached the limits of our present study, and have only to state that all gems, like the human organism, are in one of three conditions: alive and conscious, asleep and UNCONSCIOUS, or dead and powerless. These conditions can only be discovered, in stones, by the trained lucid or the instructed neophyte. Stones that are sleeping require to be awakened. This, also, can only be done by the trained student or Adept. Those that are dead, ...
— The Light of Egypt, Volume II • Henry O. Wagner/Belle M. Wagner/Thomas H. Burgoyne
... women, and children fell victims to such ingenuity of cruelty as only savage vengeance could conceive. Children were dashed to pieces before their parents' eyes; aged parents tomahawked before struggling sons and daughters; fathers held powerless that they might witness the tortures wreaked on wives and daughters. Homes which had heard some alarm and were on guard were set on fire, and those who perished in the flames {167} died a merciful death compared to those who fell in the hands ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... spectators, have assembled to watch the result. The boiler is filled; the fires are lighted. Hour after hour the process goes on of raising the force and pressure of the steam. All this time, however, the machinery lies inert and lifeless. It is a powerless mass of dead and heavy brass and iron. At length an engineer, standing upon a platform, with a lever in his hand, receives the signal, opens the valve, and breathes into the monstrous body the breath of life. The ponderous piston slowly rises; the beam descends; the crank ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... belief that when "such things happened" it was undoubtedly foolish of the man, but somehow always criminal of the woman. All the elderly ladies whom Archer knew regarded any woman who loved imprudently as necessarily unscrupulous and designing, and mere simple-minded man as powerless in her clutches. The only thing to do was to persuade him, as early as possible, to marry a nice girl, and then trust to her ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... yet sweet, had somehow or other made the entertainment of little worth in her own estimation. She was very fair to look upon, very witty, very worldly-wise,—but for once her beauty seemed to herself defective and powerless to charm, while the graceful cloak of social hypocrisy she was always accustomed to wear would not adapt itself to her manner tonight so well as usual. The author of "Nourhalma" the successful poet whose acquaintance she had very eagerly sought to make, was not at all the kind of ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... I have done!' she sighed, leaning towards the world. 'My poor children are plunged in misery, and by my fault. Their suffering is my crime, and I will expiate it. God Himself, who only thinks through me, would be powerless to restore them to their pristine purity. That which is done is done, and the creation will remain for ever imperfect. But, at least, I will not forsake my creatures. If I cannot make them happy, like me, I can make myself unhappy, like them. Since I committed the mistake of giving them bodies ...
— Thais • Anatole France
... intruder, proceed calmly to the statement of your business. You know that your intention to render him a true service justifies you in taking his time. Therefore his assumed fierce manner should be powerless ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... Hoyt was powerless to do anything, but Harry was certain that he saw a desperate purpose written on his face, and he determined to be on his guard if the men ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891 • Various
... the same questions over and over again; and once more he had proof of the fact that against certain conditions time seems powerless. Some of the young married women had during his absence become mothers; but most of the ladies of the regiment presided without change over the solid domestic comfort of their house-holds. The main thing noticeable was that they had sacrificed themselves with greater or less success ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... offended me, and presumed to be sullen upon my resentment. Married but two days, and shew his airs!—Were I in fault, my dear, (which, upon my honour, I am not,) for the man to lose his patience with me, to forget his obligations to me, in two days!—What an ungrateful wretch is he! What a poor powerless creature ...
— The History of Sir Charles Grandison, Volume 4 (of 7) • Samuel Richardson
... Chit gracefully posturing with tingling bangles and twittering talk, had no more effect upon her prey than on a stone image. No; although she hung over him, tapped him with too eloquent fingers, whispered jokes in his ear, and filled his nostrils with an exquisite and voluptuous perfume, she was powerless! ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... like the images in the hat of Louis XI., was a source of comfort and consolation in the doing of evil, but powerless to restrain her from the act itself, in the presence of a will stronger than her own. At the time of his death Aubert contemplated marriage, and had advertised for a wife. If Mme. Fenayrou was aware of this, it may have served to stimulate her resentment against ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... a ride in the hills on Bob, with Dede beside him on her Mab. Yet all his millions could not buy him this one day. One of those flurries might come along, and he had to be on the spot to meet it. Thirty millions! And they were powerless to persuade Dede to ride on Mab—Mab, whom he had bought, and who was unused and growing fat on pasture. What were thirty millions when they could not buy a man a ride with the girl he loved? Thirty millions!—that made him come here and go there, that rode ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London
... can not be harmed; my reason rejects this thing; it is an illusion—I do not fear." With a violent effort I succeeded at last in stretching out my hand toward the weapon on the table: as I did so, on the arm and shoulder I received a strange shock, and my arm fell to my side powerless. And now, to add to my horror, the light began slowly to wane from the candles—they were not, as it were, extinguished, but their flame seemed very gradually withdrawn; it was the same with the fire—the light was extracted ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... boundary feuds had set enmity between neighbors, and the girls, called on to say who troubled them, cried out upon those whom they had been wont to hear called by hard names at home. They probably had no notion what a frightful ending their comedy was to have; but at any rate they were powerless, for the reins had passed out of their hands into the sterner grasp of minister and magistrate. They were dragged deeper and deeper, as men always are by their ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... away his consciousness by drugging or bludgeoning, but it would be racial suicide to attempt it. In the split moment of realization he would kill every human being on Earth. There would be nobody left to operate on his brain, to make him a mindless, powerless idiot for the rest of time. For any period of time, he corrected himself. His ...
— The Mightiest Man • Patrick Fahy
... monks," men whom Henry had raised from the mire, and peers, over whose heads they were placed, were joined in a common fate. Wolsey and More, Cromwell and Norfolk, trod the same dizzy path to the same fatal end; and the English people looked on powerless or unmoved. They sent their burgesses and knights of the shire to Westminster without let or hindrance, and Parliament met with a regularity that grew with the rigour of Henry's rule; but it seemed to assemble only to register the royal edicts and clothe with a legal cloak the naked violence ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... which Kathleen might come into a knowledge of the real Overton spirit. In writing the play, for Grace felt certain that the newspaper girl would enter the lists, she might gain what her classmates had been powerless to give her. Grace's face grew hot with shame at her ...
— Grace Harlowe's Fourth Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... of the Merrimac went leisurely to work and began (March 8, 1862) by attacking the Cumberland. In her day the Cumberland had been as fine a frigate as ever went to sea; but the days of wooden ships were gone, and she was powerless. Her shot glanced from the sides of the Merrimac like so many peas, while the new monster, coming on under steam, rammed her in the side and made a great hole through which the water poured. Even then the commander of the ...
— A School History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... that the Rebellion was not the deliberate work of the whole people, but due to the instigation of a band of desperate, unscrupulous fanatics. He was concerned also to show that God, the vanquished Jewish God, as the Romans would regard Him, had allowed the ruin of His people, not because He was powerless to preserve them, but because they had sinned against His law. Lastly, he was anxious to emphasize the military virtue and the magnanimity of his patrons Vespasian and Titus. He intersperses frequent protests in various parts of the seven books, and repeats them in the preface, to the effect that ...
— Josephus • Norman Bentwich
... heart; and with his heart Maieddine felt a wish to blind Abderrhaman, because his eyes had seen the intoxicating beauty of Victoria as she danced. He was ferociously angry, but not with the girl. Perhaps with himself, because he was powerless to hide her from others, and to order her life as he chose. Yet there was a kind of delicious pain in knowing himself at her mercy, as no Arab man could be at the ...
— The Golden Silence • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... which death invests even the meanest of his victims inspires us with an awe no living thing can create. The monarch on his throne is less awful than the beggar in his shroud. The marble features—the powerless hand—the stiffened limbs—oh! who can contemplate these with feelings that can be defined? These are the mockery of all our hopes and fears, our fondest love our fellest hate. Can it be that we now shrink ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... face of Uncle Joshua. The truth had flashed upon him, and almost rendered him powerless. Pale and motionless he sat, until William, freeing himself from Aunt Katy, came forward and said, "Joshua, I am William, your brother; don't ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes
... to his ornamental knees by Fate, and contemplating a miserable, uncertain career to keep his godlike body from actual starvation. And she—she with more money than even she knew what to do with, powerless to aid him, prevented from flinging open her check book and bidding him to write and write till he could ...
— The Green Mouse • Robert W. Chambers
... costumes, invaded the court at Paris and shocked the austere piety of the king. He perceived the corrupting influence on the simple manners of the Franks of their licentious songs, lascivious music and dissolute lives, but was powerless to dismiss them. The tyrannous temper of his new consort became the torment of his life. He was forced even to conceal his acts of charity. One day, on returning from prayers, Robert perceived that his lance by the ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... road were involved. There the insurrection was so great in numbers and so violent in its acts as to require the most prompt and energetic action of a very large force to suppress disorder, protect public property, and execute the laws. The city police were utterly powerless in such an emergency, and deputy United States marshals, though employed without limit as to numbers, were no more effective. The State militia were not called out in time to meet the emergency. Hence ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... her hand in his, while his head sunk, and his lips were pressed upon the taper and trembling fingers which grew cold and powerless within ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... to measure the value of socialism with reference to these two ideals, as long as we do not cleanly discriminate for which of the two socialism can be valuable. In itself it may very well be that it is splendid for human progress, but unfit for promoting human happiness, or that it is powerless for the development of mankind, but most successful for the increase ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... abandon my baffled purpose, powerless to keep the Teucrian king from Italy? and because fate forbids me? Could Pallas lay the Argive fleet in ashes, and sink the Argives in the sea, for one man's guilt, mad Oilean Ajax? Her hand darted Jove's flying fire from the clouds, scattered their ships, upturned ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... combine the two. Kate felt she was becoming powerless. When the boy's eyes, which were as bright as sloes, implored her to let him go out, she dared not keep him back. She knew he had not finished his school-work, had perhaps not even commenced it; but had not Paul said: "One must choose the lesser ...
— The Son of His Mother • Clara Viebig
... raging bears. Ah! who will soften The foaming ones? I have this hour expected, And long by art have I delay'd its coming; But now is art, and prayer, and all else useless: E'en now they meet in conflict. I am powerless! What can my tears avail? Alas! blood only Will satiate them and Heaven: thine must trickle, My Hother. What art thou against a half-god? When thy fire, Ourath, but glimmers, Tears can quench it instantly; But it flames, and now 'twere wonder Could the weak drops keep it under. Ah! thy ...
— The Death of Balder • Johannes Ewald
... to do. There is no real reason why they should work, or take a high place, but there seems to themselves every reason why they should have a good time. Parents sometimes seem to hold more or less the same opinion; at others they seem distressed, but powerless. College authorities are regarded as natural enemies; religious influences for the time beat on closed doors; now, Darsie, here comes the chance for 'only a girl!' A man like Ralph Percival, at this stage of his life, will ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... has done so. Not only did he stand over me, and with great bravery defend Sir Walter from attacks from behind, but his ready wit saved me, when even his sword and that of Sir Walter would have failed to do so. Penned down under poor Robin, I was powerless to move until our young esquire, in an interval of slashing at his assailants, found time to give a sharp blow together with a shout to Robin. The poor beast tried to rise, and the movement, short as it was, enabled me to draw my leg ...
— Winning His Spurs - A Tale of the Crusades • George Alfred Henty
... a funeral in the convent of Borglum. The murdered bishop and the slain warriors and priests are displayed under a black canopy, surrounded by candelabra decked with crape. There lies the dead man, in the black cloak wrought with silver; the crozier in the powerless hand that was once so mighty. The incense rises in clouds, and the monks chant the funeral hymn. It sounds like a wail—it sounds like a sentence of wrath and condemnation, that must be heard far over the land, carried by the wind—sung ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... in the Salon, and met with an even more contemptuous reception from the public than his Plein Air. Christine used all her influence to prevent her husband from returning to his task, but his brain had become obsessed by the great idea, which his hand proved powerless to execute as his mind became increasingly deranged. At length, in a moment of delirium, he hanged himself in front of the picture which had proved the means of his undoing. His genius was incomplete, and he was ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson
... lines and general perspective of Mr Bergson's philosophy now perhaps begin to appear. Certainly I am the first to feel how powerless a slender resume really is to translate all its wealth ...
— A New Philosophy: Henri Bergson • Edouard le Roy
... and feeling as yet doubtful of his safety, John Rex essayed to climb the twin-blocks that barred the unknown depths below him. The first movement he made caused him to shriek aloud. His left arm—with which he clung to the rope—hung powerless. Ground against the ragged entrance, it was momentarily paralysed. For an instant the unfortunate wretch sank despairingly on the wet and rugged floor of the cave; then a terrible gurgling beneath his feet warned him of the ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... speak. And now, after what you have told me, I am so helpless and I know so very little that I don't understand how to comfort or encourage you. But surely you can somehow help yourself. Are men, that seem so strong and able, just as powerless as women, after all, when it comes to ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... these warriors, like anvils, will stand a deal of hard hammering. Especially in the old knight-errant times. For at the battle of Brevieux in Flanders, my glorious old gossiping ancestor, Froissart, informs me, that ten good knights, being suddenly unhorsed, fell stiff and powerless to the plain, fatally encumbered by their armor. Whereupon, the rascally burglarious peasants, their foes, fell to picking their visors; as burglars, locks; or oystermen, oysters; to get at their lives. ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. I (of 2) • Herman Melville
... any attempt to come between her and her lover. And looking at her he could not think of making any such attempt. When an all-absorbing love has taken complete possession of an empty and worldly heart, that heart becomes more powerless before that love, than a fuller and softer heart ever does. He could not speak, but he murmured something and she ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... low in the sky. The gathering of rich harvests of furs had begun, and British and American fur-traders were seeking these treasures on every hand. But at the beginning of these harvests the Cayuses were sickening and dying, and the mission was powerless to stay ...
— The Log School-House on the Columbia • Hezekiah Butterworth
... (for which he had caused so much blood to be poured out) transferred from his race, and by the issues of his enemies worn and enjoyed: enemies, whom by his own practice he supposed that he had left no less powerless, than the succession of the Kingdom questionless; by entailing the same upon his own issues by Parliament. And out of doubt, human reason could have judged no otherwise, but that these cautious provisions of the ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... of genius. I only wonder that, having such an opportunity of illustrating the doctrine of visible judgments, he never remarks, when Cortes and his men tumble the idols down the temple steps and call upon the people to take notice that their gods are powerless to help themselves, that possibly if some intelligent native had tumbled down the image of the Virgin or patron saint after them nothing very remarkable might have ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... word or giving some motherly advice, we could do little if anything. We were inadequate to cope with the situation. We could pray with them, poor lads; we could sympathize with them; but we were practically powerless in that or in any community that tolerates, licenses, and votes for the means of the downfall of men, women, and children. All we can do is pray and wait, wait and pray. God speed the day when the enemy of souls shall no longer reign over them and laugh at their calamity. ...
— Fifteen Years With The Outcast • Mrs. Florence (Mother) Roberts
... days came for her, poor soul! And yet, in all the darkness of her earthly lot, she has never, it is said, been anything but a loving, forbearing, self-denying wife to Morgan. And he—fallen as he is, and powerless in the grasp of the monster intemperance—has never, I am sure, hurt her with a cruel word. Had he added these, her heart would, long ere this, have broken. Poor Joe Morgan! Poor Fanny! Oh, what a curse is ...
— Ten Nights in a Bar Room • T. S. Arthur
... rank and with men of influence in the world of officialdom. Rumor had it that immense bribes had been offered to Novosiltzev and several high officials in St. Petersburg for the purpose of receiving their co-operation. But even the intercession of leading dignitaries was powerless to change the will of the Tzar. He chafed under the red-tape formalities which obstructed the realization of his favorite scheme. Without waiting for the transmission of Novosiltzev's memorandum, the Tzar directed the Minister of the Interior and the Chief ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... stuff persistently refused to ignite. Of course we had to take our hands out of our big fur mits when trying to light the matches. Before we had succeeded in our attempts to start the fire our hands began to chill, and soon they were so powerless that we were not able to hold a match in our fingers. Very naturally we became alarmed, but we persevered as long as possible. I remember that, taking one of the matches between my teeth and holding up an axe before ...
— By Canoe and Dog-Train • Egerton Ryerson Young
... was what is called a close one—that is to say that this product passed out into the world through the hands of a few brokers and these brokers were powerless, in face of Lord Ferriby's announcement, to prevent the price of malgamite from falling. As this fell so fell the prices of the many kinds of paper which could not be manufactured without it. Thus indirectly, Lord Ferriby, with that obtuseness which ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... sleeves momentarily tottered. Who would show her any good? Poor Lady Newhaven was crushed into a state of prostration so frightful that we must not blame her if she felt that even an Archbishop would have been powerless ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... there a coral-girt island, the great volcanic uplift on the main-land, the flaming rivers of molten lava, which come pouring forth, followed by the night of cold, ice, and snow: when we consider these, and the great lapse of time necessary for their accomplishment, how powerless are mere words to set forth the grandeur and the resistless sweep of nature's laws, and to paint the insignificance and trifling nature of man and ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... from which he was obliged to descend to a series of lies and deceptions, of paltry evasions, ignoble subterfuges and equivocal expedients. All Donna Maria's goodness and faith and single mindedness were powerless to disarm him. As the foundation of his work of seduction with her he had taken a verse from one of the Psalms:—Asperges me hyssopo et mundabor—lavabis me et super nirem dealbabor. And she, ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... the infatuation of her daughter! She knew that life would be odious for her if Micheline ceased to laugh and to sing. Her daughter's tears would conquer her will. Pierre had told her truly. Where was the use of fighting when defeat was certain? She, too, felt that she was powerless, and with heartfelt sorrow ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... the voice of Kelson, drowned in a crash of thunder which words are powerless to describe, and as the good ship swung round responsive to the touch of her helm, all was again Egyptian darkness, and the wind rushed upon us with the howl and roar of a thousand hungry wild beasts. The Ariadne answered her helm like ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... see, had much to do with the attack of the Chouans, had started from the little town of Ernee a few moments before the skirmishing began. Nothing pictures a region so well as the state of its social material. From this point of view the coach deserves a mention. The Revolution itself was powerless to destroy it; in fact, it still rolls to this present day. When Turgot bought up the privileges of a company, obtained under Louis XIV., for the exclusive right of transporting travellers from one part of the kingdom to another, and instituted the lines of coaches called the "turgotines," ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... but sank back, powerless. He turned his head slowly towards Mr. Dubois, and said, "Friend Dubois, I think I am going to be ill, and must trust myself to your compassion", when immediately his eyes closed and his countenance assumed the paleness ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage
... was Utah territory; and we could count upon these Indians as friends. From that quarter we had nothing to apprehend; and the caravan might easily be overtaken. But what then? Even though in company with it, for my purpose I should be as powerless as ever. By what right should I interfere with either the squatter or his child? No doubt it was their determination to proceed with the Mormons, and to the Mormon city—at least the father's determination. This ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... from these had arisen the evil practice of appeals to the Curia. In the seventeenth century the Popes regarded the valuable patronage of the langue of Italy as in their gift, and the Grand Masters were powerless to protect their defrauded Knights. The depths of the Order's humiliation were shown by the demand of Pope Urban XIII., in 1642, that the Order's galleys should help him fight the League of Italian Princes which had been formed to resist his invasion of Parma. Lascaris, the Grand Master, was unable ...
— Knights of Malta, 1523-1798 • R. Cohen
... world are powerless, in all the united efforts, to help the individual until he reach out and take for himself what is needed ...
— The Majesty of Calmness • William George Jordan
... people. The social condition of God's creatures at large should be his study. The task would be endless, and, as he said, an endless task hardly admits of absolute misery. "If I die there will be an end of it. If I live till old age shall have made me powerless to carry on my work, time will then probably have done something to dim the feeling." "I think," he said again;—"I feel that could I but remember ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... force the stock notion on which the Real Estate Intestacy Bill was based,—the notion that in the nature and fitness of things all a man's children have a right to an equal share in the enjoyment of what he leaves,—really has; and how powerless, therefore, it must of necessity be to persuade and win any one who has habits and interests which disincline him to [216] it. On the other hand, the practical operation proposed relies entirely, ...
— Culture and Anarchy • Matthew Arnold
... he sank back into his chair. His mouth fell open, and the trembling lips were drawn down at the corners like those of a sobbing child; his cheeks turned whiter than the lawn collar at his throat, and his eyes, wide open in a horrid stare, were fixed on mine and, powerless to avert them, he met my ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini
... at the same time, shelved in his new rank, powerless, and regarded as a nobody in the state where hitherto he had been a potent signior—mastered in every action by the secret tribunal, and presiding nominally in councils where his opinion was of little consequence—is evident. And a man so well acquainted, and so long, with all the proceedings ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... he groaned aloud, "to think that all my plans should come to such an end as this; to think that I am as powerless to prevent their collapse as a child is to support a falling tree; that the only power left me is the power of vengeance—vengeance on my own son. I have lived too long, and the dregs of ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... innocent by bringing upon the sinner the effects of his own sin. No nation, however great, and no group of nations, however strong, can do wrong with impunity. The very doing of wrong works the ruin of those who are guilty, no matter how powerless their victims may be ...
— In His Image • William Jennings Bryan
... can move and speak undaunted by the fear of man. While, however, I pen this piece of advice, I confess that it is much easier to give than to follow. What the sensations of the nervous are under the gaze of publicity none but the nervous know; and how powerless reason and resolution are to control them would sound incredible except ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... ceremonious rules, forbidden to do this and that, taught to think that his one duty was to be magnificently attired, to acquire graceful arts of posture and courtesy, subtly and gently prevented from obeying natural and simple impulses, made powerless—a crowned slave; so that, instead of being the freest and sincerest thing in the world, it became the prisoner of respectability and convention, just a part of the ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... 'something' proposed is the wisest thing. A few stand firm, but they are very few—too few to prevent the new Coercion Bill from passing into law. But few though we be who lift up the voice of protest against the wrong which we are powerless to prevent, we may yet do much to make the new Act of brief duration, by so rousing public opinion as to bring about its early repeal. When the measure is understood by the public half the battle will be won; ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... the beginning of an anguish which shall torture your soul to death? Have you lost him?' For moments it was as though life fought with the last and invincible enemy. On the spot where she had been standing she sank powerless to her knees, clinging to the nearest object, her head ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... terrible thud, a smothered groan, a fall—and I stood there powerless to move—stricken dumb and motionless! And while I stood transfixed, some person rushed past me, breathless, panting, reckless of everything save escape! Margie, it was so dark that I could not be positive, but I am morally ...
— The Fatal Glove • Clara Augusta Jones Trask
... Montague stepped over the side of the schooner, a handkerchief was pressed tightly over his mouth and nose. At the same time, he was seized by four strongmen and rendered utterly powerless. The thing was done so promptly and silently, that the men who remained in the gig heard ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... the administration of the sacraments, books; we are in need of everything. Scarcely one of us was able to save any part of his possessions. But that which has the most saddened us missionaries, is to have been forced to be present, down-hearted and powerless, during the ruin and extermination of our Christians. How many times have we repeated the words of Scripture: I saw the oppressions that are done under the sun, and the tears of the innocent, and they had no comforter: and they were not able to resist their violence, being destitute of ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 2, February 1886 • Various
... many a so-called law-abiding citizen. The risks he ran, the excitement of contraband trade had a fatal fascination which was as the breath of life to him; a fascination which, with all his strength of mind in every other direction, he was as powerless to resist as were the consumers powerless to resist the fascinations of ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... to every kind of excess. He gave an account of those committed the evening before, not only against the deputies, but against many other persons. "I have," said the minister, "denounced these attacks in the criminal court; but law is powerless; and I am impelled by honour and probity to inform you, that without the promptest assistance of the legislative body, the government can no longer be responsible." In the meantime, it was announced that the section of the Quinze-vingts had declared that, if the dethronement were not ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... he was none the less unwise in saying so. He knew that, knew the effect he had produced, and yet was powerless to modify it. Nan was plainly taken aback, and she knew why. He was destroying her happy moment, snatching it out of any possible sequence of hours here with Rookie. Dick had come and he would stay. Raven read the boy's face ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... their united energies to the study of Greek rhetoric, which long continued to be the guide and model of those schools, in whose exercises the abilities of Cicero himself were trained. Prejudice and patriotism were powerless to resist this flood of foreign innovation; and for more than a century after the Tarentine war, legislative influence strove in vain to counteract the predominance of Greek philosophy and eloquence. But this imitative tendency was tempered by the pride of ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... to withdraw my head and hands from the reptile's reach, but every muscle seemed powerless. I could not ...
— The Sign of Silence • William Le Queux
... on the heels of the explanation, and Walker, since he was powerless to interfere, thought it wise to retire for the time being. He went back to the hillock on the edge of the trees. Thence he looked across and over the palisade and had the whole length of the ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... sang. At this point David is overcome by the memory of the sudden spiritual illumination that came to him in his interview with Saul. He had reached the summit of his endeavor (l. 191) and yet knew himself powerless to give the King new life. Then there flashed upon him the truth expressed in stanzas XVII-XIX. He breaks off in lines 192-205, going, in his strong feeling, ahead of his story and commenting on what is described in stanza XIX. In stanza XV he ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... than any English Tories, for the reason that all English parties had practically, if not in theory, accepted municipal Socialism. "In France," he said, "the electors of certain cities return Socialist municipal councils. They are all but absolutely powerless. We, on the other hand, elect Tory or Whig municipalities, and they do the best of Socialist work."] But, notwithstanding the alliance of France with Russia, the action of Russia in the Far East in the period covered by the events which ended in ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... he told himself, a man in hiding, powerless and in Poltavo's hands practically, could not strike back at him; the cards were all in favour of the Count. He had already received some ten thousand pounds as a result of his work in London, and he had frantic and ominous letters ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace
... Danger and Victory Eying Each Other. Spirit Contests. A Crisis of Neglect and Success. A Westernized Heathenism.[A] A Powerless Christianity. Death or Deep ...
— Quiet Talks with World Winners • S. D. Gordon
... once fired a musketry volley into the horde of islanders. Cook turned his back to the thronging savages, now frenzied to a delirium, and signalled the marines to cease firing. As he did so, a dagger was plunged beneath his shoulder-blade. He was {52} hacked to pieces under the eyes of his powerless men; and four soldiers also fell ...
— Pioneers of the Pacific Coast - A Chronicle of Sea Rovers and Fur Hunters • Agnes C. Laut
... the great schoolmaster of the race. It is the grand drill in life's army, without which we are confused and powerless when called into action. What a teacher industry is! It teaches patience, perseverance, forbearance, and application. It teaches method and system, by compelling us to crowd the most possible into every day and hour. Industry is a perpetual call upon the judgment and the power of quick decision; ...
— The True Citizen, How To Become One • W. F. Markwick, D. D. and W. A. Smith, A. B.
... he did so the memory of that other night came back to him, and he smiled. He had conquered now, and he could afford to smile at those old fears. He took the stopper out of the decanter and deliberately raised it to his nostrils. No, it was powerless. The aroma had no more effect upon him than the scent of, say, eau de Cologne would have had. That night in Warwick Gardens, it had been like the touch of some evil magician's wand. Then, in an instant, it had transformed his whole nature; but now his brain remained cool and calm, and his ...
— The Missionary • George Griffith
... towards the cause of our enemies. Washington is hopelessly against us. The huge supplies which leave these shores day by day for England and France will continue. Fresh plants are being laid down for the manufacture of weapons and ammunition to be used against our country. The hand of diplomacy is powerless. We can struggle no longer. Even those who favour our cause are drunk with the joy of the golden harvest they are reaping. This country has spoken once and for all, and its voice is ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... with walls and watch-towers? Yes, the very people, who once spoke with a divine fire of the beauty of the solidarity of all individuals and all peoples, now indulge in the shallow phrases that the Jew is powerless, that he is nowhere at home, and that he owns no place on earth, where he can do justice to his nature, and that he must first obtain national rights, like all nations, ere ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 1, March 1906 • Various
... caprice of the fortune of war. From the very first cannon-shot our fragile ships were at the mercy of the formidable hostile squadron; were condemned to fall one after the other under the fire of the American batteries; they were powerless to strike, and were defended only by the valour and breasts of their sailors. What has been gained by the illusion that Manila was fortified? What has been gained by the intimation that the broad and beautiful bay on whose ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... palms and flowers in pots. The stump of Blizzard's right leg touched her shoulder. She was trembling. So was Blizzard. He was trembling with stage fright; she with Blizzard fright. His hands, thick with agile muscles and heavy as hams, though he had just been soaking them in hot water, seemed powerless to him, ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... aye fed With brighter objects than of earth, that shed A light within their narrow home, and gave A triumph's lustre to the yawning grave. And in that hour when the proud heart's o'erthrown, And self all-powerless, self is truly known; When pride no more could darken the free mind, But all to God in firm faith was resign'd— Then drank their souls the stream of love divine, More richly flowing than the Eastern mine; ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... but he was powerless in her iron grip. In another minute the door of the cabin was suddenly burst open, and two armed men sprang upon him. More rapidly than the fact can be related, they snapped a pair of heavy steel handcuffs upon his wrists, pinioned his arms at his sides, and bound ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor |
