"Impossible" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... wholly caves, they do not reach half-way up the rock which overhangs to the west. In the face of the cliff are two castles built into its recesses, one pertained to the Bishop of Sarlat, and the other to the Fenelon family. Both were ideals of a stronghold in the Middle Ages, impossible to escalade or to undermine. In the fifteenth century La Roche Gageac was a walled town containing five chateaux of noble families, juxtaposed and independent of each other, although comprised within the same enclosure. Originally indeed all were under the Bishop ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould
... to listen to Jasmin in the Great Hall. "It is impossible," said the local journal,{1} "to describe the transport with which he was received." The vast gallery was filled with one of the most brilliant assemblies that had ever met in Toulouse. Jasmin occupied the centre of the platform. At his right and left hand were seated the Mayor, ...
— Jasmin: Barber, Poet, Philanthropist • Samuel Smiles
... last, the horrible images of death in violent contrast with the defiant monument, which pretends to bring the resurrection down to earth, "Hic revixit;" and it seems impossible for false taste and base feeling to sink lower. Yet even this monument is surpassed by one ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... Michael grew a little constrained. "I believe I behaved like the most impossible brute, Henry—in marrying her at all as you said—but I would like to make it up to her some day—and I suppose if, by chance, she has taken a fancy to someone else by this time and wants to be free of me, I ought to divorce her—but, by ...
— The Man and the Moment • Elinor Glyn
... bitten passes from sleep to death. During the day these insects stop up their holes with sand, and only come out in the night. A dark-red line runs down their back, and they have flat heads. To struggle against these venomous creatures was impossible; it would have been more easy to contend with a pack of wolves, or any other wild beasts. The instinct of my dog induced him to crawl close up to the fire, where he remained all night so near to it that he nearly burned ...
— In the Wilds of Florida - A Tale of Warfare and Hunting • W.H.G. Kingston
... that I object to, my dear; my business is so limited that it is impossible for us to live in any other than a plain, quiet way. The cost of a party would be ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... by the thought that the end of Corsica, and this impossible Casa Perucca, was in sight. She was gay as a little grey mouse may be gay at some domestic festival. She sent the widow to the cellar, and the occasion was duly celebrated in a bottle of Mattei ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... two words should perhaps be said in this place as to conformity to common religious belief in the education of children. Where the parents differ, the one being an unbeliever, the other a believer, it is almost impossible for anybody to lay down a general rule. The present writer certainly has no ambition to attempt the thorny task of compiling a manual for mixed marriages. It is perhaps enough to say that all would depend upon the nature of the beliefs which the religious person wished ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... Mrs. Cameron; "impossible. You know not what you say; know not, guess not, how sacred are the claims of Walter Melville to all that the orphan whom he has protected from her very birth can give him in return. She has no right to a preference for another: her heart ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... products, which was prepared under the direction of Mr. John H. Gordon, showed a number of trees from 5 to 7 feet in diameter, and a variety of over 40 woods found in the State. Owing to the great expense and disadvantage under which such a collection must necessarily be made, it was impossible to reach every section of the State and secure samples of the different woods, but this was done wherever it was found to be possible, and an effort was made to secure samples of all the ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... Sainte-Croix to be quite broken off, joyfully accepted. Offemont was exactly the place for a crime of this nature. In the middle of the forest of Aigue, three or four miles from Compiegne, it would be impossible to get efficient help before the rapid action of the poison had made ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... vary tactually according to the age, the sex, and the manners of the walker. It is impossible to mistake a child's patter for the tread of a grown person. The step of the young man, strong and free, differs from the heavy, sedate tread of the middle-aged, and from the step of the old man, whose feet drag along the floor, or beat it with slow, faltering accents. On a ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... main interest of the play had become political, when the lawless love had become of no account and the renunciation everything,—then it was surely an error to introduce Carlos in such a pitiful plight of soul that faith in him is next to impossible, and the next moment require us to accept him ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... thought that it was impossible that this churl, as he deemed him, would not be overjoyed to hear of the match he had made for him, and he must needs know it soon. Yet there was that about Havelok that puzzled him, for his ways were not those of a churl, and he spoke as ...
— Havelok The Dane - A Legend of Old Grimsby and Lincoln • Charles Whistler
... his own, sitting near me on some occasion of a trifling but wordy debate, asked me how I could sit in silence, hearing so much false reasoning, which a word should refute? I observed to him, that to refute indeed was easy, but to silence impossible; that in measures brought forward by myself, I took the laboring oar, as was incumbent on me; but that in general, I was willing to listen; that if every sound argument or objection was used by some one or other ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... impossible she should ever be queen of these people, or ever communicate to them amusing and ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... that the feeling among the people against a third term would be stimulated by other aspirants to the Presidency, it was altogether impossible that they could cause the feeling. The interesting question at issue was whether the precedents of the Government should be discredited. The National Convention was to meet in June, but as early as February State Conventions were ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... dries the wood at a uniformly rapid rate by artificially heating it in inclosed rooms, has become a part of almost every woodworking industry, as without it the construction of the finished product would often be impossible. Nevertheless much unseasoned or imperfectly seasoned wood is used, as is evidenced by the frequent shrinkage and warping of the finished articles. This is explained to a certain extent by the fact that the manufacturer ...
— Seasoning of Wood • Joseph B. Wagner
... that I pretend to know of this expression is that it is ironical, and may relate either to the head-dress of Paris, or to his archership. To translate it is impossible; to paraphrase it, in a passage of so much emotion, would be absurd. I have endeavored to supply its place by an appellation in point ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... briskly, "but not knowing where you were, or when you were coming back, my hands were absolutely tied. Now, Barry, LISTEN!" she broke off, not reassured by his expression, "and don't jump at the conclusion that it's impossible. What would ...
— The Rich Mrs. Burgoyne • Kathleen Norris
... librarian. The fact is, Mr Jeffreys," continued Mr Rimbolt, noticing the look of surprised pleasure in his listener's face, "with my time so much occupied in parliamentary and other duties, I find it quite impossible to attend to the care of my books as I should wish. I made up my mind most reluctantly some time ago that I should have to entrust the duty to some one else, for it was always my pride that I knew where every book I had was to be found. ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... in Elizabethan days, is a nobler language than ever Latin was; but its virtue is in colour and tone, not in what may be called metallic or crystalline condensation. And it is impossible to translate the last line of this inscription in as few English words. Note in it first that the Bishop's friends and enemies are spoken of as in word, not act; because the swelling, or mocking, or flattering, words of men are indeed what the meek of the earth must know ...
— Our Fathers Have Told Us - Part I. The Bible of Amiens • John Ruskin
... asked what Hoplites he meant, for he did not know the name. "It was there," answered the Phocian, "that the enemy killed the first of us; the rivulet by the city is called Hoplites." On hearing which the Spartan shed tears and observed, how impossible it is for any man to avoid his appointed lot; Lysander, it appears, having received ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... impossible to fire a pistol at the bottom of the cavern, for although gunpowder may be exploded even in carbonic acid by the application of a heat sufficient to decompose the nitre, and consequently to envelop the mass in an atmosphere of oxygen gas, yet the mere influence of a spark from steel produces ...
— Wonders of Creation • Anonymous
... come in. If it hadn't been so dark you'd have recognized the Nettie not far away." Code, remembering the time of night they arrived, knew this to be impossible, for it is dark at six in September. He had barely been able to make out the lines ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... well that our lives depended upon the way he might put the matter to the old chief, began to address him slowly. Gradually he grew more energetic and warm. While he was speaking a shot came flying close by us, carrying away the greater number of the oars on one side. Escape now seemed impossible. Again we urged our advice. The chief seemed unwilling ...
— Ben Burton - Born and Bred at Sea • W. H. G. Kingston
... are the only beginning of an agricultural population, yet apparent, in New South Wales—show a disposition to nestle in any available corner there. But on the lower portion of the Wollombi, where the valley widens, and water becomes less abundant, the soil being sandy, I found it impossible to locate some veterans on small farms, which I had marked out for them, because it was known that in dry seasons, although each farm had frontage on the Wollombi Brook, very few ponds remained in ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... forgive me!—to try to shake his faith. The honest truth is, I did not want to be a Christian myself, and had resisted all the arguments I had heard; but I was helpless when dear friends told me that nothing was impossible to me that was being accomplished by a common ...
— All He Knew - A Story • John Habberton
... Innocent, pretty, child-like Rachel! who was it that had set himself, in his wickedness, deliberately to destroy her? Mr. Verner now deemed it more than likely that she had been the author of her own death. It was of course impossible to tell: but he dwelt on that part of the tragedy less than on the other. The one injury was uncertain; ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... it all out again?" he asked in surprise. Then I realized that I had written fifty-six instead of six. I was too far gone to reason now. I had a feeling that it was impossible to explain the thing. All the clerks had stopped writing to ...
— Literary Lapses • Stephen Leacock
... various countries in black and white reproductions and very small outline pictures on squares of the same size as the stamps were taken as material. The figures were so small in relation to the board that any influence on composition of the lines composing them was impossible; the outline pictures, indeed, gave to the eye which abstracted from their content an impression scarcely stronger than ...
— Harvard Psychological Studies, Volume 1 • Various
... panic seized her. What if he should start to run again? She would surely be thrown this time, for her strength was almost gone. She must get down and in some way gain possession of the bridle. With the bridle she might perhaps hope to guide his movements, and make further wild riding impossible. ...
— The Man of the Desert • Grace Livingston Hill
... special feature article in the narrative form is to give it a story-like character that at once arouses interest. It is impossible in many instances to know from the introduction whether what follows is to be a short story or a special article. An element of suspense may even be injected into the narrative introduction to stimulate ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... down the remainder of the hill, through another thicket of pines, along the shore and out on to the lake. The ice was several feet thick and as solid as the land itself. Time and again both Phil and Jim stepped up in order to try a shot, but it was impossible to get one in without endangering the life of the plucky ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... a place among the greatest writers, without ever having written a book or even having thought of writing one—this is what seems impossible, and yet this is what happened to Mme. de Sevigne. Her contemporaries knew her as a woman distinguished for her esprit, frank, playful and sprightly humor, irreproachable conduct, loyalty to her friends, and as an idolizer of her ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... their talk that delighted me. I loved to hear of islands where the cocoa trees grew, and where parrots of every hue under heaven squealed and screamed in the tropic heat; where girls as graceful as goddesses and as yellow as guineas wore robes of flaming feathers and sang lullabies in soft, impossible tongues; lands of coral and ivory and all the glories of the earth, where life was full of golden possibilities and a world away from the drab respectability of a mercer's ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... Hilda said. "She was going to you.... And then I came and told her your father was dead.... That made it all impossible, don't you see?... Because you knew why she had married you, and you would believe she came back to you because—you owned the mills and employed all those men.... That's what you WOULD have believed, ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... impossible are plain to him; His trenchant will, like a fine-tempered blade, With unturned edge, cleaves ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... Father Beaver, "and Ermine fur is more valuable than our own. All sorts of traps will be set for him, for as his coat will be the same colour as the snow, it will be almost impossible for the fur hunters to take him in any ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... by those who do not object to the general spirit of these remarks, that, as it is impossible for the poet to produce upon all occasions language as exquisitely fitted for the passion as that which the real passion itself suggests, it is proper that he should consider himself as in the situation of a translator, who deems himself justified when he substitutes excellences ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... thought it was not likely that mother would forget us. And then she bade us take hold of her gown, one on each side, and she would try to take us to mother; and the next thing was mother came in sight. When the woman told her what we had said, they both laughed; and mother told us it was impossible that she should leave us behind. I asked Agnes afterwards why it was impossible; and she did not know; and I am sure she was as glad as I was to see mother come in sight. If she really never can forget us, what makes her ...
— The Crofton Boys • Harriet Martineau
... said that nine times out of ten the fall might be ventured without harm; and he spoke from experience, having himself got out of the castle in this manner. The place is now boarded up, so as to make egress difficult or impossible. ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... late in origin. By analogy, in a nature-religion such as was that of India, the practice of demonology, witchcraft, etc., must have been an early factor. But, while this is true, it is clearly impossible to postulate therefrom that the hymns recording all this array of cursing, deviltry, and witchcraft are themselves early. The further forward one advances into the labyrinth of Hindu religions the more superstitions, the more devils, demons, magic, witchcraft, and uncanny things generally, ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... processes of the nasal bones and resting on the ethmoid bone, are much shortened and terminate in a blunt, somewhat upturned point. In those skulls in which the nasal bones approach quite close to each other or are ossified together, it would be impossible for the ascending branches of the premaxillary to reach the ethmoid and frontal bones; hence we see that even the relative connection of the bones has been changed. Apparently in consequence of the branches of the premaxillary ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... impossible to inform such a faithful and devoted servant of the state so abruptly of his ignominious removal from ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... might have been of great use to him; but he slighted and neglected them and they left him. He said to one of the Indians, "These savages may indeed be a formidable enemy to your raw American militia, but upon the king's regular and disciplined troops, sir, it is impossible that they should make any impression." In the first engagement his force was routed in panic, and two-thirds of them were killed, by no more than 400 Indians and French together. This gave us the first suspicion that our exalted ideas ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... Here, impossible romances, Indefinable sweet fancies, Cluster round; But they do not mar the sweetness Of this still ...
— Flint and Feather • E. Pauline Johnson
... the next dance for you." Then she distributed words here and there and everywhere, amongst the circle about her—pretty Marquise with a vengeance! "No, Mr. Swift, I shall not make a card; you must come at the beginning of a dance if you want one. I cannot promise the next; it is quite impossible. No, I did not go as far north as Mackinac. How do you do, Mr. Burlingame?—Yes, quite an age;—no, not the next, I am afraid; nor the next;—I'm not keeping a card. Good evening, Mr. Baird. No, not the next. Oh, ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... it from the gods. For since the gods by their nature are pure and free from corruption, so far as men approach them by reason, so far do they cling to purity and to a love (habit) of purity. But since it is impossible that man's nature ([Greek: ousia]) can be altogether pure, being mixed (composed) of such materials, reason is applied, as far as it is possible, and reason endeavors to make human nature ...
— A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus With the Encheiridion • Epictetus
... and perfect military system in the world, and still may suffer defeat in any given while, because of those unseen things that pertain to the soul of another people, whereby powers and forces are engendered and materialised that make defeat for them impossible; and in the matter of big guns, it is well always to remember that no nation can build them so great that another nation may not build them still greater. National safety does not necessarily lie in that direction. Nor, on the other hand, ...
— The Higher Powers of Mind and Spirit • Ralph Waldo Trine
... when finished, although it might do a good deal for you at the time, I am not sure that it would serve any good purpose in the end either, as it is full of many passions and prejudices, of which it has been impossible for me to keep clear:—I ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... youths discussed what was the best thing to do. It seemed advisable to return to the point from which they started, that is, near Beartown landing. There was not one chance in a hundred that they would find the Deerfoot there, but such a thing was not impossible. That which made this policy seem wise was the likelihood of again meeting Detective Calvert. The news of the attempted robbery of the Beartown post office would be telegraphed far and wide, and he would be sure to hear of it at Wiscasset. It would not take him and his ...
— The Launch Boys' Adventures in Northern Waters • Edward S. Ellis
... back. I'm transferring most of the funds of the Bank of Wardshaven out here; from now on, it'll be a branch of the Bank of Tanith. This is where the business is being done. It's getting impossible to do business at all in Wardshaven. What little business there is ...
— Space Viking • Henry Beam Piper
... clemency may be easily accounted for. It would be almost impossible to pitch on any one with the slightest pretensions to fill the vacated path. If you except Rosecrans, and perhaps Franklin, there is hardly a Division leader who has not, at one time or another, betrayed incapacity enough to disqualify him from ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... I started to visit General Sheridan in the Shenandoah Valley. My purpose was to have him attack Early, or drive him out of the valley and destroy that source of supplies for Lee's army. I knew it was impossible for me to get orders through Washington to Sheridan to make a move, because they would be stopped there and such orders as Halleck's caution (and that of the Secretary of War) would suggest would be given instead, ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... was not till let loose from the leash that he rose into the true region of his strength; and though almost in proportion to that strength was, too frequently, his abuse of it, yet so magnificent are the very excesses of such energy, that it is impossible, even while ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. II - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... personal household of Jesus, Simon saw his Master's life in all its manifold phases, hearing the words he spoke whether in public on in private conversation, and witnessing every revealing of his character, disposition, and spirit. It is impossible to estimate the influence of all this on the life of Simon. He was continually seeing new things in Jesus, hearing new words from his lips, learning new lessons from his life. One cannot live in daily companionship with ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... regarded her for a rather lengthy interval, considering meanwhile, with an immeasurable content how utterly and entirely impossible it would ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... of corporation mortgages are similar to those on real estate such as is represented by dwelling-houses, the commercial conditions make it inconvenient or impossible to foreclose and sell such properties. To stop all business of a railway or to shut down the work of a manufacturing concern would not only result in injury to the public but would reduce largely the earning value of the property. To overcome this difficulty where an active concern ...
— Up To Date Business - Home Study Circle Library Series (Volume II.) • Various
... an active faith; I love to lose myself in a mystery, to pursue my reason to an O altitudo! I can answer all the objections of Satan and my rebellious reason with that odd resolution of Tertullian: "It is certain because it is impossible." ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... gravy, and, in my opinion, better in every respect than when it is dressed any other way. Excepting the fruit, they have no sauce but salt water, nor any knives but shells, with which they carve very dexterously, always cutting from them. It is impossible to describe the astonishment they expressed when they saw the gunner, who, while he kept the market, used to dine on shore, dress his pork and poultry by boiling them in a pot. Having, as I have before observed, no vessel that would bear the fire, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... any one mortal is a calamity to the whole world—by Pandora's lifting the lid of that miserable box, and by the fault of Epimetheus, too, in not preventing her, these Troubles have obtained a foothold among us, and do not seem very likely to be driven away in a hurry. For it was impossible, as you will easily guess, that the two children should keep the ugly swarm in their own little cottage. On the contrary, the first thing that they did was to fling open the doors and windows, in hopes of getting rid of them; and, sure enough, away flew the winged Troubles ...
— The Paradise of Children - (From: "A Wonder-Book For Girls and Boys") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... "Can't stand this; quite impossible!" said the Brownie, tightening his belt to make his poor little inside feel less empty. He had been asleep so long—about a week, I believe, as was his habit when there was nothing to do—-that he seemed ready to eat his own head, or his boots, or anything. "What's ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... POWER: with Thee nothing is impossible; [Luke 1:37] Thou art able to do abundantly above all that we ...
— An Explanation of Luther's Small Catechism • Joseph Stump
... cannot yet quite make out why I was of it at all. But at every moment I was as sensible of my good fortune as of my ill desert. They were the men whom of all men living I most honored, and it seemed to be impossible that I at my age should be so perfectly fulfilling the dream of my life in their company. Often, the nights were very cold, and as I returned home from Craigie House to the carpenter's box on Sacramento Street, a mile or two away, I was as if ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... of our individuality thrust us back within our limits, on the one hand, and thus lead us, on the other, to the unlimited. Only when we try to make these limits infinite are we launched into an impossible ...
— Sadhana - The Realisation of Life • Rabindranath Tagore
... plain; with such a face as his, 'Twas quite impossible to ever greet Good Mrs. Brown; nay, any party meet, Altho' 'twas such a parti-colored phiz! As for the public, fancy Sarcy Ned, The coachman, flying, dog-like, at his head, With "Ax your pardon, Sir, but if you please— Unless it comes too high— Vere ought a feller, now, to go to buy The t'other ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... looked hard. Was it, he seemed to be turning over in his mind, that she loved him a little in the depths of her heart? That was an irritating trait of feminine stupidity. But one intelligent glance at her calm face rendered that supposition impossible. She was merely largely human, with ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... anything more where we were, so further negotiations were deferred till later in the evening; and I, wishing to be conveniently near Bismarck, resolved to take up quarters in Donchery. On our way thither we were met by the Count's nephew, who assuring us that it would be impossible to find shelter there in the village, as all the houses were filled with wounded, Forsyth and I decided to continue on to Chevenge. On the other hand, Bismarck-Bohlen bore with him one great comfort—some excellent brandy. Offering the flask to his ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. II., Part 6 • P. H. Sheridan
... brazen couple was already there, sitting in the best place. In this world of trouble there always, always was. The fact was disappointing enough, to say the least of it, but what made matters worse was that it was impossible merely to exclaim reprovingly, as one usually does, "Oh, there's somebody here!" and step back at once. Carlisle saw in the first glance that the girl in the best place was no other than her special friend ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... of Hortense after such speech was impossible. Without more mention of the court, we entered the Company's office, where sat the councillors in session around a long table. No one rose to welcome him who had brought such wealth on the Happy Return; and the reason was not far to seek. The post-chaise had arrived with Pierre Radisson's ...
— Heralds of Empire - Being the Story of One Ramsay Stanhope, Lieutenant to Pierre Radisson in the Northern Fur Trade • Agnes C. Laut
... "command of the army" in 1888, I determined to profit so far as possible by the unsatisfactory experience of Generals Scott, Grant, Sherman, and Sheridan—at least so far as to avoid further attempts to accomplish the impossible, which attempts have usually the result of accomplishing little or nothing. In fact, long study of the subject, at the instance of Generals Grant and Sherman, earnest efforts to champion their views, and knowledge of the causes of their ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... probably from not having been accustomed to their dress. Red, of course, makes them furious, and, thanks to his jacket, a drummer of one of the regiments was killed by these animals. Towards evening we felt it quite impossible to wade any further; and although nightfall is considered the best time for shooting ducks, we thought it was the best time to return to the boat, which we did not regain, fatigued, hungry, and covered with mud, till ten ...
— Borneo and the Indian Archipelago - with drawings of costume and scenery • Frank S. Marryat
... into every unit in his army. Instead of making his reconnoissance at three in the afternoon of Monday, it might have been made at ten in the morning, and the battle could have been fought before night, if, indeed, Lee had not promptly retreated when support from Jackson would thus have become impossible. Or if McClellan had pushed boldly for the bridge at the mouth of the Antietam, nothing but a precipitate retreat by Lee could have prevented the interposition of the whole National army between the separated wings of the Confederates. The opportunity was still supremely favorable for ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... all day in the day-coach to Chicago, and Kedzie loved every cinder that flew into her gorgeous eyes. Now and then she slept curled up kittenwise on a seat, and the motion of the train lulled her as with angelic pinions. She dreamed impossible glories ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... influenced by reason alone. Sharply opposed to reason was that consciousness within him which told him that the hair had been freshly cut from a woman's head. He had no argument with which to drive home the logic of this belief even with himself, and yet he found it impossible not to accept that belief fully and unequivocally. There was, or HAD been, a woman with Bram—and as he thought of the length and beauty and rare texture of the silken strand in his pocket he could not repress a shudder at the possibilities ...
— The Golden Snare • James Oliver Curwood
... favour of a connection from the remotest period, with the remainder of the work. The composition of the Catalogue, whensoever it may have taken place, necessarily presumes its author's acquaintance with a previously existing Iliad. It were impossible otherwise to account for the harmony observable in the recurrence of so vast a number of proper names, most of them historically unimportant, and not a few altogether fictitious: or of so many geographical ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... the Lady of Honor, the others for that of Mrs. ——. The Emperor and Empress, greatly amused at the dispute, professed a strong desire to know the facts of the case; and the Emperor, declaring that it was clearly impossible to get at the truth in any other way, invited Mrs. M—— to settle the controversy by letting down her hair, and giving ocular demonstration of its being her own. The lady, whereupon, drew out the comb and the hairpins that held up her hair, and shook its ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... give me what will ruin him, and I will save you. And then, perhaps, you will not believe this either, for you love nothing; but I love the king, foolish and corrupted as he is, and I wish that he should reign tranquilly—which is impossible with the Mayennes and the genealogy of Nicolas David. Therefore, give me up the genealogy, and I promise to make your name and ...
— Chicot the Jester - [An abridged translation of "La dame de Monsoreau"] • Alexandre Dumas
... people to follow still higher ideals, that they will set aside the lower for the higher, that they will not relegate idealism to the poets only, but that it will dwell in the public as the private heart and make impossible any nations' undertaking inconsistent with the dignity and beauty of life? To me it seems that here the task of teacher and writer is above all to present images and ideals of divine manhood to the people whose ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... the people perished also many foreigners, and not a few who had accompanied Antoninus were destroyed for want of identification. As the city was large and persons were being murdered all over it by night and by day, it was impossible to distinguish anybody, no matter how much one might wish it. They simply expired as chance directed and their bodies were straightway cast into deep trenches to keep the rest from being aware of the extent of the disaster.—That was the fate of the natives. The foreigners were ...
— Dio's Rome, Vol VI. • Cassius Dio
... to give up their booty in payment of the dead man's debts. The captain's order to mount at once and ride for Doctor Livesey would have left my mother alone and unprotected, which was not to be thought of. Indeed, it seemed impossible for either of us to remain much longer in the house; the fall of coals in the kitchen grate, the very ticking of the clock, filled us with alarms. The neighbourhood, to our ears, seemed haunted by approaching footsteps; ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... It is impossible to ascertain the motive which determined Bacon to give to the supposed author the name of Valerius Terminus, or to his commentator, of whose annotations we have no remains, that of Hermes Stella. It may be conjectured that by the name Terminus ...
— Valerius Terminus: of the Interpretation of Nature • Sir Francis Bacon
... stretched out like a map the once great and beautiful city, now, alas! given over a prey to fire and sword. I could see smoke rising from many a heap of ruins that but a few short hours before had been a palace or a monument of art. It was impossible, however, to decide what buildings were actually burning, for a thick, misty rain had set in, which prevented my seeing distinctly. In my descent I passed the place where the body of Dombrowski was lying. He ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... West Diddlesex ruined?" says I, thinking of my poor mother's annuity. "Impossible! our business ...
— The History of Samuel Titmarsh - and the Great Hoggarty Diamond • William Makepeace Thackeray
... two hours later when Rod and Wabigoon extinguished the candles and returned to their blankets. And for another hour after that the former found it impossible to sleep. He wondered where Mukoki was—wondered what he was doing, and how in his strange madness he found his way in ...
— The Wolf Hunters - A Tale of Adventure in the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood
... standard definition of "Gothic" in fiction soon came to include an element of strangeness added to terror. When the taste for the extreme Gothic declined, there ensued a period of modified romanticism, which demanded the unusual and occasionally the impossible. This influence persisted in the fiction of the greatest writers, until the coming of the realistic school (p. 367). We are now better prepared to understand the work of Charles Brockden Brown, the first great American writer of romance, and to pass ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... the evils of war, had made labor profitable, had changed the nature of savages, and elevated woman. The slave-trade was of course horrible and unjust, but the great advantages of the system more than outweighed a few attendant evils. Emancipation and deportation were alike impossible. Even if practicable, they would not be expedient measures, for they meant the loss to Virginia of one-third of her property. As for morality, it was not to be expected that the Negro should have the sensibilities ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... spectators. Each of the two parties was disposed to act in a revolutionary manner towards the other. An intermediate constitutional and conciliatory party tried to prevent the struggle, and to bring about an union, which was altogether impossible. Carnot was at its head: a few members of the younger council, directed by Thibaudeau, and a tolerably large number of the Ancients, seconded his projects of moderation. Carnot, who, at that period, was the director of the constitution, with Barthelemy, who was the director ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... "Impossible!" his father answered with a sigh. "It is so tied up in the will that she cannot sign it away herself until she comes of age. There is no way of touching it except by her ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of the motives of this journey has been to acquire the pronunciation of that tongue. Besides that, the chalybeate waters of England were recommended as restoratives of my daughter's health. It is impossible, under these circumstances, to regard the journey of my daughter as emigration. I feel assured that the law is not applicable in this case. But the slightest doubt is sufficient to distress a father. I beg, therefore, fellow-citizens, that you will ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... became his pride and joy. But more and more he absorbed himself in his benefactions. It is impossible to tell all of them. Beginning with his gift of Oak Hill to Georgetown in 1849, in 1850 a loan to the Roman Catholic Church there which, like all of his loans, he eventually turned into gifts; in 1851 he gave an organ to the Lunatic Asylum in Staunton, Virginia, saying he knew of nothing better ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker
... near relations on the council, and however strong our suspicions may be, there is really no proof against him. I fear that he will go free. I feel as certain as ever that he is the contriver of the attempt; but the precautions he has taken seem to render it impossible to bring the crime home to him. However, it is no use talking about ...
— The Lion of Saint Mark - A Story of Venice in the Fourteenth Century • G. A. Henty
... admired by many young fellows, some of whom were certainly more akin to her than he was; and I have heard from one or two reports of encouraging words, and even something more than words, which she had vouchsafed to them. A solution is impossible. The affinities, repulsions, reasons in a nature like that of Miss Leroy's are so secret and so subtle, working towards such incalculable and not-to-be-predicted results, that to attempt to make a major and minor premiss and an inevitable ...
— Mark Rutherford's Deliverance • Mark Rutherford
... dreaded by Karl had come to pass. The elephant, finding it impossible to reach the shikaree with its trunk—and no doubt judging by the "feel" that the rock was not immobile—had at length dropped down on all fours and, placing its broad shoulder against it, backed by the enormous weight of its bulky body, had sent the ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid
... advancing farther, and made a secondary base of supplies. The railroad was finished up to that point, the intrenchments completed, storehouses provided for food, and the army got in readiness for a further advance. The rains, however, were falling in such torrents that it was impossible to move the army by the side roads which they would have to move upon in order to turn Johnston out ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... not store the least of one's personal or household gear without giving a hostage to storage, a pledge of allegiance impossible to break. No matter how few things one puts in, one never takes everything out; one puts more things in. Mrs. Forsyth went to the warehouse with Tata in the fall before they sailed for another winter in Paris, and added ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells
... It seems impossible to misunderstand the language of Christianity on this subject. Undeniably it affirms its right to exercise universal dominion. It takes cognisance of all human action, extends its scrutiny to motives and feelings, and allows no condition, employment ...
— The Religion of Politics • Ezra S. Gannett
... disobedience bordering on mutiny. They elected spokesmen to represent their grievances, like trade-unionists. They "answered back" to their officers in such large bodies, with such threatening anger, that it was impossible to give them "Field Punishment Number One," or any other number, especially as their battalion officers sympathized mainly with their point of view. They demanded demobilization according to their terms of service, which was for "the duration of the war." They ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... It is impossible to study any part of Charles Gordon's career without being drawn to all the rest. As his wild and varied fortunes lead him from Sebastopol to Pekin, from Gravesend to South Africa, from Mauritius to the Soudan, the reader follows fascinated. Every scene is strange, ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... have much," said Wemmick, cutting me short, "and they know it. He'd have their lives, and the lives of scores of 'em. He'd have all he could get. And it's impossible to say what he couldn't get, if he gave ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... But if it be true, of course it remains difficult to obtain a clear view of other parts of the column than that in which we happen to find ourselves objectively conscious at any given period, and needless to say impossible to see it ...
— The Mahatma and the Hare • H. Rider Haggard
... seaward the fog shut down on them, and one boat, manned by three men, never reached the schooners. They blew horns all night, standing off and on, and crept along the smoking beach next day, though the surf made landing impossible. Then a sudden gale drove them off the shore, and, as it was evident that their comrades must have perished, they reluctantly sailed for other fishing grounds. As one result of this, Wyllard broke with his prosperous relative when he came ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... 90 was officially condemned by the authorities at Oxford, and in the hubbub that followed, the contending parties closed their ranks; henceforward, any compromise between the friends and the enemies of the Movement was impossible. Archdeacon Manning was in too conspicuous a position to be able to remain silent; he was obliged to declare himself, and he did not hesitate. In an archidiaconal charge, delivered within a few months of his appointment, he firmly ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... in summer sometimes, but one needs a staff of servants to keep them up. Besides in winter it is impossible ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... about leaving home, and seeking my fortune; but I have not mentioned going to California, because I thought it impossible to raise ...
— The Young Adventurer - or Tom's Trip Across the Plains • Horatio Alger
... driven a tunnel from there right up into the castle, for you see there are fifty feet of perpendicular rock above that turret. In case of attack, of course, they would cut away the bridge, and it would be next to impossible to throw another across. They could overwhelm any force attempting it with stones from above, besides sweeping ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty
... and at last the apostle of a new church, which was propagated by the abilities of his disciple Eunomius. Armed with texts of Scripture, and with captious syllogisms from the logic of Aristotle, the subtle AEtius had acquired the fame of an invincible disputant, whom it was impossible either to silence or to convince. Such talents engaged the friendship of the Arian bishops, till they were forced to renounce, and even to persecute, a dangerous ally, who, by the accuracy of his reasoning, had prejudiced ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... ministerial spouse appeared between him and the book, and gently withdrew it, he saw that his reading was an offence in her eyes, and contented himself thereafter with thinking: listening to the absolutely unintelligible he found impossible. What a delight it would have been to the boy to hear Christ preached such as he showed himself, such as in no small measure he had learned him—instead of such as Mr. Sclater saw him reflected from the tenth or twentieth distorting mirror! They who speak against the Son ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... or any other maneuver calculated to diminish the confidence of the adversary. Each of these things may, in a particular case, be the cause of victory. To define the cases in which each should be preferred is simply impossible. ...
— The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini
... it—can you believe it? I find it hard to believe it myself. And Sara found it impossible; for the first few moments she thought something strange had happened to her eyes—to her mind—that the dream had come before she had had time to ...
— Sara Crewe - or, What Happened at Miss Minchin's • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... while stunned. What did it mean? His thousand pounds could not be lost. It was impossible. There was some mistake. It was an evil dream. With a heavy weight on the top of his head, he went out of the Credit Lyonnais and mechanically crossed the little street separating the Bank from the cafe on the Place Carnot. There he sat stupidly and wondered. The waiter ...
— The Joyous Adventures of Aristide Pujol • William J. Locke
... and Boulogne. They reported on the French preparations, but, writes Charles on July 22, 'I am not in their secret.' He corresponded with the Duc de Choiseul and the Marechal de Belleisle, but they confined themselves to general assurances of friendship. 'It is impossible for the Duc de Choiseul to tell you the King's secret, as you would not tell him yours,' wrote an anonymous correspondent, apparently ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... sometimes asked herself in complete bewilderment. "Only so could I be completely happy; but now I have to choose, and I can't be happy without either of them. Only," she thought, "to tell Prince Andrew what has happened or to hide it from him are both equally impossible. But with that one nothing is spoiled. But am I really to abandon forever the joy of Prince Andrew's love, in which ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... out the admirable adaptation of the colours of the woodcock to its protection. The various browns and yellows and pale ash-colour that occur on fallen leaves are all reproduced in its plumage, so that when according to its habit it rests upon the ground under trees, it is almost impossible to detect it. In snipes the colours are modified so as to be equally in harmony with the prevalent forms and colours of marshy vegetation. Mr. J. M. Lester, in a paper read before the Rugby School Natural History Society observes:—"The wood-dove, when perched amongst the branches of its favourite ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - The Naturalist as Interpreter and Seer • Various
... where the impossible sometimes happens," he answered, lightly, "the land where one dreams in the evening, and is never sure when one wakes in the morning that one's dreams have not ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the emphasis on the "tenderly" made it impossible for him to mistake the Dictator's meaning, which was just as he desired it. As he passed out of the presence, and from the room, his countenance was lit up, or rather darkened, by an expression of fiendish triumph. ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... history I have had to deal with a mass of confused and contradictory testimony, which it has sometimes been quite impossible to reconcile, the difficulty being greatly enhanced by the calculated mendacity of James and some others of the earlier writers, both American and British. Often I have had simply to balance probabilities, ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... it not from a kind of rough notion that God wants his assistance, and that he can give it—less on his own account than by prosecuting other—or if it is mixed up with anything of a partisan or political nature. Then it is impossible that anything can be more foreign from one's notions of what is high-minded, religious and noble. Indeed, I must say it strikes me that anyone who would do that, not for the honor of God, but for his own purposes, is entitled to the ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... said to have married M. Roland more as a theory than as a husband, for her ideas of marriage were such as to make pure, disinterested love impossible. Her husband was in many respects her intellectual superior, but she excelled him in versatility. Being her senior by twenty years, when he grew old and infirm he depended upon her for a great deal, all of which contributed to her restlessness ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... whose atrocious violation of social duty had, from every tribunal, human and divine, merited the severest vengeance." Having inquired of Godwin, the divine who attended him, whether a person who had once been in a state of grace could afterward be damned, and being assured it was impossible, he said, "Then I am safe, for I am sure that I was once in a state of grace." Richard Cromwell continued to reside in Whitehall till his resignation of ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume I. - Great Britain and Ireland • Various
... have anything like company in August?" said Madame Strahlberg, interrupting her; "why, it would be impossible, there are not four cats in Paris. No, no, we sha'n't have anybody. A few friends possibly may drop in—people passing through Paris—in their travelling-dresses. Nothing that need alarm you. The pantomime Colette talks ...
— Jacqueline, Complete • (Mme. Blanc) Th. Bentzon
... certainly did not use to be stupid, and till you give me more substantial proof that you are so, I shall not believe it. As for your temperate diet and milk bringing about such a metamorphosis, I hold it impossible. I have such lamentable proofs every day before my eyes of the stupefying qualities of beef, ale, and wine, that I have contracted a most religious veneration for your spiritual nouriture. Only imagine that I here every day see men, who are mountains of roast beef, and only ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... his huge red hands in the intensity of his surprise, while his jaw fell in unison at so startling and almost incredible a piece of intelligence. "Nevitt knows all!" he exclaimed, half incredulous. "He means to ruin us! And he told this to Gwendoline! Gone down to Mambury! Oh no, Minnie, impossible! You must have made some mistake. What did she say exactly? Did ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... girl whom you had condemned to slavery. It did not seem possible that we should do it, but between sunset and sunrise we have done it. Who helped us then?—that we should have carried out this thing which was impossible. I will tell you; God helped us as He helped this lady when she called on Him. Cry to God, then, to do that which is still more impossible—to help you. From me you will have justice ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... some little time looking at the coffin after it was lowered, and the clergyman slipped away, unobserved even by his dog. An hour after, as he sat at dinner with his friends, his sexton requested to speak with him. He was admitted into the room, when he said it was impossible to close the grave, and that he did not know what to do. "Why?" asked the gentleman, "Because Sir, your terrier stands there, and flies so fiercely at us whenever we attempt to throw a spade full in, that we dare not go on." One of the house servants was sent ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. And behold, thy cousin Elisabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age; and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren: for with God nothing shall be impossible. And Mary said, Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word. And the ...
— The Book of Common Prayer - and The Scottish Liturgy • Church of England
... pictorial, to ordinary mortals the strangest and the most remote, were to Hood innate and spontaneous. They came not from the outward,—they were born of the inward. They were purely subjective, the sportive pranks of Hood's own ME, when that ME was in its queerest moods. How naturally the impossible or the absurd took the semblance of consistency in the mental associations of Hood, we observe even in his private correspondence. "Jane," (Mrs. Hood,) he writes, "is now drinking porter,—at which I look ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various
... to go driving with Tilloughby, but it was not an actual promise, and if it were she was quite willing to get out of it, if Mr. Turner wanted her to go along, although she did not say so. Young Tilloughby was notoriously an impossible match. But possibly Mr. Tilloughby and Miss Hastings might care to join the party. ...
— The Early Bird - A Business Man's Love Story • George Randolph Chester
... It was simply impossible for him to imagine that he was pulling in fish, or having any other kind of fun, while he was sawing wood, ...
— Dab Kinzer - A Story of a Growing Boy • William O. Stoddard
... fire; but more and more time he spent in his torpor, unaware of what was day-dream and what was sleep-dream in the content of his unconsciousness. And here, in the unforgetable crypts of man's unwritten history, unthinkable and unrealizable, like passages of nightmare or impossible adventures of lunacy, he encountered the monsters created of man's first morality that ever since have vexed him into the spinning of fantasies to elude them or ...
— The Red One • Jack London
... standard Cope set out from Edinburgh for Stirling and the next day commenced his march at the head of fifteen hundred infantry, leaving the dragoons behind him, as these could be of but little service among the mountains, where they would have found it next to impossible to obtain forage for their horses. He took with him a large quantity of baggage, a drove of black cattle for food, and a thousand stand of arms to distribute among the volunteers who he expected would join him. As, however, none ...
— Bonnie Prince Charlie - A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden • G. A. Henty
... his solid-looking head, his iron-gray hair, his positive and as it were categorical stride, his slow, precise way of putting a statement, the strange union of trampling radicalism in some directions and high-stepping conservatism in others, which made it impossible to calculate on his unexpressed opinions, his testy ways and his generous impulses, his hard judgments and kindly actions, were characteristics that gave him a very ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... no more, for the shells failed to dislodge the Arabs from the ruined mill, and it was impossible to advance and leave any such indomitable fanatics, who cared not for numbers and despised death, so long as they could wreak their wrath upon an infidel, in their rear; and the immediate business was to turn them out ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... door at the end of our walk, and I had been with the angels at tea ever since.) "Now that you have embarked upon this opera, I say, you will have to dine at Willis's with us. I won't be in when Charlie arrives from Paris. A blowy day like to-day his temper is sure to be impossible." ...
— Red Hair • Elinor Glyn
... in a case where the people shall ultimately approve a law; where they do not approve it, the interposition of the veto is the barrier which saves them the adoption of a law, the repeal of which might afterward be almost impossible. The qualified negative is, therefore, a beneficent power, intended as General Hamilton expressly declares in the "Federalist," to protect, first, the executive department from the encroachments of the legislative ...
— Thomas Hart Benton's Remarks to the Senate on the Expunging Resolution • Thomas Hart Benton
... is not enough that Shakespeare's characters are placed in tragic positions which are impossible, do not flow from the course of events, are inappropriate to time and space—these personages, besides this, act in a way which is out of keeping with their definite character, and is quite arbitrary. It is generally asserted that in Shakespeare's dramas the characters are ...
— Tolstoy on Shakespeare - A Critical Essay on Shakespeare • Leo Tolstoy
... pink tinge—such a necklace as an empress might have worn. In the raven masses of her hair there was not the least ornament, nor did any flower enhance the rich blackness of its silken coils. It would be impossible to imagine greater simplicity than Corona showed in her dress, but it would be hard to conceive of any woman who possessed by virtue of severe beauty a more indubitable right to dispense ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... without much difficulty, a private audience on the very day after his talk with Robert Denver. In the interval between he had hurried home, got out of his evening clothes, and gone forth again at once into the dreary dawn. His fear of Ascham and the alienist made it impossible for him to remain in his rooms. And it seemed to him that the only way of averting that hideous peril was by establishing, in some sane impartial mind, the proof of his guilt. Even if he had not been so incurably sick of life, the electric chair seemed ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 1 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... waiting for the rest of the force detailed to take part in the campaign; and had also been detained by the condition of the roads, which rendered it almost impossible to move the baggage-wagons and the artillery. Friday and Saturday it rained incessantly in torrents, and raised Fishing Creek and other streams so that it was impracticable to cross them. The general had with him the Fourth Kentucky Infantry, and a portion of the ...
— A Lieutenant at Eighteen • Oliver Optic
... home. Getting on a coat was one; finding a hat was the worst of all. Since Bugsey got the nail in his foot and could not go out the hat question was easier. The hat was still hard to find, but not impossible. ...
— Sowing Seeds in Danny • Nellie L. McClung
... strange gentleness in his voice. "You're hurt. It would be impossible for you to go now. Don't be afraid. ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... Jupiter, is the most important personage in the mythology of Greece. Although, chronologically, he comes after Kronos and Uranos, he was called the "father of gods and men," whose power it was impossible to resist, and which power was universal. He was supposed to be the superintending providence, whose seat was on Mount Olympus, enthroned in majesty and might, to whom the lesser deities were obedient. With his two brothers, Poseidon, or Neptune, ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... positions, together with four catchers, an aggregate of 27 players to occupy but nine positions in the game. Could blundering management go further? Under such circumstances is it any wonder that team-work was impossible, while cliques of disappointed players still further weakened the nine in nearly every game, the ultimate result being ninth place in the race, with the added discredit of being beaten out in the race by their ...
— Spalding's Baseball Guide and Official League Book for 1895 • Edited by Henry Chadwick
... opposed to strikes as I am opposed to war. As yet, however, the world with all its progress has not made war impossible; neither, I fear, considering the nature of men and their institutions, will the strike entirely disappear ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth
... smaller, it had the same reddish, arid look as his own home planet, while the third planet was three quarters drowned in water. But there were two factors that weighed so heavily against that choice that they rendered it impossible. In the first place, by far the greater proportion of the local inhabitants' commerce was between the asteroids and the third planet. Second, and even more important, the fourth world was at such a point in its orbit that the ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett
... private judgment according to the indefinite rule of Scripture, or reason, or tradition. But when his pure and proper divinity had been established on the ruins of Arianism, the faith of the Catholics trembled on the edge of a precipice where it was impossible to recede, dangerous to stand, dreadful to fall and the manifold inconveniences of their creed were aggravated by the sublime character of their theology. They hesitated to pronounce; that God himself, the second person of an equal ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... own resplendent, virile, glowing young personality, to even see the man who had stepped in between her and possible danger! The most innocent girl will have her ideal of a lover and thrill at the imagined touch, and furnish the dumb image with a dream-voice that woos her in impossible, elaborate, impassioned sentences, very unlike the real utterances of Love when he comes. The blue-eyed, ruddy-cheeked, golden-locked St. Michael portrayed in celestial-martial splendour upon one of the panels ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... jealousy which she had never felt till that time; she was surprised that she had never yet reflected how improbable it was that a man of the Duke de Nemours's turn, who had showed so much inconstancy towards women, should be capable of a lasting and sincere passion; she thought it next to impossible for her to be convinced of the truth of his love; "But though I could be convinced of it," says she, "what have I to do in it? Shall I permit it? Shall I make a return? Shall I engage in gallantry, be false to Monsieur ...
— The Princess of Cleves • Madame de La Fayette
... buckets of the vilest contents, and importuned for money by beggars who thrust their deformed limbs in his face. It is but natural to fear contagion of some sort from contact with such creatures, and yet the crowd is so dense that it is impossible to entirely avoid them. Under foot the streets are wet, muddy, and slippery. Why some deadly disease does not break out and sweep away the people ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou
... an honorable and candid God. He may have implanted in us the desire of perfect happiness. It may be—it is—impossible to gratify that desire in this life. Still, another life is not implied, for God may not have intended us to draw the inference that He is going to gratify it. If omniscient and omnipotent, God must ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... the stars become short lines of light on the plate of a fixed camera. Stormer's stars are points and therefore his exposure must have been short, yet there is detail in some of his pictures which it seems impossible could have been got with a short exposure. It is all ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... and well back on the tundra, so that any one approaching it by the planking had an unobstructed view of the premises. Escape was impossible, for the back door led out into the ankle-deep puddles of the open prairie; and it was now apparent that a sixth man had made a circuit and was ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... ain't got none o' that foolish sort o' notions in me. I wouldn't be its mother, 'n' 'f there was n't no one else to tell it so Mr. Kimball 'd rejoice to the first time I sent it down town alone. It's nigh to impossible to keep nothin' in the town with Mr. Kimball. A man f'rever talkin' like that 's bound to tell everythin' sooner or later, 'n' I never was one to set any great store o' faith on a talker. When I don't want the whole town to know 't I'm layin' in rat-poison I buy of Shores, 'n' when ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Friend Mrs. Lathrop • Anne Warner
... slender stock they passed along (for there was no moving for want of room) a liberal share for ourselves and our natives. After this the pig was cut up and roasted; but, faint and hungry as I was, it was nearly impossible to eat it. And now all restraint was thrown off, and the Maoris conversed freely and pleasantly. So the night wore on, better than it had begun. At last, cold and weary, overpowered by the smoke, I fell asleep on a bundle of bullrushes; and when I awoke, I found that I had been ...
— A History of the English Church in New Zealand • Henry Thomas Purchas
... sort of frantic desperation, I began, to ply myself with impossible sums in mental arithmetic, until I nearly got a brain fever; and the cars stopped, and the dreaded station was shouted in my ears, while I was in the midst of a desperate encounter with a group ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... "Impossible!" said aunt Emily; "and the captain is as good as any nurse, you know. I would quite as soon trust her ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... his neighbor's cattle, or even entered in the night his neighbor's house; but severe penalties alone will keep men from crimes where there is a low state of virtue and religion, and general prosperity and contentment become impossible where there is no efficient protection to property. Society was never more secure and happy in England than when vagabonds could be arrested, and when petty larcenies were visited with certain retribution. ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord
... Peter and Benjamin decided to dig a tunnel. They began to burrow a yard or two lower down the bank. They hoped that they might be able to work between the large stones under the house; the kitchen floor was so dirty that it was impossible to say whether it was ...
— The Great Big Treasury of Beatrix Potter • Beatrix Potter
... a representative of the popular external life and aims of the nineteenth century. Its other half, its poet, is Goethe, a man quite domesticated in the century, breathing its air, enjoying its fruits, impossible at any earlier time, and taking away, by his colossal parts, the reproach of weakness, which, but for him, would lie on the intellectual works of the period. He appears at a time when a general culture has spread itself, and has smoothed down all sharp individual traits; when, in the ...
— Representative Men • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... hadn't thought about that. David, I wouldn't have come to you except—except because it was the end. Anything else is impossible, you know." ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland |
