"Impossible" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... excitement prevailed, until at last, just as the question was going to be finally decided, the vestry found that somehow or other, they had become entangled in a point of form, from which it was impossible to escape with propriety. So, the motion was dropped, and everybody looked extremely important, and seemed quite satisfied with the meritorious nature of ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... disability, which certainly does not promise well for the luckless Arab who is to live beneath their sway. How much of the trouble that has occurred already in Palestine may be attributed to this cause it is impossible to know. The increasing number of Jews in positions of authority in England presents, however, a far greater subject for alarm. Jews and Arabs are at any rate both Semites and may be expected to have certain ideas in common, but to place a highly civilized ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... what has been done by our own historians. On the other hand, the reader will be no less concerned to find what immense treasures some of our adventurers lost, by unaccountably missing the fleets of which they went in search, when at the same time they were so near them, that it seemed almost impossible they should escape. This shews, after all, how uncertain is the meeting of ships at sea, and that two great fleets may sail almost close to one another, without having the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... spinning yarn off her distaff. Now they search the house, but find no Odd, so they depart. But when they had gone a little way from the garth, Arnkell stood still and said: 'How know we but that Katla has hoodwinked us, and that the distaff in her hand was nothing more than Odd.' 'Not impossible!' said Thorarinn; 'let us turn back.' They did so; and when those at Holt raw that they were returning, Katla said to her maids, 'Sit still in your places, Odd ...
— The Book of Were-Wolves • Sabine Baring-Gould
... distress.[28] It is owing to the constant presence of this thought, to his sensibility to the refining influence of sorrow, that Wordsworth is the only poet who will bear reading in times of distress. Other poets mock us by an impossible optimism, or merely reflect the feelings which, however we may play with them in times of cheerfulness, have now become an intolerable burden. Wordsworth suggests the single topic which, so far at least as this world is concerned, can really be called ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... tables, cases and stands, backed standoffishly against the tapestry on the walls, and the legs and bases of this furniture were great—unbelievably great, rococo gilded legs—legs that writhed and twisted themselves in a sheening agony of impossible forms, before they resigned themselves to dropping to the floor ...
— The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me • William Allen White
... seemed to her. Hours passed away, and she kept herself shut up in her room, refusing to admit any one, but considering what was best to do. One thing only appeared as possible under these circumstances, and that was to leave Chetwynde. She felt that it was simply impossible for her to remain there. And where could she go? To Pomeroy Court? But that had been handed over to him as part of the payment to him for taking her. She could not go back to a place which was now the property of this man. Nor was it necessary. She had money of her own, which would enable her ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... hostilities began with a feeble attempt on the part of the United States to invade Canada, an effort whose details are of interest only in showing how impossible {220} it is for an essentially unmilitary people to improvise warfare. Congress had authorized a loan, the construction of vessels, and the enlistment of an army of 36,000 men; but the officers appointed to assemble ...
— The Wars Between England and America • T. C. Smith
... notwithstanding the Carouan is by them oftentimes damnified, and those which are robbed haue no other restitution at the Arabians handes then the shewing of them a paire of heeles, flying into such places as it is impossible to finde them. Nowe the Carouan continuing her accustomed iourneys, and hauing passed the abouesayd castles, and others not woorthie mention, at length commeth to a place called Iehbir, which is the beginning ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 9 - Asia, Part 2 • Richard Hakluyt
... the cause of Miles Standish to Priscilla, however, he did not attend strictly to business as a jobber. He was not able to resist the lady when she asked: "Why don't you speak for yourself, John?" That famous question has practically made it impossible for the middleman to make much headway in the assumed part. Benjamin Hopkins, of Oswegatchie County, was not a traitor—perhaps because he never met the fair Priscillas ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... the driving forces which put this gigantic machinery into motion? To enumerate them all would be impossible. The workman, who wields the hammer, the woman, who keeps home and hearth bright and cheerful, the patient teacher who moulds the juvenile mind, the professor, who disperses the deeper knowledge of science, the engineer, with his intricate ...
— Bremen Cotton Exchange - 1872/1922 • Andreas Wilhelm Cramer
... statesmen to inscribe his Iliad to Congreve, with a magnanimity of which the praise had been complete, had his friend's virtue been equal to his wit. Why he was chosen for so great an honor, it is not now possible to know." It is certainly impossible to know; yet we think it is possible to guess. The translation of the Iliad had been zealously befriended by men of all political opinions. The poet who, at an early age, had been raised to affluence by the ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... have been almost impossible for one man to lift such a weight straight out of the water by a string; and as we came up and saw Mr. U——'s agitated face in the fantastic flickering light of the blazing tussock, which he had set on fire as a signal of ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... certain subject to set and solidify, and then the circulation is impeded, and there is a congestion which presently hardens into a kind of wart on the mental body. Such a wart appears to us down here as a prejudice; and until it is absorbed and free circulation restored, it is impossible for the man to think truly or to see clearly with regard to that particular department of his mind, as the congestion checks the free passage of undulations both outward ...
— A Textbook of Theosophy • C.W. Leadbeater
... you—you can't walk out on the wire! It is too small, almost, for my cat! You can't do it! It is impossible!" ...
— Joe Strong The Boy Fire-Eater - The Most Dangerous Performance on Record • Vance Barnum
... modern problem play to be understood at once from the stage, without any effort. There are many, I regret to say, who spare themselves even this trouble, but it is indispensable, for even if singers always enunciated their words more distinctly than they do, it would be quite impossible to follow the difficult text on first hearing. Beyond this, however, very little preparation is necessary; especially the study of lists of Leitmotive should be avoided, since they give a totally wrong conception of the music. We cannot study an edifice by looking ...
— Wagner's Tristan und Isolde • George Ainslie Hight
... way meant to go, drawing another to come. Her mother, preoccupied with house-work, had already ceased to be able to control her, and her father's authority was due to fear of superior force, not to reason. Dr Howe at once set himself to teach her the alphabet by touch. It is impossible, for reasons of space, to describe his efforts in detail. He taught words before the individual letters, and his first experiment consisting in pasting upon several common articles such as keys, spoons, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... met next day, proved more diplomatic, for when asked what he thought we women should be worth in the Mohammedan market, replied that it was impossible to tell, because if Moro women could be bought for forty dollars apiece, an American woman should be worth at least a thousand. Not bad repartee for a barbarian! In return for his consideration, I must admit that he was the best dressed Moro we saw in Bongao. On the day in question he ...
— A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel
... as if we had a regular deed of property in him; and we had been all day hanging round his shop, looking in from time to time, in the vague hope that he would propose something to brighten up the dreary monotony of a holiday in which it had been impossible to go anywhere or do ...
— Oldtown Fireside Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... which renders him insensible to fear, and at the command of his Tsar, sends him singing to certain death. {6} There is more hardness and less self-devotion in the disposition of the Spaniard; he possesses, however, a spirit of proud independence, which it is impossible but to admire. He is ignorant, of course; but it is singular that I have invariably found amongst the low and slightly educated classes far more liberality of sentiment than amongst the upper. It has long been the fashion to talk of the bigotry of the Spaniards, ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... an institution such as we have done at Snow Hill, no one man is entitled to all the credit. On the contrary, it is impossible to name all to whom credit is due. We can only speak of those who have been closely allied with us and whose work has been prominent in the building of the institution. Perhaps of these, the Trustees come first. We could never have gone on with the work ...
— Twenty-Five Years in the Black Belt • William James Edwards
... suggest a fact which should have no weight against a conclusive argument on the other side, but which might, perhaps, be allowed to turn the scale nicely balanced. The W sound is not only unfamiliar but nearly, if not quite, impossible, to the lips of any European people except the English, and would therefore of necessity have to be left out of any universally adopted scheme of Latin pronunciation. Professor Ellis pertinently says: "As a matter of practical convenience English speakers should abstain ...
— The Roman Pronunciation of Latin • Frances E. Lord
... after he left Mr. Jasper's house at midnight, in company with the last person seen with him, and that it had been thrown away after being retained some hours. Why thrown away? If he had been murdered, and so artfully disfigured, or concealed, or both, as that the murderer hoped identification to be impossible, except from something that he wore, assuredly the murderer would seek to remove from the body the most lasting, the best known, and the most easily recognisable, things upon it. Those things would be the watch and shirt-pin. As to his opportunities of ...
— The Mystery of Edwin Drood • Charles Dickens
... I could communicate with them and order them north, but that is impossible. A detective only visits a telegraph office to send his report; then he is off again, and you don't know where to ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... I had heard a great deal, through interviews, character studies, and other press stuff in the photoplay journals and the Sunday newspaper film sections. Now I found him to be a high-strung individual, so extremely nervous that it seemed impossible for him to remain in one position in his chair or for him to keep his hands motionless for a single instant. Although he was of moderate build, with a fair suggestion of flesh, there were yet the marks of the artist and of the creative temperament in ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve
... slavery was swept into oblivion, and the end of the third quarter of the century saw such a condition established in both the New World and the Old, as made the restoration of human bondage forever impossible. ...
— Notable Events of the Nineteenth Century - Great Deeds of Men and Nations and the Progress of the World • Various
... seemed about to be torn from their sockets. Had the strain lasted another instant, he must have loosed his hold; but, with a wild hoarse shriek, as though it was some sea-monster baffled of its prey, the column sank, and left him gasping, bleeding, half-drowned, but alive. It was impossible that he could survive another shock, and in his agony he unclasped his stiffened fingers, determined to resign himself to his fate. At that instant, however, he saw on the wall of rock that hollowed on his ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... It is quite impossible to keep pace with all the new incarnations of women in war-time—'bus-conductress, ticket-collector, lift-girl, club waitress, post-woman, bank clerk, motor-driver, farm-labourer, guide, munition maker. There is nothing new in the function of ministering angel: the myriad nurses in ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch
... into the facts, while, if it be discarded, no hypothesis can account for him, and his part in the adventure. In short, the King's tale, almost incredible as it appears, contains the only explanation which is not demonstrably impossible. To this conclusion, let me repeat, I am drawn by no sentiment for that unsentimental Prince, 'gentle King Jamie.' He was not the man to tell the truth, 'if he could think of anything better.' But, where other corroboration is impossible, by the nature of the circumstances, facts corroborate ...
— James VI and the Gowrie Mystery • Andrew Lang
... developed a taste for mescal, he will pay anything to get it, first his animals, then his land. When he has nothing more to sell, the whites still give him this brandy and make him work. And there he is. To work himself free is next to impossible, because his wages are not paid in money, but in provisions, which barely suffice to keep him and his family alive. Indians are sometimes locked up over night to ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... was the prompting of an unknown voice. Juggie seized one of the spy's fat legs, but pulled in vain. It was an impossible feet. Sid and Charlie now appeared as continentals, supposed to be armed with guns, and were helping Juggie, when the cry was raised, "The British army is coming!" At the head of the stairs appeared Wort Wentworth, ...
— The Knights of the White Shield - Up-the-Ladder Club Series, Round One Play • Edward A. Rand
... gladly cast at her feet,—his name, his heart, his worldly possessions; only one reservation did he make to the completeness of his surrender. His pride he could not bend. It was not that he did not wish to bend it. The act was impossible. Keenly as he scorned himself, he could not concede a victory to Ellen Webster,—not for any ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett
... a matron. It was a picture to see her sail to church on a Sunday, a parasol in hand, a nursemaid following, and the baby buried in a trade hat and armed with a patent feeding-bottle. The service was enlivened by her continual supervision and correction of the maid. It was impossible not to fancy the baby was a doll, and the church some European playroom. All these women were legitimately married. It is true that the certificate of one, when she proudly showed it, proved to run thus, that she was "married for one night," and her gracious partner was at liberty to "send ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... impossible. No word to her Without a word to him you see with her, Neipperg to wit. She grows indifferent To dreams as Regent; visioning a future Wherein her son and self are two of three But where the third ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... ever you become a mother, you will find out that it is impossible to write letters during the first two months of your nursing. Mary, my English nurse, and I are both quite knocked up. It is true I had not told you that I was determined to do everything myself. Before the ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... "I knew you couldn't understand. You don't realize how impossible it is. I don't blame you—I ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... of Harvey's anger." The Rev. A. Dyce, so well known from his varied researches in our dramatic literature, is of opinion that the offensive passage has been removed from the editions which have come down to us. Without some such key it is impossible to comprehend Harvey's implacable hatred, or the words of himself and friends when they describe Greene as an "impudent railer in an odious and desperate mood," or his satire as "spiteful and villanous abuse." The occasion of the quarrel was an ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... a more particular description of the Maria, it is clearly impossible, in referring to their level relatively to the higher and brighter land surface of the moon, to appeal to any hypsometrical standard. All that is known in this respect is, that they are invariably lower than the latter, and that some sink to a greater depth than ...
— The Moon - A Full Description and Map of its Principal Physical Features • Thomas Gwyn Elger
... Hovering with his great division in the plain below and knowing that he was beaten, he nevertheless turned one hundred and sixteen cannon that he carried with him upon Jackson's front and swept all the woods and ridges everywhere. The Union army was beaten because it had undertaken the impossible, but despite its immense losses it was still superior in numbers to Lee's force, and above all it had that matchless artillery which in defeat could protect the Union army, and which in victory helped it ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler
... little fellow, I don't think much of it is true either. We allow sailors to spin yarns and only believe as much as we like." Jeff was much better satisfied to feel that a hero was not an impossible being, and that these rough and ready, hard swearing, rollicking men were not in reality the stuff out of which was moulded true heroism, endurance, and nobility. He took comfort now in laughing at their "make believe" tales of miracles ...
— A Little Hero • Mrs. H. Musgrave
... instinctively, and there is always a rational apprehension that the Government which one revolution thought fit to set up another revolution may think fit to pull down. In 1694, the credit of William III.'s Government was so low in London that it was impossible for it to borrow any large sum; and the evil was the greater, because in consequence of the French war the financial straits of the Government were extreme. At last a scheme was hit upon which would relieve their necessities. 'The plan,' says Macaulay, 'was that twelve hundred thousand ...
— Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market • Walter Bagehot
... concerned), is accustomed to hard and hazardous work in the open woods. His occupation makes him of necessity migratory. The camp, following the uncut timber from place to place, makes it impossible for him to acquire a family and settle down. Scarcely one out of ten has ever dared assume the responsibility of matrimony. The necessity of shipping from a central point in going from one job to another usually forces a migratory existence ...
— The Centralia Conspiracy • Ralph Chaplin
... breath he had had since starting to carry out his daring project. He believed that he had the trap so arranged now that escape from it was well-nigh impossible; and yet almost immediately his heart seemed to jump in ...
— The Strange Cabin on Catamount Island • Lawrence J. Leslie
... dissatisfied with the engraver. In a sixth trunk were contained his papers respecting earthquakes, volcanoes, and geographical subjects: so that, you see, the Abbe Rive at least fancied himself a man of tolerably universal attainments. It was of course impossible to calculate the number, or to appreciate the merits, of such a multifarious collection; but on asking M. Morenas if he had made up his mind respecting the price to be put upon it, he answered, that he thought he might safely demand 6000 francs for such a body of miscellaneous ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... if the translation stuck in his throat. At length, having premised that the poem was a dialogue between the poet Oisin, or Ossian, and Patrick, the tutelar Saint of Ireland, and that it was difficult, if not impossible, to render the exquisite felicity of the first two or three lines, he said the ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... of the last Midsummer holidays had a particular interest for the pupil-mind, by reason of its knowing that Miss Pupford was bidden, on the second day of those holidays, to the nuptials of a former pupil. As it was impossible to conceal the fact—so extensive were the dress-making preparations—Miss Pupford openly announced it. But, she held it due to parents to make the announcement with an air of gentle melancholy, as if marriage were (as indeed it exceptionally has been) rather a calamity. With ...
— Tom Tiddler's Ground • Charles Dickens
... and faced him. "Why not, Lewes; why not?" he asked, with a kindly smile. "Think of the gap which separates your intellectual powers from those of a Polynesian savage. Why, after all, should it be impossible that this child's powers should equally transcend our own? A freak, if you will, an abnormality, a curious effect of nature's, ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford
... said. "That is impossible, Wolf. We have to be growing one way or the other; we can't stay as we are, for a year or a day. And there's another thing: you don't seem to think about the others, about the effect on the school. If you are to ...
— Peggy • Laura E. Richards
... winter John had not seen a more forbidding night. The snow increased and with it came a strong wind that reached them despite their shelter. The muddy trenches began to freeze lightly, but the men's feet broke through the film of ice and they walked in an awful slush. It seemed impossible that the earth could ever have been green and warm and sunny, and that Death was not ...
— The Hosts of the Air • Joseph A. Altsheler
... nature much; his habits were almost like leopard's spots; they were grown into the woof of his existence. Even if he won her it must be almost entirely because of a superior diplomacy. Everything told him that his love was not returned. It seemed almost impossible that it should be; there was not more disparity in their years than in their two selves. "All very fine again," he muttered, somewhat savagely; "I want her, I want her, not because of anything but love. What she is, or what I am counts for nothing; love is all compelling; my first ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... halloed loudly, in the hope of diverting the attention of the hogs, if I did not succeed in letting the boys know' we were near them; for the animals kept up such a squealing, that it was almost impossible to hear the sound of ...
— The Young Trail Hunters • Samuel Woodworth Cozzens
... invasion of England. It had long been an idea of the First Consul's thus to intimidate the English Government, but it was only the people on the coast who were really alarmed. Nelson wrote immediately to the Admiralty, that "even on leaving the French harbors the landing is impossible were it only for the difficulties caused by the tides: and as to the notion of rowing over, it is impracticable humanly speaking." An attempt to land a large army on the English coast was soon to become a fixed idea in Bonaparte's mind; but then he used ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... day as one of the saddest days of my life. Oscar has shown Madame Pratolungo to me, in her true colors. He has reasoned out this miserable matter with a plainness which it is impossible for me to resist. I have thrown away my love and my confidence on a false woman: there is no sense of honor, no feeling of gratitude or of delicacy in her nature. And I once thought her—it sickens me to recall it! I will see ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... a Christian, a clergyman, and a prelate of the Church of England, that I must in my own imagination strip him of those three capacities, and put him among the number of that set of men he mentions in the paragraph before; or else it will be impossible to ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... were distributed as follows: Leonore, Mrs. Martyn (Miss Inverarity); Marcellina, Miss Poole; Florestan, Mr. Manvers; Pizarro, Mr. Giubilei; and Rocco, Mr. Martyn. The opera was performed every night for a fortnight. Such a thing would be impossible now, but lest some one be tempted to rail against the decadent taste of to-day, let it quickly be recorded that somewhere in the opera—I hope not in the dungeon scene—Mme. Giubilei danced a pas de ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... they saw from the shadow of the cut the vicious spit of revolvers and heard the bullets singing unpleasantly over their heads. Where they stood the gray dawn made them perfectly visible, but the blackness of the cut screened their assailants and made it impossible to guess their numbers. About twenty men had got out of the C. & S.C. train when the volley was fired, and the celerity with which they scattered brought another cheer from Mallory's men intrenched in ...
— The Short Line War • Merwin-Webster
... Catalogus Librorum Manuscriptorum Bibl. Cott., 1696, folio. Sir Robert was, however, doomed to have the evening of his life clouded by one of those crooked and disastrous events, of which it is now impossible to trace the correct cause, or affix the degree of ignominy attached to it, on the head of its proper author. Human nature has few blacker instances of turpitude on record than that to which our knight fell a victim. In the year 1615, some wretch ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... Why, it's impossible! I am no robber. I am charging you what I charge everybody. It's a dollar and thirty cents, and ...
— Chapters from My Autobiography • Mark Twain
... 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 ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... spiritual things to people who are suffering from hunger and cold. If the moral nature of the poor is to be reformed, their surroundings must be improved. "The mind becomes that which it contemplates." It would be impossible for any one surrounded by crime and poverty to understand or be made to comprehend the loving kindness of a God who placed them in such a condition and amidst such surroundings. No one, unless they were fanatics, would think of distributing religious tracts to the poor half starved ...
— Bohemian Society • Lydia Leavitt
... the bo'sun remained awake with me, and we talked much upon that which we had seen; yet could come to no satisfactory conclusion; for it seemed impossible to us that a place of so much desolation could contain any living being. And then, just as the dawn was upon us, there loomed up a fresh wonder—the hull of a great vessel maybe a couple or three score fathoms in from the edge of the weed. Now the wind was still very light, being no ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson
... us make the most impossible fools of ourselves. It may have been more by luck than by good management, as they say; but there it is. Now don't say that revenge isn't sweet. . . . I've done you what justice I can; but if you pose as an angel from heaven, ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... we may expect these things it is not our province to predict. It is too early to pass final judgment on Professor Patten's dictum that inter-racial cooeperation is impossible without integration, and that races must therefore stand in hostile relations or finally unite. But it is perfectly apparent that we have a long way to travel before the path to integration is cleared. Such assemblages as the First Universal Races Congress which met in London in 1911 can do much ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various
... involved no little adventurousness and risk, as Mr. Gartney began to see, to pioneer a passage through. But the spirit of adventure was upon them both. On all, I should say; for the strong horse plunged forward, from drift to drift, as though he delighted in the encounter. Moreover, to turn was impossible. ...
— Faith Gartney's Girlhood • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... the fruits of fortune, earned at the expense of the nerve cells, is an impossibility. The quiet and harmony of the nerve centres and nervous system are gone. Rest is impossible, continuance of work only causes increased jarring and discord of that ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... is infinitely beyond the remotest thought of the writer when he began this labor; but as it grew, deepened and broadened upon his hands from day to day, like Noah's dove he could find no rest for the sole of his foot, and found it impossible to stop ...
— Doctor Jones' Picnic • S. E. Chapman
... the room. Presently we would hear the old Don muttering dotingly to himself the name of Seraphina's mother, the young wife of his old days, so saintly, and snatched away from him in punishment of his early sinfulness. It was impossible that she should have been deceived in Don Patricio (O'Brien's Christian name was Patrick). The intendente was a man of great intelligence, and full of reverence for her memory. Don Balthasar admitted that he himself was growing old; and, besides, there was that sorrow ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... passed between these practical men. They had gone there on particular business. Time and tide proverbially wait for no man, but at the Bell Rock they wait a much briefer period than elsewhere. Between low water and the time when it would be impossible to quit the rock without being capsized', there was only a space of two or three hours—sometimes more, frequently less—so it behoved the men to ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... in the morning, and therefore that I never have stayed in any office more than two or three weeks at the longest. It is constitutional. I can't write a good hand, or keep books correctly, for the same reason. Mathematics were left out of my composition. I must smoke, and it is impossible for me to smoke a poor cigar. If I am in debt for cigars, as well as other necessities, how can I help it? I would willingly work if I could only find the kind of work that would suit me. I am not ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 7 • Various
... gloomily. "I hate the set she consorts with at these shows. There are some of the Fairharbour set—impossible people! But they boast of being on nodding terms with that arch-bounder Lord Saltash, and so ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... in that state of life "sin was avoided without struggle, and while it remained so, no evil could exist." Now it is clear that as truth is the good of the intellect, so falsehood is its evil, as the Philosopher says (Ethic. vi, 2). So that, as long as the state of innocence continued, it was impossible for the human intellect to assent to falsehood as if it were truth. For as some perfections, such as clarity, were lacking in the bodily members of the first man, though no evil could be therein; so ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... I did not want to illustrate a book of his with any "purpose" other than the purpose of delightful amusement, as "Alice" was. Tenniel had point-blank refused to illustrate another story for Carroll—he was, Tenniel told me, "impossible"—and Carroll evidently was not satisfied with other artists he had tried, as he wrote me: "I have a considerable mass of chaotic materials for a story, but have never had the heart to go to work to construct the story as a whole, owing to its ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... happy, yet be guilty of such injustice and inhumanity, that he could take pride in works which not even money had made his own, and live with undiminished splendor, when his credit itself began to fail, seemed to her incongruities so irrational, that hitherto she had supposed them impossible. ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... of sin. 2. The wages due thereto. These kill the heart; for who can bear up under the guilt of sin? "If our sins he upon us, and we pine away in them, how can we then live?" How, indeed! it is impossible. So neither can man grapple with the justice of God. Can thy heart endure, or thy hands be strong? they cannot. A wounded spirit, who can bear? Men cannot, angels cannot; wherefore, if now Christ he hid, and the blessing ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... we found the Antelope extreemly shye and watchfull insomuch that we had been unable to get a shot at them; when at rest they generally seelect the most elivated point in the neighbourhood, and as they are watchfull and extreemly quick of sight and their sense of smelling very accute it is almost impossible to approach them within gunshot; in short they will frequently discover and flee from you at the distance of three miles. I had this day an opportunity of witnessing the agility and superior fleetness of this anamal which was to me really astonishing. I had pursued ...
— The Journals of Lewis and Clark • Meriwether Lewis et al
... these "standards" of capacity and length alleged to exist about the Great Pyramid, not only are the theoretical and actual sizes of the supposed "standards" made to vary in different books—which it is impossible for an actual "standard" to do—but the evidences adduced in proof of the conformity of old or modern measures with them is notoriously defective in complete aptness and accuracy. Measures, to be true counterparts, must, in mathematics, be not simply "near," ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... wrath on that one dreadful night, it was only fitting that he, Michael, a man who was of so much less worth, should feel it for ever to accomplish a similar end. He was a little exalted by his resolve, and spiritual pride began to show itself; so utterly impossible is it that the purest self-devotion should be, if we may use the word, chemically pure. It is very doubtful if he ever fully realised what he was doing, just as it is doubtful whether in the time of ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford
... readily admitted that the utmost haste was necessary. Yet she knew that, if any one could accomplish the impossible, it was Quijada, where the object in view was to serve her and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... save when actually necessary, if you would do a friend's duty to it and your winch; keep on examining the point of your hook; do not be afraid of sliding down a rock that cannot be otherwise travelled over, for in these days of science the reseating of breeks is not impossible, and any casual personal disfigurement that may ensue is not likely to be obtruded upon the ...
— Lines in Pleasant Places - Being the Aftermath of an Old Angler • William Senior
... interest the mother in the problem of education was well-nigh impossible. Toil, deprivation, poverty, had killed all the romance and enthusiasm in her heart. She was the victim of arrested development; but the little other-mother was a child, impressionable, immature, and she could be taught. The home must co-operate with the school, ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... "Pardon me—it is impossible for you to enter into the feelings of a man who has been brought up as presumptive heir to a rent-roll of 12,000. You cannot imagine how the mind of a gentleman shrinks from the petty details, the meanness, the vulgarities of trade. You are ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... the same, dear," she explained. "I hadn't your sort of Henry. You see, my boy was my only excuse for living. You'll never know what that means. And when things grew altogether impossible, and I knew that I must earn a living for Jock and myself, I just did it—that's all. I ...
— Emma McChesney & Co. • Edna Ferber
... whereby you have defaced and overcome him by true and lawful play. But, alas for pity! the Rhodes are won and overcome by these false Turks; the strong castle Faith is decayed, so that I fear it is almost impossible to win it again. ...
— Sermons on the Card and Other Discourses • Hugh Latimer
... envelope was closed, this was almost impossible to see. I knew it was risky, for if I had been found out, I would have been "strafed" for this, just as hard as if I had tried to escape. However, I posted my letter and heard nothing ...
— Three Times and Out • Nellie L. McClung
... lines and in the painting of areas of conventional shape, not that they might be made to observe natural form, express themselves in reproduction, render the inner outer, originate, articulate ... but that they might pass an examination in copying unnatural things in impossible colours. Thus it came to pass that, in the big hall of this school, divers of the Reformed found themselves copying, and colouring the copy of, a curious picture pinned to a blackboard—the picture of a floral wonder unknown ...
— Driftwood Spars - The Stories of a Man, a Boy, a Woman, and Certain Other People Who - Strangely Met Upon the Sea of Life • Percival Christopher Wren
... and glorious a thought, man had personified it and called it by a name; that it was an unworthy conception of the Deity to hold Him personal, inasmuch as escape from human contingencies became thus impossible; that the real thing men should worship was the Divine, whereinsoever they could find it; that "God" was but man's way of expressing his sense of the Divine; that as justice, hope, wisdom, &c., were all parts of goodness, so God was the expression which ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... business, after you know what the other fellow is going to do. Jeremy had been threshing his brain for a solution to the scene he had just witnessed. Whether the crew of the strange sloop, just then effecting a landing in small boats, were friends or enemies it was impossible to guess. Jeremy feared for the sheep. Fresh meat would be welcome to any average ship's crew, and the lad had no doubt that they would use no scruple in dealing with a youngster of his age. He must know who they were and whether ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... that in the most trying moments, when it would seem that a trifling thought should be impossible on the part of a person, he sometimes gives way to a fancy that is of that nature. Recalling the story which he had read when a boy, and which is familiar to all our readers, the rancher now picked up his hat at his side and gently raised it to view, taking care ...
— The Young Ranchers - or Fighting the Sioux • Edward S. Ellis
... The man's meals made ready for him in any careless way, often not made ready at all, and his wife spending her time in sighing, and moaning, and looking out for the white donkey! You, my readers, may deem this a rather far-fetched episode in the story; you may deem it next to impossible that any woman should be so ridiculously foolish, or could be so imposed upon; but I am only relating to you the strict truth. The facts occurred precisely as they are being narrated, and not long ago. I have neither added to the story nor taken ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... moving army with its immense transportation train, raises such a cloud of dust that it is impossible to see ...
— The Citizen-Soldier - or, Memoirs of a Volunteer • John Beatty
... of Romeo and Juliet the parody would have been impossible without the aid and intervention of some sort of Friar Laurence. He was a notability of those parts in those days, and he was known as the Dudley Devil. In these enlightened times he would have been dealt with as a rogue and vagabond, and, ...
— Julia And Her Romeo: A Chronicle Of Castle Barfield - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... right to report yourselves here and explain your purposes," he continued gravely; "but it is impossible that you may proceed. To-morrow morning we shall give you escort and transportation back to Brussels. I anticipate"—here he glanced quizzically at our aged mare, drooping knee-sprung between the shafts of the lopsided ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... one in which each player attempts to tell the most improbable or impossible story. In this case the papers are not passed on, but a certain amount of time is given for the stories to ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... him. What if he were to find it impossible to scale that almost perpendicular steep? What if those hand-hewn clefts in the rock fell short of reaching to the cave's entrance? The processes of time and the elements may have sealed or obliterated the shallow hand and toe holds. His blood ran cold. He ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... have managed commutations more to their own advantage, by enriching themselves, and beggaring, if Fame be not a liar, many an honest dissenter." It is fair to produce witnesses, is she a liar or not? The report is almost impossible. Commutations were contrived for roguish registers and proctors, and lay chancellors, but not ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... not know that you were Okuni-nushi-no-Mikoto. How kind you have been to me! It is impossible to believe that that unkind fellow who sent me to bathe in the sea is one of your brothers. I am quite sure that the Princess, whom your brothers have gone to seek, will refuse to be the bride of any of them, and will prefer you for your goodness of heart. I am quite sure that ...
— Japanese Fairy Tales • Yei Theodora Ozaki
... at the noise, and looking round the room, 'I wish somebody would marry Miggs. But that's impossible! I wonder whether there's any madman alive, who would ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... and rolled to such an extent that it was almost impossible to go up and down the hatchways carrying anything; for a chap wanted more hands than he possessed to hold on with, ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... their nature. They were the orchids of the summer canyons. They stood up everywhere star-like out of the green. It was impossible to prevent the mustangs treading them under foot. And as the canyon deepened, and many little springs added their tiny volume to the brook, every grassy bench was dotted with lilies, like a green ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... leg and put it in plaster of Paris. The two men rigged a sling which should keep the weight of the mare off the injured legs and support her body. With the help of two farm hands, Betty was put into this gear in a way which made it impossible for her to move enough to hurt the broken leg. A rest was provided for her head, and her equine comfort was in every way considered. When all was done, the farmer and the electrical engineer looked at each other with ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... greater, had this magnificent monument of mediaeval genius—probably of its kind as fine as any in the world—been capable of a conservative restoration: it is to be feared that neglect, the destroyer, and the restorer had amongst them rendered this task well-nigh impossible. ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of St. Paul - An Account of the Old and New Buildings with a Short Historical Sketch • Arthur Dimock
... this might be overcome. Her father's stern words had wounded it terribly, and she had experienced twinges of self-disgust. But another trait had become inwrought, by long habit, with every fibre of her soul—selfishness. It was almost impossible to give up her own way and wishes. Graydon Muir pleased her fancy, and she was bent on marrying him. Her father's assurance that she would bring him disappointment, not happiness, weighed little. Too many men had told her that she was essential to their happiness to permit qualms ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... convict who had absconded on the 5th, having been guilty of a robbery, returned into the camp almost starved. He had hoped to subsist in the woods, but found it impossible. One of the natives gave him a fish, and then made signs for him to go away. He said, that afterwards he joined a party of the natives, who would have burnt him, but that with some difficulty he made his escape; and he pretended to have ...
— The Voyage Of Governor Phillip To Botany Bay • Arthur Phillip
... impossible. Without warning, for no conceivable motive, in his youth, at the threshold of his career he chose to disappear from the world—-which is to say, the little ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... As he drew near he proved to be Weekes, the armorer. There was a burst of joy, for it was hoped his comrades were near at hand. His story, however, was one of disaster. He and his companions had found it impossible to govern their boat, having no rudder, and being beset by rapid and whirling currents and boisterous surges. After long struggling they had let her go at the mercy of the waves, tossing about, sometimes with her bow, sometimes with her broadside to the ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... inherent impulse in all living beings, including man, is the will to remain alive—the will, that is, to attain power over those forces which make life difficult or impossible. ...
— Mystic Isles of the South Seas. • Frederick O'Brien
... office realized how faultless, how rhythmic were the arpeggios and cadences that issued from those expertly puckered lips. There was about his performance an unerring precision. As you listened you felt that his ascent to the inevitable high note was a thing impossible of achievement. Up—up—up he would go, while you held your breath in suspense. And then he took the high note—took it easily, insouciantly—held it, trilled ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber
... broken, and in many streets tufted with weeds; its fences were dilapidated, its rich families had lost their possessions, and those who had not been driven away by their necessities were gazing aghast at a future to which it seemed impossible to adjust their ease-loving, slave-attended, luxurious habits of the past. Houses built of wood, after the Southern fashion, do not well withstand neglect and ill-fortune. Porticos and pillars and trellis-work which had been picturesque and imposing when they had been well cared for, and ...
— In Connection with the De Willoughby Claim • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... I have to say, you should have known my mother. To understand it, you should understand her. But that is quite impossible now, for there is a quiet spot over the hill, and past the church, and beside the little brook where the crimsoned mosses grow thick and wet and cool, from which I cannot call her. It is all I have left of her now. But after all, it is not of her ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... "Impossible!" exclaimed others. "See! The moon shines beneath the porch, and shows every part of it except in the narrow shade of that pillar. ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... of the queen of Scots, and it is even problematical how far she was really displeased at the occurrence. Except by imitating her perpetual celibacy,—a compliment to her envy and her example which could not in reason be expected,—it might seem impossible for the queen of Scots better to consult the views and wishes of her kinswoman than by uniting herself to Darnley;—a subject, and an English subject, a near relation both of her own and Elizabeth's, and a man on whom nature had bestowed not a single quality calculated to render him ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... it was in that fight that I received my wound. We were under fire in that fight about forty-eight hours, and were without food and with but little water. We had been cut off from our pack train, as the Spanish sharpshooters shot our mules as soon as they came anywhere near the lines, and it was impossible to move supplies. Very soon after the firing began our Colonel was killed, and the most of our other officers were killed or wounded, so that the greater part of that desperate battle was fought by some of the Ninth and Tenth Cavalry ...
— History of Negro Soldiers in the Spanish-American War, and Other Items of Interest • Edward A. Johnson
... beyond him—confounded him with pity, consternation, and stinging regret. He had loved two women—his mother and Allie—so well that he ought to love all women because they were of the same sex. Yet how impossible! Had these creatures any sex? Yet they were—at least many were—young, gay, pretty, wild, full of life. They had swift suppleness, smiles, flashing eyes, a look at once intent and yet vacant. But few onlookers would have noticed ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... apple-trees are often at a loss to know what to do with the windfalls. The apples come down on some days by the bushel, and it is impossible to use them all up for apple pie, puddings, or jelly. An excellent way to keep them for winter use is to dry them. It gives a little trouble, but one is well repaid for it, for the home-dried apples are superior in flavour to any bought apple-rings or pippins. Peel your apples, ...
— The Allinson Vegetarian Cookery Book • Thomas R. Allinson
... originally attended to. It will appear, I think, from the subsequent part of our inquiry, that there is no logical fallacy in this mode of proceeding; but we may see already that any other mode is rigorously impracticable: since it is impossible to frame any scientific method of induction, or test of the correctness of inductions, unless on the hypothesis that some inductions deserving of reliance have been ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... book, deserving of critical analysis impossible within our limit; brilliant, but not superficial; well considered, but not elaborated; constructed with the proverbial art that conceals, but yet allows itself to be enjoyed by readers to whom fine literary method is a keen ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... of Longley's body upon its discovery roused the entire settlement, but the Indians had vanished over the hills and across Bear river. The chief had gone home at sundown, and it was as impossible to find those who were on the bar that night, as to distinguish one grain of sand ...
— Down the Mother Lode • Vivia Hemphill
... terrible fire upon the road along which the women and children would have to pass, and who would have attacked with such fury along the whole line to be traversed, that it would have been next to impossible to ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty
... direction of harassing the enemy than the privateers. A very grave objection to the privateering system, however, was the fact that the promise of profit to sailors engaged in it was so great, that all adventurous men flocked into the service, so that it became almost impossible to maintain our army or to man our ships. I have already quoted George Washington's objections to the practise during the Revolution. During the War of 1812, some of our best frigates were compelled to sail half manned, while it is even declared ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... signed by the majority of the leading musicians of the age:—"We, the under-signed members of the musical profession, having carefully examined the Royal Pianofortes manufactured by MESSRS. D'ALMAINE & Co., have great pleasure in bearing testimony to their merits and capabilities. It appears to us impossible to produce instruments of the same size possessing a richer and finer tone, more elastic touch, or more equal temperament, while the elegance of their construction renders them a handsome ornament for the library, boudoir, or drawing-room. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 235, April 29, 1854 • Various
... could have the school at Hampton. He had seen the trustees, had agreed upon the price, and had even selected her a boarding-place near by. "I regret," said he, "that we live so far from the schoolhouse as to render it impossible for you to board with us. You might ride, I suppose, and I would cheerfully carry you every day; but, on the whole, I think you had ...
— Cousin Maude • Mary J. Holmes
... of making this poor tariff remunerative was by extreme rapidity of execution; and few men have ever painted so rapidly as Romney. But this rapid manner has its disadvantages. If habitually persisted in, it in time renders thorough finish impossible to the painter. An absolute necessity in Romney's early life, it became a distinct vice in his after works. To this were in part attributable the crowd of incomplete canvases the painter left behind him at his death, and the characteristic sketchiness traceable even in his ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... lawyer, Blackstone, says he went from church to church to hear noted London preachers, and it was impossible for him to tell from their discourses whether these luminaries were followers of Confucius, Mahomet, or Christ. George III. felt compelled to address a letter of expostulation to Archbishop Cornwallis for giving balls and routs at Lambeth Palace on Saturday nights, so that they ran ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... was before you went aroving in savage countries, and picked up all sorts of acquaintances, making friends with the most impossible folk. I should never be surprised to see you drive Shon McGann—and his wife, of course—and Pretty Pierre—with some other man's wife—up to the door in a dogcart; their clothes in a saddle-bag, or something less reputable, to stay a month. Duke, you have lost your decorum; ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the different Vedas, which they especially study. It is held that the ancient Rishis or saints, like the Jewish patriarchs, lived far beyond the ordinary span of existence, and hence had time to learn all the Vedas and their commentaries. But this was impossible for their shorter-lived descendants, and hence each Veda has been divided into a number of Shakhas or branches, and the ordinary Brahman only learns one Shakha of one Veda. Most Brahmans of the Central Provinces are either Rigvedis or Yajurvedis, ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell |
