"Impossible" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... party advanced the forest grew denser, the trees closer together. At last, when they began to fear that further progress would be impossible, they burst suddenly into a stretch of open country extending as far ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... good and hard!" cried Phil, dashing up behind the bull, and as quickly as it could be done he and the others piled some loose rocks against the tree stump, so that it would be next to impossible for the bull to ...
— Dave Porter and His Rivals - or, The Chums and Foes of Oak Hall • Edward Stratemeyer
... mowers, as they rested from using the scythe; mothers, as they busied themselves about the household—were victims to an enemy, who disappeared the moment a blow was struck." "Reason as we may, it is impossible not to read in such a fate much that we know not how to interpret; much of provocation to cruel deeds and deep resentment; much of apology for wrong and perfidy; much of doubt and misgiving as to the past; much of painful recollections; ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)
... she will manage her trains now going through the kitchen when it was almost impossible for her to get along ...
— Marguerite Verne • Agatha Armour
... before our public at a period when the growing spirit of eclecticism has prepared many ingenious and honest minds to listen to all new doctrines with a candor liable to degenerate into weakness. It is not impossible that the pretended evolution of great and mysterious virtues from infinitely attenuated atoms may have enticed a few over-refining philosophers, who have slid into a vague belief that matter subdivided grows less material, and approaches nearer to a spiritual nature as it requires a more ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... about the invocation then and there, but Dr Porhoet said it was impossible. They were all exhausted after the long journey, and it was necessary to get certain things together without which nothing could be done. In his heart he thought that a night's rest would bring Arthur to a more reasonable mind. When the light of day ...
— The Magician • Somerset Maugham
... It was soon found impossible to overtake him, even with mounted troops. The only course was to shepherd him into a fold from which he could not escape. The tracery on the map of his movements and of those of his chief scout Theron, intersected by the reticulations of ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... be no question here of destroying competition, as impossible as to destroy liberty; the problem is to find its equilibrium, I would willingly say its police. For every force, every form of spontaneity, whether individual or collective, must receive its determination: in this respect ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... at once," went on Crane. "So there's no doubt of its identity. Now, I submit that it would be impossible for Madame Parlato to have come by this in any natural way, ...
— The Come Back • Carolyn Wells
... in good years they shall always be abundantly satisfied, and that in bad years they shall escape the danger of perishing. After this he may urge them, and they will proceed to what is good." Christian workers, today, know well how all but impossible it is to get a man to live as a Christian, until he is given at least the chance ...
— Some Christian Convictions - A Practical Restatement in Terms of Present-Day Thinking • Henry Sloane Coffin
... a lovely relation. She was a desirable woman—ah, how desirable!—and must ever be: but to quarrel with his parents for the sake of a girl, were she Aphrodite herself, or one of the Muses or the Graces—that was impossible! There were thousands of pretty women in the world, but only one mother; and how often had his heart beat high and won another heart, taken all it had to give, and then easily and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... once my special instructor and my favorite companion! But accustomed as I had become to the forms of the Roman Church, and impressed as I was with the purity and excellence of many of its young members with whom I was acquainted, my early training rendered it impossible for me to accept the credentials which it offered me as authoritative. My friend and instructor had to set me down as a case of "invincible ignorance." This was the loop-hole through which he crept out of the prison-house of his creed, and was enabled to look upon me without the feeling ...
— A Mortal Antipathy • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... desires that people should believe it to be wisdom'); Liv. 1, 10, 7 dis visum nec irritam conditoris templi vocem esse ... ('the gods decided that the word of the founder of the shrine should not remain of no effect'). It would be difficult, if not impossible, to find a passage in a writer before silver Latin times where the best texts still exhibit anything like videtur eum facere for is videtur facere. H 534, 1, n. 1; Roby, 1353. — ALIQUID AD TE: 'some work dedicated to you'; so below, ...
— Cato Maior de Senectute • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... not be. Why! Dan Povey had actually once been Chairman of the Bursley Society for the Prosecution of Felons, that association for annual eating and drinking, whose members humorously called each other 'felons'! Impossible, monstrous, that an ex-chairman of the 'Felons' should ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... I have found it impossible to print more than a few of the following reviews complete. The writing of those days was, in almost every case, extremely prolix, and often irrelevant. It nearly always makes heavy reading in the originals. The principle of selection adopted is to ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... But it was impossible that men should everywhere rest satisfied with these utterances, for the age was a theological one. Hence the paradox of the suffering Messiah, the certainty of his glorification through the resurrection, the conviction of his ...
— History of Dogma, Volume 1 (of 7) • Adolph Harnack
... uncomfortably hot. It was never too hot in Egypt, for there was always a fresh wind. Here at first we have a following wind which makes it seem dead calm; there is a kind of clammy dampness in the air which makes it impossible to do anything requiring energy. The deck games of "bull" and quoits and even cricket, which have been carried on in such a lively way lately, fall off; no one ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
... including young friends of his children, neighbors, or visitors from distant places, illuminate the subject with such a wealth of memories, of old stories of past or present experiences, of humor, of suggestion, even of prophecy, as by its very wealth makes it impossible to give any taste of it.' The description is by one of his daughters; and she adds a touch which is inimitable in its fidelity and tenderness. 'He was not,' she says, 'a reassuring man for nervous people to live with, as those nights were exceptional on which he did not set ...
— De Quincey's Revolt of the Tartars • Thomas De Quincey
... which we had clambered was thickly overgrown with brambles, through which we soon discovered that it would have been impossible to force our way but for the scythe; and Jupiter, by direction of his master, proceeded to clear for us a path to the foot of an enormously tall tulip-tree, which stood, with some eight or ten oaks, upon the level, and far surpassed them all, ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... Prince to North Wales, and back again to his Colony, is the most difficult to be accounted for, in the whole Story: However, I apprehend, that this is not altogether impossible. ...
— An Enquiry into the Truth of the Tradition, Concerning the - Discovery of America, by Prince Madog ab Owen Gwynedd, about the Year, 1170 • John Williams
... appeared in Paris, on the Quai Voltaire, and in the nineteenth century; the time and place made sorcery impossible. The idol of French scepticism had died in the house just opposite, the disciple of Gay-Lussac and Arago, who had held the charlatanism of intellect in contempt. And yet the stranger submitted himself to the ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... investigations of thought, from those vivid intuitions that wait on imagination, from a good memory, which can live over again in circumstances that are changed, and from that intelligent possession of the whole of one's foregone life, which makes it impossible to ignore the power of any great emotion or passion merely because it is past. Where these qualities are there should be, for ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... self-possession. I glanced at his feet; they were small and well-booted. I looked into his face; it was not a handsome one; but he had magnetic eyes, of a lightish blue, and a clever, loose mouth. It is impossible to describe him,—just as impossible as it is for a man who was born a boor to attain the bearing of a gentleman; any attempt at it would prove a bungling matter, when compared with the original. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... the men he was dealing with; he knew that to save their own ends they would hesitate at nothing; he knew they had a poison like sugar to the taste and to the smell, impossible to discover in food—a poison that would kill slowly or quickly as the poisoner willed and would leave no trace behind; he knew the secret of the poisoned key that lay always on the pope's mantelpiece, ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Black Beard's position in a sloop of little draught of water, on a coast abounding with creeks, and remarkable for the number and intricacy of its shoals, with which he had made himself intimately acquainted, it was deemed impossible to approach him in vessels of any force. Two hired sloops were therefore manned from the Pearl and Lime frigates, in the Chesapeake, and put under the command of Lieutenant Maynard, with instructions to hunt down and destroy this ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 268, August 11, 1827 • Various
... be off," he said sharply. He was not an unkindly man, but this sort of thing was impossible. "Tell them to go to ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... vengeance. A wild suspicion occurred to me that 'Mr. Herbert' might be another name for Trewlove, and that Trewlove under that name was gaining a short start from justice. But no: William had alluded to Mr. Herbert as to a youth sowing his wild oats. Impossible to contemplate Trewlove under this guise! Where then did Trewlove come in? Was he, ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... she cannot go away! Here it is difficult, almost impossible, to guard her. She will read in our faces what has happened. The least word, the least glance will rouse her suspicion, and she will fancy all sorts of things. To-day she was surprised by the sudden arrival of the doctor. Pani Celina ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... second captain "provide" themselves with waist belts and primers, and the first with some other implements. But the handling of one of these great guns is about as technical as a surgical operation would be, and it would be quite impossible for the uninitiated to understand it, though it is every-day ...
— A Victorious Union - SERIES: The Blue and the Gray—Afloat • Oliver Optic
... to mark how it contrived to unite and to harmonise into one system nearly all the objects which the various philosophers of the upper world have placed before human hopes as the ideals of a Utopian future. It was a state in which war, with all its calamities, was deemed impossible,—a state in which the freedom of all and each was secured to the uttermost degree, without one of those animosities which make freedom in the upper world depend on the perpetual strife of hostile parties. Here the corruption which ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... opposite to St. Sanson, is a building of Norman times; but the only portion of it particularly calculated to recommend it to attention, is the arch figured in this plate. This arch exhibits two peculiarities, which it would be difficult, if not impossible, to parallel in Normandy; the ornamented shafts of the pillars, and the extraordinary width of the southern capital, which is more than double that of the column below. The same was also, in all probability, the case with the capital, now destroyed, on the opposite side ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman
... chirographist. To have deceived him with a disguised handwriting would have been utterly impossible, and none knew it better than Chick, ...
— With Links of Steel • Nicholas Carter
... alight, but Paul did not leave the car. Locke was in some quandary what to do. To attempt to enter the house without Paul's seeing him and raising the alarm would, he realized, be impossible. Therefore he waited for nearly half an hour before his patience was rewarded by seeing Balcom come out of the house, jump into the car, and drive ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... made is occupied by the needle. The result is the capability of such apparatus to work with an incredibly fine needle—indeed, so fine as to be no thicker than the incompressed thread itself. This would have been considered quite impossible of accomplishment by our earlier machine makers. The advantage thereby gained in stitching linen goods, and in sewing leather, where every puncture of the needle should be quite filled by the thread, is at once apparent. Indeed, a rubber or leather sack, stitched in this way, will ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 598, June 18, 1887 • Various
... know all that all the rest of them do, any more than any one man has all the earthly science known. Absolutely our only chance is to control that zone—it's the only thing they haven't got. Of course, it may be impossible, but I won't believe that, until I've exhausted a lot of possibilities. Dunark, can you spare a crew to build us a duplicate of that Fenachrone ship, besides those you are going ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... with the Principle which it is built upon; and secondly, that the profound Humility of the Offender, and his asking Pardon of the offended, are two main Points in the repairing of Honour, necessary postulata, without which those knowing Judges thought it impossible, that an Affront could be forgiven: If, I say, you'll consider these two Things, you'll see plainly, what Passion in Human Nature it is, which those Laws of Honour tally'd with, and likewise that it is true, what I have asserted of them, that instead of reproving, curbing, or diminishing the ...
— An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour, and the Usefulness of Christianity in War • Bernard Mandeville
... stood open and the sun made a great rectangle of light on the floor. It was very quiet—and lonely. The loneliness was new to both women and it hurt like a pain in their souls. It seemed impossible that nowhere on the Island were the men to whom ...
— Where the Sun Swings North • Barrett Willoughby
... moral corruptions and most detestable oppressions marked the rhythm in a majestic poem. The infinite vagaries of crime, the unspeakable ecstasies of blessedness, were equally wholesome as equally full of Law. At times it seemed impossible that any words could so mould themselves as to give distinctness to the thought which flashed through our minds. At times a representation corresponding to what Vannelle so eloquently uttered seemed embodied in every phase of opinion man had known. But, alas, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... was Responsible Government impossible for a colony; it would, in any case, {42} be a bad system for Nova Scotia, because it would be too democratic. A wise constitution must be, like that of Great Britain, composed of various elements. Such a mixed constitution Nova Scotia had. The governor contributed ...
— The Tribune of Nova Scotia - A Chronicle of Joseph Howe • W. L. (William Lawson) Grant
... a talk, so he came skating with us since she would not go to a confectioner's with him. She was certainly quite right not to go to a confectioner's. Of course I don't know what they talked about, but in the afternoon Dora cried frightfully, and Viktor never said good-bye to me; it's impossible that he can have forgotten, so either I must have been too far away at the time, or else Dora did not want him to; most likely the latter. I'm frantically sorry for him, for he is passionately in love with her. But she won't come to her senses until it is too late. ...
— A Young Girl's Diary • An Anonymous Young Girl
... Republicanism were somewhat undefined in their character; but amid all the doubts and distractions of a checkered, eventful political career he was known for his absolute integrity, his clear head, and his steady nerve. His very pride made it impossible for him to condescend to any ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... closed his eyes again, impelled to this by the monstrous ache in his head. Lying thus, he attempted to think, to locate himself in time and space. But between the pain in his head and the confusion in his mind, he found coherent thought impossible. ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... people, is not that picture one to touch your hearts? You think in your youthful flush of power and interest, that life will go on for ever as it has begun, and it is all but impossible to get you to look forward to what life must come to. I want you to learn from that picture of a calm, bright old age, a lesson or two of what life will certainly do to you, that I may found on these certainties the old, old appeal, 'Remember ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... It is impossible for us to conceive, in these days of abundance and security, the rapture which this signal victory excited through all the dwellings on the banks of the Connecticut. One half of the effective men of the colony had gone forth to the battle, while the rest remained at home, armed, and sleeplessly ...
— King Philip - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... common for the future was impossible. The fraction of the peasants that pronounced itself for the Constituent Assembly continued to sit apart, named its Executive Committee, and decided to continue the fight resolutely. The Bolsheviki, on their part, took ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo
... in the pinnace left at Jamestown by Captain Newport, of combining with the Spaniards for the destruction of the colony. Wingfield, when he returned to England, made a vigorous defense of his conduct, but it is now impossible to determine whether or not he was justly accused. After his expulsion from office, he was summoned before the court by the remnant of the Council to answer these numerous charges. It might have gone hard with him, had he not demanded a hearing before the King. ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... striven to make her little sister and her brother believe that the new mamma was all that she should be. She had been conscientiously earnest in her effort to like in her new role the ex-governess, whom she had found it impossible to believe in before. The effort was a failure, due quite as much to the jealous and suspicious nature of the lady of the house as to Miss Sanford's unconquerable prejudice. Pretences for rupture were easily found; the rupture came; Mrs. Sanford did all the talking, Miss Sanford ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King
... the individual finds himself confronted by the despotism of collective opinion: it is impossible for him to act with safety except as one unit of a combination. The first kind of pressure deprives him of moral freedom, exacting unlimited obedience to orders; the second kind of pressure denies him the right to use his best faculties in the best way for his own advantage (that is to say, denies ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... Oh, nonsense! Since the escape of Lavalette such a thing is impossible! They have become extremely particular at the gates of the prison, and they were never particularly accommodating. M. Jules will have to take his dose you see; he will be a martyr. I shall ...
— Pamela Giraud • Honore de Balzac
... Louis XIV. had sent in spite of her, in spite of what she had said of Tesse, who, by his own account, had failed the first time before Barcelona only because he had been prevented from commencing the siege soon enough. Her influence, it was impossible to longer doubt, had been greatly lessened at Versailles, if it ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... and by and by Sir W. Batten did speak, knowing himself guilty, and did confess, that being pressed by the Council he did say what he did, that he was accounted a fanatique; but did not know that at that time he had been appointed by his Royal Highness. To which the Duke [replied] that it was impossible but he must know that he had appointed him; and so it did appear that the Duke did mean all this while Sir W. Batten. So by and by we parted, and Mr. Coventry did privately tell me that he did this day take this occasion to mention the business to give the Duke an opportunity ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... wax-figure to wear its own hair? Men of flesh and blood, now-a-days, don't know any better; but the man of wax, Sir, possesses a truer taste, and always consults the PERRUQUIER!' The relator says it would be impossible to convey an adequate idea of the superb manner in which the last word was uttered; the full round tone, and the tonsorial flourish of the right hand, as if it still grasped the magic brush and scissors. . . . THE reader will have gathered from an incidental allusion in an article ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... condemning me to three months of exquisite torture.... I have had my answer.... Farewell, my gracious lady ... not mine, alas! but another man's ... and may Heaven grant that he love you well ... not as I do, for that were impossible...." ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... explain, rather languidly, that it was impossible; but—"I want it," insisted the ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... these four kinds of matter-of-fact or assertion, must be added a fifth, Resemblance. This was a species of attribute which we found it impossible to analyze; for which no fundamentum, distinct from the objects themselves, could be assigned. Besides propositions which assert a sequence or co-existence between two phenomena, there are therefore ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... wanted back the violated constitution obtained for them by the English in 1812, and would have nothing to do with that offered them from Naples. In every one of the struggles between Sicily and Naples, it is impossible to refuse sympathy to the islanders, who, in the pride of their splendid independent history, deemed themselves the victims of an inferior race; but it is equally impossible to ignore that, politically, they were in the wrong. In union, and in union alone, lay ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... old friends appear with local variations, many of the others have been repeated to me by people who do not know whence they come, and, indeed, in many cases it has been impossible to discover ...
— Rhymes Old and New • M.E.S. Wright
... to take it up was, in the East, St. Gregory Nazianzen, who showed that to sail beyond Gibraltar was impossible; and, in the West, Lactantius, who asked: "Is there any one so senseless as to believe that there are men whose footsteps are higher than their heads?... that the crops and trees grow downward?... that the rains and snow and hail fall upward toward the earth?... ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... to question her further about the sight of trailmen on the bridge, but decided against it. We had been spared attack on the rapids, so it wasn't impossible that a group, not hostile, was simply watching our progress—maybe even aware that we were ...
— The Planet Savers • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... well say now, indeed, that the latter end of Job was better than the beginning. It is impossible to express the flutterings of my very heart when I found all my wealth about me; for as the Brazil ships come all in fleets, the same ships which brought my letters brought my goods: and the effects were ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe Of York, Mariner, Vol. 1 • Daniel Defoe
... appreciated it to its full value. Since he had given her the dress she had wished more than ever to become friendly with him. But he was so moody and so given up to his accounts and the hoarding of wealth, that it seemed next to impossible for the girl to get near Uncle Jabez. Besides, he had never recovered from the bitterness engendered by the loss of the cash-box. A heavy scowl rested upon his brow all the time. Sometimes he sighed and shook his head when he sat idle at the table, or on the porch in the evening; ...
— Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill • Alice B. Emerson
... makes. I confess, in the opinions men have, and firmly stick to in the world, their assent is not always from an actual view of the reasons that at first prevailed with them: it being in many cases almost impossible, and in most, very hard, even for those who have very admirable memories, to retain all the proofs which, upon a due examination, made them embrace that side of the question. It suffices that they have once with care and fairness sifted ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume II. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books III. and IV. (of 4) • John Locke
... pronounced his sentence upon the young enthusiast. Neither was a man easily to be put down; but whereas the prophet's followers were wholly unmoved by all the attacks upon them, the Quakers found the Muggletonians extremely troublesome, and it is impossible to resist the conviction that large numbers of the Quakers were won over to join the opposite camp. Nay, it looks as if Muggleton had really some strange power over the weaker vessels among the Quakers, and had ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... of the basins and the height and diameter of the jets were precisely similar to those I have already described. All these sixteen springs are so near each other that they do not even occupy two sides of the rock. It is impossible to form an idea of the magnificence of this singular spectacle, which becomes really fairy-like, if the beholder have the courage to climb the rock itself, a proceeding of some danger, though of little difficulty. The upper stratum of the rock is soft and warm, presenting almost the appearance ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer
... when I reached home, and I spent rather a dreary evening: it was impossible to settle to my book. I could not help remembering how I had called this a new day. As I prayed for Mr. Hamilton that night, I could not help shedding a few tears; he was so strong, all the power was in his hands; he might have saved me from this trouble. ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... circumstances and environment. There could be no more pessimist conception of man than this one which devotes him to the Devil from the instant of his birth, and pictures him as struggling against himself until the instant of his death. An impossible and absurd struggle, for it is a question of changing man in his entirety, killing the flesh, killing reason, destroying some guilty energy in each and every passion, and of pursuing the Devil to the very depths of the waters, mountains and forests, there to annihilate him with the very sap ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... had seen, but I believe it did him good to get things off his chest, so I listened. The thing he found the most ghastly was the fact that when a trench has been taken or lost the wounded and dying and dead are left out in the open. He says that firing never ceases, and it is impossible to reach these men, who die of starvation within ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... union, Jonathan, because you want to put a check upon the greed of the employers. But you never can expect through the union to get all that rightfully belongs to you. It is impossible to expect that the union will ever do away with the terrible inequalities in the distribution of wealth. The union is a good thing, and the workers ought to be much more thoroughly organized into unions than they are. Socialists are always on the side of the union when it is engaged in an honest ...
— The Common Sense of Socialism - A Series of Letters Addressed to Jonathan Edwards, of Pittsburg • John Spargo
... counting. Setting down the number in a memorandum book, he commands in a squeaky feminine voice, "Break ranks," which most of us have already done. Much speculation arose as to the nature and status of this singular being. His face was smooth and childlike, yet dry and wrinkled, so that it was impossible to tell whether he was fifteen or fifty. A committee was said to have waited upon him, and with much apparent deference asked him as to his nativity, his age, and whether he was human or divine, married or single, man or ...
— Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons - A Personal Experience, 1864-5 • Homer B. Sprague
... It is all but impossible for the modern reader to appreciate the audacity of Cain, or to realize the alarm and indignation which it aroused by its appearance. Byron knew that he was raising a tempest, and pleads, in his Preface, "that with regard to the language of Lucifer, it was difficult for me to make him ...
— The Works of Lord Byron - Poetry, Volume V. • Lord Byron
... vernacular Japanese agree, that their Butsu-d[o] or Buddhism was imported from Korea. In the sixteenth year of Keitai, the twenty-seventh Mikado (of the list made centuries after, and the eleventh after the impossible line of the long-lived or mythical Mikados), A.D. 534, it is said that a man from China brought with him an image of Buddha into Yamato, and setting it up in a thatched cottage worshipped it. The people called ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... not a simple Preface but an apology, and a very brilliant and convincing one at that. Recognising this fully, and feeling quite incompetent to write such a masterpiece, I have asked several literary friends to write one for me, but they have kindly but firmly declined, stating that it is impossible satisfactorily to apologise for my liberties with Lindley Murray and the Queen's English. I am therefore left to make a feeble apology for this book myself, and all I can personally say is that it would have been much worse than it is had it not been for Dr. ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... as soon as the moat was dry, but found it impossible to penetrate the thick walls and strong iron doors ...
— The Pink Fairy Book • Various
... Carthage. The general and his three companions, who were riding in the rear of the column, drew in their horses and sat for a while surveying the scene. It was one which, familiar as it might be, it was impossible to survey without the deepest feeling ...
— The Young Carthaginian - A Story of The Times of Hannibal • G.A. Henty
... his tail, which he liked to dip in water, but he was not fond of plunging in his whole body. If his tail was kept moist, he never cared to drink, but, if it was kept dry, it became hot, and the animal appeared distressed, and would drink a great deal. It is not impossible that the tail may have the power of absorbing water, like the skin of frogs, though it must be owned that the scaly integument which invests that member has not much of the character which generally belongs ...
— Stories about the Instinct of Animals, Their Characters, and Habits • Thomas Bingley
... any on board. Had our fine little ship drawn but three feet, she could have run up and down the river at any time of the year with the greatest ease, but as it was, having once passed up over a few shallow banks, it was impossible to take her down again until the river rose in December. She could go up over a bank, but not come down over it, as a heap of sand always formed instantly astern, while the current washed it away from under ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... thought me very rude and—and impossible the other day," she stammered. "And please let me take this opportunity right now to apologize for my daughter. She was overwrought and excited. She didn't know what she was saying or doing, I'm sure. She was ashamed, ...
— Miss Billy's Decision • Eleanor H. Porter
... "It was impossible for me to come sooner," the cure explained, "but I am here at last, and I picked up the doctor in the village." They sat at the bedside and talked in low tones. The doctor made a fresh examination, but it was the cure who told the result of it. "There is little ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon
... second day, the Bee-man said to himself: "There is one being here toward whom I feel very much drawn, and that is the Lord of the Domain. I cannot feel certain that I was once like him, but it would be a very fine thing if it were so; and it seems impossible for me to be drawn toward any other being in the domain when I look upon him, so handsome, rich, and powerful. But I must observe him more closely, and feel more sure of the matter, before applying to the sorcerers to change me back into a lord of ...
— The Bee-Man of Orn and Other Fanciful Tales • Frank R. Stockton
... elements of hygiene are unknown, and cleanly and decent living is the first and hardest lesson to be learned. Others are orphans, waifs, and strays cast up from the currents of village life. Uncared for, undernourished, with memories of a tragic childhood behind them, it is sometimes an impossible task to turn these little, old women back into normal children. But the largest number are children of teachers and catechists, pastors, and even college professors, who come from middle class homes, with a greater or less collection of Christian habits and ideals. ...
— Lighted to Lighten: The Hope of India • Alice B. Van Doren
... that "God is Love;" and if He loves us, there is no difficulty in believing that He feels all this interest in us. Do not judge Him by earthly Kings and Potentates. These are Giants who cannot see carraway seeds. We do not blame them, for it is impossible they should be interested for every body. But very very different is both the power and the feeling of ...
— The Fairy Godmothers and Other Tales • Mrs. Alfred Gatty
... to himself, after waiting with exemplary patience for nearly an hour after Mr. Gobler had left the drawing-room. He listened for a few moments; the house was perfectly quiet; he extinguished his rushlight, and opened his bedroom door. The staircase was so dark that it was impossible ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... "No. Impossible. No preacher on Cote Blanche Bay or on our boat. I've got Aunt Lucinda Daniver along, to take care of the proprieties. If I should leave it to her, I never would ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... church, and in fellowship, before their scrupling meats and days, because that is an act of grown persons at years of discretion; and therefore the receiving is judged by them to be only into mutual affection, for it is impossible for them to hold their opinion, and judge otherwise of the text; for in baptism, they judge infants should be received into church fellowship; and then scrupling meats and days must needs be after joining. Their judgments ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... missions, churches, museums, the sewers, libraries, went through the galleries of the Louvre—milds and milds of beauty and art, as impossible to describe as to count the leaves in Josiah's sugar-bush or the slate stuns in the Jonesville creek, and as numerous as if every one of them leaves and slate stuns wuz turned into a glorious picter or statute ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... 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 to be done? Since nobody brings ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... old conceptions assume the responsibility for the course which you have taken, a course which departs widely from the truth, from the traditional policy of that older Greek Government, which realized that it is impossible to look for any really successful Greek policy which runs counter to the power ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... that, as the result of a disagreement, M. de Beauvallon has provoked M. Dujarier in a fashion that makes it impossible for him to refuse an encounter. We ourselves have done all we can to reconcile these gentlemen; and it is only at M. de Beauvallon's urgent demand that we ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... was a busy time, but in the intervals between sitting down before staff officers, interviewing possible—and impossible—servants, and trying horses, I contrived to see a little of the Cape Town life in ...
— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young
... the attack began at the same hour and it was impossible for the enemy to shift his troops from one quarter to another, as our attacks were being pressed equally ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... for their horses, and laughed in the face of the landlord when he offered his bill, telling him they should pay as they came back. The English, they say, have always paid honorably, and upon these they indemnify themselves. It is impossible to marchander, for if {p.056} you object, the poor landlady begins to cry, and tells you she will accept whatever your lordship pleases, but that she is almost ruined and bankrupt, ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... change their form temporarily or permanently by the action of mechanical force. This distinction only corresponds, however, in reality, to a difference in the value of certain coefficients. It is impossible to discover by this means any absolute characteristic which establishes a separation between the two classes. Modern researches prove this clearly. It is not without use, in order to well understand them, ...
— The New Physics and Its Evolution • Lucien Poincare
... would be—unless she halted here—holding up her hand for Eben's ring, and at the thought a sickness swept over her. It was impossible. Instead of victory it was, after all, an abject and hideous surrender. She could not face it and all that ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... leaned back in his chair a smile of supreme satisfaction lighted up his face. He could now carry out a scheme of color and massing of figures which had been in his mind for years, but which had heretofore been impossible owing to the limited area covered by the canvases of his former orders. This space would give him all the room he needed. The subject was to be an incident in the life of Rochambeau, just before the siege of Yorktown. Gregg had been selected on account of ...
— Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman • F. Hopkinson Smith
... front and opened the gate, then dropped behind to close it. Sheldon knew that it was Hughie Drummond who lay in the stretcher, and a mist came before his eyes. He felt an overwhelming desire to die. The disappointment was too great. In his own state of terrible weakness he felt that it was impossible to go on with his task of holding Berande plantation tight- gripped in his fist. Then the will of him flamed up again, and he directed the blacks to lay the stretcher beside him on the floor. Hughie Drummond, whom he had last seen in health, was ...
— Adventure • Jack London
... suffered his earthly temple to be profaned; had even promulgated in person severe ordinances to preserve its sanctuary inviolate. How much more to him was that temple, that tabernacle built by no human hands, in which he had condescended to dwell. Nothing was impossible to God; it lay, therefore, in his power to cause his Mother to come absolutely pure and immaculate into the world: being in his power, could any earnest worshipper of the Virgin doubt for a moment that for one so favoured it would not ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson
... her relations with 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
... on this mission, but never returned. In all probability, they were murdered by the Apaches Indians; although it is not impossible that, tired of our simple and monotonous life, they deserted us to establish themselves in the distant cities ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... letter was impossible. Walters might have left the city; even if he had not, there was a method in his madness which Flint knew he could not circumvent. He could not lose such a chance of crushing Mortimer as presented itself; and yet to attempt it while Walters ...
— Daisy's Necklace - And What Came of It • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... young Roger Ingleton, at that time a mere boy, but retained no distinct memory of him. At the time of the quarrel between father and son he had been abroad, and the news of the lad's death had been formally communicated as a matter beyond question. Recognition, as far as he was concerned, was impossible. ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed
... had left, Lucia returned to the bed and sat down. She did not have any idea what time it was, and she knew that it would be impossible to leave Beppi until he was quiet. She hardly touched the tempting tray that Amelie brought her, and her voice trembled as she asked ...
— Lucia Rudini - Somewhere in Italy • Martha Trent
... of the Golden Rule is found expressed in various ways in the writings of Confucius. A literal interpretation of the Chinese language is quite impossible, as the Chinese have single signs or symbols that express a complete idea. To state the same matter, we often ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard
... they sat eating their mid-day meal alone one day—the mother being, as we have said, a widow, and Charlie an only child—"what do you think of doing, now that you have left school? for you know my income renders it impossible that I should ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... written impartially, if only from the narrowest motives. Without abating a jot from one's devotion to his country and flag, I think a history can be made just enough to warrant its being received as an authority equally among Americans and Englishmen. I have endeavored to supply such a work. It is impossible that errors, both of fact and opinion, should not have crept into it; and although I have sought to make it in character as non-partisan as possible, these errors will probably be in favor of ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... therefore not within the competency of the judiciary to declare void; that however enlightened and patriotic they might suppose from past experience the members of Congress might be, and however largely partaking, in the general, of the liberal feelings of the people, it was impossible to expect that bodies so constituted should not sometimes be controlled by local interests and sectional feelings. It was proper, therefore, to provide some umpire from whose situation and mode of appointment more independence and freedom from such influences ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... that I can reflect quietly, now that my spirit has grown calm again, now that months have slipped by since this strange and supernatural meeting, what am I to think? what am I to believe? I must conclude that it was impossible that our senses had been deceived, that our eyes did not see what we supposed they saw. No human being lives in this subterranean world; no generation of men dwells in those inferior caverns of the globe, unknown to ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne
... content. He held her, almost roughly, for several moments, yet his lips were pressed to hers with a tenderness almost indescribable. No one of the little group moved. Wrayson felt simply that events, impossible for him to understand, had marched too quickly for him. He stood like a man in a dream, whose limbs are rigid, whose brain alone is working. And the others, too, seemed to have become part of a silent and wonderful tableau. ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... rest did to express our joy under the circumstances it would be impossible to tell; but I'm pretty sure we were quite as extravagant in our actions and demeanour as the negro,—if not so hearty in our recognition of the all-wise Providence that had sent ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... impossible for little Mary to sit still when these heavenly glimpses presented themselves. Her cheeks burned, her eyes kindled; her very limbs trembled with suppressed impatience; but she dared not lean forward, and could only obtain tantalizing ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... changed distance from the Eye of the Observer; or from its various site and position in respect of him, whereby the angle of Vision is changed; or from the increase or diminution of the bulk of the lucid body it self: and having also demonstrated it impossible, that this Star should move in a Circle, or in an Ellipsis; and proved it improbable that it should move in a Strait Line, he concludes, that there can be no other genuin, or at least, no other more probable cause ...
— Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society - Vol 1 - 1666 • Various
... rendered any such interview as the lawyer desired a total impossibility. If she rallied from her present prostration, Miss Garth should be at once informed of the improvement. In the meantime, the answer to Mr. Pendril might be conveyed in one word—Impossible. ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... had grown accustomed to the gruesome sights of war, that I was able to eat my meals in a place where rags saturated in human blood were lying on the floor in front of me. Two years before it would have been impossible. The stretcher bearers were doing noble work. When each case had been attended to, they were called out of the back cellar and entrusted with their burden, which they had to carry for more than a mile over those dangerous fields to ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... which we grow up. My old granny has drawn deeper furrows through my young soul than all my teachers and preachers put together. I am not going to add a chapter to that most unsatisfactory of all studies, child-psychology. It is an impossible subject. The victim—the child—cannot be interrogated till it is too late. The influences that work on the child's senses and mind cannot be determined; they are too many, and too intangible. The observers of babies, ...
— My Autobiography - A Fragment • F. Max Mueller
... become to them all that she burst into tears and appealed to be allowed to remain. The matter, however, had been decided by the Council of the Order, therefore to stay was impossible. The only hope that the Mother Superior held out was that she might come back to Paris at frequent intervals as ...
— The White Lie • William Le Queux
... a shepherd should see his sheep daily; he may not see a third of his flocks for months, unless he wishes to discover their actual whereabouts; he has only to assure himself that they have not left the run, and it is practically impossible for them to do so without leaving their footprints to ...
— Five Years in New Zealand - 1859 to 1864 • Robert B. Booth
... with folded hands, 'does me good. It does my daughters good. We thank you for assembling here. We are grateful to you with our whole hearts. It is a blessed distinction that you have conferred upon us, and believe me'—it is impossible to conceive how he smiled here—'we shall not ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... questions had been asked, my host said, "I want to ask you one more question." Supposing that this question would be so difficult that it would be impossible for me to answer, I called on God more vehemently than ever. Then came the question: "If you should die now, without a moment's warning, do you know that you are ready?" I was agreeably surprised. That was an easy question to ...
— Trials and Triumphs of Faith • Mary Cole
... that I love—I adore you!" he went on tenderly. "I am madly longing to be for you the most passionate lover a woman ever had. It is only for your sake and for honor and our future happiness that I restrain myself now. You see I am not an Englishman who can accept half-measures. Do not make it impossible for me, sweet love!" ...
— The Point of View • Elinor Glyn
... coat-armure, Embroidered wondrously rich, As though there were *naught y-lich;* *nothing like it* But naught will I, so may I thrive, *Be aboute to descrive* *concern myself with describing* All these armes that there were, That they thus on their coates bare, For it to me were impossible; Men might make of them a bible Twenty foote thick, I trow. For, certain, whoso coulde know Might there all the armes see'n Of famous folk that have been In Afric', Europe, and Asie, Since ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... least possibly be transmitted to offspring born after the modifications have taken place. If, however, the germ-cells are independent of the rest of the body, and only stored within it for safe-keeping like a deed-box in the vaults of a bank, it would seem impossible for any environmental influence, whether for good or ill, to take effect on the offspring. This controversy on the heritability of 'acquired characters' was one of the most important towards the end of last century, and although the majority of biologists now follow Weismann in so ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... It is impossible to describe such scenes. Those who have never known them, must deem them high-wrought and extravagant those who have, cold and imperfect. It is like trying to paint chain-lightning, or the coruscations of the aurora borealis. I thought not how he came. What cared I, when he was ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... easy slidin'; but the first feller I met was a useless sort of a cuss what had been punchin' cows at the Diamond Dot the time the Prophy Gang tried to clean it out, an' he has to tell 'em who I am, an' they had all heard about me an' Bill Andrews; so 'at it was purt' nigh impossible for me to hold out. I apologized for not drinkin', an' they let me off; but the old Diamond Dot hand said he was broke, an' wanted me to shove him a ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... I told him it was only his fatigue that I objected to; and indeed he was glad enough to take Dora's now vacated place on the great sofa, while we talked of Viola. Writing to her had been, of course, impossible for him, and he had only had two short notes from her, so meaningless that I thought she wrote them fearing to disturb him while he was ill; but he muttered an ominous line from Locksley Hall, vituperated Piggy, and confessed that his ground for doing so ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... returned, loaded with spoils and crowned with glory, into his own country.[***] The disorders which at that time prevailed in England, from the refractory behavior of the constable and mareschal, made it impossible to collect an army sufficient to resist the enemy, and exposed the nation ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... pirates are addicted to the excessive use of opium; but the effects of it are by no means so deleterious or so strongly marked as has been represented; and it must likewise be remembered that they are in other respects dissolute and debauched. Among the Chinese it would be difficult—nay, impossible—to detect the smokers of the drug. Here and there you may see an emaciated man; but, out of a body of five hundred, some are usually emaciated and unhealthy. I do not mean to deny the bad effects of opium; ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... describe exhibited itself; but it was by no means confined to those who were known to have so suffered. Many, perhaps, most of the children affected, were free from any apparent ailment; although it is by no means impossible that the little, uncomplaining subjects were, at the time, labouring under what has been called "febricula" ...
— North American Medical and Surgical Journal, Vol. 2, No. 3, July, 1826 • Various
... moment, he cared little for such sympathy, at least, as he could command. His pride and ambition, heretofore, had led him to despise and undervalue the easy of attainment. He was always grasping after the impossible. The fame which he had lost for ever, grew doubly attractive to his mind's eye from the knowledge of this fact. The society, which had expelled him from its circle and its privileges, was an Eden in his imagination, simply on that account. ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... have been given against shipping off criminals to be pests to other people; this system has been already tried, and failed to a large extent, although it certainly had redeeming features. Looking at the matter all round, it seems utterly impossible to devise a convict system which shall meet fairly and justly all cases. Could some system be set in operation which should afford opportunity for the thoughtless and unwary criminal, who has heedlessly fallen into temptation, to retrace his steps and attain ...
— Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman
... home. Her mother, to whom she was warmly attached, was said to be dying, and she wished her last few days to be spent with her daughter. At the same time Lady Earle wrote to say that her husband was so ill that it was impossible for her to look for any lady to supply Mrs. Vyvian's place. The consequence was that, for the first time in their lives, the young girls were left for a few weeks without a companion and ...
— Dora Thorne • Charlotte M. Braeme
... that he should recognize me. 2. It is impossible that they should understand. 3. It was not possible that they should see me. 4. It will be a marvel should he see his daughters. 5. It is impossible that we should stay in the place. 6. It was impossible for them to stay in Cadiz. 7. Is it a wonder that he should not set ...
— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon
... the brave man does not act for the sake of the good of his habit. For in matters of action the end, though first in intention, is last in execution. Now the act of fortitude, in the order of execution, follows the habit of fortitude. Therefore it is impossible for the brave man to act for the sake of the good of ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... paid but eight cuartos? Impossible!" said the alcalde, hoping to change the course of ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... transmitting the supply of solar energy on which all terrestrial activity depends. But on the modern theory, which includes the play of electrical phenomena as a function of the aether, there are other considerations which show that this number 10-2 is really an enormous overestimate; and it is not impossible that the co-efficient of ultimate inertia of the aether is greater than the co-efficient of inertia (of different kind) of any ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... Andrew had come to Avignon upon the Pope's summons to lay this matter of her alleged marriage before him in person. When they reached the town they found it already in the grip of the great plague, and that to see his Holiness was almost impossible, since he had shut himself up in his palace and would admit no one. Yet an interview was promised through Sir Andrew's high-placed friends, only then the sickness struck Eve and she could not go, nor was Sir Andrew allowed to do so, since he was ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard
... be no doubt that it was of very ancient date in the English Church, and that it has been an unbroken custom to this day, when the practice is decidedly on the increase, as may be judged from the many collections of ancient carols, and of modern ones as well. It would be impossible for me to give anything like a representative collection of Christmas carols, because of space, but I venture to reproduce a few old ones, and first, perhaps the oldest we have, an Anglo-Norman carol, which is in the British Museum, and with it I give Douce's very free translation. It will be ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... interest into her life that she forgot everything else for the moment; and, besides, Irene was exceedingly strong, and although she was much slimmer and not so tall as Rosamund, she dragged her down the path with a power that it was almost impossible to resist. ...
— A Modern Tomboy - A Story for Girls • L. T. Meade
... the man, he had vanished in the forest. He had made his escape. Where? in what direction? into what thicket? Impossible to guess. ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo |
