"Possibility" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... growth chiefly to that active striving of the will, that encounter with difficulty, which we call effort; and it is astonishing to find how often results apparently impracticable are thus made possible. An intense anticipation itself transforms possibility into reality; our desires being often but the precursors of the things which we are capable of performing. On the contrary, the timid and hesitating find everything impossible, chiefly because it seems so. It is related of a young French officer, that ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... some people who, furious themselves at opposition, cannot understand the possibility of others being equally firm and decided in a gentle manner. Lady Juliana was one of those who always expect to carry their point by a raised voice and sparkling eyes; and it was with difficulty Mary, with her timid air and gentle accents, could convince her that she was determined to judge for ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... if I didn't help this young fellow, the greedy town would suck him down. I knew through what trifling circumstances the army of tramps is recruited, and there seemed every possibility of Prince Shakro drifting into this respectable, but not respected class. I felt a wish to help him. My earnings were not sufficient to buy him a ticket to Batoum, so I visited some of the railway offices, and begged a free ticket for him. I produced weighty arguments in favor ...
— Creatures That Once Were Men • Maxim Gorky
... resources, skilled labor force, and modern capital plant, however, Canada will enjoy better economic prospects in the future. The continuing constitutional impasse between English- and French-speaking areas is raising the possibility of a split in the confederation, making ...
— The 1997 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... possibility of her telling was of more moment. The younger generation of men announced that they had applied for front seats at the telling, while many of the older generation of men joked hollowly about the ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... she would never see Severi again, and she judged that the surest way of abiding by her resolution was to join the mission to the Far East and leave Italy for ever. Having already thought of taking the step merely in order to get away from the possibility of hating a person who had wronged her and robbed her, it seemed indeed her duty to take it now for this much stronger reason. Since she could still be weak, her first and greatest duty was to put herself ...
— The White Sister • F. Marion Crawford
... the blade carefully, shut it, and put the knife back in his pocket. Nevertheless, he was worried in his mind. For what Yeager had told him changed wholly the problem before him. It suggested a possibility, even a probability, very distasteful to him. He was in trouble himself, and before he was through he expected to get others into deep water, too. But not Phyllis Sanderson—surely not this impulsive girl with the blue-black hair and dark, scornful eyes. ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... The character-drawing impressed me less favourably. The author, I should say, finds it rather difficult to understand the ordinary good or indifferent fellow with his qualities and their defects. I doubt the possibility of such a snake in the grass as Lieutenant Seymour carrying on without getting kicked. Nor do I think that that simple soldier man, Fortescue, V.C., would have so tamely accepted Dugdale's betrayal to the woman ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 18, 1919 • Various
... of his argument, but was firm in her determination to retain her hold of her money, and so they parted, not in anger, for Mr. Mulready altogether disclaimed the possibility of his being vexed, but with the sense that something like a barrier had sprung up ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty
... president of the O. A. C., and Western representative of the syndicate that owned the big mine and stamp mill to the south of town. It was the mine that had made the straggling settlement of Ophir a possibility. ...
— Frank Merriwell, Junior's, Golden Trail - or, The Fugitive Professor • Burt L. Standish
... that subsequently happened, took place in the citadel itself. But of this we have no positive information. Indeed the silence of the chronicles as to the topography of Canossa is peculiarly unfortunate for lovers of the picturesque in historic detail, now that there is no possibility of tracing the outlines of the ancient building. Had the author of the 'Vita Mathildis' (Muratori, vol. v.) foreseen that his beloved Canossa would one day be nothing but a mass of native rock, he would undoubtedly have been more ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... between the new, spiritualised love and the older, sexual, instinct created that dualism so characteristic of the whole mediaeval period. Sexuality and love were felt as two inimical forces, the fusion of which was beyond the range of possibility. While on the one hand woman was worshipped as a divine being, before whom all desire must be silenced, she was on the other hand stigmatised as the devil's tool, a power which turned men away from his higher mission and jeopardised the salvation of his soul. Wagner portrayed ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... considering what we had better do," said Captain Rudstone, "and we want your opinion, Carew. If we stick to the house it means death for all of us by suffocation or by flames. If we sally out there is a possibility that one or more of us may ...
— The Cryptogram - A Story of Northwest Canada • William Murray Graydon
... breath. A familiar anecdote is never out of place: An English captain, anxious to conciliate a savage king, sent him on shore, for his own royal wear, an entire dress suit. His majesty was graciously pleased to accept the gift, and as it never occurred to the royal mind that he could, by any possibility, wear all the things himself, with kingly generosity he distributed what he did not want amongst his Court. This done, he sent for the donor to thank him in person. As the captain walked up the beach, his majesty advanced to meet him, looking every inch a king in the sober dignity ...
— Obiter Dicta • Augustine Birrell
... Jesus, the greater their resistance to new ideas. Catholics are more reluctant to join progressive movements than Modernists and Modernists than Evolutionists. Religious people are apt to be afraid of the new world; they doubt the possibility of eliminating war, poverty and injustice—customs as deeply rooted in the social world as belief in Jesus is in the religious world. If the chief reactionary bulwark of the past is abandoned, there will be greater possibility ...
— The Mistakes of Jesus • William Floyd
... of land. They hated the "new men" who were taking their places at the council-board; and they revolted against the new order which cut them off from useful sources of revenue, from unchecked plunder, from fines at will in their courts of hundred and manor, from the possibility of returning fancy accounts, and of profitable "farming" of the shires; they were jealous of the clergy, who played so great a part in the administration, and who threatened to surpass them in the greatness of their wealth, ...
— Henry the Second • Mrs. J. R. Green
... a lettre de cachet. The public, informed of her exile, called loudly for Mademoiselle SAINVAL. No attention was paid to this by the higher powers, and the guard at the theatre was tripled, in order to insure to Madame VESTRIS the possibility of performing her part. Nevertheless, whenever she made her appearance, the public lavished on her hisses, groans, and imprecations. All this she braved with an effrontery, which occasioned them to be redoubled. But, as all commotions subside in time, Madame VESTRIS remained ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... be taken to be used in the same sense, and with the same width of application, in both of the clauses. And if so, just think reverently, wonderingly, thankfully, of the infinite vista of glorious possibility that is open to us here. Christ was rich in the possession of that Divine glory which Had had with the Father before the world was. 'He became poor,' in assuming the weakness of the manhood that you and I carry, that we, in the human poverty which is like His poverty, may ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... one could convince my mother that her son's "attractions" might not prove sufficiently strong to make his "prospect" a possibility, for to her I was not only a distinguished author, but a "Good provider," something which outweighed literary attainment in a home ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... several long lines of asterisks suggest that after reflection the unknown chronicler had decided, for political reasons of the highest importance, to allow others to guess how the "conversation" opened. From the context it seems absolutely clear that the excised words have to deal with the possibility of the re-establishment of the Empire in China—a very important conclusion in view of what followed later in the year. Indeed there is no reason to doubt that the Japanese Envoy actually told Yuan Shih-kai that as he was already virtually Emperor it lay within his power to settle the whole business ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... British officers in France," said Hal, "but there is always the possibility I may know ...
— The Boy Allies in Great Peril • Clair W. Hayes
... that while the bedding in Normandy is level, that at Carrara is steep, and that the forces which raised the beds of Carrara crystallized them also, so that the cleavage which is all-important in the stones of my garden wall is of none in the duomo of Pisa,—simply determined the possibility of the existence of Pisan sculpture at all, and regulated the whole life and genius of Nicholas the Pisan and of Christian art. And, again, the fact that you can put stones in true bedding in a wall, but cannot in an arch, determines ...
— Val d'Arno • John Ruskin
... and repeat, tomorrow's game with Ballard is the last chance you will have. There is no possibility that you, with your well-known lack of baseball ability, will get in the game, and—your track B, won in the high-jump, is the only B you have won! Now, do you still maintain that you will make ...
— T. Haviland Hicks Senior • J. Raymond Elderdice
... Office and looked over St. James's Park, his day's work done. He was suddenly seized by a new-born anxiety, for he had been so long used to the open purse and the unchecked stream of gold, had taken it so much as a matter of course, as not to realise the possibility of its being withdrawn. He was conscious of a kind of meanness and ugly sordidness in the suggestion; but the stake—his future, his career, his position in the world—was too high to allow him to be too chivalrous. His sense of the real facts was ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the blessed possibility of conversion?" whispered the pious queen through her tears to her ...
— Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Book V. • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... master's house, and the bond between us was very strong. When my friends tried to discourage me from running away; she always encouraged me. When they thought I had better return and ask my master's pardon, because there was no possibility of escape, she sent me word never to yield. She said if I persevered I might, perhaps, gain the freedom of my children; and even if I perished in doing it, that was better than to leave them to groan under the same persecutions that had ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)
... that is betwixt God and us, will make us look out for a man that may lay his hand upon us both, and that may set us right in the eyes of our Father again. This, I say, I infer from the intercession of Christ; for, if there had been a possibility of our ability to have approached God with advantage without, what need had there been of the intercession ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... dear, to wait until the next day?" Miss Price had suggested, not daring to hint more strongly of the possibility of the blasting of their hopes. "The excitement and pleasure of being on your feet again should be sufficient ...
— Polly of Lady Gay Cottage • Emma C. Dowd
... the wings of both and concealed them under water. It is a singular custom of the natives, that of breaking the wings upon killing an emu; as the wings could only slightly assist the animal in making its escape, should it revive. But in conversation with Brown as to the possibility of one of the emus having escaped, he said very seriously: "Blackfellow knows better than white fellow; he never leaves the emu without breaking a wing. Blackfellows killed an emu once, and went off intending to call ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... mode of publication, oral transmission or button-holding, now generally regarded as a troublesome survival, and the once pleasant, flexible Merman was on the way to be shunned as a bore. His interest in new acquaintances turned chiefly on the possibility that they would care about the Magicodumbras and Zuzumotzis; that they would listen to his complaints and exposures of unfairness, and not only accept copies of what he had written on the subject, but send him appreciative letters in acknowledgment. ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... I believe, unfortunately a very general one, and yet, low as it is, there is a possibility of building on such a foundation. Could such persons be made to recognize the existence of decidedly unpleasant music, it would be the first step toward a proper appreciation of the art and its ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell
... by some unknown law of adhesion, to the sloping tail. Then there was the cart drawn by one diminutive donkey, or by an ox, or by an ox and a donkey, or by a donkey and horse abreast, never by any possibility a matched team. And, funniest of all, was the high, two-wheeled caleche, with one seat, and top thrown back, with long thills and poor horse. Upon this vehicle were piled, Heaven knows how, behind, before, on the thills, and underneath the high seat, sometimes ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... see you're going to be a lot of help. Have you got anywhere at all on the possibility that the stuff might ...
— Status Quo • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... went on talking of the possibility of their regiment being called upon for active service, and the boy could not help a feeling of wonder at the eager hopes they expressed of having to take part in that which would probably result in several of those present losing their lives ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn
... begins with silent rejection, moves by steady stages, growing ever intenser clear up to the murderous end. The sending of the committee to the Jordan to examine John and report on him was an official recognition of his power. The questions asked raise the possibility clearly being discussed of John being the promised prophet, or Elijah, or even the Christ Himself, and this is an expression of the national expectancy. The utter silence with which John's witness to Jesus is met is most striking.[73] Its significance is spoken ...
— Quiet Talks on John's Gospel • S. D. Gordon
... money he had' was invested. There was one piece of property, however, of which he not only acknowledged himself the owner, but publicly declared he never would dispose of, a threat that seemed harmless enough, there not being the slightest possibility that any one else would be willing to hold such a miserable waste on any pretext whatever:—a half acre down by the railroad, slabsided, full of gnarled stumps and brake, and about equally distributed into rock, black mud, and water. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... drank. On finding themselves ensnared, they changed themselves into various shapes, dropping their own form and assuming every kind of unusual and hideous appearance; but when they saw they were safely entrapped, and in no possibility of getting free, they revealed to him many secrets and future events; and particularly a charm for thunder and lightning, still in use, performed with onions and hair and pilchards. Some say they did not tell him the charm, but by ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... father's side because of her fear of drunken men. She was in a quiver of excitement; torn with pity and doubt when she thought of Charlie Jackson; speechless with apprehension when she thought of the possibility ...
— Lydia of the Pines • Honore Willsie Morrow
... sea appears to be infested, at this point, with unseen enemy craft. Ours, among other transports, has narrowly dodged two torpedoes. It is quite within the limits of possibility that we may be struck at any moment. The commanding officer therefore requests me to ask that company officers, especially second lieutenants, finish their meal as quickly as possible and station themselves near their men. This is not to be done hurriedly, or with any sign ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys with Pershing's Troops - Dick Prescott at Grips with the Boche • H. Irving Hancock
... of vice-president. b. The act of 1791. c. The possibility of a lapse of the presidency. d. The possibility of an unfair political overthrow. ...
— Civil Government in the United States Considered with - Some Reference to Its Origins • John Fiske
... the son of Hipparchus, relates, that the friends of Lycurgus, with whom he sojourned, and at last died in Crete, burned his body, and, at his request, threw his ashes into the sea. Thus he guarded against the possibility of his remains being brought back to Sparta by the Lacedaemonians, lest they should then think themselves released from their oath, on the pretence that he was returned, and make innovations in the government. This is what we ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... Jewish converts, the power of my example would be lost. They would say of me, as they say of them, that it was not the light of Christ but a Christian maiden's eyes that dazzled and drew. They are hard; they do not believe in the possibility of a true conversion. Others have enriched themselves by apostasy, or, being rich, have avoided impoverishing mulcts and taxes. But I have lost all my patrimony, and I will accept nothing. That is why I refused thy father's kind offices, the place in the Seal-office, or ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... a pause in captain Willoughby's determination. Some of the fire of youth awoke within him, and he debated with himself on the possibility of making a sortie, and of liberating his son, as a step preliminary to victory; or, at least, to a successful retreat. Acquainted with every foot of the ground, which had singular facilities for a step so bold, the project found favour ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... Chivalry, supplying a standard of excellence adapted by its nature to excite the admiration of men, did much to refine and civilize the rude age in which it arose; and this result is not belittled by the fact that that standard was pitched above the possibility of human attainment. Chivalry was the spontaneous expression of what was best in the time, and gave sentiment and charm to lives otherwise hard and barren. Its very exaggerations and grotesqueness illustrate the ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... The mere possibility of such a thing meant that he must be thinking of marrying Mrs. Crofton, and also that he must be much richer than any of ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes
... that I had been called to a patient at last. Vain hope! idle precaution! every one of those astute matrons knew at least as well as myself the errand upon which I was bound, and far better than I, as I own in all humility, the state of health in the neighborhood, which precluded all possibility of any professional exertion on ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... news pulsed swiftly through the senior crowd. The noise hadn't come from pistols. Dick & Co. had shut off any possibility of automobile flight by falling upon the tires with their pocket knives. Any robbers that could bluff their way through the crowd and start the engine would have to hobble along ...
— The High School Freshmen - Dick & Co.'s First Year Pranks and Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... speculation. Mrs. Lecount remained within view of the inn (the only place at which a carriage could be obtained) for nearly an hour longer, waiting for events. Nothing happened; no carriage made its appearance; no pursuit of Noel Vanstone was now within the range of human possibility. The long strain on Mrs. Lecount's mind relaxed at last. She left her seat on the Parade, and returned in higher spirits than usual, to perform the closing household ceremonies at ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... quite willing to have been allowed to get out and go home unnoticed; but there in the porch awaiting them were Mrs. Myers and Almira, and there was no possibility of an escape. It would have been unkind to try in the face of so much smiling. Besides, they did board with her; and she had her rights of property, one of which was to show them off, and introduce ...
— Dab Kinzer - A Story of a Growing Boy • William O. Stoddard
... it who did not say that it transcended all that imagination had been able to picture of angelic and divine. As the sisters were, so were the brothers—distinguished above all their mates conspicuously, and beyond all possibility of mistake; so that strangers could single them out at once as the heirs of beauty, that, according to veritable pictures and true traditions, had been an unalienable gift from nature to that family ever since it bore the name. For the last three generations none ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... his theories, aided by not a little evidence of the material order, such as floating logs and other objects, which had sailed, wind and current borne, from the unknown lands across the Atlantic. Columbus, of course, was not actually the first to feel convinced of the possibility of gaining India by sailing to the West; the theory had been held by Aristotle, Seneca, Strabo, and others. The sole mistake Columbus made in his calculations was concerning the size of the world. He had overestimated the extent of ...
— South America • W. H. Koebel
... on the fire, while I did some savage thinking. I knew they would not let me out of their sight till they saw me in Holland, and, once there, there would be no possibility of getting back. When I left this house I would have no chance of giving them the slip. And yet I was well on my way to the East, the Danube could not be fifty miles off, and that way ran the road to Constantinople. It was a fairly desperate position. If ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan
... man looked in his neighbour's face as if he longed to cut his throat, and get rid of one witness, at least, of his treason. And then arose a tumult, which Orestes in vain attempted to subdue. Whether the populace believed the monk's words or not, they were panic-stricken at the mere possibility of their truth. Hoarse with denying, protesting, appealing, the would-be emperor had at last to summon his guards around him and Hypatia, and make his way out of the theatre as best he could; while ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... school. She came the next Monday after Jim and his friends had planned to have a chicken roast and failed. After Jim saw little Lucy he thought no more of the chicken roast. It seemed to him that he thought no more of anything. He could not by any possibility have learned his lessons had it not been for the desire to appear a good scholar before little Lucy. Jim had never been a self-conscious boy, but that day he was so keenly worried about her opinion of him that his usual easy swing broke into a strut when he crossed the room. ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... even Demorest, occupied in other things, had not his knowledge. There was no idea or consciousness of heroically sacrificing himself or Mrs. Horncastle in this. I am afraid there was not even an idea of a superior morality in himself in giving up the possibility of loving her. Ever since Stacy had first seen her he had fancied that Stacy liked her,—indeed, Kitty fancied it, too,—and it seemed almost providential now that he should know how to assist his old partner to happiness. For it was inconceivable that Stacy should not ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte
... these changes. They are to obey you in all. Let all be ready when I have breakfasted. Now, Marie, I will try and rest. Jules, inspect and examine the house; then you can take your post for the night at my door. Have you exhausted every possibility of any trickery ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... wished to bestow it upon Wolf. It would insure him more than a comfortable support, permit him to marry the woman of his choice, and, if he remained several years in Villagarcia, afford him the possibility of accumulating a neat little property, as he would live in Quijada's castle as a welcome guest and scarcely ever be obliged to open his purse strings. Besides, music was cultivated in Valladolid, and if Don Luis introduced him to the clergy there, it might easily happen that they ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... our mind; they are the mere appearances of a particular phase of our subjective self, and of our thoughts, volitions, sensations and emotions which in their totality constitute the basis of that Ego. Matter then is the permanent possibility of sensations, and the so-called Laws of matter are, properly speaking, the Laws which govern the succession and coexistence of our states of consciousness. Mill further holds that properly speaking there is no noumenal Ego. ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... knowledge of all that had occurred in the interval: all the hopes, fears, plans, prospects, manoeuvres, and machinations; their rise and fall; how some had bloomed, others were blighted; not a shade of reaction that was not represented to him; not the possibility of an adhesion that was not duly reported; he could calculate at Naples at any time, within ten, the result of a dissolution. The season of the year had prevented him crossing the Alps in 1834, and after the general ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... Judge Jeffreys been, as you supposed, a pure devil let loose on the Church of Christ and the awakening liberty of England. But some innocent soul will ask me next whether there has ever been any other monster on the face of the earth like Judge Jeffreys; and whether by any possibility there are any such monsters anywhere in our own day. Yes, truth compels me to reply. Yes, there are, plenty, too many. Only their environment, nowadays, as our naturalists say, does not permit them to grow to such strength and dimensions as those of ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte
... across to the opening, keeping his face toward his adversary; then backed out slowly, closed the door with a snap, and sprang aside to avoid any possibility of a bullet crashing after him. No sound of movement from within reached his ears, however, and he walked silently to ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... removed the casket that contained it. Anne's ear distinctly caught the rustle of notes, and the chink of the gold as he handled it. Some he placed in his pocket, some he returned to its place. He stood thinking, as it were weighing a possibility. While lingering thus, he noticed the reflected image of his own face in the glass—pale and spectre-like in its indistinctness. The sight seemed to be the feather which turned the balance of indecision: he drew a heavy breath, retired from the ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... their conduct, after the fatal stroke against an island of ice, was admirable and wonderful in everything that relates to their duty, considered either as private men, or in His Majesty's service. As there seems to be no possibility of my remaining many hours in this world, I beg leave to recommend to the consideration of the Admiralty a sister, who, if my conduct or service should be found deserving any memory, their favour might be shown to, together with a ...
— "The Gallant, Good Riou", and Jack Renton - 1901 • Louis Becke
... experiences of God's loving mercy came to me in connection with our little Gracie's death. We had been warned that the end would probably come in convulsions; two of our dear children had been so taken. Only a mother who has gone through such an experience can fully understand the horror of the possibility that such might come again ...
— How I Know God Answers Prayer - The Personal Testimony of One Life-Time • Rosalind Goforth
... this scholastic despot would be for ever broken. We then entered enthusiastically into his views. He observed that delays were dangerous; 'the barring-out,' he said, 'should take place the very next morning to prevent the possibility of being betrayed.' On a previous occasion (he said), some officious little urchin had told the master the whole plot, several days having been allowed to intervene between the planning of the project and its execution, and, to the astonishment of the boys, it appeared ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... officer or man in the Eleventh Corps that afternoon who did not discuss the possibility of an attack in force on our right, and wonder how the small body thrown across the road on the extreme flank could meet it. And yet familiar with all the facts related, for that they were reported ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... Mafulu, and do not know whether or not it exists, or has existed, there; but as regards matters of this sort the Mafulu and the Kuni are very similar. My statement that there is no burying alive must be taken subject to the possibility of this custom. ...
— The Mafulu - Mountain People of British New Guinea • Robert W. Williamson
... belief that they were united on a pastor. In the earlier time a minister was chosen for life, and if he had faults, which was a probably enough contingency, and if his congregation had any, which is within the bounds of possibility, each bore with the other (not quite without friction), as old-fashioned husbands and wives once did, before the easy way out of the difficulty was discovered, or at least ...
— New Chronicles of Rebecca • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... even when they are purposely almost caricatures, have in them the possibility of complete portrayals. There is no flagging of the invention in any of them, no slipshod or careless composition. Her technique, too, at least in farce, is masterful, and in her plays of modern life of other form adequate. That she could master historical drama, as I have said, I must doubt, ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt
... perfervid desire to get a certificate on the public treasury without undue mental or physical effort, the same ambition to give a duly impressive but harmless verdict, that must have characterized the first empaneled jury of this nature. Never by any possibility could these original qualities have deteriorated, and it would require a wild stretch of the imagination to ...
— An American Suffragette • Isaac N. Stevens
... capacity—in order to concentrate public opinion, which was believed to be inclining in this direction, on the material needs of the country. The General Election of 1895 had, by universal admission, postponed, for some years at any rate, any possibility of Home Rule, and the cessation of the bitter feelings aroused when Home Rule seemed imminent provided the opportunity for an appeal to the Irish people in behalf of the views which I have adumbrated. The appeal ...
— Ireland In The New Century • Horace Plunkett
... this sentiment. Not only was Mrs. H—— occasionally aggravated by the pangs of jealousy, but she was also tormented by the thought that her husband entirely confided in her own fidelity, thus at once cutting off the possibility of a ...
— The Home in the Valley • Emilie F. Carlen
... a thing! what will come to pass! An unthought-of possibility!' She went on crescendo. 'My dear Mrs. Waltham, Mr. Mutimer ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... nature, and a secret commission had been appointed to examine and report from the frontiers any accession of papal troops, while envoys were sent to Ferrara on the same furtive errand: and the more serious Venetians were already discussing the possibility of war as one of the aspects of this quarrel ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... railways a few remarks anent the projected line from France (via Siberia and Bering Straits) to America may not be amiss. As the reader is already aware, the main object of our expedition was to determine whether the construction of such a line is within the range of human possibility. The only means of practically solving this question was (firstly) to cover the entire distance by land between the two cities, by such primitive means of travel as are now available, and (secondly) to minutely observe the natural characteristics of the countries passed through, in order to ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt
... to stereotype the hostility into the solid forms with which we now associate it. Even at the end of that contest, no one had ventured to claim such a freedom as our Declaration of Independence asserts, on the one side,—nor to recognize the possibility of such a barbarism as Jefferson Davis glorifies, on the other. The more strongly the Secessionists state their cause, the more glaringly it is seen to differ from any cause for which any sane person has taken up arms since the Roman ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... their companions saw it—distinctly, undoubtedly, without possibility of mistake; finally, hearing the sound of footsteps on the graveled walks, Mr. Jinks turned his head, and saw ...
— The Last of the Foresters • John Esten Cooke
... I think how little I knew of Latin or Greek on leaving Harrow at nineteen, I am astonished at the possibility of such waste of time. I am now a fair Latin scholar,—that is to say, I read and enjoy the Latin classics, and could probably make myself understood in Latin prose. But the knowledge which I have, I have acquired since I left school,—no doubt aided much by that groundwork of the language ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... standards in the industry. With the January 2005 expiration of a WTO Agreement on Textiles and Clothing, Cambodia-based textile producers are in direct competition with lower priced producing countries such as China and India. Faced with the possibility that over the next five years Cambodia may lose orders and some of the 250,000 well-paid jobs the industry provides, Cambodia has committed itself to a policy of continued support for high labor standards in an attempt ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... mistaken the powers of the Ring. This is against all probability and possibility, but on such abnormal traits are tales ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... for himself. He was thus engaged when he heard a couple of shots, but concluding that Hector had fired at some ducks, as he proposed, went on with his occupation. As he looked at their saddle-bags and valises, he regretted having to leave them, but without horses he saw no possibility of carrying them. Noon was approaching, Hector had not returned, and he became seriously anxious; so, taking his gun, he set out to look for him. "If he returns while I am away, he will, I hope, guess why I have gone, and will remain quietly here for my return," ...
— The Frontier Fort - Stirring Times in the N-West Territory of British America • W. H. G. Kingston
... King of the Netherlands as binding upon neither party, and the two Governments, therefore, are as free in this respect as they were before the reference to that Sovereign was made. The British Government, despairing of the possibility of drawing a line that shall be in literal conformity with the words of the treaty of 1783, has suggested that a conventional boundary should be substituted for the line described by the treaty, and has proposed that in accordance with the principles of equity and in pursuance of the general practice ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 3: Martin Van Buren • James D. Richardson
... himself that, if Nathan was correct, there would be something to be said for Shakerism. The idea made him vaguely uneasy, because, that "something" might be so conclusive, that—But he could not face such a possibility. ...
— The Way to Peace • Margaret Deland
... before Maurice's alarm quieted down sufficiently to let him drift back into the furtive security of knowing that neither Edith nor Eleanor could, by any possibility, get on Lily's track. "And, besides, Lily's too good a sport to give anything away. Pretty neat in her to 'forget' that coat! But she ought to be careful not to forget her husband's name!—it seems to ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... go near the river at first. Some instinct of dread made her shun even the possibility that Lovin Child had headed that way. But a man told her, when she broke down her diffidence and inquired, that he had seen a little tot in a red suit and cap going off that way. He had not thought anything of it. He was a stranger himself, he said, ...
— Cabin Fever • B. M. Bower
... it happened that next to authors, French by race and language, subjects of the kings of England, were found others employing the same idiom, though of English blood. They strove, to the best of their possibility, to imitate the style in favour with the rulers of the land, they wrote chronicles in French, as did, in the twelfth and fourteenth centuries, Jordan Fantosme[157] and Peter de Langtoft; religious poems, as Robert of Greteham, Robert ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... accidents in this journey, sufficient to have terrified anyone. Though corrupt nature prevailed so far as I have just mentioned, yet my resignation to God was so strong, that I passed fearless, even where there was apparently no possibility of escape. At one time we got into a narrow pass, and did not perceive, until we were too far advanced to draw back, that the road was undermined by the river Loire, which ran beneath, and the banks had fallen ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon
... out of her in a half-irritated, whining tone as naturally as she breathes. Over and over you think when you listen to her how useful all those pains of hers would be if she took them as a reminder to yield and in yielding to do her work better. But if one should venture to suggest such a possibility, it would only increase the complaints by one more—that of having unsympathetic friends and being misunderstood. "Nobody understands me—nobody understands me." How often we hear that complaint. How often in hearing it we make the mental ...
— Nerves and Common Sense • Annie Payson Call
... harvest festivals were held, the town was stirred; and thousands of people attended the meetings. They were convinced of the possibility of joy in religion, and also, they were brought face to face with eternal truths. They saw the way of Salvation in object lesson; the Bread of Life contrasted with the husks of the world; listened to an interpretation of the Parable of the Sower; were reminded that 'Whatsoever a ...
— The Angel Adjutant of "Twice Born Men" • Minnie L. Carpenter
... Federation, the Alliance for the Suppression and Prevention of the White Slave Traffic and many others—stand for the final abolition of commercialized vice. Local vice commissions, such as the able one recently appointed in Chicago, although composed of members of varying beliefs in regard to the possibility of control and regulation, united in the end in recommending a law enforcement looking towards final abolition. Even the most sceptical of Chicago citizens, after reading the fearless document, shared the hope ...
— A New Conscience And An Ancient Evil • Jane Addams
... allied species. Now it seems to me that the secondary flagellum can by no means furnish a reason for doubting the close relationship of M. Fresnelii to M. exilii, etc., which is indicated by the peculiar structure of the unpaired clasp-forceps. In the first place we must consider the possibility that the secondary flagellum, which is not always easy to detect, may only have been overlooked by Savigny, as indeed Spence Bate supposes to have been the case. If it is really deficient it must be remarked that I have found it in species of ...
— Facts and Arguments for Darwin • Fritz Muller
... acts in virtue of deficient goodness. For if there were nothing of good there, there would be neither being nor possibility of action. On the other hand if good were not deficient, there would be no evil. Consequently the action done is a deficient good, which is good in a ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... myself up in all the clothes I possessed, and so saved myself from the damp. Next morning, however, my blanket was so wet with dew that I could wring it, though I had felt warm all night. I had always to guard against the possibility of rain, and I generally made my couch in pleasant proximity to some place of shelter—a bridge, a cave, or a house; and more than once I had to abandon my grass bed in the very depth of the night, and take up the alternative ...
— A Tramp's Sketches • Stephen Graham
... have been at once at the command of any woman, and with one of which, sufficient for the moment, most men would have been able to arm themselves. "Indeed, yes," he said, almost stammering as he spoke. "It was lately;—since your wife went there." Trevelyan, though he had been told of the possibility of Mr. Glascock's courtship, felt himself almost aggrieved by this man's intrusion on his wife's retreat. Had he not sent her there that she might be private; and what right had any one to invade such privacy? "I suppose I had better tell the ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... his—to the captain's New England mind—overdone politeness, there was not so much fault to be found with his behavior or words during the interview just ended. He had asked questions concerning the Fair Harbor, had hinted at the possibility of its discontinuance, had more than hinted at the dropping of Kendrick as its manager. Well—always bearing in mind the fact that he was ignorant of his wife's action which gave the Seymour house and land to the Fair Harbor and gave, not loaned, the money ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... seeking before all else the personal, individual, and concrete immortality of the soul—or, in other words, the human finality of the Universe—and that of the human reason denying the rationality and even the possibility of this desire? What values are there of more universal validity than the rational or mathematical value and the volitional or teleological value of the Universe ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... gloomy prophecies and editorial vapourings much to heart and strove valiantly to confound the man's detractors and to put the spur to the man himself. He would not believe that the end had come, that his mental powers had run suddenly against a dead wall beyond which there was no possibility of proceeding. Something was weighing upon his mind and damping his spirits that was all; and it must be the business of those who were his friends to take steps to discover what that something was and, if possible, to eliminate it. He therefore sought out Dollops and held secret conclave ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... then true," said he, soliloquizing, "that I am born to pass through life utterly alone; asking, indeed, for no sister-half of myself, disbelieving its possibility, shrinking from the thought of it,—half scorning, half pitying those who sigh for it?—thing ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... impossible to get any accurate statistics of sterility from genealogies, for when no children are given in the record, there is always a strong possibility that there were children of whom the genealogist has no record. However, of 16 first-cousin marriages of which the record expressly stated "no issue," or where it was practically certain that no issue was possible, ...
— Consanguineous Marriages in the American Population • George B. Louis Arner
... of the cases. In the one case we behold a child associated, in happy communion, with a society—a little world—of its own age and feelings,—continually proving the possibility of giving and imparting happiness by receiving and exercising kindness to its companions—secured from every danger—supplied with a constant variety of amusement, which is at the same time instruction; ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... it will have justified its publication by adding to the diadem of virtue a few more jewels to glorify the crest of motherhood. If it performs no other service than to place upon the pale face of tragic possibility the red-pink blush of romantic probabilities, it will have justified its presence in the society of the learned by the sincerity of its purpose and the candor of its appeal to ...
— Rescuing the Czar - Two authentic Diaries arranged and translated • James P. Smythe
... knew it. He was not strong in himself. This was the very first time, since he had known and courted Jane Green, that he had resisted her will for twenty-four hours, and even now he was contemplating the possibility ...
— The Girls of St. Olave's • Mabel Mackintosh
... Tiedemann[E] says that example is the first great evolutionary teacher, and liberty is the second. In the overcoming of disobedience, no other teachers are needed. The method may be tedious; it may be many years before the erratic will is finally led to work in orderly channels; but there is no possibility of abridging the process. There is no short and sudden cure for disobedience, and the only hope for final cure is the steady working of these two great ...
— Study of Child Life • Marion Foster Washburne
... The technical possibility of the Atlantic tunnel, upon which Kellermann has founded his novel, is questioned by engineering experts. Nevertheless, the idea of the tunnel remains a symbol of the need which the continents of the earth feel, ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... the language; it would reduce the true pronunciation to a certainty; and while it would assist foreigners and our own children in acquiring the language, it would render the pronunciation uniform in different parts of the country, and almost prevent the possibility ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder
... willing. I would try any crazy plan that had a possibility of success for the next three months. But yours isn't possible. The landlady won't take ladies. That's an unsurmountable ...
— Big Game - A Story for Girls • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... from north to south 240 feet. The fort faced the Assiniboine River, and each of its corners showed a large and well-built bastion. The bastions were provided with port holes, and all about the structure suggested the possibility of an armed struggle. This was begun in the same year as the formation of the Council of Assiniboia, and was fairly advanced to completion by 1839. Laws for the government of the people, and the administration of justice were passed by the Council, in accordance with the ...
— The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk's Colonists - The Pioneers of Manitoba • George Bryce
... medium and prophet, and sneered at ghost and rapping. I took lodgings in Philadelphia, locked my doors, and paced my rooms all day and half the night, tortured by my thoughts, and consulting books of medicine to discover what evidence I could by any possibility give of unsuspected disease. I was at that time absolutely well and strong; absolutely well and strong I was forced to confess myself, after having waded through Latin adjectives and anatomical illustrations enough to make a ghost of Hercules. I devoted two ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... towers and spires of the Russian capital. The engines were then slowed down again until the ship was just stemming the fresh breeze that was now blowing, and an ascent was made until the cloud canopy had been once more placed between the ship and the earth, thus preventing any possibility of premature discovery. ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... with blunt eagerness. "I may as well tell you the truth. I am deeply interested in you, even though you are a stranger, and the bare possibility that we may never meet again fills me with the keenest sorrow ...
— Jolly Sally Pendleton - The Wife Who Was Not a Wife • Laura Jean Libbey
... to foreign nations, in so commanding a position that none will seek a controversy with us, while empires and kingdoms profit by our example. It has, for the necessities of the time and the warnings and follies of the past, marked out a financial system which secures us a currency safe beyond all possibility of loss, a coinage of silver and gold received at par in every commercial mart of the world, and a public credit equal, if not superior, to that of the oldest, richest and most powerful nations. It has, ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... reaction, when, in the intervals of jazzing, we have nothing to satisfy the spiritual void left by the War except the possibility of an industrial cataclysm at home and the triumph of Bolshevism abroad, we owe a large debt of gratitude to Sir THOMAS BEECHAM for his efforts to revive the Town. And the Town is at last appreciating at their full worth his services both to the cause of popular education ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Apr 2, 1919 • Various
... repress a gesture of amazement and anger. He had not for a second contemplated the possibility of such a miracle; and it took him unawares. However, he mastered himself. After all, there was nothing to prove that this half of a walking-stick was really that which had been seen in Gaston Sauverand's hands and which Sauverand had carried ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... large. I see approaching him, when this war is over, an opportunity far greater than anything fate has yet placed in his way. The world will be shuddering at the ghastliness of its recent experiences and asking if there is no way of guarding against the possibility of such a catastrophe in the years ahead. Among all the nations lately at war there will be but one desire—namely, the insuring of the enjoyment of peace for the generations to come. If that mood comes to exist, as it surely will, among all the nations ...
— Lloyd George - The Man and His Story • Frank Dilnot
... of but the ball—how this man had danced, the bad taste of this woman's dress, and the possibility of a marriage. The ball had brought amusement to all, to Esther it had brought happiness. Her happiness was now visible in her face and audible in her voice, and Sarah's ironical allusions to her inability to learn to read ...
— Esther Waters • George Moore
... until the morrow—if he lived. For vainly did Boleslas convince himself that afternoon that he had lost none of his skill in practising before his admiring seconds; a duel is always a lottery. He might be killed, and if the possibility of an eternal separation had not moved the injured woman, what prayer would move her? He saw her in his thoughts—her who at that moment, with blinds drawn, all lights subdued, endured in the semi-darkness that suffering which curses ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget
... must, however, have been a tremendous difficulty in the way of this conception of a sphere, and I scarcely suppose that any one can at that time have contemplated the possibility of such upside-down regions being inhabited. I find that intelligent children invariably feel the greatest difficulty in realizing the existence of inhabitants on the opposite side of the earth. Stupid children, like stupid persons in general, will of course ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... had this instinct to some degree or I would surely have been lost in those mountain mazes. Not that anticipation of such a possibility would have deterred me—it would really have added allurement to the adventure. As it was, I did get lost, but always succeeded in finding ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills
... Sam," interrupted Rik, "don't you think there's just a possibility of our becoming a large long-exhausted company if you don't bring this interesting lecture ...
— The Battery and the Boiler - Adventures in Laying of Submarine Electric Cables • R.M. Ballantyne
... idolatry, blasphemy, and others, that touch the Majesty of God, doth not appertain to kings and chief rulers only" (as he had argued that they do, in 1554), "but also to the whole body of that people, and to every member of the same, according to the vocation of every man, and according to that possibility and occasion which God doth minister to revenge the injury done against His glory, what time that impiety is manifestly known. . . . Who dare be so impudent as to deny this to be most ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... much out of him; all we could make out was that Bourbaki had been shot towards morning and that he himself had run away. We guessed that Bourbaki must have committed some misdemeanour; as there was a possibility of his still being alive, we decided to go and look for him; for satisfaction ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... was vibrant, keen, alive. It throbbed with consciousness, with mysterious fibres of communication. There was no sense of a presence in the room, nor even the possibility of a presence. It was vague, abstract, yet ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... leeches, are needed in the one case; increased nourishment, perhaps stimulants, in the other. In every instance where symptoms of brain disorder occur in the child, remember the grievous consequences of a mistake as to their nature, and seek for further help and guidance to preserve you from the possibility of error. ...
— The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases • Charles West, M.D.
... Liverpool expressly says it would be better for us, rather than any other Power, to detain him, and writes not a word about treating him as vermin. Lord Rosebery is surely aware that our Government and Wellington did their best to preclude the possibility of the Prussians ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... particular organ is useful to its possessor and to account for its origin because of the imagined benefit conferred, is the general procedure of the followers of the Darwinian school." "Personal conviction, mere possibility," writes Quatrefages, "are offered as proofs, or at least as arguments in favor of the theory." "The realms of fancy are boundless," is Blanchard's significant comment on Darwin's explanation of the blindness of the mole. "On this class of speculation," says Bateson in his "Materials ...
— At the Deathbed of Darwinism - A Series of Papers • Eberhard Dennert
... teachers. What characterises as perfectly unique our Lord's teaching is not only the blessed things that He said about God or the deep truths that He said about men and their duty, or the sad things that He said about men and their destiny, or the radiant hopes that He unveiled as to men and their possibility, but what He said about Himself. His message was not so much 'Believe in God and do right,' as it was 'Believe in Me and ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... eyes beginning to shine as she realized the possibility of what the girl had said. "You are a wonder, child! Why didn't any of us think ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Wild Rose Lodge - or, The Hermit of Moonlight Falls • Laura Lee Hope
... why not the same now? Ship-building is America's greatest pride, and in which she will in time excel the whole world. The great empires of the east are mostly inland, and consequently excluded from the possibility of rivalling her. Africa is in a state of barbarism; and no power in Europe hath either such an extent of coast, or such an internal supply of materials. Where nature hath given the one, she has withheld the other; to America only hath she ...
— Common Sense • Thomas Paine
... expected to exercise a potent charm. Nor was Lincoln's name as that of an available candidate left to the chance of accidental discovery. It is indeed not probable that he thought of himself as a Presidential possibility, during his contest with Douglas for the senatorship. As late as April, 1859, he had written to a friend who had approached him on the subject that he did not think himself fit for the Presidency. The Vice-Presidency was then the limit ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... seen American democracy become the propagandists of slavery assuredly ought not to be astonished at the spectacle of American Protestantism upholding the State religion of Mexico, and that religion embodying the worst abuses of the system of Rome. It was, perhaps, because he foresaw the possibility of this, that "the gray-eyed man of destiny," William Walker himself, was reconciled last year to the ancient Church, and received into her bosom. As a Catholic, and as a convert to that faith from heresy, he might achieve those victories for which he longs, but which ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... one is best, as it will let through more light. The bees will leave the boxes, creep to the top, and get on the sheet; take this off and turn it over a few times; in this way all may be got rid of without the possibility of carrying off much honey. All that know the way will return to the hive, but a few ...
— Mysteries of Bee-keeping Explained • M. Quinby
... but coupled with this knowledge is a belief in its close relationship to the spirit world. Supernatural conception and unnatural births are frequently mentioned in the traditions, and are accepted as true by the mass of people; while the possibility of increasing the fertility of the husband and wife by magical acts, performed in connection with the marriage ceremony, is unquestioned. Likewise, the wife may be affected if she eats peculiar articles of food, [40] and unappeased desires for fruits and the like may result disastrously ...
— The Tinguian - Social, Religious, and Economic Life of a Philippine Tribe • Fay-Cooper Cole
... the corner, and wondered and talked over the matter. The questions with them were, Who is he?-where did he come, and where is he going to? They would not believe all they had heard conjectured about him, and some few were so far independent as to hint of the possibility of imposition. ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... ain't noticed nothing wrong with him that ain't always been wrong." Marthy spoke grudgingly, as if she resented even the possibility of Jase's having a real ailment. "He's feelin' his years, mebby. But he ain't no call to; Jase ain't but three years older 'n I be, and I ain't but fifty-nine last birthday. And I've worked and slaved here in this Cove fer twenty-seven years, now; what it is I've made it. Jase ain't ...
— The Ranch at the Wolverine • B. M. Bower
... the same time perfectly manly and natural. As to his non-democracy, it fits him well, and I like him the better for it. I guess we all like to have (I am sure I do) some one who presents those sides of a thought, or possibility, different from our own—different and yet with a sort of home-likeness—a tartness and contradiction offsetting the theory as we view it, and construed from tastes and proclivities not ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... after approaching his daughter several times on the question of the possibility of obtaining a divorce, Myra had stopped the admiral so decidedly that he had been ready to believe she must have ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... stoutly the Washington birthday order that Lincoln had permitted him to ignore it. He was still wavering which advice to take, McClellan's or the elder generals'. To remove McClellan, to try at this critical moment some other general, did not occur to him as a rational possibility. But somehow he felt he must justify himself to himself for yielding to McClellan' s views. In his zeal to secure some judgment more authoritative than his own, he took a further step along the dangerous road of going over the Commander's head, of bringing to bear upon ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... the evening—two bells had just gone—when Duncan and his wife stood by the cabin companionway, gazing to windward and canvassing the possibility of spreading their beds on deck. A small, dark blot of cloud, slowly forming on the horizon, carried the threat of a rain-squall, and it was this they were discussing when Captain Dettmar, coming from aft and about to go below, glanced at them with sudden suspicion. He ...
— The Night-Born • Jack London
... shall be able to make much more of you there, where there is no possibility of recognition. That being settled, the next thing is the dancing. Now reels and such things do not do. For think of this—there is a new dance at Almack's and everywhere else, over which ...
— The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid • Thomas Hardy
... mean to learn it." The possibility of failure never occurred to Elisabeth. "There is so much I want to teach the world, and I feel I can only do it through my pictures; and I want to begin at once, for fear I shouldn't get it all in before I die. There is plenty of time, of course; I'm ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... it is horrible, and I have no wish to proceed to extremities. I only wish to speak of it as a remote possibility, and one that we may be compelled to adopt. I hate violence just as much as you do, and trust that ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau
... the wise, and revealed to children and fools. It would be wrong of me to take you away from your great scene. I daren't do it. It would be too great a responsibility. My conscience must have been dead and buried when I suggested such a possibility! Thank God, it has had a resurrection, and it is ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... nation's character, heroism, love of freedom and vitality; and I bow with reverential awe before the decree of Providence which has placed my country into a position such that, without its restoration to independence, there is no possibility for freedom and independence of nations on the European continent. Even what now in France is coming to pass proves the truth of this. Every disappointed hope with which Europe looked towards France is a degree more added to the importance of Hungary to ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth
... make easier the explanation which was bound to come. I believed I could tell Herbert Bayliss the truth concerning the ridiculous "claim." A man would be susceptible to reason and proof; I could convince him. I should have welcomed the possibility, but, somehow or other, I did not. Somehow or other, the idea of her marrying anyone was repugnant to me. I did not ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... modern atmosphere, was bound by all the conditions of the atmosphere to have mastered what we may call the natural history of his own ideas and convictions; to know something of their position towards fact and outer circumstance and possibility; above all to have some trusty standard for testing their value, and assuring himself that they do really cover the field which he takes them to cover. People with a faith and people living in frenzy are equally under this law; but they take the completeness and coherency ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. I - Essay 3: Byron • John Morley
... abhorrence. His view of himself is, I suppose, of a brilliant and capable man who holds his own and makes himself felt. The only result on the mind, from contemplating him, is that one revels in the possibility of metempsychosis and pictures him as being born again to some dreary and thankless occupation, a scavenger or a sewer-cleaner, or, better still, penned in the body of some absurd and inefficient animal, ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... condition of the South seemed to render unavoidable. Ought Congress to accept such a re-action as the necessary condition of the restoration of our currency, of return to a normal situation, of adjustment of expenditure to revenue on a peace footing? Could the possibility be entertained of such a return and such an adjustment, without panic, without paralysis of industry, without temporary interruption and prostration of commerce? Grave apprehensions were felt as to the possible effect upon production and trade of the legislation ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... showers of shafts like the clouds pouring torrents of rain? Tell me also, O Sanjaya, how that mighty shaft, celestial and foremost of its species, and equipped with a head like that of a serpent became futile! I do not, O Sanjaya, see the possibility of even a small remnant of my cheerless host being saved when its leaders have been crushed! Hearing of the slaughter of those two heroes, those two mighty bowmen, Bhishma and Drona, who were ever ready to ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... them; and likewise animals and plants have a principle whence they are produced. But Nature, which in all these things hath the priority, is not only the principle of motion but of repose; whatsoever enjoys the principle of motion, the same has a possibility to find a dissolution. Therefore on this account it is that Nature is the principle ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... apparent transference of thought occurs from one or more persons, steadfastly thinking, to another in the same room blindfold and wholly disconnected from the others, seem to me absolutely satisfactory, and such as to preclude the possibility of conscious collusion on the one hand or unconscious muscular indication ...
— Telepathy - Genuine and Fraudulent • W. W. Baggally
... the animal should entail the killing of the man. This belief in the sympathetic influence exerted on each other by persons or things at a distance is of the essence of magic. Whatever doubts science may entertain as to the possibility of action at a distance, magic has none; faith in telepathy is one of its first principles. A modern advocate of the influence of mind upon mind at a distance would have no difficulty in convincing a savage; the savage believed in it long ago, and what is more, he acted ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... but the little boat had not yet appeared in sight again. There was no danger that Tom would think of fatigue while he could sit looking in the face of his syren, listening to her low, sweet songs; nor was there the slightest possibility of her ever remembering that the strongest muscles must at last feel a little need of relaxation. Just as long as it pleased her to float over the sunlit waters, carolling her pretty melodies or talking gay nonsense to Tom, and blinding him utterly with the wicked lightning ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... Even as the possibility entered his mind, he saw another Death's Head dart at the window below and join the first one. But this ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... to me as a possibility that what Marco Polo may have meant to say was that they were black all through, or some such phrase. The flesh of these fowls is deeply pigmented, and looks practically black; it is a feature that is very remarkable, and would certainly strike ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... reconnaissance was very bright and none too suitable, and the condition of the ground was extremely muddy, making movement slow and difficult. After examining the whole situation it was recognised that any possibility of successfully attacking upon this position was out of the question. Indeed, the bad weather throughout August delayed whatever action had been contemplated by ...
— The Seventeenth Highland Light Infantry (Glasgow Chamber of Commerce Battalion) - Record of War Service, 1914-1918 • Various
... him?" But several educated natives who understood said, "Ing-ai-gidaiie" (A work of love). They got right there a lesson in Christianity which they will not soon forget. It is seldom that Chinese try to help an injured man, for ever present in their minds is the possibility that he may die and that they will be responsible for ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews
... fact at once observed his clothes as he had crossed the grass to her seat under the copper beech. She had seen that his fine thinness was inimitably fitted and presented itself to the eye as that final note of perfect line which ignores any possibility of comment. He did not wear things—they were expressions of his mental subtleties. Feather on her part knew that she wore her clothes—carried ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... the direct approach. It was too dangerous, depended too much on personalities, and had too little chance for success. He considered the possibility of letters to the Brotherhood Council but ultimately rejected it. Not only was the proof legally insufficient to establish humanity in the Lani, but he also remembered Alexander's incredible knowledge of his activities, ...
— The Lani People • J. F. Bone |
