"Impracticability" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... new duke was greatly exasperated, and sent a considerable body of troops into the valleys, swearing that if the people would not change their religion, he would have them flayed alive. The commander of the troops soon found the impracticability of conquering them with the number of men he had with him, he, therefore, sent word to the duke, that the idea of subjugating the Waldenses, with so small a force, was ridiculous; that those people were better acquainted with the country than any that were ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... few seconds' consideration of this plan convinced Leicester of its utter impracticability. They had, by superhuman exertions, succeeded in climbing up the precipice; but he knew that they could never get Walford safely down again. There was nothing for it, then, but to go on, and upward, even though they should find their pursuers awaiting them ...
— The Voyage of the Aurora • Harry Collingwood
... entire nation. Even it was assumed for an end. Again, should he boldly challenge the pretensions of the demon-god, whatever it might be, and asserting himself to be the real one, offer to slay the horror in open conflict? Not a moment's reflection was needed, however, to convince him of the utter impracticability of this scheme. The cherished superstition of a great nation was not to be uprooted in any such rough-and-ready fashion. The only way of escape left open to him was that of death—death swift and sudden—the death of the ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... from prejudice and self-interest. The contempt we have been taught to entertain for the blacks makes us fancy many things that are founded neither in reason nor experience; and an unwillingness to part with property of so valuable a kind will furnish a thousand arguments to show the impracticability or pernicious tendency of a scheme which requires such a sacrifice. But it should be considered, that, if we do not make use of them in this way, the enemy probably will; and that the best way to counteract the temptations they will hold out will be to offer them ourselves. An essential ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... was the stepson, older by several years, and was viewed as the representative of sober common sense in the family. Joe and his mother did like to feel a plan quite free from Robert's condemnation for enthusiasm or impracticability, and it was not the worse for his influence, that he had been generally with his regiment, and when visiting them was a good deal at the United Service Club. He had lately married an heiress in a small way, retired from the army, and settled in a house ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... country, directed to a common interest, would baffle all the combinations of European jealousy to restrain our growth. This situation would even take away the motive to such combinations, by inducing an impracticability of success. An active commerce, an extensive navigation, and a flourishing marine would then be the offspring of moral and physical necessity. We might defy the little arts of the little politicians to control or vary the irresistible ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... Mid[-e] priests, being aware of the momentous consequences of such a change in their habits, and foreseeing the impracticability of much longer continuing the ceremonies of so-called "pagan rites," became willing to impart them to me, in order that a complete description might be made and preserved for the future ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... sweep. This was confirmed by the fact that the current of air which reached the bay was narrow, affecting only a width of about ten or twelve miles. This circumstance impressed me at that time only as indicating a remarkable topographical feature of the country; but afterwards, when the impracticability of a canal at Nicaragua and the deficiencies in respect of ports for a railway at Tehuantepec had become established, I was led to reflect upon it in connection with a plan for inter-oceanic communication by railway through Honduras; and, as explained in the introduction, we were ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... hand, a good deal of low cunning and selfishness, and understood how valuable an instrument might be a duplicate seal of a deceased monarch. Therefore she instigated her daughter to deny that she possessed it, and worked her up into a state of impracticability, in which Sir Lewis Robsart was unable to deal with her, and only produced so wild a tempest of passion as perfectly to appal both him ...
— The Caged Lion • Charlotte M. Yonge
... very thoughtful and still, dreaming of the wonders of far-off places, such as could be reached by Bob Dimsted and his companion, the impracticability of such a journey never once occurring to him. Bob had been about all his life free to go and come, while he, Dexter, seemed to have been always shut up, as it were, in a cage, which had ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... to place Perkin on the English throne. Maximilian's hopes were high: he bragged to the Venetians that the "Duke of York" would immediately unseat the Tudor, and when he was on the throne, England would be at the beck of the League. The Emperor's impracticability was sufficiently shown by his having procured from Perkin his own recognition as heir, if the pretender should die without issue. The expedition attempted to land at Deal, but the men of Kent assembled in arms, and drove it off with ignominious ease. For once Henry was severe, and put ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... without love was nothing, and flaunted without the least modification the most ideal theories as to the relation between man and woman. Not that he ever went actually wrong. His boyish education, his natural purity, and a fear never wholly suppressed, restrained him. He exasperated people by his impracticability, and it must be acknowledged that it is very irritating in a difficult complexity demanding the gravest consideration—the balancing of this against that—to hear a man suddenly propose some naked principle with which everybody is acquainted, and decide by it solely. I ...
— Mark Rutherford's Deliverance • Mark Rutherford
... characterised Mendelssohn's life—'he lived years whilst others would have lived only weeks,' was the true remark of one who knew him well—reminds us of the impracticability of giving anything like a complete description of even its chief incidents. The stage at which our story has arrived does not, it is true, show him at the pinnacle of his fame as a composer, but if we entertained any doubts as to ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... N. difficulty; hardness &c. adj.; impracticability &c. (impossibility) 471; tough work, hard work, uphill work; hard task, Herculean task, Augean task[obs3]; task of Sisyphus, Sisyphean labor, tough job, teaser, rasper[obs3], dead lift. dilemma, embarrassment; deadlock; perplexity ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... thought of nothing else. At one time I would think of devoting all my intelligence and all my money to kindling an amorous passion in her heart, and then to revenge myself by treating her with contempt. But I soon realized the impracticability of such a plan, for even supposing that I should succeed in finding my way to her heart, was I the man to resist my own success with such a woman? I certainly could not flatter myself that I was so strong-minded. But I was the pet child of fortune, ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... American Oneida community, was successfully communistic in every respect for many years. But the modern Socialist is not a communist; the modern Socialist, making his scheme of social reconstruction for the whole world and for every type of character, recognizes the entire impracticability of such dreams, recognizing, too, it may be, the sacrifice of human personality and distinction ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... English, French, and Germans: that the English only change what is necessary and as far as it is necessary; the French plunge into all sorts of novelties by whole masses, get into a chaos, see that they are fools and retrace their steps as quickly, with a high degree of practical sense in all this impracticability; the Germans attempt no change without first recurring to first principles and metaphysics beyond them, systematizing the smallest details in their minds; and when at last they mean to apply all their meditation, opportunity, with its wide and swift wings ...
— Experiments in Government and the Essentials of the Constitution • Elihu Root
... a mere chimera, that was gone; an impracticability too. She had smiled at it as such when Dorcas used to hint at it; but are there no castles in the clouds which we like to inhabit, although we know them altogether air-built, ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... to the movements of the enemy in front of General Pope, the supposed impracticability of the route, and to some distrust as to the abilities of General McClellan by the authorities at Washington, peremptory orders had been sent to him to remove his army as quickly as ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... other and happier days had made something of a study of the feminine nature, and he realized now the utter impracticability of any ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... with vast perspicacity on the tendency of governors to act in behalf of the colonists, to forget imperial interests, to misapply the funds and pervert the labor belonging to the crown. The precision of his injunctions left no alternative but to obey. Had Wilmot at once declared the impracticability of Lord Stanley's schemes he might have been recalled, but the responsibility of an utter failure would have rested with his chief. The interested reports of his subordinate officers unfortunately enabled ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... had determined us to remain at Fort Clatsop until the first of April," says the journal entry of March 22d. "Besides the want of fuel in the Columbian plains, and the impracticability of passing the mountains before the beginning of June, we were anxious to see some of the foreign traders, from whom, by means of our ample letters of credit, we might have recruited our exhausted stores of merchandise. About the middle of March, however, we had become seriously alarmed for ...
— Lewis and Clark - Meriwether Lewis and William Clark • William R. Lighton
... Gazette is humanely occupied in recommending others to profit by the mistakes regarding contagion which occurred in that country:—"Dr. Sacks, in No. 38 of his Cholera Journal, published here, has again shewn, against Dr. Rush, the fallibility of the doctrine of contagion, as well as the mischievous impracticability of the attempts founded on it to arrest the progress of the disorder by cutting off the communications. It is to be hoped that the alarm so methodically excited by scientific and magisterial authority in the countries to the west of us [!!] ...
— Letters on the Cholera Morbus. • James Gillkrest
... a certain writer will serve to illustrate the impracticability of writing the final form of the synopsis first. A few years ago, when all editors were asking for the complete script, and when most companies were insisting upon a synopsis of approximately two hundred and fifty words, the editor of a company for which he writes suggested that, instead ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... association existed, but what it was, considered with the impracticability of unobserved entrance and exit, ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... after crossing one division, Stoneman found that it would probably be isolated on account of the impracticability of crossing the rest of the corps, and consequently ordered its immediate return. And this was accomplished none too soon, by swimming ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... refusal Anthony had started to the telegraph office intending to wire Gloria to come South—he reached the door and receded despairingly, seeing the utter impracticability of such a move. Then he had spent the evening quarrelling irritably with Dot, and returned to camp morose and angry with the world. There had been a disagreeable scene, in the midst of which he had precipitately departed. What was to be done with her did not seem to concern him vitally ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... of the Kenhawa river into Ohio, there is a stream, called Crooked creek, emptying into the former of these, from the North east,[14] whose banks are tolerably high, and were then covered with a thick and luxuriant growth of weeds. Seeing the impracticability of dislodging the Indians, by the most vigorous attack, and sensible of the great danger, which must arise to his army, if the contest were not decided before night, General Lewis detached the three companies which were commanded by Captains Isaac ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... with me. And, although the trappers could not understand my reasons, I refused to consent to its burial in the wilderness. In spite of their superior knowledge of the country and the weather conditions, I felt that the body could be taken down to the post later, but recognised the impracticability, if not impossibility, of undertaking ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace
... boroughs. This plan, though supported by Fox, was negatived by a great majority. In 1785, he made a third attempt to secure a reform of parliament, and again failed; and with this last attempt ended all his efforts for this object. So persuaded was he of the impracticability of the measure, that he even uniformly opposed the object when attempted by others. Moreover, he changed his opinions when he perceived the full connection and bearing of the subject with other agitating questions. He was desirous of a reform, if it ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... facts will be sufficient to show the difficulty, if not impracticability, of bringing back the operations of the Government to the construction of the Constitution set up in 1798, assuming that to be its true reading in relation to the power under consideration, thus giving an admonitory proof of the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, - Vol. 2, Part 3, Andrew Jackson, 1st term • Edited by James D. Richardson
... below the Monastery, Captain Haas and his men were able to study the situation in the city. The impracticability of an assault on any one of the stubborn, well-guarded gates was at once recognised. A force of seven hundred men, no matter how well trained or determined, could not be expected to surmount walls that had often withstood the attack of as many thousands. The wisdom ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... should have felt sure beforehand that he would sympathise with every ... sincere impulse; but, on the other hand, I have always regarded him as a man of sense.... Surely he cannot fail to realise all the impracticability, all the absurdity of conspiracies in Russia? In his position, ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... the shorter time would the suit last. No replication or decree is recorded. The litigation apparently terminated in a compromise, doubtless hastened by Mrs. Nash's second marriage. Perhaps Edward Nash by this time realized the injustice or the impracticability of his claim. The only further allusion to it occurs in Lady Barnard's will.[201] She directs her trustees to dispose of New Place with the proviso "that my loving cousin, Edward Nash, Esq., shall have the first offer or refusal thereof, according to ...
— Shakespeare's Family • Mrs. C. C. Stopes
... Lucilla objected to the impracticability of white silk, the inconvenience of unpacking the apparatus, the nuisance of dressing, the lack of time; but Rashe was delighted with the idea, and made light of all, and the gentlemen pressed her strongly, till with rather more of a ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... blood vessels? I imagine not. Were this the case, should we not find the blood sufficiently loaded with them in some stages of the Small-pox to communicate the disease by inserting it under the cuticle, or by spreading it on the surface of an ulcer? Yet experiments have determined the impracticability of its being given in this way; although it has been proved that variolous matter when much diluted with water, and applied to the skin in the usual manner, will produce the disease. But it would be digressing beyond a proper boundary, to go ...
— An Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolae Vaccinae • Edward Jenner
... rising generation will be greatly improved, render particularly due to you, any examples which may teach those virtues that are not easily learnt by precept and shew the facility of what, in mere speculation, might appear surrounded with a discouraging impracticability: you are the best judge, whether, by being made public, they may be conducive to your great end of benefiting the world. I therefore submit the future fate of the following sheets entirely to you, and shall ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott
... gentlemen he had already determined upon for his cabinet, and tendered him the Treasury. The only alternative was Madison; but he, with all his reputation as a statesman and party leader, was without skill as a financier, and in the debate on the Funding Bill in 1790 had shown his ignorance in the impracticability of his plans. If Jefferson ever entertained the thought of nominating Madison to the Treasury, political necessity absolutely forbade it. That necessity Mr. Gallatin, by his persistent assaults on the financial policy of the Federalists, had himself ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... being told she must send her articles to No. 29, in the gallery. This she refused to do, and the consequence has been that the Exhibition has been deprived of some of its rarest specimens of art. The reason Mrs. Peachey assigns for not sending her works to the gallery is the impracticability of their being carried up stairs without being, from their extreme fragility, seriously injured, perhaps mutilated. Even were they to be slung up by tackle, she says they would be subject to the same risk, and ...
— The Royal Guide to Wax Flower Modelling • Emma Peachey
... of the endless disputes that would ensue from these and a thousand other sources. For this reason the old federation of the States was an experience of inexpressible value. It settled forever, in the minds of all communities who are governed by cool common sense and not mad passion, the utter impracticability (for efficient cooeperation, and peaceful union) of a mere league or confederacy among sovereign and independent States. While the seven years' war of independence lasted, it managed to hold the States together; but when peace was restored the evils of the league were so glaring, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... my growth and the impracticability of propagation of this once valuable tree leaves but one course, that I pass to my reward with the firm hope that the other trees now being developed, and grown will fill all of the purposes for which I have been ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 43rd Annual Meeting - Rockport, Indiana, August 25, 26 and 27, 1952 • Various
... adapted to realization. If environment or internal inhibitions prevent this realization, however, the craving: lying back of the fancy must be diverted to a more practical channel—the normal solution—or the fancy must persist in spite of its impracticability. This latter process is the germ of the psychosis. But not its development. A certain compromise may be reached—he who digs for gold in his back-yard is not so crazy as he who reaches out his hand for the moon. Nor is the paranoic who chooses to put his interpretation ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... down a railway and furnish it with locomotives, or fixed engines where necessary, required a very large capital, beyond the means of ordinary coal-owners; whilst the small amount of interest felt in railways by the general public, and the supposed impracticability of working them to a profit, as yet prevented ordinary capitalists from venturing their money in the promotion of such undertakings. The Hetton Coal Company were, however, possessed of adequate means; and the local reputation of the Killingworth engine-wright pointed him out as the man best ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... could he do harm.[689] Another sceptic was Lord Melville, First Lord of the Admiralty, who, in a letter of 14th October, urged Pitt during his stay at Weymouth to represent to the King the importance of attacking the flotilla at Boulogne, if only in order to show the impracticability of Napoleon's scheme. Experienced officers, said Melville, reported that the flotilla must embark the troops in the outer road; yet the work of getting that vast concourse of boats out of the inner harbour could not be accomplished in less than four, five, or perhaps even six ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... and the neighbouring hill towards Hilchuck, is composed of this granitic sand reunited into rock. This sandstone is used in a few buildings, but I have seen no large blocks, and the difficulty, or impracticability, of procuring such, has probably occasioned this stone ...
— An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal • Fancis Buchanan Hamilton
... the object of this paper to show the impracticability of such systems when considered from a commercial standpoint, so long as the supply of coal lasts, and prices keep within ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 514, November 7, 1885 • Various
... of what I have quoted. The best chance is collection of cases; in fact, a Budget of Paradoxes. Those who have no knowledge of the subject can thus argue from the seen to the unseen. All can feel the impracticability of the Hubongramillposanfy numeration, and the absurdity of the equality of contour of a regular pentagon and hexagon in one and the same circle. Many may accordingly be satisfied, on the assurance of those who have studied, that there is as much of ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... been at work behind him, and the edge of the copse through which he was about to pass, was blockaded with bars in like manner with the path in front. He heard the shouts of the ruffians in the rear—he felt the danger, if not impracticability of his pausing for the removal of the rails, and, in the spirit which had heretofore marked his conduct, he determined upon the most daring endeavor. Throwing off all restraint from his steed, and fixing himself firmly in the stirrup and saddle, he plunged onward to the leap, and, ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... undertaking, for he would have preferred to proceed direct to Remilly, where he was certain to find a refuge, but where was he to obtain the blouse and trousers that he required as a disguise? to say nothing of the impracticability of getting past the numerous Prussian pickets and outposts that filled the valley all the way from la Garenne to Remilly. He therefore ended by consenting to act as guide to the two comrades. His leg was less stiff than it had been, ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... which have taken a party as much as two hours of careful work to cross by daylight, must be crossed and re-crossed at every visit to the breeding site in the bay. There is no possibility even by daylight of conveying over them the sledge or camping kit, and in the darkness of mid-winter the impracticability is still more obvious. Cape Crozier is a focus for wind and storm, where every breath is converted, by the configuration of Mounts Erebus and Terror, into a regular drifting blizzard full of snow. It is here, as I have already ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... of imperialism, and they denounced the "Krupp-Kaiser" alliance. But against such writing and such thought we had to count, in those days, great and powerful realities. Even to those who expressed these ideas there lay visibly upon them the shadow of impracticability; they were very "advanced" ideas in 1914, very Utopian. Against them was an unbroken mass of mental habit and public tradition. While we talked of this "war to end war," the diplomatists of the Powers allied against Germany were busily spinning ...
— In The Fourth Year - Anticipations of a World Peace (1918) • H.G. Wells
... idea of the impracticability of her own views flitted across her brain. Perhaps it was necessary that races doomed to live on the same soil should give way to each other and adopt each other's pursuits. Perhaps it was impossible that after more than five centuries ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... sad enough for the two girls,—this kind of life. The worst of it, perhaps, was this; that they never knew when to expect him. A word had been said once as to the impracticability of having dinner ready for a gentleman, when the gentleman would never say whether he would want a dinner. It had been an unfortunate remark, for Sir Thomas had taken advantage of it by saying that when he came he would come after dinner, unless he had certified to the contrary beforehand. ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... enough for me to see for some distance down the face of the rock, and I strained my eyes to see if I could discern any other spot at which an ascent or descent was possible. The prospect was not encouraging. At some places the face fell sheer away from the edge, and so evident was the impracticability of escape that the only place which I glanced at twice was the western side, that is the one away from the hill. Here it sloped gradually for a few feet. I took off my shoes and went down to the edge. Below, some ten feet, was a ledge, on to which with care I could get down, but below that was a ...
— Tales of Daring and Danger • George Alfred Henty
... with country solitudes had bred in him an unconquerable, and almost unreasonable, aversion to modern town life, and shut him out from such success as he might have aspired to by following a mundane calling in the impracticability of the spiritual one. But something had to be done; he had wasted many valuable years; and having an acquaintance who was starting on a thriving life as a Colonial farmer, it occurred to Angel that this might be a lead in the right direction. ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... are convinced of the justice of the American cause, (and where is one to be found that is not?) should make haste to acknowledge the independence of the United States, and form equitable treaties with them, as the surest means of convincing Great Britain of the impracticability of her pursuits? Whether the late marine treaty concerning the rights of neutral vessels, noble and useful as it is, can be established against Great Britain, who will never adopt it, nor submit to it, but from necessity, without the independence ...
— A Collection of State-Papers, Relative to the First Acknowledgment of the Sovereignty of the United States of America • John Adams
... had full confidence, giving him only general instructions. Sherman landed his army on the east side of the river, above Vicksburg, and made a direct assault, which proved unsuccessful, and he was compelled to reembark his defeated troops. The impracticability of successful assault on the north side was then accepted. General McClernand's corps on the 11th of January, aided by the navy under Admiral Porter, captured Arkansas Post on the White River, taking 6000 prisoners, 17 guns, and a large ...
— Ulysses S. Grant • Walter Allen
... members of the republican party had conceived a hope of conquering Canada as a result of a victorious war against Great Britain. This was the reply of the national party in the United States to the action of the Canadian governor. Madison knew the impracticability of such a step, but, finding that he could only carry the presidential election of 1812 with the support of this section of his party, he declared war. Great Britain, with her best troops in the Peninsula, ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... that it gratifies you, and I am careful that he would understand that to be the case. But do you know the sort of man he is? Though he has two such good-natured people to deal with, nothing can exceed his impracticability. Now as to what you ask about Gaius Cato. You know that he was acquitted under the lex Iunia Licinia:[601] I have to tell you that he will be acquitted under the lex Fufia,[602] and not so much to the satisfaction of his defenders ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... foreign historians consider a purely Spanish product was really imported by the German Caesars. It was the German friar who came with his devout brutality and his crazy theology, not tempered as in Spain by Semitic culture. With their intolerance and impracticability they provoked the revolution of the Reformation in the northern countries, and, driven out of them, they came here to plant afresh their ignorance and fanaticism. The ground was well prepared. When the free towns whose municipalities were republics fell, the people also languished; the foreign seed ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... respect the Utopian dreams of social justice in which many contemporary socialists and anarchists indulge are, in spite of their impracticability and non-adaptation to present environmental conditions, analogous to the saint's belief in an existent kingdom of heaven. They help to break the edge of the general reign of hardness and are slow ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... take the trolley-car. With the exception of Uncle Timothy, they were all there, even Max, who had declared his only interest in the place was to sell it. But, hearing that Jarvis Burnside was to inspect it, he had decided to point out to Jarvis the impracticability of making a home out of the property—unless for some rich man who might be induced to buy it at a figure worth while. He sat beside Jarvis in the car, talking to him, as Sally could see, in a way intended to ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... have been condemned and laughed at, for the folly and impracticability of their attempts in 1715, and 1745. That they failed, I bless GOD; but cannot join in the ridicule against them. Who does not know that the abilities or defects of leaders and commanders are often hidden, until put to the touchstone of exigency; and that there is a caprice ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... able by her power and situation to give effectual and prompt assistance, would permit such an accession of force to her rival. He imagined, therefore, that the ministers of France, convinced of the impracticability of their scheme, would at last embrace pacific views, and would abandon an enterprise so obnoxious to all the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... the difficulties of getting to America became more and more apparent. Wynne wrote to press upon me the expedience of trying our scheme of Pantisocracy in Wales, knowing how impracticable it would be any where; knowing also, that there was no hope of convincing me of its impracticability, at that time. In our former plan we were all agreed, and expected that what the earth failed to produce for us, the pen would supply. Such were our views in January 1795; when S. T. Coleridge gave his first and second lectures in the Corn Market, and his third in a vacant house in Castle Green. ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... grateful appreciation is here tendered to many who have responded with material and suggestions in the research, and to the numerous teachers whose resourcefulness has led to the adaptation of many games to school conditions. The author regrets the impracticability of mentioning all ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... enterprising, the leaders of their race. Why? Let the facts answer. I have already said that the Church strove to continue after the war the same method of dealing with the negroes as before. She tried to keep the races together; but she has found it impractical, that impracticability growing more and more clear as the years have run on. The races have been steadily drifting apart in all social or semi-social life; the better class of each race is coming less and less into contact with each other; and race prejudice is increasing and deepening in the great masses of both ...
— Church work among the Negroes in the South - The Hale Memorial Sermon No. 2 • Robert Strange
... spoilt rough blocks of granite ushabtis for his tomb. The cast is in almost perfect condition, and we can now really study his face, which is full of character. There is no trace of passion in it, but a philosophical calm with great obstinacy and impracticability. He was no vigorous fanatic, but rather a high bred theorist and reformer: not a Cromwell but a Mill. An interesting historical study awaits us here from his physiognomy and his reforms. No such cast remains of any other personage ...
— The American Journal of Archaeology, 1893-1 • Various
... man who knew the impracticability of a "simple blockade," it was the General in command of the Continental army. No one stood in greater need of "stores of any kind, public or private." The spirit of his army was doubtless as he described it; but he had wholly mistaken ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... had already received, and that at once the most splendid and the least suitable which Europe could afford. Philip of Spain, loth to relinquish his hold upon England, but long since aware of the impracticability of establishing any claims of his own in opposition to the title of Elizabeth, now sought to reign by her; and to the formal announcement which she conveyed to him of the death of his late wife, accompanied with expressions of her anxiety to preserve his friendship, he had ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... readily sold to the adventurers to the Indies. With these small means he departed, having communicated his project to no one except to a beloved sister, whose tears could not prevail to keep the lad at home; the impetuous impulse had blinded him to the perils and the impracticability of his wild project. He reached Madrid, where the great VELASQUEZ, his countryman, was struck by the ingenuous simplicity of the youth, who urgently requested letters for Rome; but when that noble ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... difficulty prudence required that the road which we had formed on landing should be continued to the very margin of the lake; whilst appearances seemed to indicate the total impracticability of the scheme. From firm ground to the water's edge was here a distance of many miles, through the very centre of a morass where human foot had never before trodden. Yet it was desirable at least to make the attempt; for if it failed we should only be reduced to our former alternative ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig
... decline he gives no intelligible account; he would not have liked to admit the most probable causes of the fall of his ideal State, which to us would appear to be the impracticability of communism or the natural antagonism of the ruling and subject classes. He throws a veil of mystery over the origin of the decline, which he attributes to ignorance of the law of population. Of this ...
— The Republic • Plato
... arm above the shoulders signifies vivid imagination, or impracticability. It may be read as an indication of lightness of character or of a tendency to go off on a tangent. Conversely, gestures outward from the lower part of the body denote power, or an inclination ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... expressed ten years ago upon the impracticability of supplanting to any extent the Tagal language by the Spanish. The same considerations apply equally well to English. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 • Emma Helen Blair
... watching with jealous anxiety for the preservation of the Union was earnestly pressed upon his fellow-citizens by the Father of his Country in his Farewell Address. He has there told us that "while experience shall not have demonstrated its impracticability, there will always be reason to distrust the patriotism of those who in any quarter may endeavor to weaken its bands;" and he has cautioned us in the strongest terms against the formation of parties on geographical discriminations, as one of the means which might disturb our Union and ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson
... constituted; merciless in egotism when put to the use of all her weapons, moved to warmest gratitude as soon as concession was made to her. To be on ill terms with her father had caused her pain, the only effect of which, however, was to heighten the sullen impracticability of her temper. At the first glimpse of relief from overstrained emotions, she desired that all angry feeling should be at an end. Having gained her point, she could once more be the affectionately wilful girl whose love was the first necessity of ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing
... Gauley Bridge to the narrows of New River where the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad crossed upon an important bridge which was several times made the objective point of an expedition. This alone proved the impracticability of the plan McClellan first conceived, of making the Kanawha valley the line of an important movement into eastern Virginia. It pointed very plainly, also, to the true theory of operations in that country. Gauley Bridge should have been held with a good brigade which could have had outposts several ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... know whether the word is intelligible in England. It implies a combination of littleness of nature, small self-conceit, readiness to take offence, determination in little things to have one's own way, and general impracticability. There are men to whom even the members of their own families do not like to talk about their plans and views: who will suddenly go off on a long journey without telling anyone in the house till the minute before they go; and concerning whom their ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... occupancy of the same territory by the white and red man is incompatible with the safety or happiness of either is a position in respect to which there has long since ceased to be room for a difference of opinion. Reason and experience have alike demonstrated its impracticability. The bitter fruits of every attempt heretofore to overcome the barriers interposed by nature have only been destruction, both physical and moral, to the Indian, dangerous conflicts of authority between the Federal and State Governments, and detriment to ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... realized the Utopian character of the scheme, saw its impracticability, and proceeded to condemn it with more than his ordinary irritability and brusquerie. Finding, however, that the emperor was not to be argued out of the idea of holding a labor conference, he proceeded to ridicule ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... mere respectability goes there is no family in the land that stands higher than his, but the complete obsession of his mind by this International Marine and Zoo Flotation Company of his is entirely beyond my comprehension, and his attempts to explain it to me are futile, because its utter impracticability, and the reasons advanced for its use seem so absurd that I lose my temper before he gets half way through the first page of his prospectus. From his boyhood up he has been fond of the water, and when ...
— The Autobiography of Methuselah • John Kendrick Bangs
... villages, and by a bold dash, seize my wife and bear her defiantly off in the very teeth of my adversaries. This would have been very spirited and chivalrous, no doubt, but unfortunately, the obstacles that opposed themselves to this plan were legion. No sooner did I convince myself of the impracticability of such a mode of procedure, than other plans would present themselves, which, in their turn would have to be relinquished when submitted to the rigorous test of practicability. This constant strain on my ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... the northern phalanx is so firmly united as to bear down all opposition, while Virginia is unsupported even by those whose interests are similar to hers.[27] Colonel Lee tells me that many who were warm supporters of the government are changing their sentiments, from a conviction of the impracticability of union with states, whose interests are so dissimilar to ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... 1919, the Coal Commission had to face the physical impracticability of enforcing the demands of the Treaty, and agreed to modify them as follows:—"Germany shall in the next six months make deliveries corresponding to an annual delivery of 20 million tons as compared with 43 millions as provided in the Peace Treaty. If Germany's total production ...
— The Economic Consequences of the Peace • John Maynard Keynes
... away from the fact that it was only too possible, not to say probable, that they would find Mr. Ede waiting for them. He thought of disguises and secret doors, and masks and wigs, of the wardrobe-baskets, but a moment's reflection convinced him of the impracticability of stowing Kate away in one of these. He then thought of wrapping a railway rug around his newly-acquired wife, and carrying her thus concealed in his arms; but that would not do either. Mr. Ede would be sure to ask ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... to the head of his department the total impracticability of carrying on the public service without a remittance of specie, or a government paper substitute. He was in expectation of making arrangements with some individuals that would have enabled him to proceed, but I much fear that the whole project has ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... the impracticability of the measure before them. They wished to see the trade abolished; but there was some necessity for continuing it, which they conceived to exist. Nay, almost every one, he believed, appeared to wish, that the further importation of slaves might cease; provided it ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson
... estimation than those capital fellows W—— and B——, who walk in glory and in joy behind their ploughs upon your mountain sides. The Brunswick canal project was descanted upon, and pronounced, without a shadow of dissent, a scheme the impracticability of which all but convicted its projectors of insanity. Certainly, if, as I hear the monied men of Boston have gone largely into this speculation, their habitual sagacity must have been seriously at fault; for here on the spot nobody mentions ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... [Mr. MADISON], whose expositions of that instrument all classes, all parties, have heretofore received, and still receive, or pretend to receive, with profound deference and respect, has left on record his views of the injustice, impracticability, and inefficacy of force as a means of coercing States ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... see no philanthropy in educating persons to prepare for doom in a deadly climate. The convention of the free people of color assembled in Philadelphia in 1830, denounced the colonization movement as an evil, and urged their fellows not to support it. Pointing out the impracticability of such schemes, the convention encouraged the race to take steps toward its elevation in this country.[1] Should the colored people be properly educated, the prejudice against them would not continue such as to necessitate their expatriation. The delegates hoped ...
— The Education Of The Negro Prior To 1861 • Carter Godwin Woodson
... acted as an amateur throughout the campaign, as the general's extra aide-de-camp, and Lieutenant Hodgson, of the Cornwallis, as also by Lieutenant Heatley. Instantly rushing down the bank, the four officers plunged into the canal and swam across, thus proving the impracticability of fording it. ...
— Our Sailors - Gallant Deeds of the British Navy during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... assurance that the candle burning would certainly cause the rent-money to be forthcoming in time was to Clotilde unknown, and to Aurora it was poor stuff to make peace of mind of. But there was a degree of impracticability in these ladies, which, if it was unfortunate, was, nevertheless, a part of their Creole beauty, and made the absence of any really brilliant outlook what the galaxy makes a moonless sky. Perhaps they had not been as diligent as they might have been in canvassing all possible ways and means ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... with a translation of the communication accompanying that note from the special commissioner of that Republic, together with a copy of a letter from the special commissioner of the United States of the 26th ultimo, under the convention of the 10th September, 1857, setting forth the impracticability of disposing of the cases submitted to the joint commission now in session under the convention within the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Lincoln - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 6: Abraham Lincoln • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... we have been taught to entertain for the blacks makes us fancy many things that are founded neither in reason nor experience; and an unwillingness to part with property of so valuable a kind will furnish a thousand arguments to show the impracticability, or pernicious tendency, of a scheme which requires such sacrifices. But it should be considered that if we do not make use of them in this way, the enemy probably will; and that the best way to counteract the temptations they will hold out, will be to offer them ourselves. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... contemporaneously with the cessation of hostilities,—a dream romantic and hopelessly incapable of realization, but humane and beautiful. Since he did not live to endeavor to transform it into a fact, and thereby perhaps to have his efforts cause even seriously injurious results, it is open to us to forget the impracticability of the fancy and to revere the nature which in such an hour could give birth to ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse
... Pennsylvania," as is observed in the representation, "whose names and association lie before your Majesty in Council, for the purpose of making settlements in Nova Scotia," have, several years since, been convinced of the impracticability of exciting settlers to move from the middle colonies, and settle in that province; and even of those who were prevailed on to go to Nova Scotia, the greater part of them returned with great complaints against the severity and ...
— Report of the Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations on the Petition of the Honourable Thomas Walpole, Benjamin Franklin, John Sargent, and Samuel Wharton, Esquires, and their Associates • Great Britain Board of Trade
... went on to tell of the opposition he had encountered and the obstacles he had overcome in the cause of the Stockbridge branch. I was entertained with a multitude of local details and local grievances. The rapacity of one squire, the impracticability of another, the indignation of the rector whose glebe was threatened, the culpable indifference of the Stockbridge townspeople, who could not be brought to see that their most vital interests hinged upon a junction ...
— Stories by English Authors: England • Various
... Concerning these lectures, Leigh Hunt remarked that it seemed "as if some Puritan had come to life again, liberalized by German philosophy and his own intense reflections and experience." Another critic, a Scotch writer, could see nothing but wild impracticability in them, and exclaimed, "Can any living man point to a single practical passage in any of these lectures? If not, what is the real value of Mr. Carlyle's teachings? What is Mr. ...
— On the Choice of Books • Thomas Carlyle
... discoveries; and there seems good ground for such an accusation, which indeed was confirmed by the evidence of his officers, and not explicitly denied by himself. Government was undoubtedly of opinion that the voyage of Middleton had not determined the non-existence or impracticability of a passage; for the next year an act of parliament was passed, granting a reward of 20,000l. to the person or persons who should discover a northwest passage through Hudson's Straits to the western and southern ocean ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... Utopian questionings. The sane, practical man shakes his head, smiles pityingly at my dreamy impracticability, ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... rival schemes with large followings and vested interests—in short, until the same obstacles arise to the choice of an international, artificial, and neutral language, as now prevent the elevation of any national language into a universal medium? The plea of impracticability on the score of dislocation might then be valid. At present it is not. To have an easy language that will carry you anywhere and enable you to read anything, it is sufficient to wish for it. Only, as we Britons are being taught to "think imperially," ...
— International Language - Past, Present and Future: With Specimens of Esperanto and Grammar • Walter J. Clark
... breakfast! They might as good have had the comfort of a private room, for there was none other to be had. Of the tea and coffee it might be said, as once it was said of two bad roads "whichever one you take, you will wish you had taken the other;" the beefsteak was a problem of impracticability; and the chickens Fleda could not help thinking, that a well- to-do rooster which she saw flapping his wings in the yard, must, in all probability, be at that very moment endeavouring to account for a sudden breach in his social circle; and if ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell
... encouraged the wild ideas of the rebels of 1837. Sir F. B. Head had called him to his councils in 1836, as a man "highly respected for his moral character, moderate in his politics and possessing the esteem and confidence of all parties,"[44] and only Head's impracticability had driven him from public service. There is not a letter or official note from his pen, which does not bear the stamp of unusual conscientiousness, and a very earnest desire to serve his country. So little was he a self-seeker, that he earned the lasting ...
— British Supremacy & Canadian Self-Government - 1839-1854 • J. L. Morison
... so interested in my discoveries that I forgot altogether my own critical position, the impracticability of escape till Frank had gone to sleep, the chance of arousing him as I went out, or, more alarming still, the awful possibility of his lying awake all night. When morning dawned, concealment could no longer be preserved, ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... Postmaster-General, by the act of 1891, to contract with the owners of American steamships for ocean mail service and has realized the impracticability of commanding suitable steamships in the interest of the postal service alone by requiring that such steamers shall be of a size, class, and equipment which will promote commerce and become available as auxiliary ...
— Latin America and the United States - Addresses by Elihu Root • Elihu Root
... be observed, that, with regard to the three principal consequences of our great navigator's transactions, I have nothing further to offer. These are, his having dispelled the illusion of a Terra Australis Incognita; his demonstration of the impracticability of a northern passage from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean; and his having established a sure method of preserving the health of seamen in the longest voyages, and through every variety of latitude and climate. Concerning each of these capital ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... really own an echo, and sell it, too, for a high figure—such an echo as that at the Villa Siminetti, two miles from Milan, for instance. My first purpose was to have the man make a collection of caves and afterwards of echoes; but perceived that the element of absurdity and impracticability was so nearly identical as to amount to a repetition ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... and inherent purpose of public benefits, instead of being sacrilegiously alienated by a transfer to private proprietors. That this was impracticable, is historically true; but no less true is it philosophically, that this impracticability, arising wholly from moral causes, (namely, the loose manners and corrupt principles of a great majority in all classes during the dynasty of the Tudors,) does not prevent this wholesale sacrilege, from deserving ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... foregoing notes were written the impracticability of the universal or even of the general application of the principle has been fully demonstrated. Mr. Wilson resurrected "the consent of the governed" regardless of the fact that history denied its value as a practical guide in modern political relations. He proclaimed it in the phrase "self-determination," ...
— The Peace Negotiations • Robert Lansing
... Roads, then threatening our West India possessions, might be destroyed at one blow; this extraordinary request from a junior captain, after the most experienced officers in the navy had pronounced its impracticability, forcibly proving the very high opinion entertained by the Admiralty of Lord Cochrane's skill and resources. He gave in a plan, and was ordered to execute it, which order he reluctantly obeyed, having ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... legal and equitable considerations, and those having their origin in personally conceived ideas of justice, I wish respectfully to call your attention to the impracticability of maintaining a joint occupation of Manila and its suburbs, and in this I know that I shall have the approval of your excellent judgment. It would be extremely difficult to prevent friction between ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... read the merciless greed and impracticability of these goldseekers. Men who had never driven a horse in their lives, and had no idea what an animal could do, or what he required to eat, loaded their outfits upon some poor patient beast and drove him without feed until, weakened and insecure of foot, he slipped ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... the improvement which every day takes place in science and mechanics, I was encouraged to hope my present attempts would at least lay the foundations of future success. Nor could I consider the magnitude and complexity of my plan as any argument of its impracticability. It was with these feelings that I began the creation of a human being. As the minuteness of the parts formed a great hindrance to my speed, I resolved, contrary to my first intention, to make the being of a gigantic stature, that is to say, about eight feet in ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley
... cause, the nature and stability of our union, and the solemn engagements by which not only the States but his Most Christian Majesty, are reciprocally bound to maintain the sovereignty, rights and jurisdiction of each of the thirteen States inviolably; and the utter impracticability of our acceding to any treaty of peace with Great Britain, on the principles of a uti possidetis, or on any other terms than such as shall imply an express or tacit acknowledgment of the sovereignty of each and ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various
... enemies, to return them good for evil, and to love them, seemed madness. At the same time he had a feeling that in that madness itself there was something mightier than all philosophies so far. He thought that because of its madness it was impracticable, but because of its impracticability it was divine. In his soul he rejected it; but he felt that he was parting as if from a field full of spikenard, a kind of intoxicating incense; when a man has once breathed of this he must, as in the land ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... their report before the Legislature with a message in which I said: "There is probably no lawyer of high standing in the State who, after studying the report of counsel in this case and the testimony taken by the investigating commission, would disagree with them as to the impracticability of a successful prosecution. Under such circumstances the one remedy was a thorough change in the methods and management. ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... One further principle of warfare, by no means new, was justified to the hilt—no frontal attack should ever be attempted unless all counter attack from a flank is impossible, or unless sufficient forces are available to render such an attack an impracticability. The ultimate capture of the Hill necessitated nearly two months' artillery preparation and the employment at intervals of two Brigades. Perhaps there is one further illustration of the uncertainty of modern warfare in the history of Hill ...
— The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 - 1919 - History of the 1/8th Battalion • W.C.C. Weetman
... the details to criticize are not forthcoming, and the opinions on principles and on details of these imaginative writers are never twice the same. It suffices that proposals such as these, apart from their vagueness and their obvious impracticability in any form, are directly condemned by the fundamental principle that a man shall be responsible for his acts. The endowment of motherhood, as Mr. Wells means it, is simply a phrase for making men responsible for their neighbours' acts and for striking hard and true at the ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... Parliament and of the people than the last. There is, I think, moreover, on their part, a desire to prove, by proper deference for the authority of the Governor-General (which they all admit has in my case never been abused), that they were libelled when they were accused of impracticability and ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... could see the gap made by the river on entering the mountain. To that place he said he would conduct captain Clarke if he desired it by the next evening. But he was in need of no further evidence to convince him of the utter impracticability of the route before him. He had already witnessed the difficulties of part of the road, yet after all these dangers his guide, whose intelligence and fidelity he could not doubt, now assured him that the difficulties were only commencing, and what he saw before him too clearly convinced ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... pursued by France, Germany, &c., ib. true principles of, 268. No. II. The corn-laws, 385 failure of the reciprocity system, ib. comparison of a young and old state as to manufacturing and agricultural productiveness, 386 effects of free trade on the Roman empire, 391 impracticability of that system, 396 and its ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... has done with it. A writer who thinks of constructing a novel out of somebody's correspondence may surely consult Clarissa upon all the details of the craft. And Clarissa, and Grandison still more, will also give the fullest warning of the impracticability of the method, after all; for Richardson is forced to pay heavily for its single benefit. He pays with the desperate shifts to which he is driven in order to maintain any kind of verisimilitude. The visible effort of keeping all Clarissa's ...
— The Craft of Fiction • Percy Lubbock
... less confidently; only saying, that by an attempt there, we might probably approach nearer to the discovery.[40] He had good reason for thus guarding his expression; for the committee, who directed this voyage, admitting the impracticability of effecting a passage at Repulse Bay, had refused allowing the ships to go into it, being ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... punishments horrible, and their treatment of prisoners of war a disgrace to the name of Christians. Can Governor Strong be totally ignorant of the policy of some in patronizing bible and missionary societies? And does he not see the impracticability of the scheme contemplated by the latter? If we divide the known countries of the globe into thirty equal parts, five will be found to be Christians, six Mahometans, and NINETEEN Pagans. It is difficult to believe that the first man, the governor ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... surplices, one would think, never needed washing; Mr. Dutton and Gerard Godfrey were paragons of lay helpers, and district visitors never were troublesome. Mrs. Edwards listened with open ears, and together they bewailed the impracticability of moving the Canon to raising Bridgefield to anything approaching to such a standard; while Nuttie absolutely cultivated ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... is true also of the mental differences. We may readily accept the saturating influence of sex on woman's mind. I mean a deep-lying distinction, not superficial and to be explained away as due to outside things, but based on the essential fact of her womanhood—her capacity for maternity. But the impracticability of making any definite statement as to the exact nature or extent of such mental sexual differentiation is evident. First must be cleared up the difficulty of distinguishing between those differences that are fundamental and constitutional as being ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... was far ahead of every other German theatre, and this drew the attention of Wagner and his friends to the spot. Various causes combined to make the idea of giving the first performances of the Ring in this theatre an utter impracticability, and Wagner reverted to his old pet idea of building a theatre for himself. An eminent architect, Gottfried Semper, cheerfully helped at planning a building which should unite the utmost artistic usefulness with the smallest possible expense. The house is long out-of-date, ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... further word to say about the possibility of making balloons navigable. He considers that their size will have to be great to the verge of impracticability and the power of the motor enormous in proportion to its weight. As to flying machines, properly so called, he calculates the best that has been done to be the sustaining of from 27 lbs. to 55 lbs. per horse power by impact upon the air. But ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... few more arguments as to the impracticability of his suggestions, the men dispersed, casting meaning glances ...
— For Gold or Soul? - The Story of a Great Department Store • Lurana W. Sheldon
... you that Lafayette assented to all that I said. He had reason for the impracticability of getting aside the personal interests which would be active in defeating such a reform, that involved details and a knowledge of character to which I had nothing to say; and, as respects the Duc de Bordeaux, he affirmed that the ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... that he must either attack or I should withdraw his force. I advocated, as I had previously done, an advance from his left." This last phrase does not make certain whether Buller's judgment coincided with that of Warren concerning the impracticability of the Acton Homes route, but it seems to indicate that it ...
— Story of the War in South Africa - 1899-1900 • Alfred T. Mahan |
