"Insuperable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... France to dictate terms which England could not accept without degradation, or refuse without aggravating the existing grounds of hostility. Circumstances might arise—such as a change in the Government—to obviate the former difficulty; but the latter was insuperable. It would have been inconsistent with the principles upon which the war was undertaken to have proposed or submitted to any conditions which France, exulting over her recent successes, could have been expected to approve; and the ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... committee or other international tribunal could be made a businesslike organisation working directly for results,—as directly as the board of directors of any commercial corporation. And it is with those who consider this impracticable that the onus lies of pointing out the direction from which insuperable resistance is to be expected,—from which particular Powers in Europe, in Asia, or in Central ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... advanced by Columbus, of the possibility of reaching the East Indies by sailing to the west, was assumed as certainly well founded, though he had not been able to accomplish it; and it was asserted, that it could not be attended with any insuperable difficulty to sail from the South Sea, then recently discovered, to the Molucca Islands. The grand desideratum was to find a passage westwards, from the Atlantic Ocean into the new-found South Sea, which they expected might be met with ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... Rip's composition was an insuperable aversion to all kinds of profitable labour. It could not be from the want of assiduity or perseverance; for he would sit on a wet rock, with a rod as long and heavy as a Tartar's lance, and fish all day without a ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... is certainly the case of what, at one time, was, with quite as much sympathetic affection as contempt, popularly called "the poor old Cambrian." There were times when the difficulties which faced its constructors appeared to be absolutely insuperable. What with the enormous weight of its cradle, measured in gold, and the continual quarrels of its nurses, the undertaking was well nigh strangled at birth. Even when the line was actually opened for traffic a burden of financial difficulty rested upon Directors ...
— The Story of the Cambrian - A Biography of a Railway • C. P. Gasquoine
... ideal of a desirable companion combines quick feelings, with a serene, self-possessed temper. Spare no efforts in ascertaining how near the individual who addresses you approaches this ideal. An utter failure, should present, in your view, an insuperable obstacle to a connection with him ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... Lord Palmerston and Lord John Russell, who had each been Prime Minister and leader of the Liberal Party. Unwilling to be compelled to decide between them, she called upon Lord Granville to form a Ministry representative of all sections of the Liberal Party; but the difficulties proved insuperable, and Lord Palmerston eventually formed a Ministry in which the Whigs, the Peelites, and the Manchester School were all represented, though Mr Cobden declined to join the Government. Mr Gladstone, who had returned from the mission he had undertaken for the Derby Cabinet, and voted with ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... most insuperable difficulties before the world at the present time is the lack of any central authority to which may be referred those matters of general and vital concern that affect the peoples of more than one nation. The peoples feel this lack. They are aware of ...
— The Next Step - A Plan for Economic World Federation • Scott Nearing
... to Chungking—a distance of 412 miles—the river Yangtse, in a great part of its course, is a series of rapids which no steamer has yet attempted to ascend, though it is contended that the difficulties of navigation would not be insuperable to a specially constructed steamer of elevated horse-power. Some idea of the speed of the current at this part of the river may be given by the fact that a junk, taking thirty to thirty-five days to do the upward journey, hauled most of the way by gangs ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... of his heart. Of the style a foreigner may not speak. But those who are proper judges maintain that in simplicity and lucidity, vigour, and power, softness, elevation, and eloquence, the style of Machiavelli is 'divine,' and remains, as that of Dante among the poets, unchallenged and insuperable among all ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... may we not draw a moral from the story of his life as faintly and imperfectly shadowed forth in the preceding sketch? Does it not show us how we may overcome obstacles deemed by us insuperable, and how we may seek to become something better than what we are? The poet's name will go down to future ages as the idol of his countrymen; may the beneficial effect produced by a mind like his upon the character and aspirations of the ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... the whole subject of paternity in the popular mind to the plane where it belongs, as will this love and knowledge, when it is bred in the child from his early years. Many difficulties in handling this subject that become insuperable might never even exist if the knowledge of fatherhood, if love and respect for it and for the father as the giver of life, were bred into the boy at an early age. Moreover a certain shyness, which ...
— The Renewal of Life; How and When to Tell the Story to the Young • Margaret Warner Morley
... unalterable prejudices in the United States, the freed blacks ought to be permanently removed beyond the region occupied by, or allotted to, a white population. The objections to a thorough incorporation of the two people, are, with most of the whites, insuperable; and are admitted by all of them to be very powerful. If the blacks, strongly marked as they are by physical and lasting peculiarities, be retained amid the whites, under the degrading privation of equal rights, political or social, they must be always dissatisfied with their ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... seems to please no one but the author. But in truth the task of inventing an adequate system for notating the rhythm of prose, and securing a working agreement among prosodists as to a proper terminology, is almost insuperable. Those of us who sat in our youth at the feet of German masters were taught that the distinction between verse and prose was simple: verse was, as the Greeks had called it, "bound speech" and prose was "loosened speech." ...
— A Study of Poetry • Bliss Perry
... although woman has practically been excluded from the requisite training, and the freedom to place herself in the positions in which they can be pursued, that yet, by force of innate genius and gifts in such directions, she has continually broken through the seemingly insuperable obstacles, and again and again taken her place beside man in those fields of labour; showing thereby not merely aptitude but passionate and determined inclination in those directions. With equal truth, it is often remarked that, ...
— Woman and Labour • Olive Schreiner
... opportunities for squandering both, find none so gracious and graceful as giving dinners to other people who have time and money to waste. The prime condition of such dinners is that neither host nor guest shall need them. The presence of a person who actually wanted meat and drink would imply certain insuperable disqualifications. The guest must have the habit of dining, with the accumulated indifference to dinners and the inveterate inability to deal peptically with them which result from the habit of them. Your true diner must be well ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... laboratory of Dr. Bernath, but also dissecting rooms, amphitheatre, and anatomical museum. Of the latter, indeed, there are several, osteological, physiological, &c., and they reflect great credit upon the gentlemen who have formed them under almost insuperable difficulties. There are several other important buildings in or near Bucarest. Two of these, the Agricultural College and the Asyle Helene in the outskirts, will receive a special description hereafter; ...
— Roumania Past and Present • James Samuelson
... no subject of divine revelation, on which more has been said, preached and written than the one, which we are now about to consider. It has been brought forward by men of talents and erudition as an insuperable barrier against Universal Salvation, and their several adherents have taken it for granted, that it can never be explained in harmony with the sentiment, that all men shall eventually obtain eternal life ...
— Twenty-Four Short Sermons On The Doctrine Of Universal Salvation • John Bovee Dods
... different Particular Synods to which the brethren belong, and the delays of carrying out a system of appellate jurisdiction covering America and China, it is enough to say:—(1) That the Presbyterian Church (O.S.) finds no insuperable difficulties in carrying into operation her system which comprehends Presbyteries and Synods in India as well as here; and (2) That whatever hindrances may at any time arise, this body will, in humble reliance ...
— History and Ecclesiastical Relations of the Churches of the Presbyterial Order at Amoy, China • J. V. N. Talmage
... really meditated such an alliance, the indifference of Waverley would have been an insuperable bar to his project. Our hero, since mixing more freely with the world, had learned to think with great shame and confusion upon his mental legend of Saint Cecilia, and the vexation of these reflections was likely, for some time at least, to counterbalance the natural susceptibility ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... of destroying the power of journalism by allowing newspapers to multiply till no one took any notice of them; but he missed his opportunity, and a sort of privilege was created, as it were, by the almost insuperable difficulties put in the way of starting a new venture. So, in 1821, the periodical press might be said to have power of life and death over the creations of the brain and the publishing trade. A few lines ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... scarcely possible. Germany, who believed she knew her, thought it least of all. German statesmen argued that America had too much to lose by such a decision—too little to gain; the task of transporting men and materials across three thousand miles of ocean seemed insuperable; the differing traditions of her population would make it impossible for her to concentrate her will in so unusual a direction. Basing their arguments on a knowledge of the deep-seated selfishness of human nature, Hun statesmen were of the fixed ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson
... one of the most eminent of living British statesmen gave it as his opinion that the war had lasted two years too long, and that the task of salvaging an enduring peace from the wreck had become well-nigh insuperable. It will always be one of the fascinating riddles of history to guess what the result would have been if Mr. Wilson's final proposals for mediation had been accepted. The United States would not have entered the war, and a less violent readjustment ...
— Woodrow Wilson's Administration and Achievements • Frank B. Lord and James William Bryan
... tried, there is no conclusive test of their discipline, nor proof that their training at arms is satisfying a legitimate military end. The old game of follow-the-leader has no point if the leader himself, like the little girl in a Thomas Hardy novel, is balked by insuperable obstacles one-quarter inch high. All military forces remain relatively undisciplined until physically toughened and mentally conditioned to unusual exertion. Consider the road march! No body of men could possibly enjoy the dust, the heat, ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... in their defence; or rather, if they had only one prince, and that a good one; this nation situated in so powerful, strong, and inaccessible a country, could hardly ever be completely overcome. If, therefore, they would be inseparable, they would become insuperable, being assisted by these three circumstances; a country well defended by nature, a people both contented and accustomed to live upon little, a community whose nobles as well as privates are instructed in the use of arms; and especially as the English fight for power, ...
— The Description of Wales • Geraldus Cambrensis
... one to see her, save a young and interesting cousin of mine. She seldom went out except on Sundays, and then was carried to church in an old sedan-chair by a couple of labourers, who did odd jobs of gardening about the house. She had such an insuperable objection to be seen by anybody, whether at home or abroad, that she concealed her face ...
— Tales for Young and Old • Various
... vigorous and fertile than their parents. On the other hand, species when crossed, and their hybrid offspring, are almost invariability in some degree sterile; and here there seems to exist a broad and insuperable distinction between races and species. The importance of this subject as bearing on the origin of species is obvious; and we shall hereafter ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... comprehend the object of this nocturnal walk and the long pause that Henri made beneath the windows of Zibeline's apartment. A small garden, protected by a light fence, was the only obstacle that separated them. But how much more insuperable was the barrier which his own principles had raised between ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... years in painting the interior of a church, or other public building, maintaining himself meanwhile on his fellowship, or two or three hundred pounds a year." "If, however, the objections to painting our churches be deemed insuperable, we have buildings designed for civil purposes in abundance, which are well adapted for this species of decoration." He then instances Westminster Hall, the walls of which might be covered with fresco; and the outsides of houses in many German cities and towns in the German cantons ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 339, Saturday, November 8, 1828. • Various
... this case was doubtless rude. He had an insuperable aversion to men of Mr. Baddeley's class,—men who could have no position but for their money, and who yet presumed upon it, as if it were gifts and graces, genius and learning, judgment and art, all in one. He was in the habit of saying that the plutocracy, ...
— The Vicar's Daughter • George MacDonald
... with the almost insuperable difficulties of his situation, the silent hours of the night were still devoted to study and contemplation. Whenever he closed his eyes in short and interrupted slumbers, his mind was agitated by painful anxiety; nor can it be thought surprising that the Genius of the empire should ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison
... is. The Unionist is not really passionately attached to the Union. He has no insuperable antipathy to Home Rule. Indeed, I think most Unionists would welcome any change in our existing system of government if it were not that they have the most profound and deeply rooted objection to the men whom McNeice describes as "those fellows," and O'Donovan indicates ...
— The Red Hand of Ulster • George A. Birmingham
... nation would ever consent to make the settlement of the English crown a matter of bargain with France. And even had William and the English nation been disposed to purchase peace by such a sacrifice of dignity, there would have been insuperable difficulties in another quarter. James could not endure to hear of the expedient which Lewis had suggested. "I can bear," the exile said to his benefactor, "I can bear with Christian patience to be robbed by the Prince of Orange; ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... was unknown to us. We did not even know the limit of the effective range of our own disintegrators. If it should prove that the Martians were able to deal their strokes at a distance greater than any we could reach, then they would of course have an insuperable advantage. ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putnam Serviss
... be gay. She made a great effort to look happy, to hide, not her melancholy, as heretofore, but an insuperable loathing. From that day she no longer regarded herself as a blameless wife. Had she not been false to herself? Why should she not play a double part in the future, and display astounding depths of cunning in deceiving her husband? In her there lay a hitherto undiscovered ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... remainder of the day, felt, as may be imagined, but little at his ease; for—to say nothing of his insuperable repugnance to the discharge of any of his former duties—his uneasiness under the oppressive civilities of Mr. Tag-rag; and the evident disgust towards him entertained by his companions; many most important considerations arising out of recent ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... another (though I had driven there with no other thought in my head than to dance well), had replied that I never indulged in that pastime, that I began to blush, and, left solitary among a crowd of strangers, became plunged in my usual insuperable and ever-growing shyness. In fact, I remained silent on that spot almost ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... application of Mr. Hare's scheme are almost insuperable, but it is not worth while pursuing the subject, since it is now admitted by recent advocates that the faddist argument is fatal. This is an admission that Mr. Hare completely neglected the factor of human nature. Professor ...
— Proportional Representation Applied To Party Government • T. R. Ashworth and H. P. C. Ashworth
... fishing. Most of the merchants are averse to short pays, and I cannot say that the fishermen themselves are in general desirous to have them introduced. I endeavoured to ascertain from the witnesses examined whether there is any insuperable obstacle to the introduction of ready-money payments ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... circumstance is that by no means can we measure the humidity, or indeed the precipitation or evaporation. I have just been discussing with Simpson the insuperable difficulties that stand in the way of experiment in this direction, since cold air can only hold the smallest quantities of moisture, and saturation covers an ...
— Scott's Last Expedition Volume I • Captain R. F. Scott
... preferred before its neighbours, blinds the annalist to all the violence and villany of the magnificent Casa Baglioni. So strong was the esprit de ville which through successive centuries and amid all vicissitudes of politics divided the Italians against themselves, and proved an insuperable obstacle to unity. ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... and harum-scarumness. The wild life of the streets has perhaps as unforgetable a charm, to those who have once thoroughly imbibed it, as the life of the forest or the prairie. But I conceive rather that there must be insuperable difficulties, for the majority of the poor, in the way of getting admittance to the almshouse, than that a merely aesthetic preference for the street would incline the pauper-class to fare scantily and precariously, and expose their raggedness to the rain and snow, when such ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... musket-shot clear across to either side, otherwise we should soon have found ourselves in a parlous case. The greater number of the canoes obstinately maintained a position in mid-stream ahead of us, thus presenting an insuperable barrier to our retreat down stream, whilst those on the outer wings to port and starboard of us hugged the bank of the stream, two or three of the larger craft making a big spurt ahead of the others now and ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... beggars, but had been up from their very infancy in that profession; and were so attached to their indolent and dissolute way of living, as to prefer it to all other situations. They were not only unacquainted with all kinds of work, but had the most insuperable aversion to honest labour; and had been so long familiarized with every crime, that they had become perfectly callous to all sense of ...
— ESSAYS, Political, Economical and Philosophical. Volume 1. • Benjamin Rumford
... in my opinion, be very easily understood, without any emendation. The lady says, "I can see neither one way nor other, before me nor behind me, but all the ways are covered with an impenetrable fog." There are objections insuperable to all that I can propose, and since reason can give me no counsel, I will resolve at once to ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson
... of its outrageous improbability, and the insuperable obstacles in the way of its accomplishment, the prince found himself compelled ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... behind the other; and patches of sea-sand and water-worn stone, found at a great distance from the coast, both in valleys and at altitudes much greater even than 4000 feet, point to the same conclusion.[208] The difficulty, therefore, of altitude and distance from the coast cannot be regarded as insuperable. ...
— Manures and the principles of manuring • Charles Morton Aikman
... professors of his religion, a large measure of relief. Penal statutes would go first. Statutes imposing civil incapacities would soon follow. In the meantime, the English King and the English nation united might head the European coalition, and might oppose an insuperable barrier to ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... come back tardy and out of breath. Besides, as the recess is short, so many would be in haste to prepare to go out, that there would be a great crowd and much confusion in the ante-room and passage-ways. I do not mention these as insuperable objections, but only as difficulties which there must be some plan to avoid. Perhaps, however, they can not be avoided. Do any of you think of ...
— The Teacher • Jacob Abbott
... immediately made choice of two Dragoons, who, upon promise of Promotion, undertook to go as Spies to the Duke of Arcos, whose Forces lay not far off, on the other Side a large Plain, which the Earl must unavoidably pass, and which would inevitably be attended with almost insuperable Dangers, if there attack'd by a Force so much superior. Those Spies, according to Instructions, were to discover to the Duke, that they over-heard the Conference between the Earl and Mahoni; and at the same time saw a considerable Number of Pistoles deliver'd into Mahoni's Hands, large Promises ...
— Military Memoirs of Capt. George Carleton • Daniel Defoe
... marine Jurassic beds of the same regions, prove that some portions of it were, for longer or shorter periods, invaded by the sea; but any break of continuity was probably not prolonged; for Mr. Wallace's investigations in the Eastern Archipelago have shown how narrow a sea may offer an insuperable barrier to the migration of land animals. In Palaeozoic times this land must have been connected with Australia, and in Tertiary times with Malayana, since the Malayan forms with African alliances are in several cases distinct from those of India. We know as ...
— The Story of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria • W. Scott-Elliot
... there are difficulties in the way of drafting international regulations: many governments would have to be consulted and many difficulties that seem insuperable overcome; but that is the purpose for which governments are employed, that is why experts and ministers of governments are appointed and paid—to overcome difficulties for the people who appoint them and who expect ...
— The Loss of the SS. Titanic • Lawrence Beesley
... operations as I have described the work of the Quartermaster General is of an extremely onerous nature. Major General Sir William Robertson has met what appeared to be almost insuperable difficulties with his characteristic energy, skill, and determination; and it is largely owing to his exertions that the hardships and sufferings of the troops—inseparable from such operations—were not ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... a poetic genius, but so warm and vehement, that, even in an advanced age, his spirit was not under the control of sober judgement. Vehemens et poeticum ingenium SALEII BASSI fuit; nec ipsum senectute maturum. This passage affords an insuperable argument against Lipsius, and the rest of the critics who named Quintilian as a candidate for the honour of this elegant composition. Can it be imagined that a writer of fair integrity, would in his great work speak of ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus
... came to the resolution of attempting the direct passage of the Frozen Strait; though, I confess, not without some apprehension of the risk I was incurring, and of the serious loss of time which, in case of failure either from the non-existence of the strait or from the insuperable obstacles which its name implies, would thus be inevitably ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... utterly blinded by passion these difficulties appeared insuperable. The most unscrupulous slaves of power showed signs of uneasiness. Dryden muttered that the King would only make matters worse by trying to mend them, and sighed for the golden days of the careless and goodnatured Charles. [308] Even Jeffreys ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... will be necessary to bestow on them a very different kind of study from any that we have naturally thought it worth while to spend on them, so long as we regarded them as works of pastime merely; and especially while that insuperable obstacle to any adequate examination of them, which the received history of the works themselves created, was still operating on the criticism. The truths which these Parabolic and Allusive Poems wrap up and conceal, have been safely ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... disappointment. "Such an event," may they say, "we were not prepared to expect.—After so many, and such various trials of heart; after innumerable difficulties surmounted; almost invincible objects overcome, and insuperable barriers removed—after attending the hero and heroine of your tale through the diversified scenes of anxiety, suspense, hope, disappointment, expectation, joy, sorrow, anticipated bliss, sudden and disastrous woe——after elevating ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.
... been ground out of the solid siliceous lodes by glacial and fluvial action, and that the auriferous leads have been formed by the natural sluicing operations of former streams. To this, however, there are several insuperable objections. ...
— Getting Gold • J. C. F. Johnson
... way, and the country would have to be difficult indeed to stop our getting on to the plateau. Our plan was to go south, and not to leave the meridian unless we were forced to do so by insuperable difficulties. I foresaw, of course, that there would be some who would attack me and accuse me of "shabby rivalry," etc., and they would perhaps have had some shadow of justification if we had really thought of taking Captain Scott's route. But it never occurred to us for a moment. Our starting-point ...
— The South Pole, Volumes 1 and 2 • Roald Amundsen
... thick, across the entire space of seventy-five miles which joined the Tigris with one of the canals of the Euphrates: while the canals themselves, as we may see by the march of the ten thousand Greeks after the battle of Cunaxa, presented means of defence altogether insuperable by a rude army such as that of the Persians. On the east, the territory of Babylonia was defended by the Tigris, which cannot be forded lower than the ancient Nineveh or the modern Mosul. In addition to these ramparts, natural as well as artificial, to protect the territory—populous, cultivated, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... whom I have spoken. As the mother was a slave, the children were so also at their birth, but they had been manumitted by their father. One of them was being educated in Germany; and it was intended that both should spend their lives in that country, the taint in their blood being an insuperable bar to their ever acquiring ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... polyarchic commercialism, the other with his demagogic violence—had possibly a useful part to play at the present stage of things. He, however, could have no place in that camp. Too indiscreetly he had hoisted his standard of idealism, and by stubborn resistance of insuperable forces he had merely brought forward the least satisfactory elements of his own character. 'Hold on!' cried Malkin. 'Fight the grovellers to the end!' But Earwaker had begun to see himself in a light of ridicule. There was just ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... is found in the Arunta area itself (and far beyond it, as far as the Gulf of Carpentaria) with the meaning crow[128]. If we may regard the j and k of the forms jungalla, kungalla, as a prefix, the equation seems justified; otherwise it seems an insuperable difficulty that not the original form of the class name, but the derivative and shortened form is the one to which the equation applies. Our very defective knowledge of the languages of the eight-class tribes makes it possible that when we know more of them other root words may be discovered. ...
— Kinship Organisations and Group Marriage in Australia • Northcote W. Thomas
... soldiery along that fearful wilderness which is called emphatically, "The Valley of Desolation." A single look or word was commonly sufficient to set all in motion again. But if the way presented some new and apparently insuperable difficulty, the Consul bade the drums beat and the trumpets sound, as if for the charge; and this never failed. Of such gallant temper were the spirits which Napoleon had at command, and with such admirable skill ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... till they perfectly approved, and to which they should then give the sanction of their joint authority: that when any addition or alteration should be thought necessary, it should be made in the same manner; and that when any insuperable difference of sentiment happened, either in this or in any act of prerogative independent of the laws for regulating the manners of the people, the kings should refer it to some person of approved integrity and wisdom, and abide by his determination. OMAR easily foresaw, that when the ...
— Almoran and Hamet • John Hawkesworth
... that its mirth might be insuperable, not to be saddened by the most grievous song; nevertheless he did not turn back then, but softly climbed the stairs and, placing the agate bowl upon a step, struck up the chaunt called Dolorous. It told of desolate, regretted things befallen ...
— The Book of Wonder • Edward J. M. D. Plunkett, Lord Dunsany
... an agile stripling, skilled in all gymnastic exercises. He had also done some fighting with the Carlists, and was in France on furlough, which the soldiers in the Royalist force appeared to have no insuperable difficulty in getting. He told me there was a large infusion of his old regiment amongst the guerrilleros, and that they helped to bind the partisan levies in the withes of discipline. Most of them had smelt gunpowder at Mentana and Patay. The famous cabecilla, Saballs, had been ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... laws propounded in certain despatches are more powerful, and more regarded and reverenced, than any others, human or divine. A kind of moral gun-cotton, they drive through the most stupendous difficulties, and rend rocks that appeared to be insuperable barriers in the eyes of common sense or common justice. Judges are compelled to yield to their authority, and do violence to their own consciences whilst they help to lay the healing unction to those of ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... laboured under the insuperable disadvantage, that the sublime disclosures of revelation had not been made known to the world. Hence the materials were wanting out of which to construct a Theodicy, or vindication of the perfections of God. For if we could see only so much of this world's drama as ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe
... pleasantly superficial character that stood for sophistication in his blissful estimate of her advantages over him, and she was so adroit in the art of putting her finger upon the right spot at precisely the right moment that he found himself wondering if he could ever bring himself up to her insuperable level. ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... by a right managery of other things she makes them all beneficial and advantageous. What is most pernicious? Vice; for it depraves the best things we enjoy. What is most strong? Necessity; for this alone is insuperable. What is most easy? That which is most agreeable to nature; for pleasures themselves are sometimes tedious ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... undertaken to see to it; but it was especially important to secure a safe return, and a secret landing on the French coast, lined as it was by patrols, watched day and night by custom-house officers, and guarded by sentinels at every point where a boat could approach the shore, offered almost insuperable difficulties. D'Ache selected a little creek at the foot of the rocks of Saint Honorine, scarcely two leagues from Trevieres and David, who knew all the coast guards in the district, bribed one of them to ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre
... a large number of slaves, and if the Union is preserved, it would not be a very heavy burden on it to pay their ransom; and to paying it, no patriot or loyal citizen of the free States would raise the slightest objection. The objection therefore urged, though grave, need not be regarded as insuperable; and we think the advantages of the measure, in a military point of view, would be far greater than any disadvantage we have to apprehend ...
— The Abolition Of Slavery The Right Of The Government Under The War Power • Various
... to the conclusion that difficulties well-nigh insuperable lay between me and the safe possession of the beautiful little vessel. She lay in a most un-get-at-able position at the further end of the hold, stowed in so confined and narrow a space that it was impossible to think of ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... floundering into pools, breaking through bushes, and finally scrambled up the steep embankment. How to board the train seemed a problem which was insuperable, if the cars were moving at any speed. There was little foothold by the side of the track, and undoubtedly the train was moving quickly, for now the noise of it was a dull roar, and he, who was not wholly unacquainted with certain unauthorized forms ...
— The Book of All-Power • Edgar Wallace
... depart happy. After their craving is satisfied, the evil spirits are not very particular whether the blood is human or not. In Shoka land especially, branches with thorns and small flying prayers are placed on each road to prevent their immediate return. These are said to be insuperable barriers to ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... forbidden to weep. Yet after all, when she was gone, and he again alone, he could not but think death likely to prove to her the most happy of earthly boons. He was not sanguine of acquittal, and even in acquittal, a voice at his heart suggested insuperable barriers to their union, which had not existed when it was ...
— Eugene Aram, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... so effected and not otherwise. It may turn out that we must give up in despair the whole movement for a better adaptation of our manual of worship to the needs of our land and of our time; it may be found that the obstacles in the way are absolutely insuperable; but let us dream no dreams of seeing this thing handed over, "with power," to a "commission of experts," for that is something which will never ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington
... influenced, we can still see, by certain traditions of the temple of Delos, which had become the religious centre of the Ionic world. There had, of course, been plenty of religious speculation among the Greeks before Pythagoras, and it was of a type not unlike that we find in India, though there are insuperable difficulties in the way of assuming any Aegean influence on India or any Indian influence on the Aegean at this date. It may be that the beginnings of such ideas go back to the time when the Greeks and the Hindus were living together, though it ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... time secured to him. To fortify the weak against the invasion of the strong, to suppress spoliation and fraud, the necessity was felt of establishing between possessors permanent lines of division, insuperable obstacles. Every year saw the people multiply, and the cupidity of the husbandman increase: it was thought best to put a bridle on ambition by setting boundaries which ambition would in vain attempt to overstep. Thus ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... Bards, and old bringers-down of flaming news From steep-wall'd heavens, holy malcontents, Sweet seers, and stellar visionaries, all That brood about the skies of poesy, Full bright ye shine, insuperable stars; Yet, if a man look hard upon you, none With total lustre blazeth, no, not one But hath some heinous freckle of the flesh Upon his shining cheek, not one but winks His ray, opaqued with intermittent ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... deficiency, and the quality of the timber growing here. Were it indeed possible to transport that of Norfolk Island, its value would be found very great, but the difficulty, from the surf, I am well informed, is so insuperable as to forbid the attempt. Lord Howe Island, discovered by Lieut. Ball, though an inestimable acquisition to our colony, produces little else ...
— A Narrative of the Expedition to Botany Bay • Watkin Tench
... navigation of the St. Lawrence—which he had observed on his previous journey, and which were later named the La Chine Rapids (in the belief that they were obstacles on the river route to China). But these falls proved insuperable obstacles to his boats, and he gave up any further idea of westward exploration, returned to his forts and ships near Quebec, and there laid the foundations of a fortified town, which he called ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston
... said, "the demagoguery and corruption of our public men would have been considered, in my day, insuperable objections to government assuming charge ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... not have mattered so much, for the boys were away from home, and breakfast for two did not offer any insuperable difficulties to Celia, but there were currants and raspberries waiting to be made into jelly and preserves. To complicate matters, Mrs. Fair had one of ...
— Mr. Pat's Little Girl - A Story of the Arden Foresters • Mary F. Leonard
... effort to prove that his invention was the simplest and the best of them all. That he should have persisted in spite of discouragement after discouragement, struggling to overcome obstacles which to the faint-hearted would have seemed insuperable, constitutes one of his greatest claims to undying fame. He left on record an account of his experiences in Europe on this voyage, memorable in more ways than one, and extracts from this, and from letters written to his daughter and brothers, ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... great tortoises of the Galapagos islands, must have respectively hobbled, hopped, and crawled over many thousand miles of land and sea from "Ararat" to their present habitations. Thus, the unquestionable facts of the geographical distribution of recent land animals, alone, form an insuperable obstacle to the acceptance of the assertion that the kinds of animals composing the present terrestrial fauna have been, at any time, universally destroyed in the ...
— Hasisadra's Adventure - Essay #7 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley
... that the history of England justifies this statement; but let us remember the reason that Macaulay gave for this insuperable prosperity. "Every man has felt entire confidence that the State would protect him in the possession of what had been earned by his diligence ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various
... was sorely tested. The tasks often became well-nigh insuperable. There were moments when dogs and Indians lay beaten in the midst of their labours, without will, without energy to stir another yard. It was at such times that despair knocked at the strong heart of the man who had never ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... all delighted at this solution of a difficulty which had before appeared insuperable, and the most ...
— On the Pampas • G. A. Henty
... process of preparation, on terms at all approaching to equality. Of this, both of them are finally and fixedly convinced. They differ essentially, in all the leading traits which characterize the varieties of the human species, and color draws an indelible and insuperable line of separation between them. Every scheme founded upon the idea that they can remain together on the same soil, beyond the briefest period, in any other relation than precisely that which now subsists between them, is not only preposterous, ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... persuaded, that, unless we can find out some channel of transportation by water, no supplies of bread, of any consequence can be sent you from this State for a long time to come. The want of wagons is a bar insuperable, at least in any reasonable time. I have given orders to have Fry and Jefferson's map, and Henry's map of Virginia, sought for and purchased. As soon as they can be got, I will forward them. I have also written to General Washington on the subject ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... from these apprehensions. Others say, that, "having committed the Prince to prison in his younger days, he was afraid that, on the sceptre of justice falling into his hands, that royal culprit would take a too severe revenge thereof; and this filled him with such insuperable melancholy, that he was driven to the desperate act of self-murder." But his appointment to succeed Gascoyne as Chief Justice of the King's Bench, March 29, 1413, must have conquered that melancholy; and he discharged that office through the whole of Henry V.'s reign, and through one year of ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... with inadequate equipment it is always difficult to speak. Carleton is the nearest thing to Burns that we have to show; and his faults, almost insuperable to the ordinary reader, are the faults which Burns seldom failed to display when writing in English. But to Burns there was given an instrument perfected by long centuries of use—the Scotch vernacular song and ballad; Carleton ...
— Irish Books and Irish People • Stephen Gwynn
... am inclined to agree with you," said Denzil, and barrister and detective departed, each convinced that the Vrain case was ended, and that in the face of the insuperable obstacles presented by it there was not the slightest chance of avenging the murder of the unfortunate man. The reading of the mystery was beyond ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... numerical strength at the commencement of the campaign, and, notwithstanding its own heavy losses and the reinforcements received by the enemy, still presented an impregnable front to its opponent, and constituted and insuperable barrier to General Grant's ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... Templars, and the Teutonic Knights, into one great order, purposing at the same time to engage the Emperor and the kings of Christendom to lay aside all their quarrels, and combine their forces for the recovery once for all of the Holy Land. Difficulties without number, which proved insuperable, prevented the realization of this scheme. Among these was the objection raised by the Teutonic Knights, that while the Hospitalers and Templars had but one object in view—the recovery of Palestine, their order had to maintain ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... instance the efforts of Miss McDowell of the University of Chicago Settlement and others in urging upon Congress the necessity for a special investigation into the conditions of women and children in industry because we had discovered the insuperable difficulties of smaller investigations, notably one undertaken for the Illinois Bureau of Labor by Mrs. Van der Vaart of Neighborhood House and by Miss Breckinridge of the University of Chicago. This investigation ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... last, after some weeks, during which he remained unapproached, and at the end of which he came to a belated perception of the insuperable barrier between the elect and the undesirable, and of his own identity with the latter class, he decided he must fall back upon his friends for what they might be worth. He had undergone many snubs in his efforts to thrust himself upon fine gentlemen in taverns, coffee-houses, and gaming-places. ...
— Philip Winwood • Robert Neilson Stephens
... of the case, and regarded only in the light of a business transaction, it does not appear that the Filipinos were ever offered a solid guarantee for the fulfilment of any of the proposed conditions. But the insuperable difficulty was Spain's inability to comply with the Filipinos' essential condition of recognition ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... as it comes from the sheds, instead of piling it, but the great quantity of snow we usually have, has always seemed to be an insuperable obstacle. It is an advantage to pile it, and to give it one turning, but, on the other hand, the piles made in cold weather freeze through, and they take a provokingly long time to thaw out in the spring. I never found manure piled out of doors to get ...
— Talks on Manures • Joseph Harris
... have given satisfactory information upon it, would have rejoiced to do it. But I found it otherwise, and this frequently to my sorrow. There was an aversion in persons to appear before such a tribunal as they conceived the privy council to be. With men of shy or timid character this operated as an insuperable barrier in their way. But it operated more or less upon all. It was surprising to see what little circumstances affected many. When I took out my pen and ink to put down the information, which a person was giving me, he became evidently embarrassed and frightened. He began to excuse himself ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson
... tell Kedzie any of this. He told what followed as he toiled at the fearfully complicated problem of his shoe-laces, a problem rendered almost insuperable by the fact that he could not hold his foot high very long and dared not hold his ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... however, is beset with certain scientific difficulties, which must by no means be ignored, and some of which, I venture to think, are absolutely insuperable. What Darwinism or "Natural Selection" is, will be shortly explained; but before doing so, I think {5} it well to state the object of this book, and the view taken up and defended in it. It is its object to maintain the position that "Natural Selection" acts, ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart
... dreadnoughts, and to settle all hypothetical combats by the proportion of strength at a given point on the game board, it is well to remember that the most overwhelming victories have been won by the skill and audacity of a great leader, which overcame odds that would be reckoned by the experts as insuperable. ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... time to consider the best means of putting this threat into effect. He knew it was not only idle to appeal to Truscomb, but essential to keep the facts from him till the deed was done; yet how obtain the authority to act without him? The seemingly insuperable difficulties of the situation whetted Amherst's craving for a struggle. He thought first of writing to Mrs. Westmore;, but now that the spell of her presence was withdrawn he felt how hard it would be to make her understand the need of prompt ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... consideration of subjects apparently abstruse. He is earned on from page to page without any great mental effort, and finds himself rapidly mastering difficulties which he had been accustomed to regard as insuperable. ...
— The Story of the Herschels • Anonymous
... become from any cause extinct, they are not immediately regenerated by the same molecular structure? or rather, how is it possible for animal spirits to become extinct as long as the molecular structure of which they are necessary concomitants remains unaltered? In these questions the old insuperable difficulties reappear in new forms, but on these we need not dwell. Apart from anti-materialistic arguments of general applicability, there is a mode of refutation specially adapted to the Cartesian form of materialism, ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... was determined, therefore, to attack Nankin itself, the second city in the empire, situated about 200 miles up the great river Yang'tse Kiang, or Yellow River. The difficulties of the navigation had hitherto been considered an insuperable obstacle; although the river is of great size, the current runs with prodigious force, and there are numerous shoals and rocks in its course. The river, however, was surveyed by Commanders Kellett and Collinson, and as they reported that water for the largest ships was found right up to Nankin, ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... not been very successfully waged of late, and, at the time of which we write, the enemy had apparently given the miners a severe check, in the way of putting what appeared to be an insuperable obstacle in their path. ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne |
