"Impossible" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to give himself freer use of his right arm, for the savages were pressing more closely upon Twelve and Three, and the change made it impossible for the girl to see his face even in ...
— The Monster Men • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... and pencil were also used in the fourteenth century, how much earlier is unknown.[5*] Algorism quickly ousted the Abacus methods for all intricate calculations, being simpler and more easily checked: in fact, the astronomical revival of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries would have been impossible without its aid. ...
— The Earliest Arithmetics in English • Anonymous
... way at the wrists, I I prevented him from helping himself too freely to the liquors upon the table; a precaution rendered necessary, in the opinion of Legs, by the peculiarly sottish and wine-bibbing cast of his visage. A pair of prodigious ears, nevertheless, which it was no doubt found impossible to confine, towered away into the atmosphere of the apartment, and were occasionally pricked up in a spasm, at the sound of ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... after that Deidrick proposed in perfect good faith, the girl repeated her objections with equal candour, and they were received with somnolent approval. Love-making is very agreeable, and by the usuage of long years it becomes a confirmed habit. In less than a decade it became impossible for Katrina to enjoy her supper without the regular proposal, and Deidrick could not sleep of a night without the preliminary nap in the goat-yard to taper off his wakefulness. Both would have been wretched had they retired to bed with a shade of ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... of surprise, confusion, and delight that followed were impossible. The questions put that were never answered; the answers given to questions never put; the exclamations; the cross purposes; the inextricable conglomeration of past, present, and future history—public, personal, and local; uttered, ejaculated and gasped, in short, or incomplete, or disjointed sentences—all ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains - Wandering Will in the Land of the Redskin • R.M. Ballantyne
... 120 millions of loan, and on which Chamberlain wrote: "As a result of yesterday's Council, I think Trevelyan and I will be out on Tuesday. If you are at the House, come to my room after questions." I went to Chamberlain's room and met Bright with him. But real consultation in presence of Bright was impossible, because Bright was merely disagreeable. On Monday, the 15th, Chamberlain and Trevelyan wrote their letters of resignation, and late at night Chamberlain showed me the reply to his. On the same day James told me that ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... Boileau has so very well enlarged upon in the Preface to his Works, that Wit and fine Writing doth not consist so much in advancing Things that are new, as in giving Things that are known an agreeable Turn. It is impossible for us, who live in the lat[t]er Ages of the World, to make Observations in Criticism, Morality, or in any Art or Science, which have not been touched upon by others. We have little else left us, but to represent ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... promises. I didna believe them a', for it seemed impossible that they could be true. But I liked the man, and I decided that if the half of what he said was true it would be verra interesting—verra interesting indeed. Whiles, when you deal w' a man and he tells you more than you think he can do, you ...
— Between You and Me • Sir Harry Lauder
... not too much to say that the keystone to the whole arch is gone. So too when the medieval Church allowed and then adopted the word 'transubstantiation' (and we know the exact date of this), it committed itself to a doctrine from which henceforward it was impossible to recede. The floating error had become a fixed one, and exercised a far mightier influence on the minds of all who received it, than except for this it would have ever done. It is sometimes not a word, but a phrase, which proves thus mighty in operation. ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... it was impossible to forget all about it. The more he tried to forget, the more keenly and insistently he remembered. The girl's exquisite face haunted him and the mystery ...
— Kilmeny of the Orchard • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... flashes by, drawn by a pair of fine trotters. "Vot on sam!" mutters our izvostchik,—There he is himself! It is General Gresser*, the prefect of the capital, who maintains perfect order, and demonstrates the possibilities of keeping streets always clean in an impossible climate. The pounding of those huge trotters' hoofs is so absolutely distinctive—as distinctive as the unique gray cap—that we can recognize it as they pass, cry like the izvostchik, "Vot on sam!" and fly to the window with the certainty ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... Mille Nocendi Artes; and it will be impossible for us, to run over all the Stratagems and Policies of our Adversary. I shall only attempt a few Observations upon the Temptations of our Lord Jesus Christ: who was Tempted in all things like unto us, except in our Sins. When we read the Temptations of our Lord Jesus Christ, in the ...
— The Wonders of the Invisible World • Cotton Mather
... ambition was done. He saw this girl with his mind's eye—how much he longed to see her with the eyes of the body —in all her strange beauty; and he knew that even if she cared for him, such a sacrifice as linking her life with his was impossible. Yet her very presence there was like a garden of bloom to him: a garden full of the odour of life, of vital things, of sweet energy and happy being. Somehow, he and she were strangely alike. He knew it. From the time he held her in his arms at Carillon, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... fingernails. And lazily, with graceful sloth, she allowed her indolent figure to curve and sway;—a figure that a garter might span, and that was made even more slender to the eye by the projection of the hips and the curve of the hoops that gave the balloon-like roundness to her skirt;—an impossible waist, absurdly small but adorable, like everything in woman that offends one's sense ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... excitement which was quite visible to Alice. More than once Alice asked little questions, not supposing that she was specially concerned in the matter which had caused her aunt's fidgety restlessness, but observing it so plainly that it was almost impossible not to allude to it. "There's nothing the matter, my dear, at all," at last Lady Macleod said; but as she said so she was making up her mind that the moment had not come in which she must apprise Alice of Mr Grey's intended visit. As Alice had questioned ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... age, or was carried off by one of the diseases incident to youth, it is impossible to say; for his departure was as quiet as his advent was mysterious. I only know that he appeared to us in this world in his perfect stature and beauty, and that after a time, like Lohengrin, he withdrew. In his illness there was nothing more to be regretted ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... important; and with a view to obtain this, the minister addressed to her a letter, in which he expressed his ardent desire to effect a reconciliation between herself and the King, in order that the prayers of the nation might be answered by the birth of a Dauphin; or, should she deem such an event impossible, to entreat of her to pardon him if he ventured to take the liberty of imploring her Majesty to make ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... Fellow-creatures: (1) Justice and Equity, the doing as we would be done by. Iniquity is the very same in Action, as Falsity or Contradiction in Theory; what makes the one absurd makes the other unreasonable; 'it would be impossible for men not to be as much (!) ashamed of doing Iniquity, as they are of believing Contradictions;' (2) Universal Love or Benevolence, the promoting the welfare or happiness of all, which is obligatory on various grounds: the Good being the fit and reasonable, the greatest Good is the most ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... stars. There were the same steep ascent to maximum and more gradual decline to minimum, the same irregularities in heights and hollows, and, it may be added, the same tendency to a double maximum, and complexity of superposed periods.[1466] It is impossible to compare the two sets of phenomena thus graphically portrayed without reaching the conclusion that they are of closely related origin. But the correspondence indicated is not, as has often been hastily ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... Admiral was ashore, dining with General Madeira; when, at ten o'clock at night, a shot was heard. "What is it?" exclaimed the latter to the messenger, who, in alarm, entered the room.—"'Tis Lord Cochrane's line-of-battle ship, in the very midst of our fleet."—"Impossible!" exclaimed the Admiral; "no large ship can have come up with the ebb tide." And there was as much consternation and as much bustle of preparation, as if the fleet of England had entered in a hostile manner. The Pedro Primeiro was indeed close alongside of the Constituica[)o]; ...
— Journal of a Voyage to Brazil - And Residence There During Part of the Years 1821, 1822, 1823 • Maria Graham
... disquieting conversation, but she was not to be seen until the party assembled at the table, set under an awning on the terrace. Then, to my disappointment, I found no opportunity to speak to her, for her seat was so placed as to make it impossible, and she escaped into the house immediately upon the conclusion of the repast, hurrying away too pointedly for any attempt to detain her—though, as she passed, she sent me one glance of meek reproach which she was at ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... keep from being hurled out of one's berth was to cling like a leech to a rope fastened to a ring in the wall, for the little ship was bouncing back and forth so fast and so far that it was impossible to compare it with the motion of any other craft. Day began to dawn about 3 A.M. By the dim light I could make out mighty mountains of green foaming water. At each roll of the steamer we seemed to be at the bottom of a huge emerald pit. Suddenly some one yelled, "There she goes!" and that second ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding
... the door, they got up seven of the steps, beginning at the uppermost one, till they formed a gap which it would be impossible for a man to spring over. The boards they carried down as they descended, when they found themselves in another storey, the whole of which was occupied by one large room without doors, the reason, of course, why it had not been ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston
... nay, almost impossible, to criticise or refute such statements, and yet it is necessary to do so; for such is the interest, or I should rather say the feverish curiosity, excited by anything that bears on ancient religion, that M. Jacolliot's book has produced ...
— Chips From A German Workshop, Vol. V. • F. Max Mueller
... clothing which are necessary for the mere maintenance of the functions of the body in their normal state cannot be obtained; in which men, women, and children are forced to crowd into dens wherein decency is abolished, and the most ordinary conditions of healthful existence are impossible of attainment; in which the pleasures within reach are reduced to brutality and drunkenness; in which the pains accumulate at compound interest in the shape of starvation, disease, stunted development, and moral degradation; in which the prospect of ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... hoped for in such surroundings? With every effort to be clean the dirt accumulates faster than it can be washed away. It was impossible, I found by my own experience, to be really clean. There was a total absence of beauty in everything—not a line of grace, not a pleasing sound, not an agreeable odour anywhere. One could get used to this ugliness, become unconscious even of the acrid smells that pervade ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... orders to his men to keep together in their companies, each under his commander; and not to try to maintain regular order as one band, for this would be next to impossible, fighting on such hilly and broken ground. Besides, they would be sure to get mixed up with the ...
— For the Temple - A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem • G. A. Henty
... the work is worth nothing without faith, for "without faith it is impossible to please him." (Hebrews 11:6.) The sacrifice of Abel was better than the sacrifice of Cain, because Abel had faith. As to Cain he had no faith or trust in God's grace, but strutted about in his own fancied worth. When God refused to recognize Cain's worth, Cain ...
— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther
... I tell you?" cried Sir Matthew triumphantly. "Trust me to find the right man, Mr. Tarleton, trust me. I always believe in demanding the impossible and I generally get it. If you're modest, you ...
— War-time Silhouettes • Stephen Hudson
... add "he was safe, and aware Of a presence that turned off the balls ... was imprest It was Guido himself, who knew what I could bear, And how 't was impossible, quite dispossessed, To live ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 3 - Sorrow and Consolation • Various
... as, seated on his saddle, he rolled up a neat cigarette, "don't be too confident. You little know what sights these four walls have witnessed. True, this is not quite the season when one runs much risk of being starved to death, but the thing is not impossible." ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... circuit round the foe or attack him unexpectedly in the flank seemed impossible; but the rocks themselves were made to serve Joshua; for he had commanded his skilful slingers and trained archers to climb the precipices to a moderate height and wait for the signal when they were to mingle in ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... Everywhere pitch blackness, the blackness of the tomb. The consumptive soldier pulled a candle from his kit, balanced it in the straw, and over it warmed his hands. If that candle had toppled over in the straw we wouldn't have had a rat's chance in the fire. It was impossible to get out of our car or to communicate with another except by tapping. The fellows in the next car must have been considerably frightened, for after about an hour they began yelling and pounding at the walls. ...
— The Log of a Noncombatant • Horace Green
... badly, and there was nothing with which to bale her out but the hats and shoes of the ship's cook and two other men who had taken refuge under the thwarts. Flinders steered towards the Bridgewater's lights, but she was standing off, and it was soon seen to be impossible to reach her. It was also unsafe to return to the Porpoise through the breakers in the darkness; so that the boat was kept on the water outside the reef till morning, the small party on board being drenched, cold under a sharp south-easter, and wretchedly miserable. ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... the Works! To-night? Impossible! You mustn't think of such a thing," the young man protested. Mrs. Maitland looked at him, and he shifted from one foot to the other. "It—it won't do, really," he said, weakly; "that was a pretty bad knock you got on the back of ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... manages to do with the trains which it despatches from Inverness at 10 P.M. and reproduces the next morning at Perth about 7, it is impossible for the mind of man to imagine; but it is not of much consequence so long as you are snugly ensconced in a sleeping-berth; and Lionel passed the night in profound oblivion. With the new day, however, these unavailing ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... the face, whose expression is sinister and gruesome, like that of an unrelenting criminal violated by torture. The criminal look of misery and hatred on the fixed, violated face and in the bloodshot eyes is almost impossible. He is conquered, beaten, broken, his body is a mass of torture, an unthinkable shame. Yet his will remains obstinate and ...
— Twilight in Italy • D.H. Lawrence
... large vegetable gardens, plainly indicated the occupation of the inhabitants and the origin of the name Gardener's Lane. I was wondering in which of these miserable huts my odd friend might live. I had completely forgotten the number; moreover it was impossible to make out any signs in the darkness. At that moment a man carrying a heavy load of vegetables passed me. "The old fellow is scraping his fiddle again," he grumbled, "and disturbing decent people in their night's rest." At the ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... Hannibal, placing before their minds the fear lest their fields should be devastated, and the many hardships and indignities which must be endured in a siege; nor were there wanting persons who advised a revolt. In this state of things, when a fear took possession of the senate, that it would be impossible to resist the excited multitude if they went openly to work, devised a delay of the evil by secret simulation. They pretended that they were agreeable to the revolt to Hannibal; but that it was not settled on what terms they should enter into the new alliance and friendship. Thus having ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... only bind a nation as long as it is to its interest, goes to the root of public law. It is the straight road to barbarism, just as if you removed the magnetic pole whenever it was in the way of a German cruiser, the whole navigation of the seas would become dangerous, difficult, impossible, and the whole machinery of civilization will break down if this doctrine wins in ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... anything against it. Two heroes of the Guard may quarrel, and fight,—but at least there are no civilians to look on and sneer. No, I say that big villain never served in the Guard. A guardsman would never behave as he does to another guardsman, under the very eyes of the bourgeois; impossible! Ah! it's all wrong; the Guard is disgraced—and here, at Issoudun! where it ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... must do it. Tessibel was his wife, his dear little wife. He had promised to make a home for her. But how? Could they get along at all, and what would he do with her impossible father? As his mother had said, he had no ability to earn anything. Bitter tears of ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... Madame d'Ouditot, the lady who inspired Rousseau with the idea of Julie. Julie is now seventy-two years of age, a thin woman in a little black bonnet: she appeared to me shockingly ugly; she squints so much that it is impossible to tell which way she is looking; but no sooner did I hear her speak, than I began to like her; and no sooner was I seated beside her, than I began to find in her countenance a most benevolent and agreeable expression. She entered into conversation ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... come to at last?" she inquired. "It is quite impossible to remember that though you sleep for hours you are liable to wake in time to contradict me on any point whatever. In this case it is of no consequence what I may ...
— Under the Country Sky • Grace S. Richmond
... said; "but I know enough of myself to say that it cannot be true. I do not say that the Sepoys can never be fighting against whites, improbable as it seems, but that I was doing what that figure did is, I know, impossible." ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... commons—who were accustomed to confer with the King on public affairs. The stage which marks the birth of representation was when these different estates and communities were asked to tax themselves to relieve the necessities of the King. It was obviously impossible that the consent of every freeman should be obtained, hence the duty had to be deputed to agents. Now, the idea of agency was not unknown in the ancient world, but that agents should have power to bind those for whom ...
— Proportional Representation Applied To Party Government • T. R. Ashworth and H. P. C. Ashworth
... neither time, place, nor the words. It was a loose matter of hearsay which was alleged—evidently a wanton provocation to a murderous duel. Burr demanded so broad a retraction from Hamilton of all he might have said, that compliance was impossible. It was an attempt to procure an indorsement of his character at the cost of the moral character of the indorser. Hamilton despised the manoeuvre, but perceiving that a meeting was forced upon him, and unhappily determining, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... request your daughter will have all her property settled upon herself, so that I can have no control over it—thus leaving it impossible that I should waste it. And I trust that by an active attention to my profession I may be enabled not inconsiderably to ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... of the open time trips were made north and south along the coast, efforts being directed to going farther in each direction before the frost made progress in the boats impossible. Of these trips many were made, each being pushed farther north or south; for the ice had opened more and more away from the shore, increasing the length and width of the channel in the incomprehensible, unexpected manner in which such changes do take ...
— Steve Young • George Manville Fenn
... he been as much distinguished for higher qualifications as he was for genius and depth of judgment in the art he practised, he would, beyond all doubt, have been without an equal. But there was a certain timidity of mind, a sort of diffidence and want of force in his nature, which rendered it impossible that those evidences of ardor and animation which are proper to the more exalted character, should ever appear in him; nor did he at any time display one particle of that elevation which, could it but have been added to the advantages wherewith he was endowed, would ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson
... Lawless's turn to look out of countenance, and for a moment he did appear thoroughly disconcerted, more especially as it was next to impossible to repress a smile, and Freddy Coleman grinned outright; quickly recovering himself, however, he resumed, "Laugh away, Freddy, laugh away, it only serves me right for playing such a trick. I've been deceiving ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... would ensue, but he was willing to risk that. Or should he slip into the underbrush, take a great circuit about the camp and make his way to Detroit overland through the trackless forest? It would be a difficult but not impossible thing to do. Still, it must not be thought of, for there was Edith still a captive, and any freedom that he might gain must be devoted to her rescue. So he must take his ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... ever seen her, you would know how terrible, how impossible, such a situation is for her. She's the sort of woman who ought to have money—who must have money. And so I thought if ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... Ostrogoths had descended to Theodoric, nephew of Velamir, who, being on terms of friendship with Zeno the eastern emperor, wrote to him that his Ostrogoths thought it an injustice that they, being superior in valor to the people thereabout, should be inferior to them in dominion, and that it was impossible for him to restrain them within the limits of Pannonia. So, seeing himself under the necessity of allowing them to take arms and go in search of new abodes, he wished first to acquaint Zeno with it, in order that he might provide for them, by granting some country in which they might establish ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... allowed them; some were bundled off into the dark gullies and passes of the hills; others betook themselves hastily to that side of the valley which was yet in shadow, to sleep a few moments beyond the legitimate time; others still, finding escape impossible, rose heavenward like a mighty incense, and were by the sun converted into something wellnigh as glorious ...
— Bressant • Julian Hawthorne
... excused ourselves with appropriate remarks of disappointment. From his preoccupied manner it was impossible for me to guess whether Craig had ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... have sought to make an art of impertinence by mistaking preferences for principles. In 'taste' you have invented a word incapable of definition, to denote an idea impossible of expression; and by employing in connection therewith the words 'good' and 'bad,' you indicate a merely subjective process in terms of an objective quality. Such presumption transcends the limit of the merely impudent, and passes into ...
— Cobwebs From an Empty Skull • Ambrose Bierce (AKA: Dod Grile)
... in his countenance that expression of modified sorrow which is common to any gentleman who is supposed by himself to have incommoded a lady. But over and above this,—or rather under it,—there was a slight smile of derision, as though it were impossible for him to look upon the bearing of Lady Lufton without some amount of ridicule. All this was legible to eyes so keen as those of Miss Dunstable and Mrs. Harold Smith, and the duke was known to be a master of this ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... quite plain. As our pursuers were approaching, evidently in a strong body, there was no time to be lost. To successfully evade them appeared impossible, so I decided to meet them, rather than attempt flight. Chanden Sing and I were armed with our rifles, and Mansing with his Gourkha kukri, and thus we awaited their arrival. There came out of the mist a long procession of grey, phantomlike figures, each one leading a pony. ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... to avoid being seen and then watch from your hiding-place. As the stranger comes near, the crouching Dog sees that it is one of his own kind, and that it is needless to hide any longer; indeed, that it is impossible to remain hidden. So the moment the stranger stops and looks at the crouching Dog, the latter stands straight up on all fours, raises his tail up high, and wags the white tip from side to side in the sign ...
— Woodland Tales • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... for the school had taken up again after its two weeks' holidays, and the boys were a little more inquisitive than usual, and unfortunately, the snow happened to be good for packing. It had been a bad day for nerves, and Mr. Bushy, as the boys called him, found it impossible to keep his tail in one position for more than one second at a time. It was in vain that his more sedate and self-controlled partner in life remonstrated with him and urged a more ...
— Glengarry Schooldays • Ralph Connor
... had broken Caste in baptism took any part in the cooking. It would never be allowed. Such a woman could take no share in the family life. Her presence, her shadow, above all her touch, would be simply pollution. Therefore, and for many other reasons, her life at home is impossible, and the Hindu, without arguing about it, regards it as impossible. It does not enter into the scheme of life as laid down by the rules of his Caste. He never, if he is orthodox, contemplates it for a moment as a thing to be ...
— Things as They Are - Mission Work in Southern India • Amy Wilson-Carmichael
... scandalized in earnest. The idea of anyone finding Miss Pat a nuisance was beyond her powers of thought, and she could not even find words to express her scorn of such an impossible state of things. ...
— Miss Pat at Artemis Lodge • Pemberton Ginther
... its turpitude be laid open, and the eye secured from the deception of surrounding splendour[3]." "If nothing but the bright side of characters should be shown," he once remarked to Malone, "we should sit down in despondency, and think it utterly impossible to imitate them in any thing[4]." It was this conscientious freedom, we believe, that has, more than any other cause, subjected the Lives of the Poets to severe censure. We readily avow this our belief, since we are persuaded that it is now generally admitted ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... not in Lucy, the Mrs. Leland. I assure you it was not. Leland knew, to his heart's core, that a lovelier, more prudent, sensible, intelligent wife it was impossible to exist. Thrifty, loving, lady-like, right ...
— Words of Cheer for the Tempted, the Toiling, and the Sorrowing • T. S. Arthur
... for their rescue, but none that gave the least hope of success. It was simply impossible to launch a boat. The vast fields of ice, two or three feet in thickness, and from twenty feet to a hundred yards in breadth, were crushing and grinding down the river at the rate of four or five ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various
... liberty of being of a different opinion from the multitude. It is enough for me that it is not impossible to conquer one's inclination to condemn all those who are unreasonable or dishonorable. Dear me! Have we not seen women succeed in destroying in their hearts a weakness which has taken them by surprise, as ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... winter. "Dog and Deer," "Dare Gool" and "Fox and Geese" were our favorite diversions, and the wonder is that we did not all die of pneumonia, for we battled so furiously during each recess that we often came in wet with perspiration and coughing so hard that for several minutes recitations were quite impossible.—But we were a hardy lot and none of us seemed the worse for ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... finding it impossible to take the city and the havoc in their ranks being dreadful, made a precipitate retreat, leaving the field covered with their dead ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... something in reply, it was impossible to say what, and leaving one man to act as boatkeeper, they all set off together along ...
— In the King's Name - The Cruise of the "Kestrel" • George Manville Fenn
... like a sort of shrine for you. I said to a man I was with, 'I want to meet the girl who looks like cream in a gold saucer,' and he introduced us. What could be stranger than that? Not, as a matter of fact, that I ever thought love at first sight impossible, as ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller
... not a little of the inner meaning of words, a meaning perhaps more latent in things. Does not gesture indeed make emotion, more certainly and more immediately than emotion makes gesture? You may feel that you may suppress emotion; but assume a smile, lifted eyebrows, a clenched fist, and it is impossible for you not to assume along with the gesture, if but for a moment, the emotion to which that gesture corresponds. In our marionettes, then, we get personified gesture, and the gesture, like all other forms of emotion, ...
— Plays, Acting and Music - A Book Of Theory • Arthur Symons
... of horrible nightmares, But broad awake, as he declares), Go bustling up and down the stairs, Or setting back last evening's chairs, Or with the poker thrusting The raked-up sea-coal's hardened crust— And—what! impossible! it must! He knew she had returned to dust, 210 And yet could scarce his senses trust, Hearing her as she poked and fussed ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... impossible for him to preach always, or in all places, he writ many instructions relating to faith and to good manners, some more ample, and others more brief, but all in the languages of the converted nations; and it was by these instructions, in writing, that the children learned to read. The saint ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... of the family, to see if Mrs. Veal was there or not. They said, they wondered at her asking, for that she had not been in town; they were sure, if she had, she would have been there. Says Mrs. Bargrave, I am sure she was with me on Saturday almost two hours. They said, it was impossible; for they must have seen her if she had. In comes Captain Watson, while they were in dispute, and said, that Mrs. Veal was certainly dead, and her escutcheons were making. This strangely surprised Mrs. Bargrave, when she sent to the person immediately who had the care of ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... Spaniards to her, that they would probably have scrupled to recognize Philip as their sovereign, unless she had consented to assume him as her partner on the throne. Her utter incapacity for business rendered it impossible to obtain her consent. But her death, which happened this year, removed this difficulty; and as Charles, upon that event, became sole monarch of Spain, it left the succession open to his son. The war with France had likewise been a reason ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... the new gown, I attended my first ball in November, going with a party of eight that included my two sisters, another girl, and four young men. The ball was at Big Rapids, which by this time had grown to be a thriving lumber town. It was impossible to get a team of horses or even a yoke of oxen for the journey, so we made a raft and went down the river on that, taking our party dresses with us in trunks. Unfortunately, the raft "hung up" in the stream, and the four young men had to get out into the icy ...
— The Story of a Pioneer - With The Collaboration Of Elizabeth Jordan • Anna Howard Shaw
... orphan. An orphan! Did the Court realize what it meant? No, he dared not ask them to picture to themselves all that was implied in that bitter word. An orphan. Nobody to instil those early lessons of piety . . . to grow up wild, neglected, despised. . . . It was impossible for a man to avoid going astray in such terribly unnatural conditions. Everybody else had parents to counsel and direct them; he alone was bereft of this blessing. It was cruel, it was illogical, to apply the same standard to him as to those fortunate ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... that I wish particularly to go out this morning. It is now past one o'clock, and if you continue endeavouring to do what is quite impossible, my hair will never be dressed. You had much better plait it ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 450 - Volume 18, New Series, August 14, 1852 • Various
... Antonia," he said slowly. It seemed impossible to quicken his pulses in any way. "She needn't ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge
... sciences, and department stores for cultivated and attractive salesladies. Then, when all such people have received cards to dinners or dances, it will only remain for them to have previous engagements, and the true beginning is made. Come! You can't say the thing is impossible." ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... criminations to which the diplomatic complexities, which it was impossible then to unravel, gave rise. Fortunately they were soon rendered mere personal and abstract disputes, of little practical consequence, by the simultaneous execution of definitive treaties by France and the United States with Great Britain ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... camp-outfitters advertises a canoe called the Sponson, the name being taken from the air-chambers built along the outside rail, which are called sponsons. It is claimed that these air-chambers make it next to impossible to upset the canoe, and that even when filled with water it will support a heavy weight. Sponsons can also be purchased separately and can be ...
— On the Trail - An Outdoor Book for Girls • Lina Beard and Adelia Belle Beard
... free to show her arched foot, free of her luminous movements. This first interview was what every rendezvous must be between persons of passionate disposition, who have stepped over a wide distance quickly, who desire each other ardently, and who, nevertheless, do not know each other. It is impossible that at first there should not occur certain discordant notes in the situation, which is embarrassing until the moment when two souls ...
— The Girl with the Golden Eyes • Honore de Balzac
... party. After four days he came out on the coast, and by following that, he succeeded in coming to the fleet. Their friends supposed them to have been killed and eaten by the Caribs, as, since some of them were pilots and able to set their course by the pole-star, it seemed impossible that they ...
— The Life of Christopher Columbus from his own Letters and Journals • Edward Everett Hale
... her; he had been at his wits' end to know what to do or say. She was so utterly alone; she had no father—no brothers to whom he could send. He had wired to an uncle of whom she had told him, but it was impossible that anyone could arrive before the ...
— The Second Honeymoon • Ruby M. Ayres
... los Rios, administrator of the royal hospital of this city, declare that, because of the small amount of income and alms received by the said hospital, the needs of the sick are not provided for. It is impossible to give them everything requisite for their health, inasmuch as there are many sick there, both of the ordinary troops and the mercenary soldiers, to whom his Majesty gives medicines, and for whom he supplies a physician, as he is bound to do. The same provision is ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume IX, 1593-1597 • E. H. Blair
... investigation to {60} determine under the language of Article 10 of the Protocol whether a State had resorted to war in violation of its undertaking, or had violated the rules laid down for a demilitarized zone. It is utterly impossible to suppose that the Council could ever immediately determine the aggressor under such circumstances by unanimous vote; and such determination must be immediate. The language of the text is: "at once"; and in the French: "dans ...
— The Geneva Protocol • David Hunter Miller
... my pages brought me the she-mule, and said to me, 'O our lord, rise up and fare to the house, for that our lady hath required thee at this very hour and she hath caused dinner to be served and sore we fear lest it wax cold.' Therefore, O Commander of the Faithful, I found it impossible to bathe[FN140] by reason of the pages which were standing with the mule at the door of my shop; so I mounted and rode home. I entered my house according to my usual habit when my wife met me and said to me 'O my dearling, my heart hath been occupied with thee this day, for ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... be expected to sink so much capital in the soil, in the hope of a distant and uncertain return, as the lessee certain of a possession for a specified number of years; but some capital he must sink in it. It is impossible, according to the modern system, or indeed any system of husbandry, that all the capital committed to the earth in winter and spring should be resumed in the following summer and autumn. A considerable overplus must inevitably remain to be gathered up in future seasons; and this ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... bayonet fencing should be conducted with a view to teaching the aggressive use of the bayonet. Unless troops are so thoroughly trained with the bayonet that they believe that with it they are superior to their opponents it will be difficult or impossible to develop that morale which is necessary for a successful assault. Men should be impressed with the importance of acting always on the offensive in bayonet combat, of pushing their attack with all their might. Troops which are successful in their first few bayonet encounters will ...
— Manual for Noncommissioned Officers and Privates of Infantry • War Department
... Government is engaged in constructing one, but it is slow work, as the immense blocks of concrete used can be handled and laid only in smooth seas, which seldom occur. Sometimes the mail steamers find it impossible to land passengers or cargo, and are compelled to carry both to Calcutta. The surf often sweeps over the top of the iron pier, which is certainly twenty feet high. Passengers are taken ashore in native boats ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... impossible," he says, "to withdraw this knife from a bleeding wound with no other blood marks than ...
— The Diamond Coterie • Lawrence L. Lynch
... impossible. Many officers and men gathered about a brick house on the right—a narrow lawn leading directly to the fatal wall was crowded; indeed, caps bearing the regimental numbers were found, as has since been ascertained, close by the wall, and a Lieutenant who was stunned in the fight and fell ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... laid their axes and extra rifles. In the same manner they made high shelves, on which their food would be safe from prowling wild beasts, even should they succeed in breaking in the door. But Dick soon made the latter impossible by putting the door on strong hinges of leather which he made from the gear that he had cut from the horses. He also split a new bar from one of the young ash trees and strengthened the hasps on the inside. He felt now that when the bar ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... can find out about it are true. The obvious, every-day things that are easily believed are much the most likely to be untenable reports or the day dreams of imaginative chroniclers. You are safe if you believe all the quaint and romantic and inconsistent and impossible things that come to your knowledge concerning the Village. That is its special and sacred privilege: to be unexpected and always—yes, always without exception—in the spirit of its irrational and sympathetic role. It needs Kipling's ...
— Greenwich Village • Anna Alice Chapin
... should send our manufactures, not to Portugal, but to South America; while Portugal would be obliged to send the bullion to some other country that it might carry on a smuggling trade with its neighbour, Spain. It was impossible for the ingenuity of man to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... four dynamic centers follows no one conceivable law. Mental activity continues according to a law of co-relation. But there is no logical or rational co-relation in the dynamic consciousness. It pulses on inconsequential, and it would be impossible to determine any sequence. Out of the very lack of sequence in dynamic consciousness does the individual himself develop. The dynamic abstraction of a child's precepts follows no mental law, and even no law which can ever be mentally propounded. And this is why it is utterly pernicious to set ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... To the doorways of the West-Wind, To the portals of the Sunset, To the earth's remotest border, Where into the empty spaces Sinks the sun, as a flamingo Drops into her nest at nightfall, In the melancholy marshes. "Hold!" at length cried Mudjekeewis, "Hold, my son, my Hiawatha! 'T is impossible to kill me, For you cannot kill the immortal. I have put you to this trial, But to know and prove your courage; Now receive the prize of valor! "Go back to your home and people, Live among them, toil among them, Cleanse the earth from all that harms it, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... repetition of the four-headed figure at the top of every tower, a striking and effective motive, which is also found above the gates of the town. Chou Ta-kuan says that there were golden statues of Buddhas at the entrance to the Bayon. It is impossible to say whether this statement is accurate or not. He may have simply made a mistake, but it is equally possible that the fusion of the two creeds may have ended in images of the Buddha being placed outside the ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot
... melodramatic; the Greeks knew neither domesticity nor melodrama, and the early Italian painters were imbued with a faith which, if not so virile as the worship of the Phidian Zeus, yet absorbed them and elevated them in a degree impossible in the tawdry Sadduceeism of our own day. By the way, when the weather is milder you must go to Orvieto; you have never been there, I think; it is the Prosodion of Signorelli. What a fine Pagan he was at heart! He admired masculine beauty like a Greek; he ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... sounds impossible!" he burst forth, finally. "Are you telling me that you, alone and unprotected, managed to inveigle this murderer into confessing his crime to you? Gee, it's—it's unbelievable! The four of you would be a great help to me in my profession," ...
— The Outdoor Girls in the Saddle - Or, The Girl Miner of Gold Run • Laura Lee Hope
... communal husbandry is progress. Everyone testifies to the leadership of the "best families" in the transformation of the older modes of the tillage of the soil to the newer. It is impossible for the scientific agriculturist to make much improvement upon a country community until the more progressive spirits and the more open minds have been enlisted. Thereafter the better farming problem is solved. There can be no modern agriculture in a community in which all are equal. The communities ...
— The Evolution of the Country Community - A Study in Religious Sociology • Warren H. Wilson
... the objects above him on the mantle-shelf. They all meant something from the past,—a busy, wholesome past which had formed habits of thought and action, habits he could no longer enjoy alone, and which, on the other hand, it was quite impossible for him to share with any one else. He was no longer ...
— Cinderella - And Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... work in Ireland that, in the wholly abnormal condition of our national life, no project which is theoretically sound need be rejected because everybody says it is impracticable. The work of the morrow will largely consist of the impossible of to-day. If this adds to the difficulty, it also adds to ...
— Ireland In The New Century • Horace Plunkett
... most interesting problems which offer themselves to the geological student essentially insoluble? Is he in the position of a scientific Tantalus—doomed always to thirst for a knowledge which he cannot obtain? The reverse is to be hoped; nay, it may not be impossible to indicate the source whence help ...
— Geological Contemporaneity and Persistent Types of Life • Thomas H. Huxley
... ailing of late—how much it is impossible to say, because she is always cheerful and indomitable. She never complains, she never neglects a duty; but I have found her, several times of late, sitting alone, unoccupied, musing—that is unlike her—and with a certain shadow upon her face that I do not recognise; but the ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... glowing colors made the legs of the pious tremble. Besides, the eyes of the image had the marvelous peculiarity of looking straight at those who contemplated it, following them even though they changed position. A veritable miracle. It seemed impossible that that good gentleman who came up every morning in the summer to hear mass in the village, had painted that supernatural work. An Englishman had tried to buy it for its weight in gold. No one had seen the Englishman, but ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... strong principles as well as warm feelings, and a fine and resolute sense of honour utterly impervious to attack. It was impossible to be in his company an hour, and not see that he was a man to be respected. It was equally impossible to live with him a week, and not see that he was a man ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19, No. 533, Saturday, February 11, 1832. • Various
... the Kid had not felt the grim thirst for encounter that usually urged him on to battle. It had been a purely chance row, born of the cards and certain epithets impossible for a gentleman to brook that had passed between the two. The Kid had rather liked the slim, haughty, brown-faced young chap whom his bullet had cut off in the first pride of manhood. And now he wanted no more blood. He wanted to get away and have a good long sleep somewhere ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... doubt that both the Knapps were conspirators in that murder. The counsel, therefore, are wrong, I think, in saying they might safely admit this. The admission of so important and so connected a fact would render it impossible to contend further against the proof of the entire conspiracy, as ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... dreaded to look into my own thoughts, from day to day. Above all, I dreaded to sit down and write to him. Oh, the hateful falsity of those letters—Yet what could I do, what could I do? I had no right to give such a blow, unless I felt that anything else was utterly, utterly impossible." ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing
... attention to the conversation was so conspicuous as to be disconcerting. Mrs. Dill signalled with her head that comment should be omitted, and Mr. Dill became, for the moment, one factor in a fairly clear example of telepathic communication, for it is impossible to believe that his wife's almost imperceptible gesture was what caused him to remember that Charles J. ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... be that he had gone deliberately into an influence that would make it impossible for ...
— The Witness • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... inexperience. In the latter respect, however, she was, of course, at the less disadvantage with a stranger to the manners and life of her world. A more perfectly charming companion it would have been difficult to desire and impossible to find. If at first I had been secretly inclined to reproach her with exaggerated timidity, it became more and more evident that her personal fears were due simply to that nervous susceptibility which even men of reputed courage have often displayed ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... shelter. They built up the approaches to the cavern, filled the entrance with rocks, and considered themselves to be safe. But their confidence proved fatal to them. The Count La Palud, who was in command of the troops, seeing that it was impossible to force the entrance, sent his men up the mountain provided with ropes; and fixing them so that they should hang over the mouth of the cavern, a number of the soldiers slid down in full equipment, landing on the ledge right in front of the concealed Vaudois. Seized with a sudden ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles
... hairless ape must be Tarzan, while the other was, doubtless, Taug. Never, in her wildest hopes, had she expected succor of this sort. Her one thought had been to escape and find her way back to the tribe of Kerchak; but even this had appeared to her practically impossible, so closely ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... and round all those thousand and one spurs running into each other, with no distinct valley or flat between, is best known to the engineers and surveyors, who have declared it practicable. To the non-professional eye it seems not only difficult, but impossible. But oh how it is wanted! All along the road shrill bugle-blasts warned the slow, trailing ox-wagons, with their naked "forelooper" at their head, to creep aside out of our way, I counted one hundred and twenty wagons that day on fifty miles ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... were going to get the machines. He said that of course they would prefer to buy them abroad, but that, though this was impossible, the work would not be delayed on that account, since they could make a start with the machines they had. Turbines for the Petrograd works they still hoped to obtain from abroad when peace had been arranged. ...
— Russia in 1919 • Arthur Ransome
... doubt he thought the formation of an Academy a matter of great importance. Why then did he deliberately introduce controversial elements and thus make impossible a discussion of his proposal wholly on its merits? I suggest as a possible answer that he wished the Whigs to dissociate themselves from the project and that he used the tactics expected to achieve this end, in the desire that entire credit for the founding of the Academy ...
— Reflections on Dr. Swift's Letter to Harley (1712) and The British Academy (1712) • John Oldmixon
... structure had been finished in 1387, but not for many years did it receive its statues, of which something must be said, although it is impossible to get more than a vague idea of them, so high are they. A captive balloon should be arranged for the use of visitors. Those by Donatello, on the Baptistery side, are the most remarkable. The first of these—that nearest to the cathedral and the most striking as seen from the distant earth—is ...
— A Wanderer in Florence • E. V. Lucas
... is filled with an anguish of pity for the mother and the young wife, whose health, like that of the elder Mrs. Winthrop, had made the journey impossible for both. ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... first matters which engaged the attention of the Committee was the question how reliable information could be gathered which would indicate the present prevalence of these diseases in this country. Recognizing that it would be impossible to obtain trustworthy figures without securing the widespread co-operation of the medical profession, the Committee at an early stage sought and was readily given the help of the British Medical Association in the matter. Representatives of the Association gave their assistance ...
— Venereal Diseases in New Zealand (1922) • Committee Of The Board Of Health
... would deprive her of her estate." He had asked for names, but these his informant would not give, saying merely, "the best of England were in it," and "such a {p.271} number agreed thereupon, that it was impossible but that it would take effect." There was no chance of discovery; "the matter had been in hand for a year or thereabouts," yet no one "had uttered a word of it;" should it become known, the conspirators were so strong that the catastrophe would only be precipitated. They would have moved already, ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... agreeable chatting, the ladies entered, and then I had time to remark the extreme beauty of their appearance; they were both wonderfully like, and except that Lady Jane was taller and more womanly, it would have been almost impossible ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Complete • Charles James Lever (1806-1872)
... anxious not to lose so pliant a negotiator as Oswald, the cabinet agreed that Oswald should continue to confer with him. On June 4, Grenville complained to Fox that the separate negotiation between Oswald and Franklin rendered it impossible for him to make any progress, and further told him that he had learned from Oswald that Shelburne had seen the paper containing Franklin's proposition with respect to Canada. Fox was indignant, for he considered that Shelburne was carrying on a clandestine negotiation, ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... commenced, "it is impossible to supply more than eight horses for one bull; there are five more bulls to be dispatched. They are more savage than this one. I must keep horses for them. Let the senors be reasonable and allow the ...
— Five Nights • Victoria Cross
... illness, had been occasioned by his leaving a warm upper coat, which he had been accustomed to wear, to add to the bed covering of a poor sick child, whom he had gone out one cold winter's day to visit. Now, though it was impossible for any one to help dearly loving so amiable and generous a character as Frank, his parents had found it necessary gently to reprove his exceeding and indiscriminate generosity, by pointing out to him that it was even wrong when it tended to injure his own health, ...
— The Young Lord and Other Tales - to which is added Victorine Durocher • Camilla Toulmin
... set strongly towards union, and disdained contentment with anything else. Mankind turn naturally to the solutions that seem the simplest. Mr. Gladstone condemned the existing system as bad for us and bad for them. Circumstances made it impossible for him to suggest amendment by throwing the burden bodily off our shoulders, and at that time he undoubtedly regarded union with Greece as in itself undesirable for the Ionians. Circumstances and ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... that when Joseph was getting old the courtiers tried to bring about his disgrace by inducing Pharaoh to set him what appeared to be an impossible task, viz. to double the revenues of the province within a few years. Joseph accomplished the task by artificially adapting a natural branch of the Nile so as to give the district the benefit of the yearly overflow. The canal thus formed, which is 207 miles in length, was called after ...
— The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela • Benjamin of Tudela
... aberrations, the instances of which given in books, and clearly authenticated, are innumerable. Things are distinctly seen in a room which have no existence in nature; and the illusion is so perfect that it seems impossible for eyes to ...
— After the Storm • T. S. Arthur
... Cutty decided to let Hawksley sit in an easy chair in the living room until Captain Harrison arrived. Kuroki was ordered to prepare a supper, which would be served on the tea cart, set at Hawksley's knees. Kitty—because it was impossible for her to remain inactive—set the linen and silver. She was in and out of the room, ill at ease, angry, frightened, bitter, avoiding Hawksley's imploring eyes because she was not sure of ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... doorway, or rather into the angle of a door leading into the back room. The piano had stopped; while wondering what to do next my attention was suddenly attracted by a conversation to which I had to listen; it was impossible to move away. "So she is going to sing, is she? Well, we will see if this great and only true Italian method will put brains into a fool's head or voice into her chest." This was said in a guttural voice, the accent ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... had not been invented, and men fought with spears, swords, and battle-axes. The Austrian soldiers stood shoulder to shoulder, each grasping a long spear whose point projected far in front of him. The Swiss were armed with short swords and spears and it was impossible for them to get to the Austrians. For a while their cause looked hopeless, but among the ranks of the Swiss was a brave man from one of the Forest Cantons. His name was Arnold von Win'kel-ried. As he looked upon the bristling points of the Austrian spears, he saw that his comrades ...
— Famous Men of the Middle Ages • John H. Haaren
... her frightfully unhappy. And it'll bring back that infernal pain. If you'd seen her, Eliot, you'd know how impossible it is. We simply can't be swine. And if I could, Anne couldn't.... No. We've got to stick it somehow, Anne ...
— Anne Severn and the Fieldings • May Sinclair
... animals, by which the smaller ones were here consumed. This must have been at a time antecedent to the submersion which produced the diluvium, since the bones are covered by a bed of that formation. It is impossible not to see here a very natural series of incidents. First, the cave is frequented by wild beasts, who make it a kind of charnel-house. Then, submerged in the current which has been spoken of, it receives a clay ...
— Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation • Robert Chambers
... were of a different character, and, instigated by whim, liquor, an evil temper, hatred to the African race, or a desire to get an impossible amount of work, acted the part of tyrants and oppressors, and made the slaves feel that they were trodden beneath the ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... mistrustful spirit which prevails among the rest of the Hellenes. {37} Were it possible, indeed, to join forces with them all, and with one accord to attack the king in his isolation, I should have counted it no wrong even were we to take the aggressive. But since this is impossible, we must be careful to give the king no pretext for trying to enforce the claims of the other Hellenes against us. If you keep the peace, any such step on his part would arouse suspicion; but if you are the first ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 1 • Demosthenes
... cried in terror; 'it is impossible. I cannot. Come to my club instead.' But he shook ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... surrounded by a border of calfs'-foot jelly, like a setting of crystals. The bread revealed new qualities in the wheat, it was so sweet and nutty; and the fried potatoes, with which your beefsteak comes snowed under, are the very flower of the culinary art, and I believe impossible in ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... I saw the first horse since I left Rhodesia and it was a distinct event. Except in the Kasai region it is impossible to maintain live stock in the Congo. The tsetse fly is the devastating agency. Apparently the only beasts able to withstand this scourge are goats and dogs. The few white men who live in Coquilhatville have been able to maintain five horses which are ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson
... of the Jews, during the building of the wall of Jerusalem, under Nehemiah, may be included under this head. That they remained with their masters of their own accord, we argue from the fact, that the circumstances of the Jews made it impossible for them to compel their residence and service. They were few in number, without resources, defensive fortifications, or munitions of war, and surrounded withal by a host of foes, scoffing at their feebleness and inviting desertion from their ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... otherwise well circumstanced. Small rootlets and fibres in the surface soil do not count; they are quickly replaced, and if you do not destroy them, the whole surface soil, if moist enough, will be filled with a network of roots which will subsequently make decent working of the soil impossible. ...
— One Thousand Questions in California Agriculture Answered • E.J. Wickson
... delusion. Etiquette is that code of rules, not necessarily connected with morals, by which mutual intercourse is regulated. Every society, whether civilized or barbarous, has such a code of its own. Without it social life would be impossible, for no man would know what to expect of his neighbors, nor be able promptly to interpret the words and actions of his fellow-men. It is in obedience to an unwritten law of this kind that an American takes off his hat when he goes into ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... outrageous passion, Coloured like scarlet, and said, "None of your wit; I don't understand joking on those subjects; what do you think your father would have said if he had heard you say so? He Would have murdered you, and you would have deserved it." I was quite Confounded and amazed; it was impossible to explain myself across a loo-table, as she is so deaf: there was no making a reply to a woman and a Princess, and particularly for me, who have made it a rule, when I must converse with royalties, to treat them with the greatest respect, since it is all the court they will ever have from me. ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... no more," Captain Mordaunt said to Jack. "The carpenter has just reported that the mainmast is so seriously injured that at any moment it may go over the side. It is impossible to hope any longer to reach Leghorn, but my ship I am determined they shall ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... for water were dreadful, despite all that could be done to help them. Frobisher had already told off as many men as he could spare to carry water, but it seemed impossible to quench the poor wretches' thirst; their cry was always for more, even though they had drunk but a moment previously. The unwounded men appeared to be quite indifferent, however, both to their own comrades' sufferings and their own chances of death or mutilation, and went on serving the guns ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... fatal disunion. Circumstances indeed would not permit the division to remain in its first intensity, and their common danger compelled the two nations into a partial understanding. Yet the reconciliation, imperfect to the last, was at the outset all but impossible. Their relations were already embittered by many reciprocal acts of hostility. Henry VIII. had won his spurs as a theologian by an attack on Luther. Luther had replied by a hailstorm of invectives. The Lutheran books had been proscribed, ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... been completely out-generalled by his opponent. While he had been waiting with his army for a pitched battle Parma had invested Lagny, and there were no means of relieving it except by crossing the river in the face of the whole army of the enemy, an enterprise impossible of execution. As soon as Lagny had fallen provisions and ammunition were at once poured into Paris, two thousand boat-loads arriving in ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... impossible to describe the effect of this terrible testimony on the minds of all who ...
— The Lost Lady of Lone • E.D.E.N. Southworth
... immediately. The longer he reasoned with himself the more confident he became that Croisset had been the victor. He knew Jean. Every advantage was on his side. He was as watchful as a lynx. It was impossible to conceive of him walking into a trap. So he determined to wait, at ...
— God's Country—And the Woman • James Oliver Curwood |
