"Inconceivable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... journey the prosecution of which promised not only to be the main occupation of his remaining years here in time, but, the river of death once crossed, to stretch onward and onward through realms, at present inconceivable, of beauty, of knowledge, and of love. And so, for the moment, solitude was sweet to him, leaving him free of petty cares and anxieties—he moving forward, ignorant of the gossip which in point of fact surrounded him, innocent of the feminine plots and counterplots ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... involuntary chill again invaded Howat; suddenly an unfamiliar imagery attached to the commonplace phrase uttered by his father—the Endless Mountains! It brought back his doubt, his questioning, of life. It was the inconceivable term endless, without any finality of ultimate rest, without even the arbitrary peace of death, that appalled him. He thought of life going on and on, with nothing consummated, nothing achieved nor final. He thought of the black ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... whatever name we may choose to call it. Every atom, molecule, plant, animal or planet, is only an aggregation of organized unit forces, held in place by stronger forces, thus holding them for a time latent, though teeming with inconceivable power. All life on our planet is, so to speak, just on the outer fringe of this infinite ocean of force. The universe is not ...
— A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... that they stood motionless, watching the flaming tree and the inky heavens beyond. Suddenly in the sky they saw a figure that resembled a vast balloon slightly inclined to one side, and spinning on its axis with inconceivable swiftness. ...
— The Hunters of the Ozark • Edward S. Ellis
... throbbing green radiance. O'Keefe's fingers must have pressed down upon the controls, for we leaped forward almost with the speed of light. I caught a glimpse of luminous immensities on the verge of which we flew; of depths inconceivable, and flitting through the incredible spaces—gigantic shadows as of the wings of Israfel, which are so wide, say the Arabs, the world can cower under them like a nestling—and then—again the ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt
... all the neighborhood, and the boy-friend could not resist the temptation of repeating Jacob's grand design, for the endless amusement of the school. The betrayal hurt Jacob more keenly than the ridicule. It left a wound that never ceased to rankle; yet, with the inconceivable perversity of unthinking natures, precisely this joke (as the people supposed it to be) had been perpetuated, until "Jake Flint's Journey" was a synonyme for any absurd or extravagant expectation. Perhaps no one imagined how much pain he was keeping alive; for almost any other man than Jacob ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... two very obvious and decisive objections. The first is, that Robin Hood, as already remarked, is not so much as named in contemporary history. Whether as the unsubdued leader of the Saxon peasantry, or insurgent against the tyranny of Henry or Edward, it is inconceivable that we should not hear something of him from the chroniclers. If, as Thierry says, "he had chosen Hereward for his model," it is unexplained and inexplicable why his historical fate has been so different from that of Hereward. The hero of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... feigned voice a maiden, the orphan daughter of a noble Polygon, whose affection in former days he had sought in vain; and by a series of deceptions—aided, on the one side, by a string of lucky accidents too long to relate, and, on the other, by an almost inconceivable fatuity and neglect of ordinary precautions on the part of the relations of the bride—he succeeded in consummating the marriage. The unhappy girl committed suicide on discovering the fraud to ...
— Flatland • Edwin A. Abbott
... mud. Yet the alternative theory, that someone in the next garden was throwing it, was hardly less bizarre. The nature of his friendship with Sally's Aunt Jane and old Mr Williams, her husband, was comfortable rather than rollicking. It was inconceivable that they should be ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... suddenly, of an old tomcat belonging to a lady of his acquaintance at Paris-on-Baldur, a most affectionate cat, who insisted on catching mice and bringing them as presents to all his human friends. To this cat's mind, it was inconceivable that anybody would not be most happy to receive a ...
— A Slave is a Slave • Henry Beam Piper
... his life. He was not a Silenus to guzzle hog-like over husks when the life had gone. Besides—Wayland laughed aloud—the idea of her nature permitting a Silenus near enough to breathe the same atmosphere that she breathed was inconceivable. There was one chance—one chance only—Get the issue before the People, squarely, fairly, openly before the People; awaken the People; mass the law of the snow flake to the mighty rush of the avalanche; let the People know, force the People to pronounce the verdict. Wayland thought of Bat ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... use of racking our brains? Only wait till to-morrow or the day after; something will happen then which will reduce our own precious persons and this beautiful world to that nothingness which to-day is inconceivable. It is coming; I can hear from afar the brazen tramp of the airy and incorporeal monster. A queer sort of giant—smaller than the mathematical point of which we were speaking, and yet vast beyond all measurement. Aye, aye; our intelligence, ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... curtain aside. A surging wind had swept the sky clear, all but one bank of low-lurking, western cloud shot through with naming crimson. In that luminous setting the ancient house across Our Square, grim and bleak no longer to my eyes, gleamed, through eyes again come to life, with an inconceivable glory. Behind me in the shadow, the measured voice of the witness to life and death repeated once more the message of ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... that they were a result of Mercier's conversation at that time. This is an error. Benjamin's instructions were written on April 12, and were sent on April 14, while it was not until April 16 that Mercier reached Richmond. To some it will no doubt seem inconceivable that Benjamin should not have informed Mercier of his plans for France, just formulated. But here, as in Chapter IX, I prefer to accept Mercier's positive assurances to Lyons at their face value. Lyons certainly so accepted them and there is nothing in French documents yet published ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... had turned the girl's brain; it was inconceivable that in that roar of sound a single step could make itself heard, or be recognized. And she tried, in a voice that shook with horror and remorse, to repeat her meaningless words of comfort. But they died on her lips, died still-born, as the door flew open, and a man rushed ...
— In Kings' Byways • Stanley J. Weyman
... carrying up (most probably of carrying off) our baggage. By dint of words fair and foul, a shove here and a push there, I contrived to get Kitty under my arm and superintend, tho' with no small trouble and inconceivable watchfulness, the adjustment of our small portmanteaux, writing case, &c., in a wheelbarrow, which, from its formidable length of handle, bespoke its foreign manufacturer. On we jogged, but jogged not long; for before this ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... And then the inconceivable happened. I did what I never thought I should be capable of doing, and did it easily, too, without, I am sure, a change of color or any perturbation. I think I could do it, because faithfulness had become so a matter of course with the man that I was not ashamed should he have any suspicion of ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... would be well kept. He had carefully chosen the house in which you were to die of hunger and misery. The two Chevassats were bound to be his devoted accomplices, even unto death. This is what gave him the amazing boldness, the inconceivable brutality, to watch your slow agony; no doubt he became quite impatient at your delaying ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... natives, once promoted to the rank of soldiers, tantalized the farmers, who were formerly their masters, to an inconceivable degree. With rifle in hand they would go to these and treat them in the most insulting manner. They would commandeer bread, butter, milk, clothes, horses, and everything else they pleased, and woe to the man or woman that did ...
— In the Shadow of Death • P. H. Kritzinger and R. D. McDonald
... irregular arch, which in calm weather was very distinct. When the air became agitated, showers of rays spread in every direction with the rapidity of lightning. Sometimes long streams of light were spread out with inconceivable swiftness. No rule could be traced in the movement of the light parcels which are called the "merry dancers." The sun and moon were often surrounded with haloes and concentric circles of vapour, tinted with the brightest hues of the rainbow. Parhelia, or mock suns, frequently shone in different ...
— Notable Voyagers - From Columbus to Nordenskiold • W.H.G. Kingston and Henry Frith
... is both instructive and amusing, and at this particular time, when the extremes of superstition and philosophy have shaken hands, it will be likely to effect an inconceivable amount of good, if properly studied. It is one of the most remarkable productions of the day, and must create an extraordinary degree of interest in the public ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... for himself," he replied, "but it seems to me, if I may say so without offence, doctor, that you are misinterpreting a somewhat elaborate joke. Mr. Holgate's explanation is reasonable enough, and besides, the only other explanation is monstrous—inconceivable!" ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... ironic that he should be, not only there, but actually a factor and a part of the underworld's intimate life! He, Jimmie Dale, a wealthy man, a member of New York's exclusive clubs, a member of New York's most exclusive society! It was inconceivable. He smiled sardonically. Was it? Well, then, it was none the less true. His life unquestionably was one unique, apart from any other man's, but it was, for all that, actual ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... But if it be granted, or even proved, that this is true, we cannot see how it satisfies the reason when we come to the question of creation and a creator. For what a stupendous, unutterably stupendous, and almost inconceivable thing was that fire-mist that filled all space and had in it not only the germs and possibilities of suns and moons and planets and our earth, but of man and all his civilization; and those laws ...
— The Galaxy, Volume 23, No. 2, February, 1877 • Various
... the ministry was inconceivable. ... The Congregational ministers agreed to hold back and keep silent until the storm blew over. Our duty as well as policy was explanation and self-defence, ...
— The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut • M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.
... is a Latin proverb which means that one man alone is no man at all. A man who should be neither son, brother, husband, father, neighbor, citizen, or friend is inconceivable. To try to think of such a man is like trying to think of a stone without size, weight, surface, or color. Man is by nature a social being. Apart from society man would not be man. "Whosoever is delighted in solitude ...
— Practical Ethics • William DeWitt Hyde
... extraordinary. To me, as to Ambler Jevons who knew her well, it seemed almost inconceivable that old Mr. Courtenay should allow her to live there after receiving such a wild communication as that final letter. Especially curious, too, that Mary had never suspected or discovered her sister's jealousy. Yet so skilfully had Ethelwynn concealed ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux
... forced to yield. Perhaps the worthy school-master knew his daughter; if so he was the only one. Never did so consummate a hypocrisy minister to so profound a perversity, and a depravity so inconceivable in a young and seemingly innocent girl. If, at the bottom of her heart, she thought herself the most wretched of women, there was nothing of it apparent—it was a well-kept secret. She knew how to show to her husband, in place of the love she did not feel, the appearance of a passion ...
— The Mystery of Orcival • Emile Gaboriau
... by prisoners does not extend to the native houses and courtyards, which therefore survive in all their original, inconceivable squalor—squalor so uncompromising that it has long ago ceased to be picturesque. What glimpses into humble interiors, when native secretiveness has not raised a rampart of earthen bricks at the inside of the entrance! In the daytime it is like looking into vast, ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... bombs, sealed into their pexilod cases, guaranteed to stop all the attackers that Terran explorers had so far met on and off worlds, a coil of rope hardly thicker than a strand of knitting yarn but of inconceivable toughness and flexibility, an aid kit with endurance drugs and pep pills which could keep a man on his feet and going long after food and water failed. He had put them all ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... the manager was something inconceivable upon the receipt of this cool advice. He was a man named Carmichael, and quite a different type from the neighbors who held up horny hands when the Bishop decided on his raid. Carmichael was not "a native of this colony," ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... public-house and give them beer, and on a Sunday of all days, and immediately after a sermon! That a local preacher should go direct from the vestry to the gin-palace and there drink ale with a strolling player! These phenomena were simply and totally inconceivable! And yet Jock was in presence of them, assisting at them, positively acting in them! And in spite of her enormities, Mrs Clowes still struck him as a most agreeable, decent, kindly, motherly woman—quite apart from her handsomeness. And her offspring, each hidden to the eyes behind a mug, were ...
— The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories • Arnold Bennett
... a hint of mechanical complexity, there is really no justification for such an assumption; the description might well imply only a zodiac band on which the orbits of the planets were painted. On the other hand it is not inconceivable that Gerbert could have learned something of Islamic and other extra-European traditions during his period of study with the Bishop of Barcelona—a traveling scholarship that seems to have had many repercussions on the whole ...
— On the Origin of Clockwork, Perpetual Motion Devices, and the Compass • Derek J. de Solla Price
... The government of New France was now no post for a court favourite. Louis XIV had expended much money and effort on the colony. Through the mismanagement of La Barre and Denonville everything appeared to be on the verge of ruin. It is inconceivable that Frontenac, then in his seventieth year, should have been renominated for any other cause than merit. Times and conditions had changed. The task now was not to work peaceably with bishop {115} and intendant, but to destroy the foe. Father Goyer, the Recollet who delivered Frontenac's funeral ...
— The Fighting Governor - A Chronicle of Frontenac • Charles W. Colby
... and Goethe, or even of Byron, who redeemed poor and melodramatic conceptions with a manly vigour of execution, an energy and completeness of purpose, that Dryden himself never surpassed, is to me utterly inconceivable." ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book VI • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... Separatist or one of any other sect of Calvinists, who confines Redemption to the comparatively small number of the elect, can reject this opinion, and yet not run mad at the horrid thought of an innumerable multitude of imperishable self-conscious spirits everlastingly excluded from God, is to me inconceivable. ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... supreme right of free thinking, even on religion, is in every man's power, and as it is inconceivable that such power could be alienated, it is also in every man's power to wield the supreme right and authority of free judgment in this behalf, and to explain and interpret religion for himself. The ...
— The Philosophy of Spinoza • Baruch de Spinoza
... and confirmed on the spot; I have heard it since from other sources, and I have subsequently seen confirmatory accounts in the newspapers; but, notwithstanding all this corroboration, it is still inconceivable to me how Mansana, with only his two men, could have succeeded in boarding the smuggler and compelling her crew of sixteen to obey his orders, and bring their vessel to anchor in ...
— Captain Mansana and Mother's Hands • Bjoernstjerne Bjoernson
... unnecessary to call to our aid so hypothetical a cause as the cumulative action of female preference. There remains, however, a general argument, arising from the action of natural selection itself, which renders it almost inconceivable that female preference could have been effective in the way suggested; while the same argument strongly supports the view here set forth. Natural selection, as we have seen in our earlier chapters, acts perpetually ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... miracle of long-suffering love in the Incarnate Jesus, and he had no power of insight into the depths of the heart of God, that enabled him to foresee the sufferings and death of Jesus. Till that supreme self-sacrifice was a fact, it was inconceivable. Alas, now that it is a fact, to how many hearts that need it most is it still incredible. But passing all anticipation as it is, it is the root of all joy, the ground of all hope, and to millions of sinful souls it is their only refuge, and their sovereign ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... with our limited faculties Heaven is practically inconceivable. We have no experience that would help us to realize it. Even the inspired writers can but touch the thought vaguely in allegory and gorgeous vision, piling up images of earthly things precious and beautiful—thrones ...
— The Gospel of the Hereafter • J. Paterson-Smyth
... martial saints had impressed Bunyan so deeply, it is inconceivable that he should have made no more allusion to his military service than in this brief passage. He refers to the siege and all connected with it merely as another occasion of his ...
— Bunyan • James Anthony Froude
... showed to be no common man. Many grave persons were offended at the vehement sentiments expressed in the Robbers; and the unquestioned ability with which these extravagances were expressed, but made the matter worse. To Schiller's superiors, above all, such things were inconceivable: he might perhaps be a very great genius, but was certainly a dangerous servant for his Highness the Grand Duke of Wuertemberg. Officious people mingled themselves in the affair: nay, the graziers of the Alps were ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... this I had my enclosures for my cattle, that is to say, my goats: and as I had taken an inconceivable deal of pains to fence and enclose this ground, I was so uneasy to see it kept entire, lest the goats should break through, that I never left off, till with infinite labour I had stuck the outside of the hedge so full of small stakes, and so near to one another, that it was rather a pale than ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... temporary vesture assumed for the purpose of learning through it. He knows at once that this purpose of learning lessons is the only one of any real importance, and that the man who allows himself to be diverted from that purpose by any consideration whatever is acting with inconceivable stupidity. To him the life devoted exclusively to physical objects, to the acquisition of wealth or fame, appears the merest child's-play—a senseless sacrifice of all that is really worth having for the sake of a ...
— A Textbook of Theosophy • C.W. Leadbeater
... fidelity to that fatal treaty; and it was rather he who had the right of declaring war against Napoleon, as having first violated it. The emperor of France in his conversation with M. Balasheff, the minister of police, gave himself up to those inconceivable indiscretions which might be taken for abandon, if we did not know that it suits him to increase the terror which he inspires by exhibiting himself as superior to all kinds of calculation. "Do you think," said he to M. Balasheff, "that ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein
... cosmological mythology of Babylon, their God seemed to soar beyond the reach of men, and they looked to powers nearer them to bridge the widening gulf. To some extent this aim engendered a modification in the religious monotheism, and led to the interposition of intermediate conceptions between the Inconceivable and man. "The whole angelology," says Deutsch,[194] "so strikingly simple before the Captivity and so wonderfully complex after it, owes its quick development in Babylonian soil to some awe-stricken desire which grows with growing culture, removing the inconceivable ...
— Philo-Judaeus of Alexandria • Norman Bentwich
... seemed to be confirmed by his information that it was a ricketty old concern, only intended to paddle in smooth weather close to the shore. But what earthly reason could have induced three boys to venture out in such a tub on so wild a night? That they did it for pleasure was inconceivable, the more so as rowing was strictly forbidden; and as no other reason could be suggested, all conjecture was ...
— St. Winifred's - The World of School • Frederic W. Farrar
... analogies, rich in intellectual ornament, he is yet too concentrated in his attention to the idea to care for the melody of language. He decorates with fruits, not with flowers. For metrical movement, for rhythmic harmony, he has no ear nor sense. Inconceivable as it is that Shakespeare could have written one aphorism of the 'Novum Organum,' it would be far more absurd to imagine Bacon writing a line of the Sonnets. With the loftiest imagination, the liveliest fancy, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... He does not repel us from His Presence till we have prepared some offering to bring before Him, or have made some good progress in the way of life. No, He has begun His dealings with us with special, spontaneous acts of mercy. He has, by an inconceivable goodness, sent His Son to be our life. Far from asking any gift at our hands in the first instance, He has from our infancy taken us in charge, and freely given us "all things that pertain unto life and godliness." He ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... pimples on his face, or the specks of blood on his collar, than Balzac to do the same duty for the creations of his fancy. De Foe may be compared to those favourites of showmen who cheat you into mistaking a flat-wall painting for a bas-relief. Balzac is one of the patient Dutch artists who exhaust inconceivable skill and patience in painting every hair on the head and every wrinkle on the face till their work has a photographic accuracy. The result, it must be confessed, is sometimes rather trying to the patience. Balzac's ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... Instead, he gave McAllen a cautiously worded reminder that it was not inconceivable they had an audience here, at which McAllen reluctantly subsided. There was, however, one fairly important question Barney still wanted answered today. The nature of the answer would tell him the manner in which ...
— Gone Fishing • James H. Schmitz
... thwart and control the civilized and powerful Governments of the north of Europe? Would, says he to himself, that those who venerate Rome when divided from her by the Alps and the ocean, would come here and see with their own eyes her contemptible vileness and inconceivable degradation; and that those statesmen who are moved by a secret fear to bow the knee to her, would come hither and mark the baseness of her before whom they are content to lower the honour and independence of their country! Such, we say, are the first impressions ...
— Pilgrimage from the Alps to the Tiber - Or The Influence of Romanism on Trade, Justice, and Knowledge • James Aitken Wylie
... assailants into the air. On the 30th another well-planned assault was repelled. One more effort—a last and desperate attempt—was to be made on the 7th of September; but on the 5th the news arrived that the Spanish army of relief had at length, after inconceivable delays and hesitations, actually landed on the island. The worn-out Turks did not wait to reconnoitre, they had borne enough: a retreat was ordered, the siege was abandoned, the works that had cost so much labour and blood were deserted, and ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... to sever his friendships and to lose his comrades of many a tragic day is for him very bitter. It is not untrue to say that as the drafts were leaving and comrades were saying "Goodbye," several of the soldiers, who had braved nearly inconceivable terrors, were almost in tears. As was feared at the time the "Goodbye" in many cases was for ever, as many were killed shortly afterwards by the German offensive in March. The Divisional Commander and several officers from other units came to say "Farewell" to the Battalion they were never to see ...
— The Story of the "9th King's" in France • Enos Herbert Glynne Roberts
... described in Acts 2, and we know that there was a large Jewish population there amongst whom the seed would be sown. Some critics have thought "that a note addressed to Ephesus lies embedded in the 16th chapter," because, they say, it is "inconceivable that Paul could have intimately known so many individuals in a Church like that in Rome to which he was personally a stranger." But this is by no means demonstrated, nor is there evidence that the Church there was founded by any ...
— Weymouth New Testament in Modern Speech, Preface and Introductions - Third Edition 1913 • R F Weymouth
... the world, and many a time he chuckled and hugged himself as he narrated it to the eager circle who gathered round him in that humble cafe where, between his dinner and his dominoes, he would tell, amid tears and laughter, of that inconceivable Napoleonic past when France, like an angel of wrath, rose up, splendid and terrible, before a cowering continent. Let us listen to him as he tells the story in his own way and from his own point ...
— The Adventures of Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... shrewdly enough, the influence of the pseudo-Areopagite and the Easterns on the bolder and more practical minds of the Western Latins, and gives a sketch of Bernard and his Abbey of Clairvaux, which brings pleasantly enough before us the ways and works of a long-dead world, which was all but inconceivable to us till Mr, Carlyle disinterred it in his picture of Abbot Sampson, the hero of ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... in maintaining that perception is inexplicable and inconceivable on mechanical principles. It is always the act of a simple substance, never of a compound. And "in simple substances there is nothing but ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... and in prosperity they resembled the Lord of Treasures. In battle, their energy resembled that of Shakra. In splendour they resembled fire. In battle they always inspired their foes with terror. Capable of assuming any form at will, in fleetness they resembled the very wind. Of inconceivable might and energy, their prowess also ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... so pleased a conscience in this world as I was when you made me visible. It gives me an inconceivable advantage. Now I can look you straight in the eye, and call you names, and leer at you, jeer at you, sneer at you; and you know what eloquence there is in visible gesture and expression, more especially when the effect is heightened by audible speech. I shall always address ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... attaches to the conflict of inarticulate and apparently unconscious animalculae. The strife to which researches into the nature and constitution of our mental processes call attention concerns our conscious selves. It suggests almost inconceivable possibilities as to our own nature, and leaves us appalled on the brink of a new world of being of which until recently most of ...
— Real Ghost Stories • William T. Stead
... will he in the Speculative-Philosophical portion, which treats of their Wirken, or Influences. It is here that the present Editor first feels the pressure of his task; for here properly the higher and new Philosophy of Clothes commences: all untried, almost inconceivable region, or chaos; in venturing upon which, how difficult, yet how unspeakably important is it to know what course, of survey and conquest, is the true one; where the footing is firm substance and will bear us, ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... the grass, the waters, and the sky. In the motion of the very leaves of Spring, in the blue air, there is then found a secret correspondence with our heart. There is eloquence in the tongueless wind, and a melody in the flowing brooks and the rustling of the reeds beside them, which, by their inconceivable relation to something within the soul, awaken the spirits to dances of breathless rapture, and bring tears of mysterious tenderness to the eyes, like the enthusiasm of patriotic success, or the voice of one beloved singing to you alone. Sterne says that if he were in a desert he would love ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 344 (Supplementary Issue) • Various
... round with astonishing delight, beheld the ample plains, the beauteous tracts below. On the other hand, I surveyed the famous river Ohio that rolled in silent dignity, marking the western boundary of Kentucke with inconceivable grandeur. At a vast distance I beheld the mountains lift their venerable brows, and penetrate the clouds. All things were still. I kindled a fire near a fountain of sweet water, and feasted on the loin of a buck, which a few hours before ...
— The Adventures of Colonel Daniel Boone • John Filson
... which name we were known during our stay in the Confederacy,) who was confined in this dungeon. Soon the trap-door again opened, causing a stream of comparatively cool air from the room above to rush down. It was an inconceivable relief—a luxury that none could appreciate who had not, as we had, been deprived of that greatest blessing God has ...
— Daring and Suffering: - A History of the Great Railroad Adventure • William Pittenger
... cabin, without even removing his overcoat, he threw himself on his berth to think over the inconceivable story. He sighed, he gnashed his teeth, he wanted to doubt it. Several times he said aloud, "No!" or "Impossible!" and beat his fists against the mattress of the berth above. He could have sworn an oath that this time there had not been a single lie in Mara's whole shameless narrative. "Mara, or ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... then but twenty-nine years of age. And yet, under circumstances of inconceivable difficulty, with unhesitating reliance upon his own mental resources, he assumed the enormous care of creating and administering a Lew government for thirty millions of people. Never did he achieve a victory which ...
— Napoleon Bonaparte • John S. C. Abbott
... that Southern and Western leaning to emancipation. Many people have said, and do say, that that arrest was and is a great evil. I say it was and is a great good. Why? Answer: It was and would now be premature. Had it been carried out, it would have been and would now be evil, immense, inconceivable,—to master, slave, America, Africa, and the world; because neither master, slave, America, Africa, the world, were, or are, ready for emancipation. God has a great deal to do before he is ready for emancipation. He tells us so by this arrest put ...
— Slavery Ordained of God • Rev. Fred. A. Ross, D.D.
... she not then and there cry out: "And I love him—do you hear?—I love him!" So awful did it seem to be denying her love with these half lies! But it was all so much more grim and hopeless than even she had thought. How inconceivable, now, that she had ever given herself up to this man for life! If only she could get away from him to her room, and scheme and think! For his eyes never left her, travelling over her with their pathetic greed, their menacing inquiry, till he said: "Well, it's ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... dwell, nor do we feel bound to offer any opinion of our own as to the alleged merits or demerits of the new Poor-Law; but it certainly looks as though Ministers had resolved to do what they believed to be right, ruat caelum. What other motive they can have, is to us, at least, inconceivable. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... none the less linked by one inseverable bond; it is the microscope; and while, amid the inconceivable diversity of its applications, it remains manifest that this society has for its primary object the constant progress of the instrument—whether in its mechanical construction or its optical appliances; whether the improvements shall bear upon the use of high powers or low powers; whether ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 643, April 28, 1888 • Various
... Italy, a school of action—for anarchism can scarcely be dignified by the name of a school of thought—which regards human life as scarcely more sacred than property. It may be that some lower depth has yet to be reached, although it is almost inconceivable that such should be the case. Anarchy takes us past the stage of any defined political or social programme. It would appear, so far as can at present be judged, to embody the last despairing ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... the opponents of the system of Copernicus. It had, indeed, been necessary for Aristarchus to explain the fact as due to the extreme distance of the stars; a perfectly correct explanation, but one that implies distances that are altogether inconceivable. It remained for nineteenth-century astronomers to show, with the aid of instruments of greater precision, that certain of the stars have a parallax. But long before this demonstration had been brought forward, ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... that he needed no answer... but he waited, he thirsted for a reply, for an explanation of this incredible, inconceivable thing. Varvara Pavlovna wrote him the same day a long letter in French. It put the finishing touch; his last doubts vanished,—and he began to feel ashamed that he had still had any doubt left. Varvara Pavlovna did ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... the Universe are those which are ever going on around us; so trite and common to us that we never note them nor reflect upon them. Wise men tell us of the laws that regulate the motions of the spheres, which, flashing in huge circles and spinning on their axes, are also ever darting with inconceivable rapidity through the infinities of Space; while we atoms sit here, and dream that all was made for us. They tell us learnedly of centripetal and centrifugal forces, gravity and attraction, and all the other sounding terms invented to hide a want of meaning. There are other forces in ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... of a child is but a new manifestation in physical form of the one soul, and in no sense the apparition of an additional soul? It is difficult to think otherwise. The birth and death of souls are inconceivable; the immortality of a vast and varying number of individual souls is equally inconceivable. Immortality implies unity, not number. The mind can grasp the possibility of one soul, the manifestation of which is the universe and ...
— Two Thousand Miles On An Automobile • Arthur Jerome Eddy
... like looking at Mont Blanc over a lamp-post. The domes of cloud-snow were heaped as definitely: their broken flanks were as gray and firm as rocks, and the whole mountain, of a compass and height in heaven which only became more and more inconceivable as the eye strove to ascend it, was passing behind the tower with a steady march, whose swiftness must in reality have been that of a tempest: yet, along all the ravines of vapor, precipice kept pace with precipice, and not ...
— The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century - Two Lectures delivered at the London Institution February - 4th and 11th, 1884 • John Ruskin
... is greater than any possible mood of the moment, not because of that vague and negative pseudo-classical quality misnamed "reserve," but because of its vital individuality. In their proper directions its changes are limitless; elsewhere change is inconceivable. No amount of "Umarbeitung" could, for instance, turn the aria of Hercules into the Virgin's cradle-song, or Wollust's aria into the exhortation of Zion to prepare for the Bridegroom. In short, Bach's melodies are characteristic, not like a mask with a set expression, but like ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... which Lord Fawn had demanded its restitution,—in which there had been none of that mock tenderness by which she might have permitted herself to be persuaded,—had made her, at any rate for the moment, as firm as steel on this point. It was inconceivable to her that he should think himself at liberty to go back from his promise, because she would not render up property which was in her possession, and which no one could prove not to be legally her own! She walked on full of fierce courage,—despising him, but ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... that it is inconceivable how the city of Rome, whose adjacent fields were untilled, and whose vineyards had been frozen the year before, could for twelve months support such a confluence of people. He extols the hospitality of the citizens, and the abundance of food which prevailed; but Villani and others ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... most inconceivable pranks. In some streets the houses and shops along one side were entirely wiped out and on the other untouched. In the Rue du Cardinal du Lorraine every house was gone. Where they once stood were cellars filled with powdered stone. Tall chimneys that ...
— With the Allies • Richard Harding Davis
... in his right mind could bring himself to defile the grave of a shamefully abused and defenceless girl with these baseless fabrications, this manufactured filth, is inconceivable. How any man, in his right mind or out of it, could sit down and coldly try to persuade anybody to believe it, or listen patiently to it, or, indeed, do anything but scoff at it and deride ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, each of them being supposed to rotate on its axis as it revolved round the sun. According to Cicero, Nicetas suggested that, if it were admitted that the earth revolves on her axis, the difficulty presented by the inconceivable velocity of the heavens would ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper
... had departed. For unnumbered years Mrs. Butt had miscooked his meals. The little house was almost inconceivable without Mrs. Butt. And Mrs. Butt had departed. Already he missed her as one misses an ancient and supersensitive corn—if the simile may be permitted to one; it is a simile not quite nice, but, then, Mrs. Butt was not quite ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett
... that their love was yet far from its end, which there was no seeing. Anna Sergueyevna was more and more passionately attached to him; she adored him and it was inconceivable that he should tell her that their love must some day end; she would not ...
— The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories • Anton Tchekoff
... It is inconceivable that, without his own high ambition, his long and painstaking endeavors to trim sail to every favoring gale (for example his shifting positions on the slavery question), he would have been nominated for President of ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... speechless amazement, gazing with a dark, malicious face upon the happy group. "Senorita Isabel!" she screamed; "but this is abominable! At the midnight also! Who could have believed in such wickedness? Grace of Mary, it is inconceivable!" ...
— Remember the Alamo • Amelia E. Barr
... individual right. This is the high enterprise of the new day: To lift everything that concerns our life as a Nation to the light that shines from the hearthfire of every man's conscience and vision of the right. It is inconceivable that we should do this as partisans; it is inconceivable we should do it in ignorance of the facts as they are or in blind haste. We shall restore, not destroy. We shall deal with our economic system ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... eagerness of popular feeling, even in this Tory tranquil part of the country—where there has not, since the extinction of Jacobitism, been an opinion ever expressed on general politics, but that all measures adopted by the King must be right—is inconceivable. I was stopped in this little village the first day of my arrival, by the master of a fishing-boat, to ask me whether I thought the House of Commons would take care that justice was done to the Queen. My wife, also, has met with two or three equally strong proofs of the interest ...
— Memoirs of the Court of George IV. 1820-1830 (Vol 1) - From the Original Family Documents • Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... before his canonization in 1456. A local superstition says the tower was builded on woolpacks. According to Pliny's account, the temple of Diana of Ephesus was made firm with coats or fleeces of wool; but it is inconceivable that bags of wool were employed in either case for the foundation. At Rouen in Normandy a similar legend refers to butter as the foundation of one of the western towers, which tradition, absurd though it ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Salisbury - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the See of Sarum • Gleeson White
... those words was to Dick Harrington like the impact of a terrible fist. He literally saw stars. The idea that "The Colonel" should tell a lie was inconceivable. Sneaks and cowards lied. His reeling standards straightened suddenly. His bitter regret that he hadn't had the sense to lie evaporated in the glow of an overwhelming ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... there to see Arjuna, illuminating the firmament with his effulgence. And there came also Yama himself, of great beauty, the powerful destroyer of all the worlds, accompanied by those lords of the creation—the Pitris—both embodied and disembodied. And the god of justice, of inconceivable soul, the son of Surya, the destroyer of all creatures, with the mace in hand, came there on his car, illuminating the three worlds with regions of the Guhyakas, the Gandharvas and the Nagas, like a second Surya as he riseth at the end of the Yuga. Having arrived there, they ...
— Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 1 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... thus—'It is hoped that some day or other we shall be able to see what there is under the coating of the walls.' So everybody hoped that some day or other the thing would be done, but nobody set about heartily to do it; and it is inconceivable to me that Mr. Kirkup, who shows in this letter, if it be his, such jealousy for the credit of the recovery, should have lived so many years in Florence either entirely ignorant of that which every shop-boy knew, or knowing there were chances of bringing such ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, August 1850 - of Literature, Science and Art. • Various
... inexplicable fact, we now see in each a movement in an indefinite series of complex processes, stretching back further than the eye can reach into the indefinite past. If we are sometimes stunned by the sense of inconceivable vastness, we feel, at least, that no intellectual conqueror need ever be affected by the old fear. For him there will always be fresh regions to conquer. Every discovery suggests new problems; and though knowledge may be simplified and codified, it will always supply a base for fresh explanations ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen
... of entrance, therefore, would have been by the hall door. Directly in front of that, between it and your father, sat Mr. Maitland and myself. You see by my chair that I was less than two feet from the door. It is inconceivable that, in that half-light, anyone could have used that entrance and escaped observation. Do you not see how untenable your idea is? Had your father been stabbed he would have bled, but I am as certain as though I had made a thorough examination that there is not so much as a scratch anywhere ...
— The Darrow Enigma • Melvin L. Severy
... apprehend) simply copies of the points, lines, circles, and squares which he has known in his experience. Our idea of a point, I apprehend to be simply our idea of the minimum visibile, the smallest portion of surface which we can see. A line, as defined by geometers, is wholly inconceivable. We can reason about a line as if it had no breadth; because we have a power, which is the foundation of all the control we can exercise over the operations of our minds; the power, when a perception is present to our senses, or a conception to our intellects, of attending ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... things about us are perceived to exist in space and move about in space. They have size and position, and are separated by distances. We do not perceive them, it is true; but we conceive them after the analogy of the things that we do perceive, and it is not inconceivable that, if our senses were vastly more acute, we might ...
— An Introduction to Philosophy • George Stuart Fullerton
... rosy fingers of light were moving about, recreating the world to vision, sketching a landscape hazily on a black canvas, then stippling in the colors, and finishing, swiftly but gradually, the details to an inconceivable minuteness of definition, giving each leaf its own sharp contour and every rock its every facet. From the brook below a mistlike cigarette smoke exhaled. The sky was crimson, then ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... quite inconceivable with what increased zeal new candidates for African discovery come forward the moment that the death of any fresh victim to this pestilential country is announced. To the list of those who have already fallen, may be added young Park, the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 12, No. 334 Saturday, October 4, 1828 • Various
... of Le Sage assumes that the entire universe is filled with infinitely minute particles flying in right lines in every direction with inconceivable rapidity. Every mass of tangible matter in the universe is incessantly bombarded by these particles, but any two non-contiguous masses (whether separated by an infinitesimal space or by the limits of the universe) are mutually shielded by one another from a certain number of ...
— A History of Science, Volume 5(of 5) - Aspects Of Recent Science • Henry Smith Williams
... sparking gems of varied colours, floating here and there in the bright sunlight. I could scarcely believe that the creatures before us belonged to the feathered tribes, so brilliant were their hues, so rapid their movements. Sometimes they vanished from sight, as they darted with inconceivable rapidity from branch to branch. Now one might be seen for an instant hovering over a flower, its wings looking like two grey filmy fans expanded at its sides. Then we could see another dip its long slender bill into ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston
... in itself with its many squatters' chairs, hammocks and tables. Beyond, stretched the green expanse of plain, utterly lonely, the waters of the lagoon taking a reddish tinge where they reflected the lowering sun. It seemed an inconceivable environment to have been chosen by the Lady Bridget he had known in London, one of whose chief attractions to him had been that she represented a certain section of the aristocracy of Great Britain, decadent ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... in ideas, and not very reprehensible in idiom. But English has nothing to do with elegance such as theirs—at least, little and rarely. I am always exposing myself to the wrath of John Bull, when this cterie come in competition; It is inconceivable what a convert M. de Talleyrand has made of me; I think him now one of the first members, and one of the most charming, of this exquisite set: Susanna is as ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... Joan Fitz-Warene, who was gratified by the devotion of the Cupid of May Fair. He uttered inconceivable nothings, and she replied to him in incomprehensible somethings. Her learned profundity and his vapid lightness effectively contrasted. Occasionally he caught her eye and conveyed to her the anguish of his soul in ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... seeing his "mistakes," and, in his recoil, calling himself by opprobrious names, he began to get used to his situation and boldly to meet its requirements. That he would prove equal to them he had scarcely any doubt. It was, in fact, next to inconceivable that a man of his antecedents and advantages should be unable to cope with conditions that, after all, were not wholly exceptional in the sordid ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King
... mine," I said, "I have but an hour or less to speak with you—and ah! such terrible things, such inconceivable things, to say; a horror to reveal such as never lover had to tell ...
— Red Axe • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... smoking by the window listening. Wild, unearthly, and sometimes insufferably painful, were the improvisations of Blokeeta. The chords of the instrument seemed breaking with anguish. Lost souls shrieked in his dismal preludes; the half-heard utterances of spirits in pain, that groped at inconceivable distances from anything lovely or harmonious, seemed to rise dimly up out of the waves of sound that gathered under his hands. Melancholy human love wandered out on distant heaths, or beneath dank and gloomy cypresses, murmuring ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery - Riddle Stories • Various
... protection. Up to the present time, by means of a certain atrophy of heart, she had succeeded, without one failure, in making Monsieur de l'Estorade perfectly happy. With the same instinct, she had exaggerated the maternal sentiment to an almost inconceivable degree, until in that way she had fairly stifled all the other cravings of her nature. It must be said, however, that the success she had had in accomplishing this hard task was due in a great measure to the circumstance of Louise de Chaulieu. To her that dear mistaken ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... cerebral strabismus in the contrivers of them. Emerson liked to lose himself for a little while in the vagaries of this class of minds, the dangerous proximity of which to insanity he knew and has spoken of. He played with the incommunicable, the inconceivable, the absolute, the antinomies, as he would have played with a bundle of jack-straws. "Brahma," the poem which so mystified the readers of the "Atlantic Monthly," was one of his spiritual divertisements. To the average Western mind it is the nearest approach ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... You out of public life? It's inconceivable. It's damnable. But you're just coming into your own—what Raggles said, what I told you yesterday. But it can't be. You can hold on. I'll do all the drudgery for you. I'll work ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... just gained in France; to swear eternal fidelity to liberty, equality, and fraternity, as if these were lately discovered rights which had been denied the common people for centuries by kings and nobles, who had always lived in the next street in inconceivable luxury wrung from the blood and sweat of the poor; to form Jacobin clubs pledged to the suppression of the tyranny of aristocrats in a country where, as Samuel Dexter said of New England, there was ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay
... were it not for the antique. Genius and science are of no avail; the position of Christ in baptism in the paintings of Verrocchio and Ghirlandajo is mean and servile; the movements of the "Thunder-stricken" in Signorelli's lunettes is an inconceivable mixture of the brutish, the melodramatic, and the comic; the magnificently drawn youth at the door of the prison in Filippino's Liberation of St. Peter is gradually going to sleep and collapsing in a ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. I • Vernon Lee
... not know that Mme. de Beauseant had taken refuge in Normandy, after a notoriety which women for the most part envy and condemn, especially when youth and beauty in some sort excuse the transgression. Any sort of celebrity bestows an inconceivable prestige. Apparently for women, as for families, the glory of the crime effaces the stain; and if such and such a noble house is proud of its tale of heads that have fallen on the scaffold, a young and pretty woman becomes more interesting for the dubious renown of ...
— The Deserted Woman • Honore de Balzac
... wealth upon me as from a horn of plenty," was the expression he used immediately after the first audience. "What shall I now tell you? The most inconceivable and yet the only thing I need has attained its full realization. In the year of the first representation of my 'Tannhaeuser,' a queen gave birth to the good genius of my life, who was destined to bring me out of ...
— Life of Wagner - Biographies of Musicians • Louis Nohl
... the attractions of the Bristol Hot Wells, in the vicinity; upon which fashion has conferred too great celebrity to render description needful. The richness and grandeur of the scenery of the Hot Wells are almost inconceivable; in some places the rocks, venerably majestic, rise perpendicularly, or overhanging, craggy and bare; and in others they are clothed with luxuriant shrubs and stately trees. From the bottom of these cliffs, on the east bank of the river, issues the Bristol Hot Well water. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 390, September 19, 1829 • Various
... have been known or imagined by it. The outside universe would have existed, but man would have been entirely and hopelessly ignorant of it. The bare idea of an outside universe beyond the world would have been inconceivable, and might have been scouted as absurd. We do possess the sense of sight; but is it to be supposed that we possess every sense that can be possessed by finite beings? There is not the least ground for such an assumption. It is easy to ...
— Pioneers of Science • Oliver Lodge
... Venetian nobleman of the first rank, as he paced his chamber with a disordered air on the morning after Matteo's murder; "now all curses light upon the villain's awkwardness; yet it seems inconceivable to me how all this should have fallen out so untowardly. Has any one discovered my designs? I know well that Verrino loves Rosabella. Was it he who opposed this confounded Abellino to Matteo, and charged him to mar my plans against her? That seems likely; ...
— The Bravo of Venice - A Romance • M. G. Lewis
... to do, or whether that institution ought to alter, but about what that institution actually is. One party, then as now, only cared for it because it was Catholic, and the other only cared for it because it was Protestant. Now, something had certainly happened to the English quite inconceivable to the Scotch or the Irish. Masses of common people loved the Church of England without having even decided what it was. It had a hold different indeed from that of the mediaeval Church, but also very different from the barren prestige of gentility which clung to ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton
... crept a long line of moving lights upon the desolation of the land, and the twelve men of Fish gathered like ghosts at the shanty depot to watch the passing of the seven o'clock train, the Transcontinental Express from Chicago. Six times or so a year the Transcontinental Express, through some inconceivable jurisdiction, stopped at the village of Fish, and when this occurred a figure or so would disembark, mount into a buggy that always appeared from out of the dusk, and drive off toward the bruised sunset. The observation of this pointless and preposterous ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... Hamilton into the service of Pantheism and Positivism together, by adopting the negative portion only of his philosophy—in which, in common with many other writers, he declares the absolute to be inconceivable by the mere intellect,—and rejecting the positive portions, in which he most emphatically maintains that the belief in a personal God is imperatively demanded by the facts of our moral and emotional consciousness. Mr. Spencer regards religion as nothing more than a consciousness ...
— The Philosophy of the Conditioned • H. L. Mansel
... existence of even the male Bushman would be impossible without the existence of the analogous Bushwoman with the same gifts; and that as races which can produce among their males a William Kingdon Clifford, a Tolstoy, or a Robert Browning, would be inconceivable and impossible, unless among its females it could also produce a Sophia Kovalevsky, a George Eliot, or a Louise Michel; so, also, in the future, that higher and more socialised human race we dream of can only come into existence, because ...
— Woman and Labour • Olive Schreiner
... one of gold (ch. xlviii.); in the Western division of the province 6 of silver for one of gold (ch. xlix.); and now, still nearer the borders of Ava, only 5 of silver for one of gold. Such discrepancies within 15 days' journey would be inconceivable, but that in both the latter instances at least he appears to speak of the rates at which the gold was purchased from secluded, ignorant, and uncivilised tribes. It is difficult to reconcile with other facts the reason ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... only the slow action of the ages could again restore it; although of course much could be done to prevent the still further eastward extension of the Mongolian Desert if the Chinese Government would act at once. The accompanying cuts from photographs show the inconceivable desolation of the barren mountains in which certain of these rivers rise—mountains, be it remembered, which formerly supported dense forests of larches and firs, now unable to produce any wood, and because ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... castle Bellaggio there is the river Latte, which falls from a height of more than 100 braccia from the source whence it springs, perpendicularly, into the lake with an inconceivable roar and noise. This spring flows only in ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... that, if this woman is guilty, she is defending herself, for all her cleverness, with inconceivable lack of skill." ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... or group of similar units throughout the body, casts off its gemmules, and as all are contained within the smallest egg or seed, and within each spermatozoon or pollen-grain, their number and minuteness must be something {379} inconceivable. I shall hereafter recur to this objection, which at first appears so formidable; but it may here be remarked that a cod-fish has been found to produce 4,872,000 eggs, a single Ascaris about 64,000,000 eggs, and a single Orchidaceous ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... difficulty in conceiving this theory lies in the fact that the waves travel in straight lines. On the other hand, matter in a state of degradation may expel particles highly energised and of enormous velocity. Most antennae are covered with hairs of inconceivable fineness; others may contain cavities of almost infinite minuteness. Is it not thinkable that they are able to detect, in the gaseous atmosphere, floating particles that are not gaseous? This would not prevent the specialisation of antennae as ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... the synonym for production at large, has refined and subtilized—even spiritualized itself to a degree almost inconceivable, nor is there any doubt but that the future has far greater surprises in store. But if metal has come to wellnigh its utmost power of service, the worker's capacity has had no equality of development, and the story of labor to-day for the whole ...
— Prisoners of Poverty Abroad • Helen Campbell
... It is inconceivable the eclat with which we have been received by this garrison, and the distinguished honours paid to the squadron; indeed their marked attention, after the attack of Algeziras, does them great credit; as, after the failure of that business, we exposed Gibraltar to all the ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez, Vol. I • Sir John Ross
... and those who before were strangers to one another, become in a moment intimately acquainted. The tears which the dramatist or the orator compels them to shed for calumniated innocence or dying heroism, make friends and brothers of them all. Almost inconceivable is the power of a visible communion of numbers to give intensity to those feelings of the heart which usually retire into privacy, or only open themselves to the confidence of friendship. The faith in the validity of such emotions becomes irrefragable from its diffusion; we feel ourselves ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... tell me everything." I may here observe, that as for pity and compassion, I did not know such feelings. I had been so ill-treated, that I only felt that might was right; and this right I determined upon exercising to the utmost. I felt an inconceivable pleasure at the idea of my being the master, and he the boy. I felt the love of power, the pride of superiority. I then revolved in my mind the daily task which I would set him before he should receive ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Frederick Marryat
... Will's whirling mind. The second was, that he might rationally have foreseen disaster. All the points of strangeness which had struck him in Sherwood's behaviour came back now with such glaring significance that he accused himself of inconceivable limpness in having allowed things to go their way—above all in trusting Godfrey with the St. Neots cheque. On this moment of painful lucidity followed blind rage. Why, what a grovelling imbecile was this fellow! To plunge into wild speculation, on the ...
— Will Warburton • George Gissing |
