"Impossible" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in contending with the impossible, I gave up the hope of a passage on the Halbrane, but continued to feel angry with her intractable captain. And why should I not confess that my curiosity was aroused? I felt that there was something mysterious about this sullen mariner, and I should have ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne
... artery will be found on the outside of the neck of the sac. In recent herniae the differential diagnosis is comparatively easy, but in those of old standing and large size, in which the obliquity of the canal has been much diminished, it is almost impossible to tell of what kind the hernia originally was, and consequently to determine in which direction it is safe to incise the neck ...
— A Manual of the Operations of Surgery - For the Use of Senior Students, House Surgeons, and Junior Practitioners • Joseph Bell
... efforts that had been previously made by other inventors and investigators to produce electric light by incandescence, and at the time that he began his experiments, in 1877, almost the whole scientific world had pronounced such an idea as impossible of fulfilment. The leading electricians, physicists, and experts of the period had been studying the subject for more than a quarter of a century, and with but one known exception had proven mathematically and by close reasoning that the "Subdivision of the ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... glance of a bright wood fire, and smell of what was over it, there happened to come, on a jaded horse, a man, all hat, and cape, and boots, and mud, and sweat, and grumbling. All the people saw at once that it was quite impossible to make at all too much of him, because he must be full of news, which (after victuals) is the greatest need of human nature. So he had his own way as to everything he ordered; and, having ridden into much experience of women, kept himself as ...
— Frida, or, The Lover's Leap, A Legend Of The West Country - From "Slain By The Doones" By R. D. Blackmore • R. D. Blackmore
... not like to think that I ever rely on the protection of the State. But, if I deny the authority of the State when it presents its tax bill, it will soon take and waste all my property, and so harass me and my children without end. This is hard. This makes it impossible for a man to live honestly, and at the same time comfortably, in outward respects. It will not be worth the while to accumulate property; that would be sure to go again. You must hire or squat somewhere, and raise but a small crop, and eat that soon. You must live within yourself, and depend upon ...
— On the Duty of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... quite impossible!" said the Brownie, tightening his belt to make his poor little inside feel less empty. He had been asleep so long—about a week, I believe, as was his habit when there was nothing to do—-that he seemed ready to eat his own head, or his boots, or anything. "What's to be done? Since nobody ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... success at this procession in honour of Lamarque, that there must have been a new ministry and new measures, had not this unfortunate event occurred. As it is, the government will profit by events. I do not wish to wake any unjust accusations, but, with my knowledge of men and things, it is impossible not ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... skilful combination of our hours and our means enabled us to take short spells of rest in turn. However, for a hundred reasons sleep was impossible to me, and for several weeks I forgot what it ...
— The New Book Of Martyrs • Georges Duhamel
... dream, which she had had the night before her father's death. Now her love suddenly burst into the light like a wonderful flower, which suddenly springs up with a thousand fragrant buds. Now it was impossible to stem it or to conceal it. She had wanted to suppress every germ, with her father's coldness and the day's dispassionately proud haughtiness she had been willing to stifle every impulse toward love, every longing for self avowal. Now ...
— Sleep Walking and Moon Walking - A Medico-Literary Study • Isidor Isaak Sadger
... It would be impossible in the space to which we are necessarily confined, to do justice to Mr. Hudson's powers of analysis and representation, as exercised through the wide variety of the Shaksperian drama. The volumes swarm with strong and striking thoughts on so many suggested topics, that it is difficult ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... Union will be of the utmost moment to the peace and liberty of the States, as a barrier against domestic faction and insurrection. It is impossible to read the history of the petty republics of Greece and Italy without feeling sensations of horror and disgust at the distractions with which they were continually agitated, and at the rapid succession ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... tugged and strained. He ran back into the water. It struck him that he might climb aboard the boat again. But his arms were caught down at his sides. It was impossible for him to get at a knife to cut the ropes. He could ease off the noose with his teeth, but it would be ...
— Madge Morton, Captain of the Merry Maid • Amy D. V. Chalmers
... not the reason of its failure. It failed, sir, because there was a vile conspiracy against it; and what made the conspiracy successful was, that among the leading conspirators were officers of the law—the very men without whose active co-operation it was impossible for it to be successful. Allow me to illustrate what I mean by an anecdote: A few years ago there was a gang of desperadoes, who operated in one of the south-western states. They robbed every one with perfect impunity for several years, all attempts to capture them proving abortive, ...
— From Wealth to Poverty • Austin Potter
... the hundreds of thousands, and sold for three half-pence each, or sometimes a franc per dozen. Thrushes, moreover, are considered game, and occasionally the gendarmes succeed in catching a poacher, but so mixed are one's feelings in dealing with this question that it is impossible to know whether to sympathise with the unfortunate wine-grower whom the thrush robs of his two bunches of grapes per day, the poacher who is caught and heavily fined for catching it, or with the bird itself. No one who has Browning's charming lines by ...
— Holidays in Eastern France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... was buried in this spot more than twelve days, to carry off the volumes found there; many of which were so perished, that it was impossible to remove them. Those which I took away amounted to the number of three hundred and thirty-seven, all of them at present uncapable of being opened. These are all written in Greek characters. While I was busy in this work I observed a large bundle, which, from the size, I imagined must contain ...
— The Care of Books • John Willis Clark
... baby!" repeated the deeply affronted baronet. "Heavens, would you liken me to that, of all things! I had meant to confide in you, Cicely, but you have made it impossible. Impossible!" he repeated sombrely, and ...
— Simon • J. Storer Clouston
... nevertheless to be turned into any other speech that many prime spirits in most of the nations of Europe, since the year 1573, which was fourscore years ago, after having attempted it, were constrained with no small regret to give it over as a thing impossible to be done, is now in its translation thus far advanced, and the remainder faithfully undertaken with the same hand to be rendered into English by a person of quality, who (though his lands be sequestered, his house garrisoned, his other goods sold, and himself ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... finite. Again the spirit (originally the identity of object and subject) must in some sense dissolve this identity, in order to be conscious of it; fit alter et idem. But this implies an act, and it follows therefore that intelligence or self-consciousness is impossible, except by and in a will. The self-conscious spirit therefore is a will; and freedom must be assumed as a ground of philosophy, and can never be deduced ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... "Impossible, Effendina. There was not time. He was alive and well here at the Palace at eleven, and—" Kaid made an impatient gesture. "By the stone in the Kaabah, but it is not reasonable that Foorgat should die in his bed like a ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... born dumb! Excuse me, the thing is impossible,—all Moldavians are born talking! I have known a Moldavian who could not speak, but he was not born dumb. His master, an Armenian, snipped off part of his tongue at Adrianople. He drove him mad with ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... impossible place for squatting. When I first tried to enter, I found it so given over to poison-oak and rattlesnakes that I did not care to pursue my investigations very far. I did not know at that time that I was quite immune from the poison of the oak and that the ...
— The Sea Fogs • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and her mother. What more could Mrs. Woodward say? It would have been totally opposed to the whole principle of her life to endeavour, by any means, to persuade her daughter to the match, or to have used her maternal influence in Norman's favour. And she was well aware that it would have been impossible to do so successfully. Gertrude was not a girl to be talked into a marriage by any parent, and certainly not by such a parent as her mother. There was, therefore, nothing further to be said ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... decay may advance, and does advance still further. Full words also may lose their independence, and be attacked by the same disease that had destroyed the original features of suffixes and prefixes. In this state it is frequently impossible to distinguish any longer between the radical and formative elements ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... you see a thing difficult, do not instantly conclude it to be impossible to master it. Diligence and industry are seldom defeated. Look, therefore, narrowly into the thing itself, and what you observe proper and practicable in another, conclude likewise ...
— Dickory Cronke - The Dumb Philosopher, or, Great Britain's Wonder • Daniel Defoe
... line of sea-wall is intersected by figures in brick-red tunic, moving back and forward on ledges of masonry; the morning air is alive with drum-beats and bugle and trumpet-calls; everything is of the barrack most barrack-like; the broad arrow is indented in large deep character on the Rock. It is impossible to shake off the Ordnance atmosphere. The Irish jaunting-cars are all driven by the sons of soldiers' wives; the clergy-men are all military chaplains; those goats are going up to be milked for the major's delicate daughter; ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... printers except in obvious misprints, and followed them also, as far as possible, in their distribution of roman and italic type and in the grouping of words and lines in the various titles. To follow them exactly was impossible, as the books are so very ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... if they were fortunate enough to get a good boat. I've been told that the table is simply impossible on some ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... by one after another and welled into a grand chorus, it was impossible not to share the enthusiasm that it created. Another prime ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... clearer. I discerned that the scope of my quest for emotion must be narrowed. That abandonment of ones self to life, that merging of ones soul in bright waters, so often suggested in Pater's writing, were a counsel impossible for to-day. The quest of emotions must be no less keen, certainly, but the manner of it must be changed forthwith. To unswitch myself from my surroundings, to guard my soul from contact with the unlovely things that compassed it about, ...
— The Works of Max Beerbohm • Max Beerbohm
... It was impossible for Elizabeth to say a word of thanks, or of his kindness; the words choked her; she ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... filament; and perhaps in some degree from the different forms of the particles of the fluids, by which it has been at first stimulated into activity. And that from hence, as Linnaeus has conjectured in respect to the vegetable world, it is not impossible, but the great variety of species of animals, which now tenant the earth, may have had their origin from the mixture of a few natural orders. And that those animal and vegetable mules, which could continue their species, have done ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... must have been apparent to every one that it would cause our ruin. We had lately made extensive additions to our store and out-houses—our shelves were filled with articles laid in at a great cost, and which were now unsaleable, and which it would be equally impossible to carry home. Everything, from our stud of horses and mules down to our latest consignments from home, must be sold for any price; and, as it happened, for many things, worth a year ago their weight ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole
... libert. La premire attaque contre la superstition a t violente, sans mesure. Une fois que les hommes ont os d'une manire quelconque donner l'assaut la barrire de la religion, cette barrire la plus formidable qui existe comme la plus respecte, il est impossible de s'arrter. Ds qu'ils ont tourn des regards menaants contre la majest du ciel, ils ne manqueront pas le moment d'aprs de les diriger contre la souverainet de la terre. Le cble qui tient et comprime l'humanit est form de deux cordes, l'une ne peut ...
— Baron d'Holbach - A Study of Eighteenth Century Radicalism in France • Max Pearson Cushing
... to be a dominating influence in the economy, and reforms have so far failed to bring about much-needed structural changes. The IMF suspended Uzbekistan's $185 million standby arrangement in late 1996 because of governmental steps that made impossible fulfillment of Fund conditions. Uzbekistan has responded to the negative external conditions generated by the Asian and Russian financial crises by tightening export and currency controls within its ...
— The 1999 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... rib," went on the minister, "and how readily and kindly would God have disposed of the first sinning Eve and under the pleasant sleep of the man, Adam, extracted another rib out of which he would have constructed another and yet more beautiful woman. Some of us are finding it impossible to keep order in our families, and until we do, we cannot expect to live ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... taken this same point of view. At the present moment she was going over the situation in retrospection. In the first place, it was absurd to think that any train of circumstances could be impossible in such a surprising world. The woman, whom they had once known as Lady Dorian and whom they now were to think of by another name, had evidently once been a woman of wealth and culture, no matter what her ...
— The Red Cross Girls with the Russian Army • Margaret Vandercook
... the time to go to all sorts of wild and impossible places to get the pictures. It's all well enough to talk about getting moving pictures of natives in battle, or wild beasts fighting, or volcanoes in action, but it isn't so easy to do it. Then, too, I'd have ...
— Tom Swift and his Wizard Camera - or, Thrilling Adventures while taking Moving Pictures • Victor Appleton
... further enacted, That all trusts upon which, and all purposes for which any deposit shall be made, and which shall be indicated in the writing to accompany such deposit, shall be faithfully performed by the Corporation, unless the performing of the same is rendered impossible. ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... scornful impatience. "Pshaw! We'll let that go. You said you hoped things might change. Do you think any change of fortune could give you the tastes and feelings of a gentleman? Make you a proper husband for my daughter? You know the thing's impossible." ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss
... might put him to a cruel death, in order to be revenged for the loss of his hen. Jack, finding that all his arguments were useless, ceased speaking, though resolved to go at all events. He had a dress prepared which would disguise him, and something to colour his skin; he thought it impossible for any one to recollect ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... brought these girls to France, and was thought to be absent for some days; but he is in Paris, and, notwithstanding his age, a man of extraordinary boldness, enterprise and energy. Should he discover that the girls are here (which, however, is fortunately almost impossible), in his rage at seeing them removed from his impious influence, he would be capable of anything. Therefore let me entreat you, my dear mother, to redouble your precautions, that no one may effect an entrance by night. This quarter of ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... ordered Andrews. The boy seized the can, and poured some more of the greasy liquid into the fiery furnace. He knew that the wood was almost exhausted, and that it would soon be impossible to hold the present rate of progress. Oh, if there only would be time to burn the bridge, and thus check the pursuers! But he saw that he was ...
— Chasing an Iron Horse - Or, A Boy's Adventures in the Civil War • Edward Robins
... besides, I shall take as much Pleasure myself when I hear others romancing about Things they never heard nor saw; nay, and that they do with that Assurance, that when they are telling the most ridiculous and impossible Things in Nature, they persuade themselves they are ...
— Colloquies of Erasmus, Volume I. • Erasmus
... It is impossible to use words sufficiently emphatic in urging the study of history. You cannot get too much history in college and out of it. Sir William Hamilton was right—history is the study of studies. The man who occupies ...
— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge
... the key, so as to lock it on the other side and secure the robbers and insure the safety of her own retreat; but to do this without betraying her purpose and destroying her own life seemed next to impossible. Still singing gayly she ran over in her mind with the quickness of lightning every possible means by which she might withdraw the key silently, or without attracting the attention of the watchful robbers. It is difficult to say what she would have done, ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... is esteemed the closest, and which of all others produces most commonly the passion of pride, is that of property. This relation it will be impossible for me fully to explain before I come to treat of justice and the other moral virtues. It is sufficient to observe on this occasion, that property may be defined, such a relation betwixt a person and an object ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... horses and, soon after, to scramble on our hands and feet until, at length, even our quadrumanous progress was arrested in the bed of the river by round boulders which were as large as houses, and over or between which we found it impossible to proceed. ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... shade, in a voice whose sweetness, from its melancholy, was like the wailing of plaintive music; 'not so, if thou wilt otherwise. Thou hast erred; from the shades of Love thou didst select me, and, panting as we each do for sole possession of the heart we occupy, it is impossible either separately can bring happiness to it. Each has striven for ages, but in vain. It is the union of the three, the perfect union, that alone ...
— Dawn • Mrs. Harriet A. Adams
... very soon made it impossible, indeed ridiculous, to maintain such an attitude of mind. He ran through his business with his usual clearness and rapidity. It was not complicated; her views proved to be the same as his; and she ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... which it is impossible to enter familiarly, without discovering that parents are by no means exempt from the intoxications of dominion; and that he who is in no danger of hearing remonstrances but from his own conscience, will seldom be long without the art of controling his convictions, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... Katna, sometimes Shuna. The country included the two towns of Kamani and Dur- Katlimi, and on the south adjoined Bit-Khalupi; this identifies it with the districts of Magada and Sheddadiyeh, and, judging by the information with which Assur-nazir-pal himself furnishes us, it is not impossible that Dur-Katline may have been on the site of the present Magarda, and Kamani on that of Sheddadiyeh. Ancient ruins have been pointed ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... prefer to leave it alone if the indulgence of private feeling in the matter could be made consistent with an adequate sense of public duty. As things have been, and still continue to be, however, silence is impossible. The question presses for solution, from many sides, with a painful persistency, and the further shelving of it would scarcely be good policy. Here in New England the problem may not confront us in that sternly practical aspect which it every day wears to the ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 3, March, 1886 - Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 3, March, 1886 • Various
... sent for me two days before he died, and told me things had gone badly with him last year, but it seemed impossible to retrench ...
— The Climbers - A Play in Four Acts • Clyde Fitch
... employed is fallacious, since the mere existence of a distinct beach implies a pause in the movement and a long continuance at one level. It is impossible to form any estimate of the lapse of time necessary for the building up of a beach-terrace. We can only, in some cases, obtain a measure of the time that elapsed between the formation of two successive ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell
... a savage gesture. His face was deeply flushed and his voice was hoarse as he said: "That is enough. The thing looks impossible! I must try to find out what foundation there is for the ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss
... also not idle in arranging the provisions and the rooms for the guests. Tom was a man of a single idea; that was, that it was his business to obey the captain in all things without questioning. He had learned that lesson at sea and it would have been impossible for any one to persuade him out of it. Becky, however, not having been under similar discipline, did not consider herself bound to obey in the ...
— Washed Ashore - The Tower of Stormount Bay • W.H.G. Kingston
... dialectics will probably be employed in order to prove that idealistic dreams are vain. Young men will not be afraid of such arguments; they will not be deterred by purely logical difficulties. Let us remember that this war has been waged in order to make war for the future impossible. If that be the presiding idea of men's minds, they will keep their reforming course steadily directed towards ideal ends, patiently working for the reconstruction of Europe and a better ...
— Armageddon—And After • W. L. Courtney
... little girl, because—well I am a lonely man. I walk alone—and because I am human—it does me good to have someone to talk to. I had hoped I might maintain myself in the Great City. Last night—at the start of the Water Festival—I began to realize it was impossible. I should have enlisted the Rhaals—the men of science, Elza. But I had no time, and they are very aloof. I could have won them to me had I tried." He shrugged. "I must confess I was over-confident of my strength—the strength of my position. The Rhaals ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... it was impossible to properly swear out a warrant for the arrest of Del Norte's companions without making the ...
— Frank Merriwell's Pursuit - How to Win • Burt L. Standish
... in all probability, spurn me for the avowal, but make it I must. Miss Trevannion, I have dared—to love you; I have but one excuse to offer, which is, that I have been more than a year in your company, and it is impossible for any one not to love one so pure, so beautiful, and so good. I would have postponed this avowal till I was able to resume my position in society, by the means which industry might have afforded me; but ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat
... It is impossible to say that these documents constitute a proof of an agreement between England and Belgium against Germany, unless one accepts the idea that Germany had a right to violate Belgium's neutrality and that all measures taken as a precaution against ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times
... them on the path, got into the water, only to find it much deeper than they had expected; their feet sank into the mud at the bottom, and the water came nearly up to their necks at once, and as it was deeper towards the middle, they found it impossible to carry out their task. But the worst feature was that neither of the men could swim, and, being too deeply immersed in the water to reach high enough on the canal bank to pull themselves out again, they were in great danger of drowning. Fortunately, however, a boat was coming ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... have been asked, not a dissenting voice has been heard. The bird is a common crow or a raven, and is one of the most happily executed of the avian sculptures, the nasal feathers, which are plainly shown, and the general contour of the bill being truly corvine. It would probably be practically impossible to distinguish a rude sculpture of a raven from that of a crow, owing to the general resemblance of the two. The proportions of the head here shown are, however, those of the crow, and the question of habitat renders it vastly more likely that the ...
— Animal Carvings from Mounds of the Mississippi Valley • Henry W. Henshaw
... again," she cries. "Oh! why is he so long? I want him now. I could do it now. After to-day I shall have swept the temptation from my path, and made it impossible for Carol Quinton ...
— When the Birds Begin to Sing • Winifred Graham
... by, the spark brightened, dimmed—brightened, dimmed! Mr. Heatherbloom bent nearer. "At any rate, she was honest enough to attempt to dissuade you—in vain! And then"—her voice changed—"since you willed it so, she yielded. It sounded wild, impossible, the plan you broached. Perhaps because it did seem so impossible it won over poor Sonia Turgeinov—she who had thrown her cap over the windmills. There would be excitement, fascination in playing such a thrilling part in real life. Were you ever hungry, Prince?" She broke off. "What an absurd ...
— A Man and His Money • Frederic Stewart Isham
... examine the combined effect of ruined transport and the six years' blockade on Russian life in town and country. First of all was cut off the import of manufactured goods from abroad. That has had a cumulative effect completed, as it were, and rounded off by the breakdown of transport. By making it impossible to bring food, fuel and raw material to the factories, the wreck of transport makes it impossible for Russian industry to produce even that modicum which it contributed to the general supply of manufactured goods which the Russian peasant was accustomed to receive ...
— The Crisis in Russia - 1920 • Arthur Ransome
... A true-blue Presbyterian, a long-faced, puritanical minister, who would deem it a sin to laugh, speak, or wink on a Sunday. And this was what their brother was coming to. This was why it had been impossible to get him to go with them to St. Mark's Church, though they had told him how beautifully High Church it was; how it had a high altar and candles, almost like the Romanists, only that it was not at all Romish, but entirely and truly Catholic! Was ever ...
— Hubert's Wife - A Story for You • Minnie Mary Lee
... birds called tangara is sure to be on it. There are eighteen beautiful species here. Their plumage is very rich and diversified. Some of them boast six separate colours; others have the blue, purple, green and black so kindly blended into each other that it would be impossible to mark their boundaries; while others again exhibit them strong, distinct and abrupt. Many of these tangaras have a fine song. They seem to partake much of the nature of our linnets, sparrows and ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... and vacant whitewashed countenance, he had been horribly shocked, horribly scared—for all the inherited valour of his good breeding—and, above all, most horribly disappointed. History had played very dirty pranks with him, which he found it impossible as yet to forgive. ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... was known, or at least believed, to be, so slippery a lady, as she had already proved herself, would be very difficult to find. To effect an entrance into the house and to serve the writ upon her personally was evidently impossible, and the only alternative was to make sure that she was in the house and then to put the writ into it in such a way that she could not avoid learning of its presence. Therefore, says the Ambassador, "I directed this Bearer to put the Box with the Privy Seale in it ...
— The Curious Case of Lady Purbeck - A Scandal of the XVIIth Century • Thomas Longueville
... to me—dretful dubersome. It don't look reasonable to me, that He, the mighty King of heaven and earth, would speak to His children through a senseless Indian jargon, or impossible and blasphemous speeches ...
— Sweet Cicely - Or Josiah Allen as a Politician • Josiah Allen's Wife (Marietta Holley)
... is small and land-locked; there is no surf; the vessels lie within a cable's length of the beach, and the beach itself is smooth, hard sand, without rocks or stones. For these reasons, it is used by all the vessels in the trade as a depot; and, indeed, it would be impossible, when loading with the cured hides for the passage home, to take them on board at any of the open ports, without getting them wet in the surf, which would spoil them. We took possession of one of the hide-houses, ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... most intimate ally, in the Waterloo room, and this ally only six years ago living in this country an exile, poor and unthought of! . . . I am glad to have known this extraordinary man, whom it is certainly impossible not to like when you live with him, and not even to a considerable extent to admire. I believe him to be capable of kindness, affection, friendship, and gratitude. I feel confidence in him as regards the future; I think he is frank, means well towards us, and, as Stockmar says, 'that ...
— Queen Victoria • E. Gordon Browne
... and as he had become after I as Tootmanyoso had reigned about one hundred of your years. Man's life had been lengthened from your average age to one which before the employment of the means enjoined and carried out in my reign would have been considered impossible. ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... doubtless, have died within two or three hours, had no relief been afforded. The legs of the foetus protruded as far as the knees; the head was turned backward, and with the body, pressed firmly into the vagina, so that it was impossible to return it, or to bring the head forward. The operation of embryotomy was, therefore, at once performed, by cutting away the right shoulder, which enabled the operator, with the aid of his appropriate ...
— Cattle and Their Diseases • Robert Jennings
... with a lantern. By degrees the passage narrowed, yet the duke continued his course. At last it became so narrow that the fugitive tried in vain to proceed. The sides of the walls seem to close in, even to press against him. He made fruitless efforts to go on; it was impossible. Nevertheless, he still saw Grimaud with his lantern in front, advancing. He wished to call out to him but could not utter a word. Then at the other extremity he heard the footsteps of those who were pursuing him. These steps came on, came fast. He was discovered; all hope ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... lakes, and navigable rivers not directly connected with either of these coasts or with the wonderfully ramified St Lawrence. So, taking every factor of size and significance into consideration, it seems almost impossible to exaggerate the magnitude of the influence which waterways have always exerted, and are still exerting, on the ...
— All Afloat - A Chronicle of Craft and Waterways • William Wood
... with renewed determination to pack his belongings and bolt, but the manly streak in his blood made it impossible for him to go without some sort of ...
— They of the High Trails • Hamlin Garland
... should have stumbled upon so many of the phrases, the exact phrases! And suddenly full knowledge blinded Harber.... No! No! He spurned it. It couldn't be. And yet, he felt that if Barton were to utter one more phrase of those that Janet had said and, many, many times since, written to him, the impossible, the unbelievable, would be ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... mood there dropped suddenly a fragment of her neighbour, the Colonel's, conversation—"Mrs. So-and-so? Impossible woman! Oh, one doesn't mind seeing her graze occasionally at the other end of one's table—as the price of getting her ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward
... "Miss Hays,"—a dubious respect that, in a community of familiar "Sallies," "Mamies," "Pussies," was grimly prophetic. Yet she rejoiced in the Oriental appellation of "Zuleika." To this it is needless to add that it was impossible to conceive any one ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... but very small, compared to that of Nismes. The arena is ploughed up, and bears corn: some of the seats remain, and part of two opposite porticos; but all the columns, and the external facade of the building, are taken away so that it is impossible to judge of the architecture, all we can perceive is, that it was built in an oval form. About one hundred paces from the amphitheatre stood an antient temple, supposed to have been dedicated to Apollo. The original roof is demolished, as well as the portico; the ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... about his share in the remaining fourteen statues; but the matter is of no great moment, seeing that the style of the work is conventional, and the scale of the figures disagreeably squat and dumpy. It seems almost impossible that these ecclesiastical and tame pieces should have been produced at the same time as the David by the same hand. Neither Vasari nor Condivi speaks about them, although it is certain that Michelangelo was held bound to his contract during several years. Upon the death ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... grandee, as if you or I had anything in common with the women of the people! Since then, well-bred women have suckled their children, have educated their daughters, and stayed in their own homes. Life has become so involved that happiness is almost impossible,—for a perfect harmony between natures such as that which has made you and me live as two friends is an exception. Perpetual contact is as dangerous for parents and children as it is for husband and wife. There are few souls in which love survives ...
— The Marriage Contract • Honore de Balzac
... parts a paraphrase, and in others, but an abstract. I have myself, indeed, endeavoured to support my right to that force and freedom of translation which Horace himself recommends; yet I have faithfully exhibited in our language several passages, which his professed translators have abandoned, as impossible to be ...
— The Art Of Poetry An Epistle To The Pisos - Q. Horatii Flacci Epistola Ad Pisones, De Arte Poetica. • Horace
... you to listen! You've promised like a man," said the general. "I'll make you the best promise I can in return. Mine's conditional, but it's none the less emphatic. If possible, you shall catch your regiment before it puts to sea. If that's impossible, you shall take passage on another ship and try to overtake it. If that again is impossible, you shall follow your regiment and be in France in time to lead your squadron. I think I may say you are sure to be there before the regiment goes ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy
... It is impossible here to specify all the causes of illusion residing in organized tendencies of the mind. The whole past mental life, with its particular shade of experience, its ruling emotions, and its habitual ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully
... on occasion; but they were good company for each other, and the hearty, manly friendship which all but poor Goldsmith and Boswell felt for every one else was certainly excellent. Assemblies like the Club are impossible nowadays; but surely we might find some modification suited even to our gigantic intellects and our exaggerated cleverness! I have defined bad company; I may define good company as that social intercourse which tends to bring out all that is ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... affectation. There are, it is true, passages, though comparatively speaking very few, where his poetry exceeds the bounds of actual dialogue, where a too soaring imagination, a too luxuriant wit, rendered a complete dramatic forgetfulness of himself impossible. With this exception, the censure originated in a fanciless way of thinking, to which everything appears unnatural that does not consort with its own tame insipidity. Hence an idea has been formed of simple and natural pathos, which consists in exclamations destitute of imagery and nowise elevated ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... told her of the performance in the ship. Finding a listener neither inattentive nor without sympathy, he went further still and told of the song's effect upon him, and that the sweetness of it still abiding made his hatred of her people impossible. ...
— Gilian The Dreamer - His Fancy, His Love and Adventure • Neil Munro
... believe I can do as much as any other man, be he who he may. Further, I could engage to execute the bronze statue in memory of your honored father. And again, if any of the above-mentioned things should appear impossible or overstated, I am ready to make such performance in any place or at any time to prove to you my power. In humility I thus commend myself to your illustrious house, and am your ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... Unless some new and foreign element should interpose, I look for decided progress in enlarging the popular features of the constitution, and diminishing the influence of the aristocracy.... It is impossible not to perceive traces of the influence of our institutions upon all these changes.... The progress of the liberal cause, not in England alone, but all over the world, is, in a ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... 'tis impossible; for I have studied still, To root abuses from the commonwealth, That may infect the king or commonalty. Therefore, base peasant, wilful as thou art, I tell thee troth, ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VI • Robert Dodsley
... where a ridge of rock reared through the soil, was it possible to cross the stretch of burned-over ground. Naturally Racey had picked this one spot. Whether the posse had not known of this rock ridge, or whether they had simply miscalculated its position it is impossible to say. ...
— The Heart of the Range • William Patterson White
... the difficulties presented by these Books, and he now hoped to have the leisure they required. Such was his zeal that, when he came to Jeremiah, he looked forward to finishing all the Prophets by Whitsuntide, but he soon saw that this was impossible. He published the prophecy of Ezekiel about Gog and Magog by itself. His wish was to treat of various portions of the Psalms, his own constant book of comfort and prayer, for the benefit of his congregation; and he began, accordingly, with a Commentary on the 118th Psalm. He expounded to Dietrich ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... 40320 several changes on 8 bells, which to Ring it is altogether impossible; the greatest Peal that ever was Rang on 8 Bells, is 1680, being only a third part of the changes on seven Bells, which are to be Rang with a whole Hunt, half Hunt, quarter Hunt, half quarter Hunt (for so you may term it) and three extream Bells: But the most complete and musical ...
— Tintinnalogia, or, the Art of Ringing - Wherein is laid down plain and easie Rules for Ringing all - sorts of Plain Changes • Richard Duckworth and Fabian Stedman
... of accepting anything and everything with the most irresponsible complacency rendered the situation aggravating. It was so utterly impossible to discuss with such a being even such of the morning's developments as the relationship of mistress and maid ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... cordially join in the opinion of a late noble statesman, more famous for his wit than for his love of music, who, hearing a remark on the extreme difficulty of some performance, observed that he wished it was impossible." It was this same nobleman, Lord North, who perpetrated the following mot: Being asked why he did not subscribe to the Ancient Concerts, and reminded that his brother, the Bishop of Winchester, had done so, he said, "Oh, if I was as deaf ...
— Great Singers, First Series - Faustina Bordoni To Henrietta Sontag • George T. Ferris
... a question as to the true principles of translation when applied, not to the mere literature of knowledge (because there it is impossible that two opinions can arise, by how much closer the version by so much the better), but to the literature of power, and to such works—above all, to poems—as might fairly be considered works of art in the highest sense. To what ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... rain during the night, and for several kilometres, next morning, the road is a horrible waste of loose flints and mud-filled ruts, along which it is all but impossible to ride; but after leaving the level bottom of the Isar River the road improves sufficiently to enable me to take an occasional, admiring glance at the Bavarian and Tyrolese Alps, towering cloudward on the southern horizon, their shadowy ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... not you, my lord, But he who murdered Laius, frees the land. Were you, which is impossible, the man, Perhaps my poniard first should drink your blood; But you are innocent, as your Jocasta, From crimes like those. This made me violent To save your life, which you unjust would lose: Nor can you comprehend, with ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... which any insulated body or system of bodies can continue to furnish without limitation cannot possibly be a material substance; and it appears to me to be extremely difficult, if not quite impossible, to form any distinct idea of anything capable of being excited and communicated in these ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... "I told her, very politely, that I found it quite impossible to believe in such things; and she was awfully nice about it, and said it didn't matter what I believed. It seems that my name was chosen by chance—they opened the Telephone Directory at random and she, blindfolded, made a pencil mark on the ...
— The Green Mouse • Robert W. Chambers
... of Clarence was, in truth, the one cloud in her happiness just then. It was impossible to calculate how he would take the news. If it made him angry or very unhappy, if it broke up his friendship with Geoff, and perhaps interfered with their partnership so that one or other of them ...
— Clover • Susan Coolidge
... a central crank, there would be no oscillation produced; or the same effect would be realized by placing one cylinder in the centre of the carriage, and two at the sides— the pistons of the side cylinders moving simultaneously: but it is impossible to couple the piston of an upright cylinder direct to the axle of a locomotive, without causing the springs to work up and down with every stroke of the engine: and the use of three cylinders, though adopted in some of Stephenson's engines, involves too much complication ...
— A Catechism of the Steam Engine • John Bourne
... him in silence with playful curiosity, under which shone a delight impossible to hide. The count coloured up to the eyes, and he would gladly have cut his tongue out before having said ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... how to make noble. Besides, you are necessary to your father; your death would hurry him to his grave, hearty and robust as the Mauprat still is. Put away these gloomy thoughts, then, and these violent resolutions. It is impossible. This adventure of Roche-Mauprat must be looked upon only as an evil dream. We both had a nightmare in those hours of horror; but it is time for us to awake; we cannot remain paralyzed with fear like children. You have only one course open to you, and ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... scattered spray reflecting into our being a whole gamut of rainbow colours. Then, with the freshness of youth, our new-born energy, impelled by its virgin curiosity, struck out new paths in every direction. We felt we would try and test everything, and no achievement seemed impossible. We wrote, we sang, we acted, we poured ourselves out on every side. This was how I ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... real authors of the evil are punished. Many parents have told me, that when their children were at home, they employed themselves in singing the alphabet, counting, patting their hands, &c. &c.; that it was impossible to keep an infant asleep, that they were glad to get them out of the way, and that they would take care that they should ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... chance than before of effecting anything of importance against you, unless he could destroy the Phocians. And this was no easy matter. For he had now been reduced, as if by chance, to a position in which he must either find it impossible to effect any of his designs, or else must perforce lie and forswear himself, and make all men, whether Hellenes or foreigners, witnesses of his own baseness. {318} For if, on the one hand, he received the Phocians as allies, and administered the oath to them together ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 1 • Demosthenes
... Sir Bale—why, Bale, Bale, it's impossible! You can't believe it. When did I ever wrong you? You know me since I was not higher than ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... become delirious; his passions were certainly exceeding strong, nor were his vanity and jealousy less. Upon his coming to England he had lost no time in waiting upon Mr. Addison, who had resigned the seals, and was retired into the country for the sake of his health; but Mr. Addison found it impossible to stem the tide of opposition, which was every where running against his kinsman, through the influence and power of the duke of Bolton. He therefore disswaded him in the strongest manner from publishing ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... for perspective treatment will constantly present themselves to the artist or draughtsman in the course of his experience, and while I endeavour to show him how to grapple with any new difficulty or subject that may arise, it is impossible to set down all of them in ...
— The Theory and Practice of Perspective • George Adolphus Storey
... tossed his head. "You are quite incorrigible, Harry; but I don't mind. It is impossible to be angry with you. When you see Sibyl Vane you will feel that the man who could wrong her would be a beast, a beast without a heart. I cannot understand how anyone can wish to shame the thing he loves. I love Sibyl Vane. I want to place her on ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde
... man's perception that Edward would hardly have been found in Dahlia's neighbourhood with evil intentions at this moment, though it was a thing impossible to guess. Generous himself, he leaned to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... artificially fertilised in a legitimate manner produced a capsule—and most of the illegitimate unions were highly productive. The mid- styled form thus appears to be highly feminine in nature; and although, as just remarked, it is impossible to consider its two well-developed sets of stamens which produce an abundance of pollen as being in a rudimentary condition, yet we can hardly avoid connecting as balanced the higher efficiency of the female organs in this form with ...
— The Different Forms of Flowers on Plants of the Same Species • Charles Darwin
... was impossible. Mother and son reached the yard gate as Uncle Billy opened the coach door and announced the fact that Miss Ann had arrived at her destination. Then began the unpacking of the visitor. It was a roomy carriage, and well that it was ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... after all, they would have told me something of the joy they were in at the sight of a boat and pilots, to carry them away to the person and place from whence all these new comforts came. But it was impossible to express it by words, for their excessive joy naturally driving them to unbecoming extravagances, they had no way to describe them but by telling me they bordered upon lunacy, having no way to ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... once out—that is, if he could be got out by any means—he would save him from being further troubled, and would grant him a protection under his own hand. But how on earth are we to get him out? It is impossible. These two guards at the door, besides other difficulties, render it altogether impracticable. I know not ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, XXII • various
... allowed for this course in the Public Schools, it will be impossible to teach more than a few of the first principles governing each department of the work, viz., a knowledge of the constituent parts of the human body; the classification of food and the relation of each class to the sustenance and repair of the body; simple recipes illustrating the most wholesome ...
— Public School Domestic Science • Mrs. J. Hoodless
... enthusiasm has at last contracted itself within narrower and more intelligent limits, and is restricted to productions which rank as masterpieces or are special favourites, and then all postulates have to be satisfied, all bibliographical minutiae have to be studied. It is impossible to foresee how far this latest compromise may last; but whatever it is, there must always be some novelty to keep the market going, and bring grist to the mill. The world of fashion comprehends books as well ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt |
