"Powerless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... found himself, at the same time, shelved in his new rank, powerless, and regarded as a nobody in the state where hitherto he had been a potent signior—mastered in every action by the secret tribunal, and presiding nominally in councils where his opinion was of little consequence—is ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... in favor of coming to terms with the imperialists. Even before this defeat Lar Wang had entered into communications with General Ching for coming over, and as he had the majority of the troops at Soochow under his orders Mow Wang was practically powerless, although resolute to defend the place to the last. Several interviews took place between the Wangs and General Ching and Li Hung Chang. Major Gordon also saw the former, and had one interview with Lar Wang in person. ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... strong, silk handkerchief, tied his hands behind his back, and making a double-knotted gag of Fotheringham's handkerchief, gagged him. Searching the car he discovered a shawl-strap with which he tied the messenger's feet, and thus had him powerless as a log. Then, and not till ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... rose-leaves, the same livid shadow of imperial Ennui hangs. We can even see it looming behind the noble form of Marcus Aurelius, who, amid the ruins of empire and the revolutions of belief, penned in his tent among the Quadi those maxims of endurance which were powerless to regenerate ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... an absolutely hopeless struggle. The Cumberland was a sailing-ship, at anchor, with wooden sides, and a battery of light guns. Against the formidable steam ironclad, with her heavy rifles and steel ram, she was as powerless as if she had been a rowboat; and from the moment the men saw the cannon-shot bound from the ram's sides they knew they were doomed. But none of them flinched. Once and again they fired their guns full against the approaching ram, and in response received a few shells ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... a game of her enemies and enjoyed her revenge in secret. But if she were a queen, then she was a queen-mother, and the king was not her husband but her little son. This would account for the perpetual intrigues against him, and the fact that he was so powerless to aid himself. Probably the enemy was too strong for him in the end, and he and his mother were taken into captivity together. It was in prison that she invented the royal game, the young king amused himself by carving out the ...
— If I May • A. A. Milne
... by modern writers, but neither all that has been said, nor what I have thought about it, when I was young and now that I am no longer so, nothing, in fact, can make me agree that love is a trifling vanity. It is a sort of madness, I grant that, but a madness over which philosophy is entirely powerless; it is a disease to which man is exposed at all times, no matter at what age, and which cannot be cured, if he is attacked by it in his old age. Love being sentiment which cannot be explained! God of all nature!—bitter and sweet feeling! ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... the slave market, of so much more importance is the price of men. Your common school (a thing unknown, and held extremely dangerous in Carolina!) may be your much talked of guiding star to virtue; your early education is your bulwark against which the wave of vice is powerless; but unless you make it something more than a magnificent theory-unless you seek practical means, and go down into the haunts of vice, there to drag up the neglected child, to whom the word early education is a mystery, you leave untouched the festering volcano that ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... though she saw she was powerless to save the dog she loved. And her soul was sick within her at his peril which her ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... the place to get the rioters out of the city, that they might at once be relieved of them, and then deal with them just as they might think fit. When the mob was once outside the walls, they might be refused re-admittance, and put down with a strong hand. The Roman garrison, who, powerless to quell the tumult in the narrow and winding streets and multiplied alleys of the city, had been the authors of the manoeuvre, now took on themselves the stern completion of it, and determined to do so in the sternest way. Not a single head of all those who poured out in the afternoon ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... productive power or of military strength. The only possible rivals to such a combination would be the widely scattered forces of the British Empire and the United States, separated from it by the stretches of the Atlantic Ocean. Against such a grouping Japan would be powerless because it would deprive her of the source of raw materials upon which she must rely for her economic development. Great Britain with her relatively small population and her rapidly diminishing resources could make no head against such a combination even ...
— The American Empire • Scott Nearing
... "consider what this means. We hold the state in our hands. If you are against us you are powerless. If you are with us we can promise you more power than you ever dreamed ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... planks still firm, my canvas swelling proudly. Hope is my goddess still, and Youth my inmate; And while we stand thus front to front almost I might presume to say that the swift years Have passed by powerless o'er ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... the might of the world which threatens," she murmured. "Your country may defend herself, but here she is powerless. Already it has been proved. Last year you declared yourself our friend—you and even Russia. Of what avail was it? Word came from Berlin ...
— Havoc • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... that he was forced to consent. He sat in that body from 1789 to 1791, and in those sessions which were marked by the brilliant contests between the Federalists and Republicans took a decided stand with the former, and sustained his position by an array of arguments against which his opponents were powerless. The struggle was one of great bitterness, but Marshall, although victorious in it, made ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... spouting capacities, he grasped the Indian's throat with his left. Quick as lightning Alizay, with his free hand, drew his scalping-knife and struck at the Eskimo's shoulder, but not less quick was Cheenbuk in releasing the throat and catching the Indian's wrist with a grip that rendered it powerless. ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... bring fear to those who are in charge. It must be applied quickly, decisively, and preferably with impunity (such as stealth bombing with air superiority). The element of impunity, that is the other side is powerless to stop the damage, is a key element of this strategy. If on the other hand attacks are directed at the general public a backlash could be unleased because of the excessive and ...
— Shock and Awe - Achieving Rapid Dominance • Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade
... Italy was now virtually ended, for, although during four years more Hannibal stood at bay in a corner of Bruttium, he was powerless to prevent the restoration of Roman authority throughout Italy. Nothing now remained to Carthage outside of Africa, except the ground on which Hannibal was ...
— History of Rome from the Earliest times down to 476 AD • Robert F. Pennell
... and am just waking into real existence? or am I developing into a medium,—Heaven forbid!—and the spirits pushing at some unguarded portal of the nervous system, and striving to take possession? Shall I hear raps and knockings when I return to my solitary chamber, and sit a powerless beholder of damaged furniture, which the spirits will never have the conscience to promise payment for, when my landlady's bill comes in? (By the way, have the spirits ever behaved like gentlemen in this respect, and settled up fair and square for ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... I found that one stick would not leave my fingers. By great exertions, however, I at last threw it in, then I got another ready, but that tumbled down at my feet, and a third slipped from my fingers, and then my arm fell down powerless by my side. How long I slept I do not know. I dreamed over all the scenes I had witnessed since I came to the island, confusing and exaggerating them in the most extraordinary manner. I was galloping away on the backs of wild elephants, charging ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... is more than he can do, George. My word once pledged can only be redeemed by what it stood for, and he is powerless to ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... of the heart, That words are powerless to express, And leave it still unsaid in part, Or say it in ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... Equally decadent is Liszt. Liszt is a Hungarian and the Hungarians are confessedly a completely disorganized, self-outlived, dying people. No less decadent is Chopin, whose figure comes before one as flesh without bones, this morbid, womanly, womanish, slip-slop, powerless, sickly, bleached, sweet-caramel Pole!" This has a ring of Nietzsche—Nietzsche who boasted ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker
... uneventful, mere, common; ordinary &c. (habitual) 613; inconsiderable, so-so, insignificant, inappreciable. trifling, trivial; slight, slender, light, flimsy, frothy, idle; puerile &c. (foolish) 499; airy, shallow; weak &c. 160; powerless &c. 158; frivolous, petty, niggling; piddling, peddling; fribble[obs3], inane, ridiculous, farcical; finical, finikin[obs3]; fiddle-faddle, fingle- fangle[obs3], namby-pamby, wishy-washy, milk and water. poor, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... Modern science? The word grated on her ears. It savored to her of narrow medical tyranny, and distrust of aspiring individuality. Wilbur was dying, and all modern science saw fit to do was to give him brandy and wait. And she, his wife—the one who loved him best in the world, was powerless to intervene. Nay, she had intervened, and modern science had ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... violence. He informed them that armed guards of the League were, at that moment, patrolling Los Muertos, Broderson's, and Osterman's. It was well known that the United States marshal confessed himself powerless to serve the writs. There would ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... Seth was powerless against such odds. There was no hope. His revolver cracked and more than one man fell, but they closed with him, and, as his last barrel was emptied, he felt the flesh of his left shoulder rip under the slashing blow of an axe. His horse reared ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... wondering, with her so young, and a hundred dollars pledged, and all so eager to work under her—for she was one of them that's born to lead—who should run in but Henry Wilson, all out of breath, crying to her to hurry home, for Madam was down with a stroke, and one side of her all powerless! ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... just as Kedsty was recovering sufficiently from the shock of the blow to fight, Marette's companion had killed him. Horrified, dazed by what had already happened, perhaps unconscious, she had been powerless to prevent the use of a tress of her hair in the murderer's final work. Kent, in this picture, eliminated the boot-laces and the curtain cords. He knew that the unusual and the least expected happened frequently in crime. And Marette's long hair was flowing loose about her. To use ...
— The Valley of Silent Men • James Oliver Curwood
... them he can do nothing for them in a large way, but—the fee he has received to cure them can afford as much—graciously throwing them fifty pounds from his private compassion! As a statesman he is powerless; but he has no objection to subscribe to ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 6, 1841, • Various
... Theirs, too, joy's harbinger, the thoughts aye fed With brighter objects than of earth, that shed A light within their narrow home, and gave A triumph's lustre to the yawning grave. And in that hour when the proud heart's o'erthrown, And self all-powerless, self is truly known; When pride no more could darken the free mind, But all to God in firm faith was resign'd— Then drank their souls the stream of love divine, More richly flowing than the Eastern mine; Felt heaven expanding ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... was powerless and dependent on the kindness of strangers. Her speech in that moment of terror might have expressed more than she felt. Should I presume upon it? Should I take advantage of her distress to impose my love upon ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... to lift and level his rifle; his arm collapsed and dangled broken and powerless; his rifle ...
— The Flaming Jewel • Robert W. Chambers
... was effected by religion. Religion alone could have rendered possible all that was accomplished, but it was far from being the SOLE motive of the war. Had not private advantages and state interests been closely connected with it, vain and powerless would have been the arguments of theologians; and the cry of the people would never have met with princes so willing to espouse their cause, nor the new doctrines have found such numerous, brave, and ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.
... Hadendowa tribe, was in prison during our stay in that country, for some breach of discipline in his dealings with the Egyptian Government. The iron hand of despotism has produced a marvellous change among the Arabs, who are rendered utterly powerless by the system of government adopted by the Egyptians; unfortunately, this harsh system has the effect of ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... suddenly thrust out of sight—an abomination that the earth must not look upon—a despicable loathsomeness, to be concealed and to be forgotten! And this same composition of bone and muscle that was yesterday so strong—which men respected, and women loved, and children clung to—to-day so lamentably powerless, unable to defend or protect those who lay nearest to its heart; its riches wrested from it, its wishes spat upon, its influence expiring with its last sigh! A breath from its lips making all that mighty difference between what it was ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 1 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... They were also powerless to do anything to show their love, or to honor the body of their Friend. They were poor and unknown men, without influence. None of them had a grave in which the body could be laid. Nor had they power ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... up in the air and whirled about like the foam of the roaring sea; but our wanderers did not feel its effects much, for they had chosen a very sheltered spot at the foot of a large pine, which grew in a hollow, where a cliff on one side and a bluff of wood on the other rendered the blast powerless. Its fierce howling could be heard, however, if not felt; and as the brother and sister lay at the bottom of their hole in the snow, with their toes to the comfortable fire, they chatted much more cheerily than might have been expected in the midst of such a scene, and gazed ...
— Silver Lake • R.M. Ballantyne
... Legitimists have no chance, he desires to keep well with the nobles of that party, because they exercise a considerable influence over that sphere of opinion which belongs to fashion,—for fashion is never powerless in Paris. Raoul and myself are no mean authorities in salons and clubs, and a good word ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... his muscles. His head ached, his whole being cried for water. He knew he could not carry her far, but without her he was powerless. ...
— Claire - The Blind Love of a Blind Hero, By a Blind Author • Leslie Burton Blades
... to be the death of any one. A thick, dark, yellow fog overhangs the sky, so that one can hardly see in the house without candles. The sun stands powerless, like a ruddy point, in the clouds. No: there is no living in this climate. The longing I feel for Hosterwitz, and the clear air, is indescribable. But patience,—patience,—one day rolls on after another; two months are already over. I have formed an acquaintance with ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, No. 477, Saturday, February 19, 1831 • Various
... not pantheistic or materialist, but solely as spiritual powers who needed to obtain information, and who only could act through intermediaries. Further, nothing can be done without the consent of Ra; Thoth is powerless over men, and can only ask Ra, as a sort of universal magistrate, to take notice of the offence. Neither god acts directly, but by means of a power or angel, who takes the commission to work on men. How far this police-court conception of the ...
— Egyptian Tales, Second Series - Translated from the Papyri • W. M. Flinders Petrie
... power to repel the attacks of every living thing, the intrepid Maha was permitted to advance within a few steps of Karkapaha. He had just raised his spear to strike the unmanly lover, when, all at once, he found himself riveted to the ground. His feet refused to move, his hands hung powerless at his side, his tongue refused to utter a word. The bow and arrow fell from his hand, and his spear lay powerless. A little child, not so high as the fourth leaf of the thistle, came and spat on him, and a company of the spirits danced around him singing ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends: North American Indian • Anonymous
... July sky, the blaze of flowers in the rectory garden, and the subtle, penetrating fragrance of mignonette. Perhaps the contrast of the intense cold and the gathering night brought the scene before her; she sighed; if she and John could go away from this grief and misery and sin, which they seemed powerless to relieve, and from this ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... of the Vesuvian communes are once more settling down in their ruined homes, or their damaged farms and gardens. No doubt a new Bosco-Trecase will arise on the shapeless ruins of the old site, for fear of danger seems powerless to deter the outcast population from reoccupying its old haunts. Ottajano will be rebuilt, not for the first time, and its citizens will again trust to luck—and to St Januarius—for protection from the evil fate which has repeatedly overtaken their town. The ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... seemed to have a charmed life, for although eight bullets pierced his clothes, one cutting away a lock of the thick gray hair that flowed from under his three-cornered hat, he escaped without a wound. Finally defeat became a rout which St. Clair was powerless to check. Pushed aside in the rush of fugitives, he was left in a position of great peril. If the Indian pursuit had been persistent, few might have escaped, but the Indians stopped to plunder the camp. Nevertheless six hundred ...
— Washington and His Colleagues • Henry Jones Ford
... the sad experience of centuries that nominal Christianity, which men call religion, is utterly powerless to stop warfare; it may, in a few instances, have lessened some of its horrors, but only a few. The annals of the wars which have taken place for the last three hundred years since the world has improved in civilisation, show that nations rush into war as eagerly as ever, and that cruelties ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... child like this, How is it that he knows What years of close analysis Are powerless ...
— More Beasts (For Worse Children) • Hilaire Belloc
... can see them. But those who look more interiorly into the causes of things take a different view. Such know that all the power that a man has is from his understanding and will (for apart from these he is powerless to move a particle of his body), and his understanding and will are his spiritual man. This moves the body and its members at its pleasure; for whatever it thinks the mouth and tongue speak, and whatever it wills the body does; and it bestows its strength at pleasure. As ...
— Heaven and its Wonders and Hell • Emanuel Swedenborg
... for our joy they live, and for our grief They die not. Though thine eye be closed, thine hand Powerless as mine to paint them, not a leaf In English woods or ...
— Poems and Ballads (Third Series) - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol. III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... soul derived a power which was a dominion over the whole earth. I understood the meaning of those words in the Canticle: "Let my Beloved come into His garden and eat." [11] He showed me also the condition of a soul in sin, utterly powerless, like a person tied and bound and blindfold, who, though anxious to see, yet cannot, being unable to walk or to hear, and in grievous obscurity. I was so exceedingly sorry for such souls, that, to deliver only one, any trouble seemed to me light. I thought it impossible ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... Monaghan, was hanged; and some hundreds of the inhabitants of Armagh, who had surrendered on promise of their lives, were massacred in cold blood. As for the more irregular murders committed in the open field upon helpless, terrified creatures, powerless to defend themselves, they are too numerous to relate, and there is happily no purpose to be gained in repeating the harrowing details. The effect produced by the condition of the survivors upon those ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless
... herd, too, fed where it chose and had moved out of the meadows toward the farm. The little girl was powerless to turn it, and when she set the pack at the cattle they only ran faster than ever toward the fields. So she called the dogs off. Slowly, but surely, the cows led the forbidden way, and as the little girl moved about on the pinto, powerless to go where ...
— The Biography of a Prairie Girl • Eleanor Gates
... He who controlled legislatures and dictated to Supreme Court judges had found himself powerless when each turn of the legal machinery had brought him face to face with Judge Rossmore. Suit after suit had been decided against him and the interests he represented, and each time it was Judge Rossmore who had handed down the decision. So for years these two men had fought a silent ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein
... he still continued to struggle vigorously against the force of the current. At this juncture, some passing clouds obscured the moon, and I lost sight of a group of trees which, before leaving the opposite bank, I fixed my eye upon as a guiding beacon. Quite powerless, my horse and I were carried away by the stream, and driven against a rock in the middle of the river. I now heard the anxious outcries of my negro and the travellers on the bank, whilst the waves rose over my head. With a convulsive effort I pulled the bridle, and the horse then turning ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... his stalwart appearance, the Capricorn is powerless to leave the tree-trunk by his unaided efforts. It therefore falls to the worm, to the wisdom of that bit of an intestine, to prepare the way for him. We see renewed, in another form, the feats of prowess of the Anthrax, whose pupa, armed with trepans, ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... I must make the best of it. I realize I am powerless." She realized it fully in that moment; realized that her son was a man, a man with force and a will, and that it would be hopeless to try to bring him to submit to her influence. "There is nothing for us to discuss. I shall ask ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... in the ambitious and loving household which hoped all things from him. His mistakes and faults they pardoned; thinking, poor souls, that the strong passions which led him astray betokened a strong character and not a powerless will. ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson
... the extreme, for their means of transportation was in the hands of the six coal-carrying railroads, who could raise rates almost at will and find reasons even for refusing service. The states were powerless to remedy the situation because their authority did not extend to interstate commerce, yet it was intolerable for a small group of interested parties to have power to fix the output of so necessary a commodity as coal, on no other basis than that ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... Demosthenes? Here I have the jutting brow, and the excellent shape of the head. And here the organism of the eye full of England, the valid eye, in which I see the strong executive talent which has made his thought available to the nations, whilst others as intellectual as he are pale and powerless. The photograph comes dated 25 April, 1846, and he writes, 'I am fifty years ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... he went on, "I can assure you that its ownership will never be known. When the nearest patrolman rushed up, there were no survivors of the disaster, save those in the third car which he was powerless to stop—which accounts for your presence here. You will admit that I have ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... with. Society must see to it that it does not itself crush or weaken or damage its own constituent parts. The first duty of law is to keep sound the society it serves. Sanitary laws, pure food laws, and laws determining conditions of labor which individuals are powerless to determine for themselves are intimate parts of the very business ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... it in her heart or mind or soul that went out to this man? Music—was that it? Was he powerless to stir her without the gift? But hadn't he fascinated her by his talk, gentle and winning? Ah, but that had been after he had ...
— The Ragged Edge • Harold MacGrath
... Montgomery had neither men nor artillery to storm the fortified city which he had hoped to surprise and easily occupy with the aid of secret friends within its walls. Carleton, however, rallied all loyal men to his support, and the traitors on whom the invaders had relied were powerless to carry out any treacherous design they may have formed. The American commanders at once recognised the folly of a regular investment of the fortress during a long and severe winter, and decided to attempt to surprise ...
— Canada under British Rule 1760-1900 • John G. Bourinot
... in a recent number of the Century passes the topic with this awe-stricken remark: "This problem (of the Negro) cannot be touched practically; ancient wrongs bind the nation hand and foot, and its outcome must be awaited as we await the gathering of the tempest—powerless to avert, and trembling over the steady approach" (The italics are ours.) This is not wise; it is not manly. Why try to avert the evils of immigration, or any other, if we are meanwhile only to await tremblingly the doom that is to come on us from ...
— The American Missionary, Volume XLII. No. 10. October 1888 • Various
... rolled from side to side, appealing in vain for help. Some of the crowd yelled and cheered, others seemed appalled at what they had done, and there were those who turned away sickened at the sight. I was fixed to the spot where I stood, powerless to take my eyes from what I did not want ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson
... Judea, according to Isa. 27:6, "When they shall rush out from Jacob [*Vulg.: 'When they shall rush in unto Jacob,' etc.] . . . they shall fill the face of the world with seed." Moreover those who were being sent were poor and powerless; nor at the outset could they have easily found someone to interpret their words faithfully to others, or to explain what others said to them, especially as they were sent to unbelievers. Consequently it was necessary, in this respect, that God should provide them with the gift ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... attempt to attain the history of the ant. Among the factory workers, the waist makers' admirable efforts for juster wages were, as far as yearly income was concerned, largely ineffectual, on account of this obstacle of slack and dull seasons, whose occurrence employers are as powerless ...
— Making Both Ends Meet • Sue Ainslie Clark and Edith Wyatt
... under their control, not in order to curtail their freedom of action, but in order to attach them to my cause:[371] that as things stand now, supposing the consuls to choose to take part against me, they can do so without let or hindrance, but if they wish to do anything in my favour they are powerless if the tribunes object. For as to what you say in your letter, that, if your party had not consented, they would have obtained their object by a popular vote—that would have been impossible against ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... one at a time, they found themselves pinioned, and, staring round them in dismay, saw their fellow-mutineers in irons, guarded by the loyal members of the crew. At Da Gama's order all were marshalled on deck, and stood, sullen and powerless, ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... to perceive thus those two lovers, whom she had wished to strike, with the ecstacy of bliss in their eyes! Lydia would have liked to tear out their eyes, his as well as hers, and to trample them beneath her heel. A fresh flood of hatred filled her heart. God! how she hated them, and with what a powerless hatred! But her time would come; another need pressed sorely—to prevent the meeting of the following day, to save her brother. To whom should she turn, however? To Dorsenne? To Montfanon? To Baron Hafner? To Peppino Ardea? She thought by turns of ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... almost shed tears over it; it takes away my happiness and my rest; my constancy finds itself powerless against such a misfortune; my mind is for ever dwelling over it, and the ill success of our charms and the triumph of Psyche are ever before my eyes. At night, unceasingly, comes to me the remembrance of it, and nothing can banish the cruel picture. As soon as sweet slumber comes ...
— Psyche • Moliere
... and his tone implied reference to some anterior conversation, 'We are powerless in this matter. You see we can do nothing. We only succeed in making ourselves unhappy; we do not change in ...
— Vain Fortune • George Moore
... 123 Members, sat as Peers in the Upper House. Cash, places, and peerages, were the usual considerations paid for maintaining a Government majority. The Catholics, from three-quarters to five-sixths of the population, had neither votes nor members; the Dissenters scarcely any members and an almost powerless vote. The Irish Legislature, by an Act as old as 1495, the famous Poynings' Law, could neither initiate nor pass a measure without the consent of the English Privy Council, and the Declaratory Act of 1719 confirmed ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... challenged him, in sport, to wrestle. Washington did not stop to take off his coat, but grasped the "strong man of Virginia." {65} It was all over in a moment, for, said the wrestler, "in Washington's lionlike grasp, I became powerless, and was hurled to the ground with a force that seemed to jar the very ...
— Hero Stories from American History - For Elementary Schools • Albert F. Blaisdell
... house was filled to overflowing with kind and sympathetic neighbors who had come to do all that had to be done. David sat on the back doorstep until M'ri came; before the expression in his eyes she felt powerless to comfort him. ...
— David Dunne - A Romance of the Middle West • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... taken prisoner than every province of the Roman empire, feeling the sword powerless in the weak hands of Gallienus, declared its own general emperor; and when Macrianus, who had been left in command in Syria, gathered together the scattered forces of the Eastern army, and made himself ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 11 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... are never allowed to grow as God designed, as the flower expands into beauty from the bud. Chinese women realise that it is foolish, that it is a deformity, but it is the "custom," and custom prevails. It is like the laws of the Medes and Persians which alter not. Women are powerless under it. It is in vain to a large extent that they oppose it. There is in China an Anti-foot-binding League, which receives the support of men of prominence. Even centuries ago imperial edicts were issued against it, but ...
— By the Golden Gate • Joseph Carey
... Alabama failed to provide any funds for an exhibit of the resources of that State. A commission which had been appointed by the governor to attend to the business for the State was powerless to act and gave up the undertaking. In consequence of this failure the Commercial Club of Birmingham decided, when it was almost too late to arrange for any kind of an exhibit, to make a display of the State's mineral ...
— Final Report of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission • Louisiana Purchase Exposition Commission
... counter, though gradually moving back to the further edge of it. I saw the crisis was at hand, for smothered but angry argument was going on in knots of men all over the room; my life was suspended upon a breath, and I was utterly powerless to change the decision, whatever it might be; but I must say that my nerves were steady and my hand untrembling,—the unwonted calmness of one who knew that death was inevitable if they should decide in the affirmative on the charge, and who was determined to defend himself to ...
— Thirteen Months in the Rebel Army • William G. Stevenson
... of passion's wandering wing, How swift the step of reason's firmer tread, How calm and sweet the victories of life. How terrorless the triumph of the grave! How powerless were the mightiest monarch's arm, Vain his loud threat and impotent his frown! How ludicrous the priest's dogmatic roar! The weight of his exterminating curse, How light! and his affected charity, To suit the pressure of the changing times, What palpable deceit!—but ...
— Ancient and Modern Celebrated Freethinkers - Reprinted From an English Work, Entitled "Half-Hours With - The Freethinkers." • Charles Bradlaugh, A. Collins, and J. Watts
... manner of a bull-fighter, suddenly caught his foot on a root and fell headlong. A shout went up as the others realized that he was doomed to almost certain death. Billy and Lathrop averted their eyes. It was terrible to have to sit there powerless and watch the sacrifice. ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... tendencies of Abolitionism, as thus far developed. The South are now in just that state of high exasperation, at the sense of wanton injury and impertinent interference, which makes the influence of truth and reason most useless and powerless. ...
— An Essay on Slavery and Abolitionism - With reference to the duty of American females • Catharine E. Beecher
... far vainer than we are. Their indifference to the little arts we practise shows it. A woman whose head is bald covers it with a wig. Without a wig she would feel that she was an outcast totally powerless to attract. But a bald-headed man has no idea of diffidence. He does not bother about a wig because he expects to be ...
— The Woman With The Fan • Robert Hichens
... shall find, A waste of waters, wild and drear, That chills each living heart with fear. There see the horse's awful head, Wrath-born, that flames in Ocean's bed.(681) There rises up a fearful cry From the sea things that move thereby, When, helpless, powerless for flight, They gaze upon the horrid sight. Past to the northern shore, and then Beyond the flood three leagues and ten Your wondering glances will behold Mount Jatarupa(682) bright with gold. There like the young moon pale ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... alliances, intended to group together scattered forces, sprang fresh passions or interests, which became so many fresh causes of discord and hostility. And, in these divers-agglomerations, government was everywhere almost equally irregular and powerless to maintain order or found an enduring state. Kymrians, Gauls, or Iberians were nearly equally ignorant, improvident, slaves to the shiftings of their ideas and the sway of their passions, fond ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... she tied his arms behind him, so that he was powerless to do her any mischief. She then cut off a portion of the clothes line, which hung up in the kitchen, and tied his feet together. In this condition, he was secured to a door. The boy looked cool and savage; he did not cry, and ceased to struggle only ...
— Hope and Have - or, Fanny Grant Among the Indians, A Story for Young People • Oliver Optic
... economic era. If you had to constitute new societies, Peel said to Croker, then you might on moral and social grounds prefer cornfields to cotton factories, and you might like an agricultural population better than a manufacturing; as it was, the national lot was cast, and statesmen were powerless to turn back the tide. The food of the people, their clothing, the raw material for their industry, their education, the conditions under which women and children were suffered to toil, markets for the products of loom and forge and furnace and mechanic's shop,—these were slowly making ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... arm in the shoulder was shattered; but, fortunately, the main artery of the arm escaped injury. Notwithstanding his wound Kit immediately endeavored to reload his rifle. In this effort he was unsuccessful, for his left arm hung powerless by his side. He was obliged, therefore, to remain a mere spectator during the remainder of the fight; when, being overcome by the loss of blood and the consequent fast increasing weakness, he threw himself upon the ground. The fight continued to be hotly contested by both ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... tyrannies. It is not humanity that disgusts us in the huge cities; it is inhumanity. It is not that there are human beings; but that they are not treated as such. We do not, I hope, dislike men and women; we only dislike their being made into a sort of jam: crushed together so that they are not merely powerless but shapeless. It is not the presence of people that makes London appalling. It is merely the ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton
... (grain or offspring), Syria (Kharu) has become widows (Kharut) of or to Egypt." We can form no conclusion from these statements as to the relation in which the Israelites stood to Pharaoh and to Egypt, except that they are represented as having been powerless. It is pretty clear, however, from the context that they were then in Palestine, or at least in Syria. Steindorff suggests that they may have entered Syria from Chaldaea during the disturbed times in Egypt at the end of the eighteenth ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... part her from a miserable corset, although you see in her poor wasted face that it is carrying her to the churchyard. In that case, sir, there is but one thing for you to do,—withdraw your opposition and let me marry her. As her lover I am powerless; but invest me with a husband's authority, and you will soon see the roses return to her cheek, and her elastic figure expanding, and her eye beaming with health and the happiness that comes ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... the conclusion that he was, as Geoffrey had said, powerless to interfere. If Mr. Francis Vere decided to take the boys with him, what could he do to prevent it? He could hardly take them forcibly down to the boat against their will, and even could he do so their father might not approve, and doubtless the earl, when he ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... may treat you as an unwelcome intruder, proceed calmly to the statement of your business. You know that your intention to render him a true service justifies you in taking his time. Therefore his assumed fierce manner should be powerless ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... than practical. It found that though, in a general way, the United States possessed national powers, as over boundaries, peace and war, the issue of money, the establishment of post-offices, etc., yet in the very necessary matter of revenue, and the regulation of trade and commerce, it was powerless against the States. The old form of the confederation was found insufficient to secure the full independence of the United States as a Nation, and in the very year that the articles were fully adopted, and before the last State had given its adherence (1781), a member of Congress from New Jersey ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... living Jesus was with the first Church she was all right. His life was the source of her life; His authority and power meant her existence and unity. But when the Shepherd was smitten the sheep were scattered. When the followers of Christ saw Him powerless and dead they denied Him and fell back to their natural instinct of self-defence, and the first Church died with the death of Christ. It was like the green corn in the field smitten by a flail to the very root. The owner of the corn walks in the field ...
— The Agony of the Church (1917) • Nikolaj Velimirovic
... crooked folks as dangerous at poker, only you've got to watch 'em. So long as your eye is on 'em a heap attentive they're powerless to perform their partic'lar miracle, an' as a result, since that's the one end an' aim of their efforts, they becomes mighty inocuous. As a roole, crooked people ain't good players on the squar', an' as long as you makes 'em ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... gasped for breath, she interpreted it as a symptom of speechless delight, and flew to the oven and dashed a bucket of cold water on the red-hot stones placed there for the purpose. The steam poured forth in intolerable clouds; but we submitted, powerless to protest. Alexandra, with all her clothes on, seemed not to feel the heat. She administered a merciless yet gentle massage to every limb with her birch rods,—what would it have been like if she had used ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... should never forget how nearly Ireland was lost to this country during the American war; that it was saved merely by the jealousy of the Protestant Irish towards the Catholics, then a much more insignificant and powerless body than they now are. The Catholic and the Dissenter have since combined together against you. Last war, the winds, those ancient and unsubsidised allies of England; the winds, upon which English ministers depend as much for saving kingdoms as washerwomen do ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith
... this; and in that one glance the terrified creature became utterly powerless and unable to utter ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... now was Bennett's defeat! The very contingency he had fought so desperately to avert and for which he had sacrificed Ferriss—Lloyd's care of so perilous a disease—behold! the mysterious turn of the wheel had brought it about, and now he was powerless to resist. ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris
... javelins, and every other weapon which could be projected from a distance, were equally ineffectual, and no one could come near enough to men thus protected to strike at them with the sword. Even cavalry were utterly powerless in attacking such chevaux de frise as the phalanx presented. No charge, however furious, could break its serrated ranks; an onset upon it could only end in impaling the men and the horses that made it together on the points ...
— Pyrrhus - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... advice, energy, activity, money, credit, all his resources whatsoever, were all made useless. If she had been possessed of the old fabled influence, and had turned those who looked upon her into stone, she could not have rendered him more completely powerless (so it seemed to him in his distress of mind) than she did, when she turned her unyielding face to his in her ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... heart to stone! We cannot afford space to detail the various shades of agony, the degrees of despair, through which this unfortunate young man passed during that evening. A thick volume would not suffice to contain it all. Language is powerless to express it. Only those who have similarly suffered ...
— The Floating Light of the Goodwin Sands • R.M. Ballantyne
... disappointed. How fearfully quiet was everything! I would have given worlds, had I possessed them, if I could have seen a familiar face. I even had a half-formed thought to scream loudly for help, but I could not do it. My will was utterly powerless. We approached the house where Ackermann resided, and I was seized with horror, thinking it possible that she might murder him while I witnessed the bloody deed, powerless to prevent it. But she never once looked ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... bluish, cottony, suffocating fog. She took me far, and many marvelous things happened on our way. We met terrible giant dogs. My proud bearing seemed to exasperate them, but I kept them back with a single look (besides, a closed iron gate rendered them powerless). I chased a rabbit into the thicket, though She cried loudly: "I forbid you to touch the little animal!" ... My mother certainly gave me swift legs but they're short, and the white end of the little beast kept far ahead. A bush covered with red berries detained us a very long time. She sees no ...
— Barks and Purrs • Colette Willy, aka Colette
... raised from the mire, and peers, over whose heads they were placed, were joined in a common fate. Wolsey and More, Cromwell and Norfolk, trod the same dizzy path to the same fatal end; and the English people looked on powerless or unmoved. They sent their burgesses and knights of the shire to Westminster without let or hindrance, and Parliament met with a regularity that grew with the rigour of Henry's rule; but it seemed to assemble only to register the royal edicts and clothe ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... understood it was all a put-up affair intended to make our opponents believe that for a time I was powerless to hurt them. What do you think ...
— The Exploits of Juve - Being the Second of the Series of the "Fantmas" Detective Tales • mile Souvestre and Marcel Allain
... the animal by the long hair on his forehead, as it struck him on the side with its horn, and being a remarkably tall and powerful man, a struggle ensued, which continued until his wrist was severely sprained, and his arm was rendered powerless; he then fell, and after receiving two or three ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... cradle. And yet it perpetually new creates the world, rescuing it each morning as a prey from night and chaos. So the Christian is a light, even "the light of the world;" and we must not think that, because he shines insensibly or silently, as a mere luminous object, he is therefore powerless. The greatest powers are ever those which lie back of the little stirs and commotions of nature: and I verily believe that the insensible influences of good men are as much more potent than what I have called their voluntary or active, ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... beauty and her strength influenced him as tonight. While she was singing he saw and heard no one else. The tent swarmed with a confused crowd of faces and he knew he was sitting there hemmed in by a mob of people, but they had no meaning to him. He felt powerless to avoid speaking to her. He knew he should speak when ...
— In His Steps • Charles M. Sheldon
... Blair to understand the nervous fear of drowning which had taken possession of poor Hal. Fairport boys could swim almost as soon as they could walk. They knew nothing of the helpless feeling of one who has the great deep under him, and is powerless ...
— The Boy Patriot • Edward Sylvester Ellis
... Italians, together with the Walloons and other obedient Netherlanders in Hainault, who obliged the city of Mons to collect nine hundred florins a day for them. The consequence of these military rebellions was to render the Spanish crown almost powerless during the whole year, within the provinces nominally subject to its sway. The cause—as always—was the non-payment of these veterans' wages, year after year. It was impossible for Philip, with all the wealth of the Indies and Mexico pouring ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... in Long v. The Bishop of Cape Town, that "the Church of England, in places where there is no church established by law, is in the same situation with any other religious body." In 1865 it adjudged Bishop Gray's letters patent, as metropolitan of Cape Town, to be powerless to enable him "to exercise any coercive jurisdiction, or hold any court or tribunal for that purpose," since the Cape colony already possessed legislative institutions when they were issued; and his deposition of Bishop Colenso was declared to be "null and void in law" ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Part 1, Slice 1 • Various
... the table and stared at the bulkhead in front of him. He clenched his fists. Needless to say, he agreed with Roger, he had the same feelings. But he was powerless to ...
— The Space Pioneers • Carey Rockwell
... Ribauds devastated the neighbourhood and the Sieur des Eyzies on the opposite side of the river, and who was on the French side, was powerless against them. In company with the garrison of Bigaroque they surprised Temniac near Sarlat, S. Quentin and Campagnac, in 1348, but were shortly after dislodged by the Seneschal of ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould
... of the gods, he brought low the glory of the powerless Swedes, doing their king to death and crushing ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... throat, his chin was sunk deep into the German's shoulder. Von Arnheim had only one arm free, the other was pinioned to his side. With this free arm he plucked futilely at Roy's arm across his throat, unable to reach the guarded face. It was a grip Von Arnheim was powerless to break, and it was only a question of time until he would be throttled ...
— The Radio Boys on the Mexican Border • Gerald Breckenridge
... referred for its source to the teachings of Louis Blanc, who formed in 1840 a workmen's society in Paris. Blanc held, as the Social Democrats hold, that capitalism was the cause of all social evil, and that the workman was powerless against it. He therefore proposed the establishment of workmen's societies for purposes of production, and the grant of the necessary capital at a low rate of interest by the State. The doctrine was ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... simply a complete admission that the priest, although entirely convinced that his parishioners were making most unfair demands upon their landlord to whom the letter was addressed, felt himself entirely powerless to bring them to a sense of their misconduct." "Had this priest given in his adhesion to the Plan of Campaign?" I asked. "Yes," was the reply, "and it was this fact which had broken his hold on the people when ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (2 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... treatise as Seneca's DE CONSTANTIA SAPIENTIS, which is a monody on the theme with which it closes: esse aliquem invictum, esse aliquem in quem nihil fortuna possit—"to be something unconquered, something against which fortune is powerless." In the fifth section the idea is worded in a fashion that could have suggested Shakspere's utterance of it; and he might easily have met with some citation of the kind. But, on the other hand, this note of passionate friendship is not only new in Shakspere ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson
... Pierre had given no heed to these weighty problems. Powerless to enforce counsels of his own experienced craft, Pierre now and then lapsed into ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... with such unbounded means, having command of all the roads which lead to Cracow, having the power of marching their troops at any moment into the city of Cracow, having certain rights which were constituted and assigned to them in the Treaty of Vienna—should have found themselves so powerless as to be unable to prevent Cracow becoming dangerous to their peace and welfare. I cannot, indeed, but suspect, especially looking at the latter part of this transaction, when government was dissolved ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... timid maid, here stands the man from whom Thou fearest a repulse; supremely blessed To call thee all his own. Well might he doubt His title to thy love; but how couldst thou Believe thy beauty powerless to subdue him? ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... heart now. He is not in the least daunted by his adversaries. He can look them squarely in the eyes without shrinking. His heart is full of confidence. He knows whom he is trusting. Throughout the long day while the priests of Baal are calling so earnestly upon their powerless god, the prophet is the calmest man of all the many witnesses. He is looking on God's side now, and he is conscious master of the whole situation. He even grows ironical ...
— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor
... guilty, but I don't believe he'd be convicted— though I must say it would have been a most devilish good thing for him if he could have been got out of France before la Mursiana heard the truth. Then he could have made terms with her safely at a distance— she'd have been powerless to injure him and would have precious soon come to time and been glad to take whatever he'd give her. NOW, I suppose, that's impossible, and they'll arrest him if he tries to budge. But this talk of prison and all that ...
— The Guest of Quesnay • Booth Tarkington
... upon her prey than on a stone image. No; although she hung over him, tapped him with too eloquent fingers, whispered jokes in his ear, and filled his nostrils with an exquisite and voluptuous perfume, she was powerless! ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker
... moment I saw one of the buccaneers with his musket uplifted, preparing to bring it down with crushing force upon me, and caught sight of Vetch behind him sword in hand. I thought my end was come, for I had not yet secured my footing, and was powerless to protect myself. But suddenly there was a deafening report from the room beyond; the buccaneer pitched forward on to the rail, his musket falling from his hand. My life was saved by the man's body lurching against me, for being between Vetch and me, he prevented ...
— Humphrey Bold - A Story of the Times of Benbow • Herbert Strang
... those who have escaped that death-in-life existence, from which Laura Bridgman was rescued, can realize how isolated, how shrouded in darkness, how cramped by its own impotence is a soul without thought or faith or hope. Words are powerless to describe the desolation of that prison-house, or the joy of the soul that is delivered out of its captivity. When we compare the needs and helplessness of the blind before Dr. Howe began his work, with their present usefulness and independence, we realize ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... the wooden bench, looking white and powerless as a dying man; the miller's wife brought out a bowl of milk and made him drink, but he begged the miller to help him back to his bed, and asked to be forgiven for bringing a dying man into their house. He thought his last hour had come. With the ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... to have no effect on the monster that had caught Tubby's bait, however. With the exception that the speed was diminished a trifle, the Flying Fish was still powerless to shake off ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Eagle Patrol • Howard Payson
... now reached the limits of our present study, and have only to state that all gems, like the human organism, are in one of three conditions: alive and conscious, asleep and UNCONSCIOUS, or dead and powerless. These conditions can only be discovered, in stones, by the trained lucid or the instructed neophyte. Stones that are sleeping require to be awakened. This, also, can only be done by the trained student or Adept. Those that are dead, are USELESS as Talismans, no matter how beautiful ...
— The Light of Egypt, Volume II • Henry O. Wagner/Belle M. Wagner/Thomas H. Burgoyne
... Lausanne, announcing that the First Consul had accepted the office of Mediator of the Helvetic League. A French army entered Switzerland. Fifty-six deputies from the cantons were summoned to Paris; and, in the beginning of 1803, a new Constitution, which left the central Government powerless in the hands of France and reduced the national sovereignty to cantonal self-administration, placed Switzerland on a level with the Batavian and the Cisalpine dependencies of Bonaparte. The Rhone Valley, with the mountains crossed by the new road over the Simplon, was converted into a separate ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... Italy. There was not a port which an English ship could enter. Everywhere on the land the genius of her great enemy had triumphed. He had defeated armies, crushed coalitions, and overturned thrones; but, like the fabled giant, he was unconquerable only while he touched the land. On the ocean he was powerless. That field of fame was his adversary's, and her meteor flag was streaming in triumph ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... of a mile he followed Le Beau's tracks. He sensed the presence of a new and thrilling danger, and yet he did not turn off the trail. An impulse which he was powerless to resist drew him on. He came to a second trap, and this time he robbed the bait-peg without springing the thing which he knew was concealed close under it. His long fangs clicked as he went on. He was eager for a glimpse of the ...
— Nomads of the North - A Story of Romance and Adventure under the Open Stars • James Oliver Curwood
... his dealings with the President, and kept up an underhand correspondence with the radical leaders, even assisting in framing some of the reconstruction legislation which was designed to render Johnson powerless. In him the radicals had a ...
— The Sequel of Appomattox - A Chronicle of the Reunion of the States, Volume 32 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Walter Lynwood Fleming
... and seemed to reflect. "Who is there more vile, more traitorous than he?" he went on. "Has he not tried to influence Errington's wife against her husband? For what base purpose? But Clara,—he is powerless against her purity and innocence;—what, in the name of God, ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... the habit of bearing about in her pocket. All this would become unendurable to her father when his first infatuation was past. For his own sake, then, as well as for her mother's memory, this match must be prevented. And yet how powerless she was to prevent it! What could she do? Could Harold aid her? Perhaps. Or Ida? At least she would tell her sister and see ...
— Beyond the City • Arthur Conan Doyle
... terribly vexed by this rudeness, which I was powerless to resist, and regretted my indiscretion in entering the forecastle after the politic resolutions I had formed. However, Captain Coxon's ferocity was nothing new to me; truly I believed he was not quite right in his mind, and expected, as in former cases, that ...
— Great Sea Stories • Various
... to bay by Leopold's insistence, the manager declared that he would produce the opera if the father desired it, but that it should not benefit the Mozarts, as he would take care that it should be hissed off the stage. The Emperor was powerless to interfere, as Affligio held the theatre independently of the Court, and nothing remained to be done but ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... healthy as his natural constitution was he had worn it out with the severity of his toil. He denied himself refreshment in his eagerness for study, and sat over his books in the bitterest days of winter till hands and feet were powerless with the cold. At last nature abruptly gave way, his last hopes of recovery were foiled by an immoderate return to his old pursuits, and at the age of thirty-one Henry Wharton died a quiet scholar's death. Archbishop Tenison ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... external forms for ritual and ceremonial. The two movements thus seem to be in absolutely opposite directions, but they have nevertheless terminated at the same point. In other words, the Raskol, when once freed from the authority which maintained the unity of the faith, was as powerless as Protestantism to establish any authority within itself. It has in consequence become a prey to the same license of opinion, to the same individualism, and, finally, to the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, April 1875, Vol. XV., No. 88 • Various
... whose gift are places, peerages, gold-sticks, and ribbons, has nothing at his command for the bruised spirit of the half-pay soldier. Before that poverty, that grief, and that pride, the King's Counsellor was powerless. Only when Trevanion rose to depart, something like a sense of the soothing intention which the visit implied seemed to rouse the repose of the old man and to break the ice at its surface; for he followed Trevanion to the door, took both his hands, pressed ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... those who desired them; even their children were kidnapped, doubtless to become the servants of whom they knew not. They had complained of these things to the old Inca Upanqui, but without avail, since in such matters he was powerless before Urco who had command of the armies. Therefore they would even welcome the triumph of Huaracha, which meant that Kari would become Inca ...
— The Virgin of the Sun • H. R. Haggard |
