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More "Impracticability" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... community, was successfully communistic in every respect for many years. But the modern Socialist is not a communist; the modern Socialist, making his scheme of social reconstruction for the whole world and for every type of character, recognizes the entire impracticability of such dreams, recognizing, too, it may be, the sacrifice of human personality and distinction such ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... of the arm above the shoulders signifies vivid imagination, or impracticability. It may be read as an indication of lightness of character or of a tendency to go off on a tangent. Conversely, gestures outward from the lower part of the body denote power, or an inclination ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... Austin Selwyn the party presented an infinite chance for study, as well as an unlooked-for opportunity to meet Elise Durwent under circumstances which should either cement their friendship or else demonstrate its utter impracticability. ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... endless disputes that would ensue from these and a thousand other sources. For this reason the old federation of the States was an experience of inexpressible value. It settled forever, in the minds of all communities who are governed by cool common sense and not mad passion, the utter impracticability (for efficient cooeperation, and peaceful union) of a mere league or confederacy among sovereign and independent States. While the seven years' war of independence lasted, it managed to hold the States together; but ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... subdivisions, will afford a happy issue to the experiment. It is well worth a full and fair experiment. With such powerful and obvious motives to union, affecting all parts of our country, while experience shall not have demonstrated its impracticability, there will always be reason to distrust the patriotism of those who, in any quarter, may ...
— Key-Notes of American Liberty • Various
... and happier days had made something of a study of the feminine nature, and he realized now the utter impracticability of any ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... military punishments horrible, and their treatment of prisoners of war a disgrace to the name of Christians. Can Governor Strong be totally ignorant of the policy of some in patronizing bible and missionary societies? And does he not see the impracticability of the scheme contemplated by the latter? If we divide the known countries of the globe into thirty equal parts, five will be found to be Christians, six Mahometans, and NINETEEN Pagans. It is difficult to believe that the first man, the governor and commander in chief of the ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... still, dreaming of the wonders of far-off places, such as could be reached by Bob Dimsted and his companion, the impracticability of such a journey never once occurring to him. Bob had been about all his life free to go and come, while he, Dexter, seemed to have been always shut up, as it were, in a cage, ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... Detailed criticism is not needed, for the details to criticize are not forthcoming, and the opinions on principles and on details of these imaginative writers are never twice the same. It suffices that proposals such as these, apart from their vagueness and their obvious impracticability in any form, are directly condemned by the fundamental principle that a man shall be responsible for his acts. The endowment of motherhood, as Mr. Wells means it, is simply a phrase for making men responsible for their neighbours' acts and for striking hard and true at the root ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... Bismarck immediately realized the Utopian character of the scheme, saw its impracticability, and proceeded to condemn it with more than his ordinary irritability and brusquerie. Finding, however, that the emperor was not to be argued out of the idea of holding a labor conference, he proceeded to ridicule it, and what was worse, ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... and died at Cairo in 1038. He is to be distinguished from another Alhazen who translated Ptolemy's Almagest in the 10th century. Having boasted that he could construct a machine for regulating the inundations of the Nile, he was summoned to Egypt by the caliph Hakim; but, aware of the impracticability of his scheme, and fearing the caliph's anger, he feigned madness until Hakim's death in 1021. Alhazen was, nevertheless, a diligent and successful student, being the first great discoverer in optics after the time of Ptolemy. According to ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... Emancipation Act as a proof that the Duke wanted the firmness to act up to his avowed principles. This involves a wrong assumption. It is one thing obstinately to adhere to an opinion in defiance of its impracticability: another to retract that opinion so soon as its impracticability is demonstrated. Whether the Duke was right or wrong in his opinions, no one will deny that it required great moral courage for him to stand up in the face of the country, braving the anger of his ...
— Maxims And Opinions Of Field-Marshal His Grace The Duke Of Wellington, Selected From His Writings And Speeches During A Public Life Of More Than Half A Century • Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington
... scholars and the servants; and Dr. Glennie had, one day, the pain of overhearing a school-fellow of his noble pupil say to him, "Byron, your mother is a fool;" to which the other answered gloomily, "I know it." In consequence of all this violence and impracticability of temper, Lord Carlisle at length ceased to have any intercourse with the mother of his ward; and on a further application from the instructor, for the exertion of his influence, said, "I can have nothing ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... Practice. Employment of MAGNETISM as a moving power—its impracticability. Relation of Coals and Zinc as economic sources of Force. Manufacture of Beet-root Sugar—its impolicy. ...
— Familiar Letters of Chemistry • Justus Liebig
... one division, Stoneman found that it would probably be isolated on account of the impracticability of crossing the rest of the corps, and consequently ordered its immediate return. And this was accomplished none too soon, by swimming ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... Admiralty to Whitehall, and asked for a plan whereby the French fleet in Basque Roads, then threatening our West India possessions, might be destroyed at one blow; this extraordinary request from a junior captain, after the most experienced officers in the navy had pronounced its impracticability, forcibly proving the very high opinion entertained by the Admiralty of Lord Cochrane's skill and resources. He gave in a plan, and was ordered to execute it, which order he reluctantly obeyed, having done all in his power to decline an invidious ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... means. Such being the case, it is evident that with this maximum combustion rate secured, the only method of obtaining added capacity will be through the addition of grate surface. There is obviously a point beyond which the grate surface for a given boiler cannot be increased. This is due to the impracticability of handling grates above a certain maximum size, to the enormous loss in draft pressure through a boiler resulting from an attempt to force an abnormal quantity of gas through the heating surface and to innumerable details of design and maintenance that would ...
— Steam, Its Generation and Use • Babcock & Wilcox Co.
... America became more and more apparent. Wynne wrote to press upon me the expedience of trying our scheme of Pantisocracy in Wales, knowing how impracticable it would be any where; knowing also, that there was no hope of convincing me of its impracticability, at that time. In our former plan we were all agreed, and expected that what the earth failed to produce for us, the pen would supply. Such were our views in January 1795; when S. T. Coleridge gave his first and second lectures ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... far made to make appointments to these places under this order have fully satisfied the Commission and the Treasury Department of the impracticability of this method of procedure, not because of any difficulty of applying suitable tests to determine the expertness required, but because there are really no experts to be tested. The duties of these positions can not be learned elsewhere than in the positions themselves, and therefore the only ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... stability of our union, and the solemn engagements by which not only the States but his Most Christian Majesty, are reciprocally bound to maintain the sovereignty, rights and jurisdiction of each of the thirteen States inviolably; and the utter impracticability of our acceding to any treaty of peace with Great Britain, on the principles of a uti possidetis, or on any other terms than such as shall imply an express or tacit acknowledgment of the sovereignty of each ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various
... entrance of the Kenhawa river into Ohio, there is a stream, called Crooked creek, emptying into the former of these, from the North east,[14] whose banks are tolerably high, and were then covered with a thick and luxuriant growth of weeds. Seeing the impracticability of dislodging the Indians, by the most vigorous attack, and sensible of the great danger, which must arise to his army, if the contest were not decided before night, General Lewis detached the three companies which were commanded by Captains ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... the natural strength and resources of the country, directed to a common interest, would baffle all the combinations of European jealousy to restrain our growth. This situation would even take away the motive to such combinations, by inducing an impracticability of success. An active commerce, an extensive navigation, and a flourishing marine would then be the offspring of moral and physical necessity. We might defy the little arts of the little politicians to control or vary the irresistible ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... yours of the 24th instant. When the first article of our instructions of May 7th, 1784, was under debate in Congress, it was proposed that neither party should make the other pay, in their ports, greater duties, than they paid in the ports of the other. One objection to this was, its impracticability; another, that it would put it out of our power to lay such duties on alien importation as might encourage importation by natives. Some members, much attached to English policy, thought such a distinction should actually be established. Some thought the power to do it should be reserved, ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... filled up with fresh materials. It is scarcely necessary to add, that if any of the melted ice and salt is allowed to mix with the cream, the latter is spoiled. From the difficulty of obtaining ice in places distant from large towns, and in hot countries, and from the impracticability of keeping it any length of time, or, in fact, of keeping small quantities more than a few hours its use is much limited, and many have been the attempts to obtain an efficient substitute. For this purpose various salts have been employed, which, when dissolved in water, ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... motive in noticing this gorgeous dream of 'the Committee,' except to show its fallacy—its impracticability, in fact, its absurdity. No sensible man, whatever his color, should be for a moment deceived by ...
— Official Report of the Niger Valley Exploring Party • Martin Robinson Delany
... enough for the two girls,—this kind of life. The worst of it, perhaps, was this; that they never knew when to expect him. A word had been said once as to the impracticability of having dinner ready for a gentleman, when the gentleman would never say whether he would want a dinner. It had been an unfortunate remark, for Sir Thomas had taken advantage of it by saying that when he ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... in which the public have taken no interest because ignorant of the facts. Some enterprising individual goes zealously to work, travels thousands and tens of thousands of miles, ascertains all of the facts bearing upon the question, determines its feasibility or its impracticability, spends years of time and toil, and many thousands of dollars of money, indoctrinates the people of his country with the new and interesting facts, travels, writes, labors day and night for years, finally secures the attention of the Government and Congress, and ...
— Ocean Steam Navigation and the Ocean Post • Thomas Rainey
... blockade thus rescinded was an international measure for the purpose of protecting the sovereign rights of the United States. The greater or less subversion of civil authority in the region to which it applied and the impracticability of at once restoring that in due efficiency may for a season make it advisable to employ the Army and Navy of the United States toward carrying the laws into effect wherever ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson
... are bound to see me ride whether or no, and in their quite natural ignorance of its character, they request me to perform in the small, roughly-paved court-yard of the hotel, and all sorts of impossible places. I shake my head in disapproval and explanation of the impracticability of granting their request, but unfortunately Adrianople is within the circle where a shake of the head is understood to mean " yes, certainly;" and the happy crowd range around a ridiculously small space, and smiling approvingly at what they consider my willingness to oblige, ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... doubt; he has strained it to its utmost capacity before he has done with it. A writer who thinks of constructing a novel out of somebody's correspondence may surely consult Clarissa upon all the details of the craft. And Clarissa, and Grandison still more, will also give the fullest warning of the impracticability of the method, after all; for Richardson is forced to pay heavily for its single benefit. He pays with the desperate shifts to which he is driven in order to maintain any kind of verisimilitude. The visible effort of keeping all Clarissa's friends at a distance all the time, so that she may be ...
— The Craft of Fiction • Percy Lubbock
... uselessness,—transferred from what had become public evils to their original and inherent purpose of public benefits, instead of being sacrilegiously alienated by a transfer to private proprietors. That this was impracticable, is historically true; but no less true is it philosophically, that this impracticability, arising wholly from moral causes, (namely, the loose manners and corrupt principles of a great majority in all classes during the dynasty of the Tudors,) does not prevent this wholesale sacrilege, from deserving the character of the ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... After giving a history of the various steps in organizing the three Territories in 1861, and of the great need, by reason of the pressure of thousands of emigrants, of providing a government therefor, and the impracticability of passing a Territorial bill with an anti-slavery proviso, Mr. Grow, in a letter ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... be laid on her back and have water thrown upon her face," he murmured to himself in French, and then he felt his boots sinking deeply into the mud, and recognized the impracticability of that means of resuscitation at ...
— A Woman's Will • Anne Warner
... and Germans: that the English only change what is necessary and as far as it is necessary; the French plunge into all sorts of novelties by whole masses, get into a chaos, see that they are fools and retrace their steps as quickly, with a high degree of practical sense in all this impracticability; the Germans attempt no change without first recurring to first principles and metaphysics beyond them, systematizing the smallest details in their minds; and when at last they mean to apply all their meditation, opportunity, with its ...
— Experiments in Government and the Essentials of the Constitution • Elihu Root
... the impracticability of white silk, the inconvenience of unpacking the apparatus, the nuisance of dressing, the lack of time; but Rashe was delighted with the idea, and made light of all, and the gentlemen pressed her strongly, till with rather more of a consent than a refusal, she rose from her ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... estimation than those capital fellows W—— and B——, who walk in glory and in joy behind their ploughs upon your mountain sides. The Brunswick canal project was descanted upon, and pronounced, without a shadow of dissent, a scheme the impracticability of which all but convicted its projectors of insanity. Certainly, if, as I hear the monied men of Boston have gone largely into this speculation, their habitual sagacity must have been seriously at fault; for here on the spot nobody mentions the project but ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... predominance of the animal propensities, and with him, their gratification, constitutes the sum total of life and all its enjoyments. He knows no other enjoyment, he has no higher object, or aim. It is therefore, very clear, that abolitionists are contending for an impracticability; that the two races cannot amalgamate and become one people, and enjoy equal rights and privileges; that they cannot live together on terms of perfect equality. The white man has the pre-eminence; it is the gift of God; and the African is doomed to servitude, ...
— A Review of Uncle Tom's Cabin - or, An Essay on Slavery • A. Woodward
... influence of the Italian Marquis that he might the more readily effect the marriage of his son, eagerly embraced so favourable an opportunity of purchasing his good offices; and consequently represented in stringent terms to his opponent the utter impracticability of refusing to concede to M. d'Ancre the same consideration and indulgence which had been enjoyed by his predecessors in office, together with the danger that he personally incurred by so gratuitously offending an individual protected by the Regent. Whatever additional ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... of Yass Plains there is a remarkable hill, called Pouni, remarkable not so much on account of its height, as of its commanding position. It had, I believe, already been ascended by one of the Surveyor-general's assistants. The impracticability of the country to the south of it, obliged us to pass under its opposite base, from which an open forest country extended to the northward. We had already recrossed the Yass River, and passed Mr. Barber's station, to that of Mr. Hume's father, at which we stopped for a short ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... naturally he lost. Naturally, too, he cried out, but his lamentations, though echoed shrilly by the demagogues, seem to have been unavailing. Even the rudimentary intelligence of that primitive people discerned the impracticability of laws forbidding the seller to set his own price on the thing he would sell and declare it worth that price. Then, as now, nobody had to believe him. Of the few who bought these "watered" stocks in good faith as an investment in the honest hope of dividends it seems ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... spectral character can be obtained. These are usually rich in ultra-violet rays and therefore have their best applications in processes demanding this kind of radiant energy. The arc-lamp is limited in its application by its unsteadiness, its bulkiness, and the impracticability of subdividing it into light-sources of a great range of ...
— Artificial Light - Its Influence upon Civilization • M. Luckiesh
... averred, in the spirit of complaint or disappointment, that he often conferred offices on men who immediately coincided with the opponents and became calumniators of his administration. He was soon made to realize the impracticability of disregarding the old lines of party. On being informed, by some of his friends in the Southern States, that the objections to the appointment of Federalists were insuperable, and would everywhere ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... decide, and takes the opinion of the native elders in preference to his own. Is it right to impose a yoke like this on that little Church which God is gathering by your instrumentality in that far-off land of China? But it is said, that these cases of appeal (because of impracticability) will very rarely or never happen. Be it so; then this supposed advantage will seldom or never occur, and if it should occur, it would prove a disadvantage. The highest practical court of appeal for the native churches can be secured only on the plan for which the Missionaries contend. ...
— History and Ecclesiastical Relations of the Churches of the Presbyterial Order at Amoy, China • J. V. N. Talmage
... be greatly improved, render particularly due to you, any examples which may teach those virtues that are not easily learnt by precept and shew the facility of what, in mere speculation, might appear surrounded with a discouraging impracticability: you are the best judge, whether, by being made public, they may be conducive to your great end of benefiting the world. I therefore submit the future fate of the following sheets entirely to you, and shall not think any prefatory apology for the ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott
... general, sensible of the impracticability of reducing Quebec, unless he should be enabled to erect his batteries on the north side of the St. Lawrence, determined to use his utmost endeavours to bring Montcalm to an engagement. After several unavailing attempts to draw that able officer from his advantageous ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall
... some distance down the face of the rock, and I strained my eyes to see if I could discern any other spot at which an ascent or descent was possible. The prospect was not encouraging. At some places the face fell sheer away from the edge, and so evident was the impracticability of escape that the only place which I glanced at twice was the western side, that is the one away from the hill. Here it sloped gradually for a few feet. I took off my shoes and went down to the edge. Below, some ten feet, was a ledge, on to which with care I could get ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... there was none other to be had. Of the tea and coffee it might be said as once it was said of two bad roads—"whichever one you take you will wish you had taken the other;" the beefsteak was a problem of impracticability; and the chickens—Fleda could not help thinking that a well-to-do rooster which she saw flapping his wings in the yard, must in all probability be at that very moment endeavouring to account for a sudden breach in his social circle; and if the oysters had been some very fine ladies they could ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... always make a point of being on the most affectionate terms with her. But as to these terms, semi-family and semi-stranger, semi-goring and semi-boring, they form a state of things quite amusing in its impracticability. I assure you it ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... we ought to get on the jump quicker," insisted his cousin. "If we had an airship, for instance!" and he laughed at the impracticability of his remark. ...
— The Boy Ranchers on the Trail • Willard F. Baker
... had determined us to remain at Fort Clatsop until the first of April," says the journal entry of March 22d. "Besides the want of fuel in the Columbian plains, and the impracticability of passing the mountains before the beginning of June, we were anxious to see some of the foreign traders, from whom, by means of our ample letters of credit, we might have recruited our exhausted stores of merchandise. About the middle of March, ...
— Lewis and Clark - Meriwether Lewis and William Clark • William R. Lighton
... find a passage by the north-west had been abandoned by the English for twenty years, they had not, however, given up the idea of seeking by that way, for a passage which was only to be discovered in our own days, and of which the absolute impracticability was then to be ascertained. A clever sailor, Henry Hudson, of whom Ellis says, "that never did any one better understand the seafaring profession, that his courage was equal to any emergency, and that his application was indefatigable," concluded an agreement with a company of merchants to ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... evidence of desperation in her companion, had sunk upon an article of furniture, speechless. The look of the prisoner changed from one to the other, and he made an effort to rise, but debility caused him to fall backwards, and not till then did Jacopo perceive the impracticability, on many accounts, of what, in a moment of excitement, he had proposed. A long silence followed. The hard breathing of Jacopo gradually subsided, and the expression of his face changed to its ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... difficulty—but, to his surprise, his enemies had been at work behind him, and the edge of the copse through which he was about to pass, was blockaded with bars in like manner with the path in front. He heard the shouts of the ruffians in the rear—he felt the danger, if not impracticability of his pausing for the removal of the rails, and, in the spirit which had heretofore marked his conduct, he determined upon the most daring endeavor. Throwing off all restraint from his steed, and fixing himself firmly in the stirrup and saddle, he plunged onward to the leap, and, to ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... it be so) the very thing I desire to be considered. I am not setting down these plans or schemes as at present possible. I do not know how far they are possible; but it seems to me that God has plainly commanded them, and that, therefore, their impracticability is a thing to ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... the Monastery, Captain Haas and his men were able to study the situation in the city. The impracticability of an assault on any one of the stubborn, well-guarded gates was at once recognised. A force of seven hundred men, no matter how well trained or determined, could not be expected to surmount walls that had often withstood the attack of as many thousands. The ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... scrupulosity of political conscience, which had characterized him as an independent member, and often served, in the opinion both of friend and of foe, to give the attribute of general impracticability to a mind that, in all details, was so essentially and laboriously practical, might perhaps have founded Trevanion's reputation as a minister if he could have been a minister without colleagues,—if, standing alone, and from the necessary ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and bear her defiantly off in the very teeth of my adversaries. This would have been very spirited and chivalrous, no doubt, but unfortunately, the obstacles that opposed themselves to this plan were legion. No sooner did I convince myself of the impracticability of such a mode of procedure, than other plans would present themselves, which, in their turn would have to be relinquished when submitted to the rigorous test of practicability. This constant strain on my mind interposed stumbling blocks to my material prosperity, as I had no heart for ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... frightened at what she thought was the fast-approaching wreck of all happiness for her dear friend, Billy, Alice did not know which way to turn. At the first she had told herself confidently that she would "speak to somebody." But, as time passed, she saw the impracticability of that idea. Speak to somebody, indeed! To whom? When? Where? What should she say? Where was her right to say anything? She was not dealing with a parcel of naughty children who had pilfered the cake jar! She was dealing with ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter
... during her son's imprisonment in Spain. In August, 1525, a treaty of amity was signed, by which England gave up all its claims to French territory in return for the promise of large sums of money to Henry and his minister.[475] The impracticability of enforcing Henry's pretensions to the French crown or to French provinces, which had been urged as excuses for squandering English blood and treasure, was admitted, even when the French King was in prison and his kingdom defenceless. But what good could the treaty do ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... enterprising, the leaders of their race. Why? Let the facts answer. I have already said that the Church strove to continue after the war the same method of dealing with the negroes as before. She tried to keep the races together; but she has found it impractical, that impracticability growing more and more clear as the years have run on. The races have been steadily drifting apart in all social or semi-social life; the better class of each race is coming less and less into contact ...
— Church work among the Negroes in the South - The Hale Memorial Sermon No. 2 • Robert Strange
... towards the north, led to the Carduchi. 16. This people, they said, lived among the mountains, were very warlike, and did not obey the king; that on one occasion, a royal army of a hundred and twenty thousand men had penetrated into their country, whence, from the impracticability of the ground, not one of them returned; but that, whenever they made a treaty with the satrap of the plain, some of them had intercourse with the Carduchi, and some of the Carduchi with them. 17. The generals, having heard these statements, kept apart by themselves those ...
— The First Four Books of Xenophon's Anabasis • Xenophon
... the new duke was greatly exasperated, and sent a considerable body of troops into the valleys, swearing that if the people would not change their religion, he would have them flayed alive. The commander of the troops soon found the impracticability of conquering them with the number of men he had with him, he, therefore, sent word to the duke, that the idea of subjugating the Waldenses, with so small a force, was ridiculous; that those people were better ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... idea of the impracticability of her own views flitted across her brain. Perhaps it was necessary that races doomed to live on the same soil should give way to each other and adopt each other's pursuits. Perhaps it was impossible that after more than five ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... "Nothing but the impracticability of it could have prevented me from removing her to her own home, for which she has been pining so sadly. Have patience, and we will try what can be done. We will speak to ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson
... Robert was the stepson, older by several years, and was viewed as the representative of sober common sense in the family. Joe and his mother did like to feel a plan quite free from Robert's condemnation for enthusiasm or impracticability, and it was not the worse for his influence, that he had been generally with his regiment, and when visiting them was a good deal at the United Service Club. He had lately married an heiress in a small ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... two commanders at the time and on the field saw difficulties and dangers sufficient in the way to rest on their spoils. The President, who was in council with them, after due consideration was convinced of the impracticability of a forward movement. In the first place, no preparation had been made for such an event; that the spoils were so out of proportion to their most sanguine expectations; that the transportation for the troops had to be employed in its ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... truth, the hardship of living with such a man as Shelley, for a woman like Harriet, must have been very great. It is easy to understand how a limited nature like hers should be worn out by the exaction and impracticability of one like Shelley; for to her, most impracticable would seem his lofty and ideal requirements. The parting was not unfriendly, and Shelley always spoke of her with deep kindness and pity, and she continued to write to him for some time ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... consider a purely Spanish product was really imported by the German Caesars. It was the German friar who came with his devout brutality and his crazy theology, not tempered as in Spain by Semitic culture. With their intolerance and impracticability they provoked the revolution of the Reformation in the northern countries, and, driven out of them, they came here to plant afresh their ignorance and fanaticism. The ground was well prepared. When the free towns whose municipalities were republics fell, the people also languished; the foreign ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... review of all this wondrous History, I profess myself at a loss to see what special note of impracticability it presents that I should hesitate to embrace it, in the plain natural sense of the words, with both the arms of my heart. That it is not such an account of the manner of the Creation as you or I should have ourselves invented, or anticipated, ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... almost ridiculous to hope much from present society when we consider that workingmen, wage slaves themselves, object to convict labor. I shall not go into the cruelty of this objection, but merely consider the impracticability of it. To begin with, the opposition so far raised by organized labor has been directed against windmills. Prisoners have always worked; only the State has been their exploiter, even as the individual employer has ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman
... leaves speculation lagging far behind; the improvement once conceived is in operation by such time as the opposing theorist has satisfactorily demonstrated its impracticability; and the dream of to-day is ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... This necessitated that Hancock's line should extend to Bottom's bridge on the Chickahominy. The enemy's early discovery of the movement and his concentration of troops on the north side prevented Hancock from accomplishing the programme laid out for him. Its impracticability was demonstrated early on the 27th, and Hancock's soldierly instincts told him this the moment he unexpectedly discovered Kershaw blocking the New Market and Charles City roads. To Hancock the temptation to assault Kershaw's position ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 3 • P. H. Sheridan
... discovered. Was it possible to run away from our prison? No, I could not admit and I must not admit it. And gradually conjuring up in my memory everything I knew about our prison, I understood that K. must have hit upon an old plan, which I had long discarded, and that he would convince himself of its impracticability even as I convinced myself. It is impossible to ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... parties is the only satisfactory solution of our electoral difficulties, it becomes the duty of statesmen to find some way by which practical effect can be given to Mill's formula. There was doubtless some excuse for the cry of impracticability when, in launching in 1857 his proposals for proportional representation, Thomas Hare suggested that the whole kingdom should form a single constituency. This suggestion raised a barrier of prejudice against ...
— Proportional Representation - A Study in Methods of Election • John H. Humphreys
... darkness and make their escape into Belgium. At first he declined to share their undertaking, for he would have preferred to proceed direct to Remilly, where he was certain to find a refuge, but where was he to obtain the blouse and trousers that he required as a disguise? to say nothing of the impracticability of getting past the numerous Prussian pickets and outposts that filled the valley all the way from la Garenne to Remilly. He therefore ended by consenting to act as guide to the two comrades. His leg was less stiff ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... also, and as soon as its first delicate bloom is over, will grow as rank and repulsive as the vine that bears it. Like produces like; and with such parentage, what hope is there for her? I am glad no one suspects my absurd project; for every hour convinces me of its impracticability. The ancient Undine was a myth, and my modern Undine might be called a white lie, but one that will grow darker every day. At a distance she presents the semblance of a very fair woman, but I have been unable to ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... contradictions. Baffled in a consuming desire to solve the perplexing religious and social problems of the day by the force of his own intellect; longing for, yet despairing of, human progress; discerning the impracticability and chicanery of most of the modern plans for social amelioration—he determines to throw himself into common life, to bind himself to his race by stringent laws and duties. The drama opens when he is ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... grace allowed them in which to save their little fortress. For Palmyre's assurance that the candle burning would certainly cause the rent-money to be forthcoming in time was to Clotilde unknown, and to Aurora it was poor stuff to make peace of mind of. But there was a degree of impracticability in these ladies, which, if it was unfortunate, was, nevertheless, a part of their Creole beauty, and made the absence of any really brilliant outlook what the galaxy makes a moonless sky. Perhaps they had not ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... question! I find I am getting the whip out, although I promised not to thrash this wretched old economic hack. Only just one little parting crack of the lash. Dealing with "unearned increment" being an impracticability, perhaps it would be well for landlords who benefit immensely by the accident of circumstances to recognise the fact that they do pocket a great "unearned increment," and be ungrudgingly generous ...
— A Tale of One City: The New Birmingham - Papers Reprinted from the "Midland Counties Herald" • Thomas Anderton
... warfare, by no means new, was justified to the hilt—no frontal attack should ever be attempted unless all counter attack from a flank is impossible, or unless sufficient forces are available to render such an attack an impracticability. The ultimate capture of the Hill necessitated nearly two months' artillery preparation and the employment at intervals of two Brigades. Perhaps there is one further illustration of the uncertainty of modern warfare in the history of Hill 65. With ...
— The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 - 1919 - History of the 1/8th Battalion • W.C.C. Weetman
... straightforward with me when he saw that I knew his secret," said Clovis, "and it seems that his intentions were quite serious, if slightly unsuitable. I tried to show him the impracticability of the course that he was following. He said he wanted to be understood, and he seemed to think that Florinda would excel in that requirement, but I pointed out that there were probably dozens of delicately nurtured, pure-hearted young English ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... respectability goes there is no family in the land that stands higher than his, but the complete obsession of his mind by this International Marine and Zoo Flotation Company of his is entirely beyond my comprehension, and his attempts to explain it to me are futile, because its utter impracticability, and the reasons advanced for its use seem so absurd that I lose my temper before he gets half way through the first page of his prospectus. From his boyhood up he has been fond of the water, and when the bath-tub was first invented we did not ...
— The Autobiography of Methuselah • John Kendrick Bangs
... stretched right away west in an unbroken line, to the wall of ice which we had seen running to the north, from the upper end of Jan Mayen. Only a week had elapsed since he had actually ascertained the impracticability of reaching a higher latitude,—what likelihood could there be of a channel having been opened up to the northward during so short an interval? Such was the series of insoluble problems by which I posed myself, as we stood vainly smacking our lips at the island, ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... moss-covered seat on which I had first surprised her; where, while she applied dressings of herbs to the wound of her favourite, she suffered her mind to ruminate on the singularity of the appearance of a man so immediately in the vicinity of their retreat. The supposed impracticability of the ascent I had accomplished, satisfied, even while (as she admitted) it disappointed her. I must of necessity retrace my way over the dangerous ridge. Great, therefore, was her surprise, when, after having been attracted by the rustling noise of the bushes ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... Maximilian's hopes were high: he bragged to the Venetians that the "Duke of York" would immediately unseat the Tudor, and when he was on the throne, England would be at the beck of the League. The Emperor's impracticability was sufficiently shown by his having procured from Perkin his own recognition as heir, if the pretender should die without issue. The expedition attempted to land at Deal, but the men of Kent assembled in arms, and ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... Schoolcraft depicted the adverse circumstances under which the masses had heretofore labored, in coming under plans of instruction and Christianity, owing to their poverty; their dispersion over large areas of country for large parts of the year; the impracticability of their finding subsistence in large bodies at one place; and the deleterious influence of the commerce in furs and peltries, on their moral and mental character. He submitted a report of the proceedings of the St. Mary's committee, showing, in detail, operations within ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... accompanied by cattle. Now, from my previous examination of the country to the westward of the located parts of South Australia, I had in 1839 fully satisfied myself, not only of the difficulty, but of the utter impracticability of opening an overland route for stock in that direction, and I at once stated my opinion to that effect, and endeavoured to turn the general attention from the Westward to the North, as being the more promising opening, either for the discovery ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... to the movements of the enemy in front of General Pope, the supposed impracticability of the route, and to some distrust as to the abilities of General McClellan by the authorities at Washington, peremptory orders had been sent to him to remove his army as quickly as ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... have been condemned and laughed at for the folly and impracticability of their attempts in 1715 and 1745. That they failed, I bless GOD; but cannot join in the ridicule against them. Who does not know that the abilities or defects of leaders and commanders are often hidden until put to the touchstone of exigency; and that there is a caprice of ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... him as an old gentleman at fifty-eight, and did not like it at all. She argued on the impracticability of taking them from their natural protectors, and again tried to lead them upwards, finally betaking herself to the repetition of hymns, which put them to sleep. She had spent some time in sitting between them in the summer darkness, when ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Isabel would prevail on her husband to listen favourably; but Isabel gloried in his impracticability, and would have regarded any attempt at mediation as an unworthy effort to turn him aside from the path of duty. She replied, that she would never say a word to change his notions of right, and she treated poor Oliver with all the lofty reserve that she had formerly practised ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... buried on the morrow, the expenses of which event Thaddeus saw he must discharge also; and he had engaged to pay Mr. Vincent that night! He had not a shilling in his purse. Over and over he contemplated the impracticability of answering these debts; yet he could not for an instant repent of what he had undertaken: he thought he was amply recompensed for bearing so heavy a load in knowing that he had taken it off ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... Hacen, after the loss of more than two thousand of his bravest troops in these precipitate assaults, became convinced of the impracticability of forcing a position, whose natural strength was so ably seconded by the valor of its defenders, and he determined to reduce the place by the more tardy but certain method of blockade. In this he was favored by one or two circumstances. The town, having but a single well within its walls, was ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... judgment, if sustained by one good count! Does not all this suffice to show the desperate shifts to which even two such distinguished judges are driven, in order to support the new rule, and conceal its impracticability? Then why should the old lamp ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... Secretary of the Interior under President Buchanan, was the principal agent of the Confederate government in Canada, where he carried on operations as remarkable for their impracticability as for their malignity. One plan during the summer of 1864 contemplated nothing less than seizing and holding the three great States of Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio, with the aid of disloyal Democrats, whereupon it was supposed Missouri and Kentucky would quickly join them ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... ascertaining the situation of that wall of ice which extends for more than twenty degrees, between the latitudes of eighty and eighty-one, without the smallest appearance of any opening, they were sufficiently satisfied of the impracticability of effecting any passage to the Pacific Ocean, and agreed on immediately returning ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) • James Harrison
... such an enormous and ever-increasing mass has been handed down from generation to generation. According to the views put forth by early Chinese antiquarians, the first written records were engraved with a special knife upon bamboo slips and wooden tablets. The impracticability of such a process, as applied to books, never seems to have dawned upon those writers; and this snowball of error, started in the 7th century, long after the knife and the tablet had disappeared as implements of writing, continued ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... former number (549) of The Mirror, appeared a paper headed "The Habits of the Common Snake," purported to be extracted from the Magazine of Natural History. The doctrine enforced by the writer of this article, as regards the impracticability of domesticating a snake, has been proved entirely erroneous by the fact recited; and were there no positive instance adduced to the contrary, it does not follow that, because his effort, were ineffectual, such a thing ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 576 - Vol. 20 No. 576., Saturday, November 17, 1832 • Various
... report before the Legislature with a message in which I said: "There is probably no lawyer of high standing in the State who, after studying the report of counsel in this case and the testimony taken by the investigating commission, would disagree with them as to the impracticability of a successful prosecution. Under such circumstances the one remedy was a thorough change in the methods and management. This change ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... that Buonaparte had of late years given way to; the very small space for the accommodation of himself and suite, and for the stowage of provisions, water, and other necessaries; that there was no friendly port he could have touched at, to gain supplies;—the utter impracticability of his reaching his destination in a vessel of that description, even if he had eluded the vigilance of our cruisers, will at once be evident ...
— The Surrender of Napoleon • Sir Frederick Lewis Maitland
... Brittany, so able by her power and situation to give effectual and prompt assistance, would permit such an accession of force to her rival. He imagined, therefore, that the ministers of France, convinced of the impracticability of their scheme, would at last embrace pacific views, and would abandon an enterprise so obnoxious to all ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... Beaumont perceived and acknowledged the impracticability of managing a fool for a single hour, it was one of the favourite objects of her manoeuvres to obtain this very fool for a daughter-in-law, with the hope of governing her for life. So inconsistent are cunning people, even of ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... Consul also received me with much civility, and most obligingly placed his house at my disposal, although compelled to start for Spolatro on business. For some reason best known to himself, he begged of me to return to Mostar, insisting on the impracticability of travelling in Bosnia in the present state of political feeling. This, coupled with the specimen of priestly civility which I had experienced in the convent of Goritza, inclined me to alter the route which I had proposed ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot
... crew, and then the captain's reckoning was gone. He could get his latitude correctly, but not his longitude, except by a remote approximation. His first observation, when the sky gave an opportunity, showed us to be in latitude forty-five degrees south. This he explained to me, and also the impracticability of now making the Cape, pointing out upon the map the Swan River Settlement in Australia as the point he should endeavor first to make. A heavy ship, with but one mast, made but slow progress. On the third day another storm overtook us, and we were driven before the gale at a furious rate. ...
— Lizzy Glenn - or, The Trials of a Seamstress • T. S. Arthur
... sufficiently removed from that which prevails in many other countries to interest us by its singularity. We were here amused with an account of two English gentlemen, who attempted to ascend Mont Blanc, notwithstanding the assurances they received of the impracticability of the attempt under present circumstances, as a chasm had lately been made by the thaw on one side of the mountain; but they were not to be intimidated either by the advice of the inhabitants, or by the accounts of the ...
— A tour through some parts of France, Switzerland, Savoy, Germany and Belgium • Richard Boyle Bernard
... legion cavalry, was charged with the flag, and instructed to communicate faithfully the inevitable destruction impending, and the impracticability of relief, as Lord Rawdon had not yet passed the Santee; with an assurance that longer perseverance in vain resistance, would place the garrison at the mercy of the conqueror; who was not regardless of the policy of preventing ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... not!" said Cecilia, "but the utter impracticability of preparing her for this blow, obviously as it has long been impending, makes it now fall so heavily I wish much to assist her,—but a ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... and at a time when a few weeks, either way, make little or no difference in the computation. This was the nearest that Mr. and Mrs. Bingle ever came to being blessed with twins. For awhile they hoped that they could make twins out of these infants, but, as the children grew older, the impracticability of such a thought—or ambition— became clear to them, and they reluctantly abandoned the project. Henrietta revealed all the characteristics of being of Italian extraction, while ...
— Mr. Bingle • George Barr McCutcheon
... to a more mature judgment is a bad habit to insist upon. The child should be encouraged to think out things for himself; to experiment and discover for himself why his ideas do not work; and to refuse to give them up until he is genuinely convinced of their impracticability. ...
— Study of Child Life • Marion Foster Washburne
... course. Opposuit natura. [Footnote: 50 ]—I cannot remove the eternal barriers of the creation. The thing, in that mode, I do not know to be possible. As I meddle with no theory,[Footnote: 51] I do not absolutely assert the impracticability of such a representation; but I do not see my way to it, and those who have been more confident have not been more successful. However, the arm of public benevolence is not shortened, and there are often several means to the same end. What nature has disjoined in one way, wisdom may ...
— Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America • Edmund Burke
... characterised Mendelssohn's life—'he lived years whilst others would have lived only weeks,' was the true remark of one who knew him well—reminds us of the impracticability of giving anything like a complete description of even its chief incidents. The stage at which our story has arrived does not, it is true, show him at the pinnacle of his fame as a composer, but if we entertained any doubts as to his greatness ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... he said to his friend Giannatasio that five years before he had loved unhappily; he would have considered marriage the happiness of his life, but it was "not to be thought of for a moment, almost an utter impracticability, a chimera." Still, he said, his love was as strong as ever; he had never found such harmony, and, though he never proposed, he could never get her out of ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... refused to consent to its burial in the wilderness. In spite of their superior knowledge of the country and the weather conditions, I felt that the body could be taken down to the post later, but recognised the impracticability, if not impossibility, of undertaking the ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace
... during the first rally to the national flag at the outbreak of a war; but it is there all the time, ready to break out again if the supplies of food and glory run short. Its gravity lies in its impracticability. If it were practicable, every sane man would advocate it. As it is, it might easily mean that British troops would be coercing British strikers at home when they should be fighting Potsdam abroad, thus producing a disastrous and detestable division of popular ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... imagine not. Were this the case, should we not find the blood sufficiently loaded with them in some stages of the Small-pox to communicate the disease by inserting it under the cuticle, or by spreading it on the surface of an ulcer? Yet experiments have determined the impracticability of its being given in this way; although it has been proved that variolous matter when much diluted with water, and applied to the skin in the usual manner, will produce the disease. But it would be digressing beyond a proper boundary, to go ...
— An Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolae Vaccinae • Edward Jenner
... difficulty; hardness &c. adj.; impracticability &c. (impossibility) 471; tough work, hard work, uphill work; hard task, Herculean task, Augean task[obs3]; task of Sisyphus, Sisyphean labor, tough job, teaser, rasper[obs3], dead lift. dilemma, embarrassment; deadlock; perplexity &c. (uncertainty) ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... James Macdonald, who had just returned from Europe after having spent a year in visiting the institutions for mental disorders there, made a report in which he rather significantly referred to the impracticability of making a sharp distinction between the medical and moral treatment of the patients, it being difficult to say where the one ended and the other began, or to put one into successful operation without bringing in the other. At this time the position ...
— A Psychiatric Milestone - Bloomingdale Hospital Centenary, 1821-1921 • Various
... study of human nature, or yet of these novels, to understand the impracticability of two such minds long remaining together in unity. Genius, in private life, is apt to be a torment—its foibles demanding infinite patience, forbearance, nay, affectionate blindness, in those who would minister to its happiness, and mitigate the worst results of those foibles ...
— Famous Women: George Sand • Bertha Thomas
... province are not, and from their local circumstances cannot be represented in the House of Commons in Great Britain; and farther, that, in the opinion of this house, the several powers of legislation in America were constituted in some measure upon the apprehension of this impracticability. That the only representatives of the people of this province are persons chosen therein by themselves; and that no taxes ever have been, or can be, constitutionally imposed on them but by the legislature of this province. That all supplies to the Crown being free gifts of the people, it is unreasonable ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 2 • Alexander Hewatt
... The impracticability of adding a stripe for each state was apparent as other states began to be admitted. Moreover, the flag of fifteen stripes, it was thought, did not properly represent the Union; therefore, on April 14, 1818, after a period of twenty-one years in which the ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America
... told she must send her articles to No. 29, in the gallery. This she refused to do, and the consequence has been that the Exhibition has been deprived of some of its rarest specimens of art. The reason Mrs. Peachey assigns for not sending her works to the gallery is the impracticability of their being carried up stairs without being, from their extreme fragility, seriously injured, perhaps mutilated. Even were they to be slung up by tackle, she says they would be subject to the same risk, and her two principal works, viz.—an enormous bouquet of the most exquisitely modelled flowers, ...
— The Royal Guide to Wax Flower Modelling • Emma Peachey
... observed, 'that you are exaggerating a little. Knowing the character of Paramon Semyonitch, I should have felt sure beforehand that he would sympathise with every ... sincere impulse; but, on the other hand, I have always regarded him as a man of sense.... Surely he cannot fail to realise all the impracticability, all the absurdity of conspiracies in Russia? In his position, in his ...
— A Desperate Character and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... existing extradition law imposed upon Congress the duty of passing a new one, the country was invited by agitators to enter into party organization for its repeal; but that agitation speedily ceased by reason of the impracticability of its object. So when the statute restriction upon the institutions of new States by a geographical line had been repealed, the country was urged to demand its restoration, and that project also died almost with its birth. Then followed the cry of alarm from the North ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 5: Franklin Pierce • James D. Richardson
... never transcended the purpose of Invention. The effort has been simply to contrive a new form of speech, and to persuade mankind to accept it;—a task herculean and hopeless in its magnitude and impracticability; but looking still in the direction of the supply of one of the greatest needs of human improvement. The existence of no less than two or three thousand different languages and idioms on the surface of the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... imperialism, and they denounced the "Krupp-Kaiser" alliance. But against such writing and such thought we had to count, in those days, great and powerful realities. Even to those who expressed these ideas there lay visibly upon them the shadow of impracticability; they were very "advanced" ideas in 1914, very Utopian. Against them was an unbroken mass of mental habit and public tradition. While we talked of this "war to end war," the diplomatists of the Powers allied against Germany ...
— In The Fourth Year - Anticipations of a World Peace (1918) • H.G. Wells
... too, for a high figure—such an echo as that at the Villa Siminetti, two miles from Milan, for instance. My first purpose was to have the man make a collection of caves and afterwards of echoes; but perceived that the element of absurdity and impracticability was so nearly identical as to amount to a ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... my letters. The coup d'etat was a grand thing, dramatically and poetically speaking, and the appeal to the people justified it in my eyes, considering the immense difficulty of the circumstances, the impossibility of the old constitution and the impracticability of the House of Assembly. Now that's all over. For the rest—the new constitution—I can't say as much for it; it disappoints me immensely. Absolute government, no, while the taxes and acceptance of law lies, as he leaves it, with the people; but there ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... further than I have already. With such a letter to deliver to Townshend, I should think myself authorized to demand a Cabinet; or if I could not obtain that, to make use of your former letter, and desire from you that I might see the King, to state to him your sense of the impracticability of such a system, and of the certainty that Government will be compelled in October to make concessions without gaining any advantage by them, infinitely greater than what would in January conciliate the affections ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... others to profit by the mistakes regarding contagion which occurred in that country:—"Dr. Sacks, in No. 38 of his Cholera Journal, published here, has again shewn, against Dr. Rush, the fallibility of the doctrine of contagion, as well as the mischievous impracticability of the attempts founded on it to arrest the progress of the disorder by cutting off the communications. It is to be hoped that the alarm so methodically excited by scientific and magisterial authority in the countries to the west of us [!!] will cease, after ...
— Letters on the Cholera Morbus. • James Gillkrest
... reputation was at its zenith; a little skilful engineering of the success thus gained might have extricated him from his difficulties, and enabled him to keep his head above water for the remainder of his days. But, owing chiefly to his own impracticability, his story from this point is one of decline, gradual at first, but increasing in velocity, until the end came in ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston
... disgrace to disloyalty? That, in addition to heaping insults on the flag of his country as a boy, he was now, as a man, taking time by the forelock and escaping to the old harbor of safety to avoid some possible future conscription? The absurdity and impracticability of such a proposition did not occur to him at the moment, only the humiliation and the horror ...
— The Flag • Homer Greene
... prejudice and self-interest. The contempt we have been taught to entertain for the blacks makes us fancy many things that are founded neither in reason nor experience; and an unwillingness to part with property of so valuable a kind will furnish a thousand arguments to show the impracticability, or pernicious tendency, of a scheme which requires such sacrifices. But it should be considered that if we do not make use of them in this way, the enemy probably will; and that the best way to counteract the temptations they ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No 3, September, 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... husband. And in truth, the hardship of living with such a man as Shelley, for a woman like Harriet, must have been very great. It is easy to understand how a limited nature like hers should be worn out by the exaction and impracticability of one like Shelley; for to her, most impracticable would seem his lofty and ideal requirements. The parting was not unfriendly, and Shelley always spoke of her with deep kindness and pity, and she continued to write to him for some time after he had formed his connection ...
— Home Life of Great Authors • Hattie Tyng Griswold
... sanguine Blake, "have scarce faith enough to believe in the success of this great and good design. Nay, your brother Cornish himself," continues he, in addressing one of his ladies, although full of good works, "would have persuaded me to lay it down" upon the ground of its impracticability. The language of Blake is everywhere advocating this "new way of charity." "If it be new," says he to an objector, "the more's the pity;" and, with reference to the possibility of failure, he would thus shame them into liberality. Speaking ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 210, November 5, 1853 • Various
... home, [Footnote: In my article upon opium-eating, entitled, "What Shall They Do to be Saved?" published in Harper's Magazine for the month of August, 1867, and hereto prefixed, I have referred to this impracticability in fuller detail. It arises from the fact that in his own house a man can not isolate himself from the hourly hearing of matters for which he feels responsible, yet to which he can give no adequate attention without his accustomed stimulus; that his best friends are apt to ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... make those who have not studied for themselves fully aware of the truth of what I have quoted. The best chance is collection of cases; in fact, a Budget of Paradoxes. Those who have no knowledge of the subject can thus argue from the seen to the unseen. All can feel the impracticability of the Hubongramillposanfy numeration, and the absurdity of the equality of contour of a regular pentagon and hexagon in one and the same circle. Many may accordingly be satisfied, on the assurance of those who have studied, that there ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... at being told she must send her articles to No. 29, in the gallery. This she refused to do, and the consequence has been that the Exhibition has been deprived of some of its rarest specimens of art. The reason Mrs. Peachey assigns for not sending her works to the gallery is the impracticability of their being carried up stairs without being, from their extreme fragility, seriously injured, perhaps mutilated. Even were they to be slung up by tackle, she says they would be subject to the same risk, and her ...
— The Royal Guide to Wax Flower Modelling • Emma Peachey
... more than decayed granite; and I think it probable, that the sandstone found on Sambhu, and the neighbouring hill towards Hilchuck, is composed of this granitic sand reunited into rock. This sandstone is used in a few buildings, but I have seen no large blocks, and the difficulty, or impracticability, of procuring such, has probably occasioned this stone to be in ...
— An Account of The Kingdom of Nepal • Fancis Buchanan Hamilton
... the edge of the copse through which he was about to pass, was blockaded with bars in like manner with the path in front. He heard the shouts of the ruffians in the rear—he felt the danger, if not impracticability of his pausing for the removal of the rails, and, in the spirit which had heretofore marked his conduct, he determined upon the most daring endeavor. Throwing off all restraint from his steed, and fixing himself ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... confidence of Parliament and of the people than the last. There is, I think, moreover, on their part, a desire to prove, by proper deference for the authority of the Governor-General (which they all admit has in my case never been abused), that they were libelled when they were accused of impracticability and anti-monarchical tendencies. ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... division, Stoneman found that it would probably be isolated on account of the impracticability of crossing the rest of the corps, and consequently ordered its immediate return. And this was accomplished none too ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... recommending others to profit by the mistakes regarding contagion which occurred in that country:—"Dr. Sacks, in No. 38 of his Cholera Journal, published here, has again shewn, against Dr. Rush, the fallibility of the doctrine of contagion, as well as the mischievous impracticability of the attempts founded on it to arrest the progress of the disorder by cutting off the communications. It is to be hoped that the alarm so methodically excited by scientific and magisterial authority in the countries to the west of us [!!] will ...
— Letters on the Cholera Morbus. • James Gillkrest
... that Isabel would prevail on her husband to listen favourably; but Isabel gloried in his impracticability, and would have regarded any attempt at mediation as an unworthy effort to turn him aside from the path of duty. She replied, that she would never say a word to change his notions of right, and she treated ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge
... soft. When, in addition to these circumstances, the wet state of the decks and the little room left, as well as the reduced strength for working the ship or heaving at hawsers among the ice, be considered, I believe that every seaman will admit the impracticability of pursuing this critical navigation till the Fury had been examined and repaired. As, therefore, not a moment could be lost we took advantage of a small lane of water deep enough for boats, which kept open within the grounded masses along the shore, to convey to the Hecla ...
— Journal of the Third Voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage • William Edward Parry
... his co-operation, and still less to accept his leadership, he early felt, or feigned alarm at the fermentation in the public mind, and its possible evolution in great national calamities; and before one act of legislation was accomplished, or he had had a month's experience of the fanatical impracticability of one side, I use his own words, and the intolerant spirit of resistance on the other, he personally proposed to his enemy, Necker, and through him to the queen, "the only man," he said, "connected with the court," to concur, at the price of an embassadorship to Constantinople, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... curiosity of Austin Selwyn the party presented an infinite chance for study, as well as an unlooked-for opportunity to meet Elise Durwent under circumstances which should either cement their friendship or else demonstrate its utter impracticability. ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... regarded as full of promise, and excited much interest. His attainments and accomplishments, which were really remarkable, won lively admiration. His warm regard for a man like Baron Bunsen seemed to afford the best augury for the liberality of his sentiments. As yet the danger of impracticability, discouragement, confusion, and paralysis of all that had been hoped for, was but faintly indicated in the dreaminess and fancifulness of ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... which I said: "There is probably no lawyer of high standing in the State who, after studying the report of counsel in this case and the testimony taken by the investigating commission, would disagree with them as to the impracticability of a successful prosecution. Under such circumstances the one remedy was a thorough change in the methods and management. This change ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... His forehead, very full and bulging just below the hair line, showed him to be of the thoughtful, meditative, drearily type, while flatness and narrowness at the brows told as plainly as print of the utter impracticability of his ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... attempt to separate them from themselves; and although foreigners who know not the genius of our country may have conceived the project, and foreign emissaries may attempt the execution, yet the united efforts of our fellow-citizens will convince the world of its impracticability. ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 4) of Volume 1: John Adams • Edited by James D. Richardson
... fully persuaded of the impracticability of putting an entire check to robbery, either by the dread of punishment, or by any method that could be adopted by the most vigilant police, they considered it more for the advantage of the community that ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... never designed by divine wisdom that it should exist. The whole structure of society must be changed, even in this country, ere it could exist among ourselves, and the change would not have been made a month before the utter impracticability of such a social fusion would ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... means he departed, having communicated his project to no one except to a beloved sister, whose tears could not prevail to keep the lad at home; the impetuous impulse had blinded him to the perils and the impracticability of his wild project. He reached Madrid, where the great VELASQUEZ, his countryman, was struck by the ingenuous simplicity of the youth, who urgently requested letters for Rome; but when that noble genius understood ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... this the case, should we not find the blood sufficiently loaded with them in some stages of the Small-pox to communicate the disease by inserting it under the cuticle, or by spreading it on the surface of an ulcer? Yet experiments have determined the impracticability of its being given in this way; although it has been proved that variolous matter when much diluted with water, and applied to the skin in the usual manner, will produce the disease. But it would be digressing beyond a proper boundary, to go ...
— An Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolae Vaccinae • Edward Jenner
... his friend Giannatasio that five years before he had loved unhappily; he would have considered marriage the happiness of his life, but it was "not to be thought of for a moment, almost an utter impracticability, a chimera." Still, he said, his love was as strong as ever; he had never found such harmony, and, though he never proposed, he could never get her out ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes
... lagging far behind; the improvement once conceived is in operation by such time as the opposing theorist has satisfactorily demonstrated its impracticability; and the dream of to-day ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... impracticability are principally incident to us in the period of youth. By degrees the novelties of life wear out, and we become sober. We are like soldiers at drill, and in a review. At first we perform our exercise from necessity, and with an ill grace. We had rather ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... and many pheasants, and a successful hunter brought in a fine stag, so that I had venison steak for supper, and was much comforted, though Ito seasoned the meal with well-got-up stories of the impracticability ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... necessitated that Hancock's line should extend to Bottom's bridge on the Chickahominy. The enemy's early discovery of the movement and his concentration of troops on the north side prevented Hancock from accomplishing the programme laid out for him. Its impracticability was demonstrated early on the 27th, and Hancock's soldierly instincts told him this the moment he unexpectedly discovered Kershaw blocking the New Market and Charles City roads. To Hancock the temptation to assault Kershaw's position ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... particularly due to you, any examples which may teach those virtues that are not easily learnt by precept and shew the facility of what, in mere speculation, might appear surrounded with a discouraging impracticability: you are the best judge, whether, by being made public, they may be conducive to your great end of benefiting the world. I therefore submit the future fate of the following sheets entirely to you, and shall not think any prefatory ...
— A Description of Millenium Hall • Sarah Scott
... Difficulty. — N. difficulty; hardness &c. adj.; impracticability &c. (impossibility) 471; tough work, hard work, uphill work; hard task, Herculean task, Augean task[obs3]; task of Sisyphus, Sisyphean labor, tough job, teaser, rasper[obs3], dead lift. dilemma, embarrassment; deadlock; perplexity &c. (uncertainty) ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... which the world has so often wished, and supposed practicable, has at times been thought of by the government of Spain, and that they once proceeded so far, as to have a survey and examination made of the ground; but that the result was, either impracticability or too great difficulty. Probably the Count de Campomanes, or Don Ulloa, can give you information on this head. I should be exceedingly pleased to get as minute details as possible on it, and even copies ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... a passage by the north-west had been abandoned by the English for twenty years, they had not, however, given up the idea of seeking by that way, for a passage which was only to be discovered in our own days, and of which the absolute impracticability was then to be ascertained. A clever sailor, Henry Hudson, of whom Ellis says, "that never did any one better understand the seafaring profession, that his courage was equal to any emergency, and that his application ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... decline he gives no intelligible account; he would not have liked to admit the most probable causes of the fall of his ideal State, which to us would appear to be the impracticability of communism or the natural antagonism of the ruling and subject classes. He throws a veil of mystery over the origin of the decline, which he attributes to ignorance of the law of population. Of this law the famous geometrical figure or number is the expression. Like the ancients in general, ...
— The Republic • Plato
... forgive enemies, to return them good for evil, and to love them, seemed madness. At the same time he had a feeling that in that madness itself there was something mightier than all philosophies so far. He thought that because of its madness it was impracticable, but because of its impracticability it was divine. In his soul he rejected it; but he felt that he was parting as if from a field full of spikenard, a kind of intoxicating incense; when a man has once breathed of this he must, as in the land ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... jest, and then as an adopted form for getting rid of my great-grandfather when he was in the way. It must have astonished a practical woman like my great-grandmother to find how completely it satisfied him. But there must have been a time when his helplessness and impracticability tried her in many ways, before she fairly came to realize that he never could be changed, and her love fell in with his humours. On this point he was humoured completely, and never inquired on what business his deceased Majesty ...
— Six to Sixteen - A Story for Girls • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... its way to our statute book more from fear of the popular sentiment existing in its favor than from any love for the reform itself on the part of legislators, and it has lived and grown and flourished in spite of the covert as well as open hostility of spoilsmen and notwithstanding the querulous impracticability of many self-constituted guardians. Beneath all the vagaries and sublimated theories which are attracted to it there underlies this reform a sturdy common-sense principle not only suited to this mundane sphere, but whose ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland
... shall at all times be happy to receive my poor fellow's pretty wife, and I shall always make a point of being on the most affectionate terms with her. But as to these terms, semi-family and semi-stranger, semi-goring and semi-boring, they form a state of things quite amusing in its impracticability. I ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... from Flanders to place Perkin on the English throne. Maximilian's hopes were high: he bragged to the Venetians that the "Duke of York" would immediately unseat the Tudor, and when he was on the throne, England would be at the beck of the League. The Emperor's impracticability was sufficiently shown by his having procured from Perkin his own recognition as heir, if the pretender should die without issue. The expedition attempted to land at Deal, but the men of Kent assembled in arms, and drove it off with ignominious ease. For once Henry was severe, ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... The very impracticability of this scheme did not weigh with her. She did not see how almost hopeless would be the task of finding employment in an unknown city. Nor did the length of time her son might be a burden on a total stranger make ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... capped elbow the most important consideration is that of devising a means for its prevention. To prevent the animal from lying down is evidently the simplest method of keeping the heels and the elbow apart; but the impracticability of this prescription is apparent, since most animals are obliged to lie down when they sleep, though it is true that a few take their sleep on their feet. The question of shoeing here enters into ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... For Palmyre's assurance that the candle burning would certainly cause the rent-money to be forthcoming in time was to Clotilde unknown, and to Aurora it was poor stuff to make peace of mind of. But there was a degree of impracticability in these ladies, which, if it was unfortunate, was, nevertheless, a part of their Creole beauty, and made the absence of any really brilliant outlook what the galaxy makes a moonless sky. Perhaps they had not been as diligent as they might have been in canvassing ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... of a certain writer will serve to illustrate the impracticability of writing the final form of the synopsis first. A few years ago, when all editors were asking for the complete script, and when most companies were insisting upon a synopsis of approximately two hundred ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... thought of such a thing? Why will you misunderstand me so?" sighed Phillis, almost in despair at her sister's impracticability. "I am only trying to prove to you and Nan that we are ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... the spirit of complaint or disappointment, that he often conferred offices on men who immediately coincided with the opponents and became calumniators of his administration. He was soon made to realize the impracticability of disregarding the old lines of party. On being informed, by some of his friends in the Southern States, that the objections to the appointment of Federalists were insuperable, and would everywhere affect the popularity of his administration, ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... you would have known, if you had received my letters. The coup d'etat was a grand thing, dramatically and poetically speaking, and the appeal to the people justified it in my eyes, considering the immense difficulty of the circumstances, the impossibility of the old constitution and the impracticability of the House of Assembly. Now that's all over. For the rest—the new constitution—I can't say as much for it; it disappoints me immensely. Absolute government, no, while the taxes and acceptance of law lies, as he leaves it, with the people; but there are stupidities undeniable, ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... fullness which characterised Mendelssohn's life—'he lived years whilst others would have lived only weeks,' was the true remark of one who knew him well—reminds us of the impracticability of giving anything like a complete description of even its chief incidents. The stage at which our story has arrived does not, it is true, show him at the pinnacle of his fame as a composer, but if we entertained ...
— Story-Lives of Great Musicians • Francis Jameson Rowbotham
... bay was narrow, affecting only a width of about ten or twelve miles. This circumstance impressed me at that time only as indicating a remarkable topographical feature of the country; but afterwards, when the impracticability of a canal at Nicaragua and the deficiencies in respect of ports for a railway at Tehuantepec had become established, I was led to reflect upon it in connection with a plan for inter-oceanic communication by railway through Honduras; and, as explained in the introduction, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... Bridge to the narrows of New River where the Virginia and Tennessee Railroad crossed upon an important bridge which was several times made the objective point of an expedition. This alone proved the impracticability of the plan McClellan first conceived, of making the Kanawha valley the line of an important movement into eastern Virginia. It pointed very plainly, also, to the true theory of operations in that country. Gauley Bridge should have been held with a good brigade which could have had outposts several ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... exasperated, and sent a considerable body of troops into the valleys, swearing that if the people would not change their religion, he would have them flayed alive. The commander of the troops soon found the impracticability of conquering them with the number of men he had with him, he, therefore, sent word to the duke, that the idea of subjugating the Waldenses, with so small a force, was ridiculous; that those people were better acquainted with the country than any that were with him; that they had secured all the ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... "we had any view of peace, he should be less solicitous what part Mr. Pitt took, but that, as the continuance of the war seemed unavoidable, he thought that we should do what we could to hinder Mr. Pitt from going out, and thereby leaving the impracticability of his own war upon us."[45] He and the rest of the council knew that Pitt could conduct the war, and that they could not. They agreed that peace with France might still be ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... disheartened. He pleaded the probable utter impracticability of such an enterprise. He might as well have talked to a statue. It all ended with an outburst on ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... and a thousand other sources. For this reason the old federation of the States was an experience of inexpressible value. It settled forever, in the minds of all communities who are governed by cool common sense and not mad passion, the utter impracticability (for efficient cooeperation, and peaceful union) of a mere league or confederacy among sovereign and independent States. While the seven years' war of independence lasted, it managed to hold the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... prudence required that the road which we had formed on landing should be continued to the very margin of the lake; whilst appearances seemed to indicate the total impracticability of the scheme. From firm ground to the water's edge was here a distance of many miles, through the very centre of a morass where human foot had never before trodden. Yet it was desirable at least to ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig
... heart was bursting, and partly from instinctive desire of unloading it—partly, I hope, from principle, too—I called her into my room and fairly told her the truth; told her the strength of my passion for Piozzi, the impracticability of my living without him, the opinion I had of his merit, and the resolution I had taken to marry him. Of all this she could not have been ignorant before. I confessed my attachment to him and her together with many tears and agonies one day at ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... at that very moment the impracticability to which poor Winterborne's suit had been reduced was touching Grace's heart to a warmer sentiment on his behalf than she had felt ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... more camels, the property of the South Australian Government, which Mr. Buchanan had brought from the Northern Territory for the purpose of looking for a stock route. However, a day or two beyond the end of Sturt Creek satisfied him as to the impracticability of the scheme, and he returned to Flora Valley, a cattle station close to Hall's Creek, that is to say, twenty-five miles away. At the time of our arrival Mr. Buchanan was out with Mr. Wells, and did most valuable service in the search for ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... was anxious to secure the influence of the Italian Marquis that he might the more readily effect the marriage of his son, eagerly embraced so favourable an opportunity of purchasing his good offices; and consequently represented in stringent terms to his opponent the utter impracticability of refusing to concede to M. d'Ancre the same consideration and indulgence which had been enjoyed by his predecessors in office, together with the danger that he personally incurred by so gratuitously ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... appreciation is here tendered to many who have responded with material and suggestions in the research, and to the numerous teachers whose resourcefulness has led to the adaptation of many games to school conditions. The author regrets the impracticability of mentioning all ...
— Games for the Playground, Home, School and Gymnasium • Jessie H. Bancroft
... be observed, that, with regard to the three principal consequences of our great navigator's transactions, I have nothing further to offer. These are, his having dispelled the illusion of a Terra Australis Incognita; his demonstration of the impracticability of a northern passage from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean; and his having established a sure method of preserving the health of seamen in the longest voyages, and through every variety of latitude and climate. Concerning each of ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... to the experiment. It is well worth a fair and full experiment. With such powerful and obvious motives to union affecting all parts of our country, while experience shall not have demonstrated its impracticability, there will always be reason to distrust the patriotism of those who in any quarter may endeavor to weaken ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 4) of Volume 1: George Washington • James D. Richardson
... bloody, beyond modern example, their military punishments horrible, and their treatment of prisoners of war a disgrace to the name of Christians. Can Governor Strong be totally ignorant of the policy of some in patronizing bible and missionary societies? And does he not see the impracticability of the scheme contemplated by the latter? If we divide the known countries of the globe into thirty equal parts, five will be found to be Christians, six Mahometans, and NINETEEN Pagans. It is difficult ...
— A Journal of a Young Man of Massachusetts, 2nd ed. • Benjamin Waterhouse
... gratification, constitutes the sum total of life and all its enjoyments. He knows no other enjoyment, he has no higher object, or aim. It is therefore, very clear, that abolitionists are contending for an impracticability; that the two races cannot amalgamate and become one people, and enjoy equal rights and privileges; that they cannot live together on terms of perfect equality. The white man has the pre-eminence; it is the ...
— A Review of Uncle Tom's Cabin - or, An Essay on Slavery • A. Woodward
... of Independent Cavalry on outpost duty, particularly at night; and for other similar purposes. To satisfy all these conditions, these cyclist detachments require a sufficient tactical training, but in times of peace one sees in this respect feats performed whose impracticability in War are glaringly apparent. For instance, men keep their cycles with them right up in the firing line, and when they want to retreat or break off the fight they try to mount under fire. As they are generally tied to the roads, ...
— Cavalry in Future Wars • Frederick von Bernhardi
... 1919, the Coal Commission had to face the physical impracticability of enforcing the demands of the Treaty, and agreed to modify them as follows:—"Germany shall in the next six months make deliveries corresponding to an annual delivery of 20 million tons as compared with 43 millions as provided in the Peace Treaty. If Germany's total production exceeds ...
— The Economic Consequences of the Peace • John Maynard Keynes
... only satisfactory solution of our electoral difficulties, it becomes the duty of statesmen to find some way by which practical effect can be given to Mill's formula. There was doubtless some excuse for the cry of impracticability when, in launching in 1857 his proposals for proportional representation, Thomas Hare suggested that the whole kingdom should form a single constituency. This suggestion raised a barrier of prejudice against all proposals ...
— Proportional Representation - A Study in Methods of Election • John H. Humphreys
... number of the Crisis, which I find has been republished in England, I endeavored to set forth the impracticability of conquering America. I stated every case, that I conceived could possibly happen, and ventured to predict its consequences. As my conclusions were drawn not artfully, but naturally, they have all proved to be true. I was upon the spot; knew the politics of America, her strength ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... have been condemned and laughed at, for the folly and impracticability of their attempts in 1715, and 1745. That they failed, I bless GOD; but cannot join in the ridicule against them. Who does not know that the abilities or defects of leaders and commanders are often hidden, until put to ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... had started to the telegraph office intending to wire Gloria to come South—he reached the door and receded despairingly, seeing the utter impracticability of such a move. Then he had spent the evening quarrelling irritably with Dot, and returned to camp morose and angry with the world. There had been a disagreeable scene, in the midst of which he had precipitately departed. What was to be done with her did not seem to concern him ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... however, that the blockade thus rescinded was an international measure for the purpose of protecting the sovereign rights of the United States. The greater or less subversion of civil authority in the region to which it applied and the impracticability of at once restoring that in due efficiency may for a season make it advisable to employ the Army and Navy of the United States toward carrying the laws into effect wherever such ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson
... code of criminal procedure, and an evidence code. 'I could do it too if it were not too much trouble, and if a large part of the law were not too foolish to be codified.' He is, however, so convinced of the impracticability of parliamentary help or of a commission that he is much inclined to try. A fortnight later (October 8) he has resolved to convert his second edition into a draft penal code and code of ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... Buonaparte had of late years given way to; the very small space for the accommodation of himself and suite, and for the stowage of provisions, water, and other necessaries; that there was no friendly port he could have touched at, to gain supplies;—the utter impracticability of his reaching his destination in a vessel of that description, even if he had eluded the vigilance of our cruisers, will at once be evident ...
— The Surrender of Napoleon • Sir Frederick Lewis Maitland
... very thoughtful and still, dreaming of the wonders of far-off places, such as could be reached by Bob Dimsted and his companion, the impracticability of such a journey never once occurring to him. Bob had been about all his life free to go and come, while he, Dexter, seemed to have been always shut up, as it were, in a cage, which had narrowed ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... to the head of his department the total impracticability of carrying on the public service without a remittance of specie, or a government paper substitute. He was in expectation of making arrangements with some individuals that would have enabled him to proceed, but I much fear ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... if we have begun by living sinfully, as we do live and are accustomed to live. Not only is the question of non-resistance to evil not discussed; the very mention of the fact that the duty of non- resistance enters into Christ's teaching is regarded as satisfactory proof of the impracticability of ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy
... in noticing this gorgeous dream of 'the Committee,' except to show its fallacy—its impracticability, in fact, its absurdity. No sensible man, whatever his color, should be for a moment ...
— Official Report of the Niger Valley Exploring Party • Martin Robinson Delany
... with large followings and vested interests—in short, until the same obstacles arise to the choice of an international, artificial, and neutral language, as now prevent the elevation of any national language into a universal medium? The plea of impracticability on the score of dislocation might then be valid. At present it is not. To have an easy language that will carry you anywhere and enable you to read anything, it is sufficient to wish for it. Only, as we Britons are being taught to "think imperially," so must the nations ...
— International Language - Past, Present and Future: With Specimens of Esperanto and Grammar • Walter J. Clark
... neglect or accident may foil our present efforts, but the present enterprise will result in gathering stores of experience which will make the next effort certain. Not that I do not expect success now, but accidental failure now will not be the evidence of its impracticability. ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... principles. Aviation remained very much of a poor sister in the scientific world, held back by all the discredit attaching to the early stunt-flying and by failure to break through the ancient belief in its impracticability for any purposes ...
— Opportunities in Aviation • Arthur Sweetser
... as to bear down all opposition, while Virginia is unsupported even by those whose interests are similar to hers.[27] Colonel Lee tells me that many who were warm supporters of the government are changing their sentiments, from a conviction of the impracticability of union with states, whose interests are so dissimilar ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... proposes a language—if that be the proper name—in which things and their relations shall be denoted by signs, not words: so that any person, whatever may be his mother tongue, may read it in his own words. This is an obvious possibility, and, I am afraid, an obvious impracticability. One man may construct such a system—Bishop Wilkins has done it—but where is the man who will learn it? The second tongue makes a language, as the second blow makes a fray. There has been very little curiosity ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... the world, reduced to a certainty the non-existence of a southern continent, about which the learned of all nations were in doubt, settled the boundaries of the earth and sea, and demonstrated the impracticability of a north-west passage from the Atlantic to the great southern ocean, for which our ablest geographers had contended, and in pursuit of which vast sums had been spent in vain, and many mariners had ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... association existed, but what it was, considered with the impracticability of unobserved entrance and exit, ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... respect the Utopian dreams of social justice in which many contemporary socialists and anarchists indulge are, in spite of their impracticability and non-adaptation to present environmental conditions, analogous to the saint's belief in an existent kingdom of heaven. They help to break the edge of the general reign of hardness and are slow leavens ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... and dispassionate reasoning of the lieutenant could not fail to impress the minds of those who listened to him; the impracticability of the journey became more and more apparent; unprotected on that drear expanse, any traveler must assuredly succumb to the snow-drifts that were continually being whirled across it. But Hector Servadac, animated by ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... numbers. Some readers may possibly recall how the spirit James, while wandering through the darkness of unoccupied Space (about five-and-twenty billions of eons before the commencement of Eternity), conceived a wild idea of the possibility of the existence of worlds—worlds occupied by an impracticability called "man." It will be recollected how the wiser spirit William cast well-merited ridicule upon this insanely impossible phantasy of a disordered mind; nay, even condescended to crush, by perspicuous and irrefutable logic, the grotesque ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... and straightforward with me when he saw that I knew his secret," said Clovis, "and it seems that his intentions were quite serious, if slightly unsuitable. I tried to show him the impracticability of the course that he was following. He said he wanted to be understood, and he seemed to think that Florinda would excel in that requirement, but I pointed out that there were probably dozens of delicately nurtured, pure-hearted young English girls who would be capable of understanding ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... their escape into Belgium. At first he declined to share their undertaking, for he would have preferred to proceed direct to Remilly, where he was certain to find a refuge, but where was he to obtain the blouse and trousers that he required as a disguise? to say nothing of the impracticability of getting past the numerous Prussian pickets and outposts that filled the valley all the way from la Garenne to Remilly. He therefore ended by consenting to act as guide to the two comrades. His leg was less stiff than ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... Beering's Strait. Enquiry into the Extent of the North-East Coast of Asia. Reasons for rejecting Muller's Map of the Promontory of the Tschutski. Reasons for believing the Coast does not reach a higher Latitude than 70-2/3 deg. North. General Observations on the Impracticability of a North-East or North-West Passage from the Atlantic into the Pacific Ocean. Comparative View of the Progress made in the Years 1778 and 1779. Remarks on the Sea and Sea-coasts, North of Beering's Strait. History of the Voyage resumed. Pass the Island of St. Laurence. The Island of ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... circumstances cannot be represented in the House of Commons in Great Britain; and farther, that, in the opinion of this house, the several powers of legislation in America were constituted in some measure upon the apprehension of this impracticability. That the only representatives of the people of this province are persons chosen therein by themselves; and that no taxes ever have been, or can be, constitutionally imposed on them but by the legislature of this province. That all supplies to the Crown being free gifts of the ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 2 • Alexander Hewatt
... tendered him the Treasury. The only alternative was Madison; but he, with all his reputation as a statesman and party leader, was without skill as a financier, and in the debate on the Funding Bill in 1790 had shown his ignorance in the impracticability of his plans. If Jefferson ever entertained the thought of nominating Madison to the Treasury, political necessity absolutely forbade it. That necessity Mr. Gallatin, by his persistent assaults on the financial policy of the Federalists, had himself created, and ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... days had made something of a study of the feminine nature, and he realized now the utter impracticability of ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... Postmaster-General, by the act of 1891, to contract with the owners of American steamships for ocean mail service and has realized the impracticability of commanding suitable steamships in the interest of the postal service alone by requiring that such steamers shall be of a size, class, and equipment which will promote commerce and become available as auxiliary cruisers of the navy in case ...
— Latin America and the United States - Addresses by Elihu Root • Elihu Root
... stream, called Crooked creek, emptying into the former of these, from the North east,[14] whose banks are tolerably high, and were then covered with a thick and luxuriant growth of weeds. Seeing the impracticability of dislodging the Indians, by the most vigorous attack, and sensible of the great danger, which must arise to his army, if the contest were not decided before night, General Lewis detached the three companies which were commanded by Captains Isaac Shelby, George Matthews, and John Stuart, with ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... disinterestedness of his conduct, even the people he employed could not be prevailed on to accept the smallest present. After remaining out six days, our officers returned, without having been able to penetrate above twenty miles into the island, partly from want of proper guides, and partly from the impracticability ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16 • Robert Kerr
... object of this paper to show the impracticability of such systems when considered from a commercial standpoint, so long as the supply of coal lasts, and prices keep ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 514, November 7, 1885 • Various
... government, the natural strength and resources of the country, directed to a common interest, would baffle all the combinations of European jealousy to restrain our growth. This situation would even take away the motive to such combinations, by inducing an impracticability of success. An active commerce, an extensive navigation, and a flourishing marine would then be the offspring of moral and physical necessity. We might defy the little arts of the little politicians to control or vary the irresistible ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... contain only one idea. Every thought expressed has some specific work to do, and it can do it far more effectively if it stands by itself as a unit. The awkwardness and impracticability of proving the truth or falsity of a statement that makes several assertions has been treated under the head of Combined Propositions. Obviously, there are unwarrantable difficulties in grouping explanation or proof about such a statement as, "Municipal ownership has failed in Philadelphia, ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... foregoing notes were written the impracticability of the universal or even of the general application of the principle has been fully demonstrated. Mr. Wilson resurrected "the consent of the governed" regardless of the fact that history denied its value ...
— The Peace Negotiations • Robert Lansing
... any of the works which had preceded it. Concerning these lectures, Leigh Hunt remarked that it seemed "as if some Puritan had come to life again, liberalized by German philosophy and his own intense reflections and experience." Another critic, a Scotch writer, could see nothing but wild impracticability in them, and exclaimed, "Can any living man point to a single practical passage in any of these lectures? If not, what is the real value of Mr. Carlyle's teachings? What is Mr. ...
— On the Choice of Books • Thomas Carlyle
... the Resident Physician, Dr. James Macdonald, who had just returned from Europe after having spent a year in visiting the institutions for mental disorders there, made a report in which he rather significantly referred to the impracticability of making a sharp distinction between the medical and moral treatment of the patients, it being difficult to say where the one ended and the other began, or to put one into successful operation without bringing in the other. ...
— A Psychiatric Milestone - Bloomingdale Hospital Centenary, 1821-1921 • Various
... good ground for such an accusation, which indeed was confirmed by the evidence of his officers, and not explicitly denied by himself. Government was undoubtedly of opinion that the voyage of Middleton had not determined the non-existence or impracticability of a passage; for the next year an act of parliament was passed, granting a reward of 20,000l. to the person or persons who should discover a northwest passage through Hudson's Straits to the western and ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... me. And, although the trappers could not understand my reasons, I refused to consent to its burial in the wilderness. In spite of their superior knowledge of the country and the weather conditions, I felt that the body could be taken down to the post later, but recognised the impracticability, if not impossibility, of undertaking the ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace
... on April 26th, Kane set out on what, to use his own words, "was to be the crowning expedition of the campaign, to attain the Ultima Thule of the Greenland shore." Impressed with the impracticability of a direct journey across the main ice-pack, he decided to follow the shore-line, five men dragging a sledge, while Kane and Godfrey travelled by dog-team. He had been led by his resolute spirit ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
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