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More "Impracticable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... race characteristics and to show them even prior to birth. When impregnation has occurred in the very young or in the dwarfed female there are two alternatives—to induce abortion or to wait until there are attempts at parturition and to extract by embryotomy if impracticable otherwise. ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... that would be impracticable?-I think so. The coast is rather tempestuous, with heavy tides, and I don't think they would make anything ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... to repeal the Fifteenth Amendment is utterly impracticable and should be relegated to the limbo of forgotten issues. It is very certain that any party founded on the proposition would utterly fail in a national canvass. What we are considering is something practical, something that means attainable progress. It seems to me to follow, ...
— The South and the National Government • William Howard Taft
... distant from the flow of the tide. A similar body of running water, perfectly clear and transparent, with so many hundred cascades as beautify the Susquana, is perhaps no where else to be met with. Unfortunately these very beauties render the navigation of this noble river impracticable. ...
— Travels in the United States of America • William Priest
... bound not to inflict on her busy uncle the reading of anything entirely impracticable, so she sat with a stern and critical eye as the party mustered in Miss Mohun's drawing-room, and ...
— The Long Vacation • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and condition of the rock provided frequent faults and crevices that permitted the driving of spikes, the descent must soon have become impracticable. But the engineer invariably found some chink in which to hammer a spike with his powerful blows. As, time after time, he overcame difficulties so great that his companion could perceive no possible solution, Ashton ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... routine of care. But how is one to do this with so many demands made upon her? For she is expected to be seamstress, laundress, maid, cook, hostess, a companion to her husband, a trainer of her children, a social being, and a helper in the Church. If it is impossible or impracticable for one to have a servant, she will find these few minutes for daily recreation and study only in a wise choice of more important duties, and will allow the less important ones to go undone. Many housewives could well afford to keep a helper. It becomes a ...
— Questionable Amusements and Worthy Substitutes • J. M. Judy
... with her; and she, from a feeling of prudence, was equally silent with him. Poor Miss Baker was the medium for it all. George of course would press with a lover's ardour for an early day; and Caroline would of course say that an immediate marriage was, she found, impracticable. And then each would refer the ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... their forces and turning them to a common object. Some of the servants of the Crown had urged the necessity of joining them all under a strong central government, as the only means of making them loyal subjects and arresting the encroachments of France; but the scheme was plainly impracticable. Each province remained in jealous isolation, busied with its own work, growing in strength, in the capacity of self-rule and the spirit of independence, and stubbornly resisting all exercise of authority from without. If the English-speaking populations flowed westward, it was in obedience ...
— A Half-Century of Conflict, Volume II • Francis Parkman
... the latter of which undertakings he was incited by his views of preferment in the East, testified his industry in the pursuit of his legal studies; while, on the other hand, several short poems evinced, from time to time, his intended relinquishment of the tuneful art to be either impracticable or unnecessary. ...
— Lives of the English Poets - From Johnson to Kirke White, Designed as a Continuation of - Johnson's Lives • Henry Francis Cary
... Account of the voyage, by the clerk of the California, vol. ii. p. 273. Mr Dobbs himself says, "That he thought the passage would be impracticable, or, at least, very difficult, in case there was one farther north than 67 deg.."—Account of Hudson's Bay, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... that the gloomy silence they find at home drives them elsewhere, or inspires little desire to enter a state which offers so few attractions? Christianity, by exaggerating every duty, has made our duties impracticable and useless; by forbidding singing, dancing, and amusements of every kind, it renders women sulky, fault-finding, and intolerable at home. There is no religion which imposes such strict duties upon married life, and ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... just the point. But no two of us are made wholly alike. I hadn't practised law very long before I began to realize that conditions were changing, that the new forces at work in our industrial life made the older legal ideals impracticable. It was a case of choosing between efficiency and inefficiency, and I chose efficiency. Well, that was my own affair, but when it comes to influencing others—" He paused. "I want you to see this as I do, not for the sake of justifying myself, but because I honestly believe ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... from Bishop Butler, which they have either not read or failed to lay to heart. 'It seems,' saith the Bishop, 'that men would be strangely headstrong and self-willed, and disposed to exert themselves with an impetuosity which would render society insupportable, and the living in it impracticable, were it not for some acquired moderation and self-government, some aptitude and readiness in restraining themselves, and concealing their sense ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... plenty of such cures for a melancholy not yet incurable; change of air, scene, food, amusement, and occupation being the best. True, the Romans tried this, as Seneca and Lucretius tells us, and found themselves as much bored as ever. "No easier nor no quicker passed th' impracticable hours." But the Romans were ...
— Lost Leaders • Andrew Lang
... the gist of the matter was this—Sturk was labouring under concussion of the brain, and two terrific fractures of the skull—so long, and lying so near together, that he and Doctor Pell instantly saw 'twould be impracticable to apply the trepan, in fact that 'twould be certain and instantaneous death. He was absolutely insensible, but his throat was not yet palsied, and he could swallow a spoonful of broth or sack whey from time to time. But he was a dead man to all intents and purposes. Inflammation ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... sort of projects comes under no reflection as to their honesty, save that there is a kind of honesty a man owes to himself and to his family that prohibits him throwing away his estate in impracticable, improbable adventures; but still some hit, even of the most unlikely, of which this was one of Sir William Phips, who brought home a cargo of silver of near 200,000 pounds sterling, in pieces of eight, fished up out of the open sea, remote from any shore, from an old Spanish ...
— An Essay Upon Projects • Daniel Defoe
... delicate point; and it was necessary that all parties should be indulged. Gentlemen will see, that if there had not been a unanimity, nothing could have been done: for the Convention had no power to establish, but only to recommend a government. Any other system would have been impracticable. Let a Convention be called to-morrow—let them meet twenty times; nay, twenty thousand times; they will have the same difficulties to encounter; the same ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... gradual cooping up of the Roman Catholics within the single province of Connaught. In the nature of things, that business, or indeed any actual prevention of the exercise of the Catholic Religion wherever Roman Catholics abounded, was impracticable. It was enough, in the Lord Protector's view, that the land lay quiet, the Roman Catholics and their faithful priests not stirring too publicly, the English soldiery keeping all under sufficient ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... worketh patience, and patience experience, but it is not theory, but experience, that makes a minister after God's own heart. I sometimes wish that I may live to see a chair of Experimental Religion set up in all our colleges. I fear it is a dream, and that it must have been pronounced impracticable long ago by our wisest heads. Still, all the same, that does not prevent me from again and again indulging my dream. I indulge my fond dream again as often as I look back on my own tremendous mistakes in the management ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte
... leave the road at Julinder, a place I had never visited, and must trust to my own unaided wits and a plentiful supply of rupees to carry me over at least two hundred miles of country I did not know—difficult certainly, and perhaps impracticable for riding. The prospect was not a pleasant one, but I was convinced that in a matter of this importance a man of Isaacs' wit and wealth would have made at least some preliminary arrangements for me, since he probably knew the country well enough himself. I had but six ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... having whole groves of humming-birds, tatne tigers taught to fetch and carry, pocket spying-glasses to see all that is doing in China, and a thousand other toys, which we now look upon as impracticable, and which pert posterity would laugh in our face ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... beaux of modern times; though I am sorry to say, it seems to be the mode amongst gentlemen to grow fat, and I am told I am at least fourteen pound below the fashion. However, I decrease instead of enlarging, which is extraordinary, as violent exercise in London is impracticable; but I attribute the phenomenon to our evening squeezes at public and private parties. I heard from Ridge this morning (the 14th, my letter was begun yesterday): he says the poems go on as well as can be wished; the seventy-five sent to town are circulated, and a demand for fifty ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... guaranteed them at nine or ten cents a day. In sections where the wages system prevails, and where there have been no political disturbances, the negroes seem to be perfectly contented; at all events, the emigration fever has not spread among them. But it was found impracticable to maintain the wage system in the cotton districts. The negroes themselves fought against it, because it reminded them too much of the slave-gang, driven out at daybreak and home at sundown. In many cases the planters were forced to abandon it, because they had not the means to carry on ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... telegraphic message and read, "Scheme impracticable. Cannot compromise with Mortimer. Harper and the Syndicate ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... rock-worms.... I beg your pardon...." Gravely he restored the receiver to its perch. "Not interested," he added for our information. "He didn't actually say so, but from the directions he gave concerning them—happily, I may say, quite impracticable——" ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... permanent or satisfying delight. He counsels us to take the transient pleasure which agreeable circumstances can afford, as far as consists with the fear of God; to be patient under unavoidable evil; not to aim at impracticable results; to fill up our allotted station in a peaceable, equitable, and prudent manner; to be contented, meek, and affectionate; and to do good abundantly as we have opportunity, in the expectation of a gracious reward. ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... impracticable to discuss anything seriously in the presence of Frau von Greifenstein, for her inopportune interruptions ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... end by a mixed garrison of Turks and Egyptians." The Emperor then turned to Lord Clarendon. "What are your views," he asked, "as to the Suez Canal?" "It is a grave matter," answered Lord Clarendon, "and one on which I have no instructions. But I believe it to be impracticable." "Well," replied the Emperor, "but supposing for the sake of the argument, that it is practicable, what are your intentions?" "I cannot but think," answered Lord Clarendon, "that any new channel of commerce must be beneficial to ...
— Correspondence & Conversations of Alexis de Tocqueville with Nassau William Senior from 1834 to 1859, Vol. 2 • Alexis de Tocqueville
... mean that," was the half-apologetic rejoinder; "I did not mean to question your sincerity at all; but the truth is, there has been so much impracticable theorizing upon this subject that one who looks for results can scarcely restrain an expression of impatience when that answer is dogmatically given ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... to what purpose should we make the ascent? We could not escape in that way! There was no chance of our being able to descend upon the other side, for there the cliff was impracticable. The behaviour of the guerrilleros had given proof of this. Some time before, Ijurra, with another, had gone to the rear of the mound, evidently to reconnoitre it, in hopes of being able to assail us from behind. But they had returned and ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... duty, is done, the general and inevitable answer is, "We are not military; we are young people; we have to learn." Granted; but instead of learning from the best, the latest, and most correct authorities, why stick to an obsolete, senile, musty, rotten, mean, and now-a-days impracticable routine, which is all-powerful in all relating to the army and to the war? The Americans may pay dear for thus reversing the rules of ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... understanding, while undirected by science. When mankind first formed the idea of studying phenomena according to a stricter and surer method than that which they had in the first instance spontaneously adopted, they did not, conformably to the well-meant but impracticable precept of Descartes, set out from the supposition that nothing had been already ascertained. Many of the uniformities existing among phenomena are so constant, and so open to observation, as to force themselves upon involuntary recognition. Some facts are so perpetually and ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... there are defects and imperfections in the work. I am well aware of the fact, but could not remedy them without re-writing the whole, and that was impracticable under the circumstances. Critics need not trouble themselves about its defects as a literary production, as I lay no claim to merit on that ground. Having been actively engaged in the practice of an arduous and perplexing profession for the last twenty-five years, ...
— A Review of Uncle Tom's Cabin - or, An Essay on Slavery • A. Woodward
... connections to swindling in quest of easier prey, submitting to the brilliant frivolities of the sport, the sombre intrigues of policy, or the sadness of a life which has been a failure. Such a variety of causes renders at once very attractive and almost impracticable the task of the author who takes as a model that ever-changing society so like unto itself in the exterior rites and fashions, so really, so intimately complex and composite in its fundamental elements. The writer is compelled ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget
... embarked his forces at one in the morning, and passed the French sentinels in silence that were posted along the shore. The current carried them beyond the destined spot. They found themselves at the foot of a precipice, esteemed so impracticable, that only a slight guard of one hundred and fifty men defended it. Had there been a path, the night was too dark to discover it. The troops, whom nothing could discourage, for these difficulties could not, pulled themselves and one another up by stumps and boughs of trees. The guard hearing a ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 10, No. 272, Saturday, September 8, 1827 • Various
... He took refuge in "Dona Mariquita" (really a diminutive of Maria), and "Dona Lucia." But there was no difficulty about "Dona Clara" and "Dona Blanca," which dropped from his lips (thought Blanche) like music. Rachel's name, however, proved impracticable. He contented himself with "Senora mia" when he spoke to her, and, "Your Lady Aunt" when he ...
— Clare Avery - A Story of the Spanish Armada • Emily Sarah Holt
... is critically allowable in view of the main intention of the author. But what shall we say of the suggestion contained in the very next sentence, which we have italicized? We are required by it to understand that in slavery-time the [163] planters had some organized method, rendered impracticable by the Emancipation, of checking, for their own personal safety, the growth of the coloured population. If we, in deference to the superior mental capacity of our author, admit that self-interest was no irresistible motive for promoting the growth of the human "property" ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... benefit Irish fish-curers or English hatters, and to be bad policy to impose special discouragements on the trade of one foreign nation which are not imposed on the trade of others. His argument is not, it will be observed, for free trade, which he perhaps thought then impracticable, but merely for equality of treatment,—equality of treatment between the British subject in Canada and the British subject in England, and equality of treatment between the American nation and the Russian, ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... of wild young horses is driven into the corral, or large enclosure of stakes, and the door is shut. We will suppose that one man alone has to catch and mount a horse, which as yet had never felt bridle or saddle. I conceive, except by a Gaucho, such a feat would be utterly impracticable. The Gaucho picks out a full-grown colt; and as the beast rushes round the circus he throws his lazo so as to catch both the front legs. Instantly the horse rolls over with a heavy shock, and whilst struggling on the ground, the Gaucho, holding the lazo tight, ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... ray of the sun that the ground appeared to be in a perpetual state of dampness, the clayey soil being in consequence so much cut up, notwithstanding the small amount of traffic which seemed to pass over it, that it had become almost impracticable for foot-passengers. Here and there an old tree-stump projected out of the ground, while in other places the stumps had been removed without filling in the corresponding hole. These holes were now ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... Richmond as exposed to serious danger, and was confident of his ability to recross the Chickahominy and go to its succor in the event of an attack on the city by General McClellan. Had this prompt recrossing of the stream here, even, been impracticable, it may still be a question whether General Lee did not, in his movement against the Federal right wing with the bulk of his army, follow the dictates of sound generalship. In war, something must be risked, and occasions arise which ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... Democrats, they were called "Copperheads";[108] disloyal to the Government. Women who had been complimented by the Republican press as "wise," "prudent," "noble," while rolling up 300,000 petitions for emancipation, were now said to be "selfish," "impracticable," "unreasonable," because forsooth they demanded some new liberties for themselves. More over said the Republicans, "these Democrats are hypocritical, they do not believe in the extension of suffrage ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... from New Orleans, with the design of occupying Vicksburg after the batteries had been silenced by our artillery. Most of the Rebel guns were located at such a height that it was found impossible to elevate our own guns so as to reach them. Thus the occupation by infantry was found impracticable. The passage of the batteries was followed by the bombardment, from the mortar-schooners of Admiral Farragut's fleet and the mortar-rafts which Flag-Officer Davis had brought down. This continued steadily for several days, but Vicksburg ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox
... child at home to mind the younger ones in her absence. Education, in its larger, truer meaning, is the great remedy for Ireland's woes; but until the parents have steadier employment and a juster recompense the general education of the children is impracticable. ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... morning we got into bad weather again, and the state of things at breakfast-time was unutterably miserable. Nearly all the passengers in their berths—no possibility of standing on deck—sickness and groans—impracticable to pass a cup of tea from one pair of hands to another. It has slightly moderated since (between two and three in the afternoon I write), and the sun is shining, but the rolling of the ship surpasses all ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens
... high above Peyreleau, its twin village, rises a sharp pyramidal spur of the Causse Noir, its shelving sides running vertically down. That mountain wall, impracticable as it ...
— The Roof of France • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... in our world would on your earth be considered very dangerous, if not impracticable. The swan-ship, even when driven by the tempest, must often pass through narrow inlets between dangerous rocks, sometimes under the rocks, through channels scooped out by the sea. The force of the ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... more moral and active. There was no motive for interference. The conscription that, by converting the idle youth of Bavaria into disciplined soldiery, was a blessing to the martial-spirited and improvident population, was impracticable amid the well-trained Tyrolese, and, although the control exercised by a well-regulated bureaucracy might be beneficial when viewed in contradistinction with the ancient complicated system of government and administration of justice during the ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... had been decided to invite him to the chair of mathematics at the new university. It was considered desirable to have men of similar world-wide eminence in charge of the other departments in science. But this was found to be impracticable, and the policy adopted was to find young men whose reputation was yet to be made, and who would be the leading men of the future, instead of belonging to ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... light on these questions is the object of this volume. I wish it had been in my power to write a more extended and complete exposition of the problem, but limitations of strength, due to advancing age, have made that hope impracticable. But as one man drops the torch, another hand will grasp it; and where now is darkness and secrecy, there will one day ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell
... parts half bog, it was quite impracticable for heavy-armed soldiers, and hence it offered a refuge to bands of patriots from all the neighbouring districts when ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... known the world so hushed. The rustle of the quilt of gay glazed calico was of note in the quietude; the impact of his bare foot on the floor was hardly a sound, rather an annotation of his weight and his movement; yet in default of all else the sense of hearing marked it. His scheme seemed impracticable as for an instant he wavered at the head of the ladder that served as a stairway; the next moment his foot was upon the rungs, his light, lithe figure slipping down it like a shadow. The room below, all eclipsed in a brown and dusky-red medium, the compromise ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... General French's plan to push the battle too strongly now. It was merely his intention to deliver such a blow as would make the coup planned by the Germans impracticable. ...
— The Boy Allies On the Firing Line - Or, Twelve Days Battle Along the Marne • Clair W. Hayes
... put to the inhabitant of the house by the ford as soon as I reached level ground only confirmed me in this resolution. The road Bruhl had taken ran for a distance by the riverside, and along the bottom of the gorge; and, difficult by day, was reported to be impracticable for horses by night. The castle he had mentioned lay full two leagues away, and on the farther edge of a tract of rough woodland. Finally, I doubted whether, in the absence of any other reason for delay, I could have marched my men, weary ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... my yard here in Orange. When I got it all ready, he had all his division engineers come on to New York, and they came over here. I showed them my plans, and the unanimous decision of the engineers was that it was absolutely and utterly impracticable. That system is on the New York Central now, and was also used on the New Haven road in its ...
— Edison, His Life and Inventions • Frank Lewis Dyer and Thomas Commerford Martin
... this discourse I make the further observation, that it is very true that a freedom of indifference, undefined and without any determining reason, would be as harmful, and even objectionable, as it is impracticable and chimerical. The man who wished to behave thus, or at the least appear to be acting without due cause, would most certainly be looked upon as irrational. But it is very true also that the thing is impossible, when ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... abetment of my apostasy from orthodox methods was, no doubt, this hypertrophy of the penis, which already in my twentieth year had acquired its present redundance, rendering coitus impracticable with most women I essayed and painful where insertion was effected. Since falling heir to inversion, a unique recurrence of normal desire, six years ago, persuaded me to attempt coitus with eleven or twelve prostitutes, and, strangely enough, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... communistic sects of the middle ages (Pauvres de Lyon, Begards, Bons-Hommes, Fratricelles, Humilies, Pauvres evangeliques, &c.) grouped under the banner of the "Everlasting Gospel," pretended to be, and in fact were, the true disciples of Jesus. But even in this case the most impracticable dreams of the new religion were fruitful in results. Pious mendicity, so impatiently borne by our industrial and well-organized communities, was in its day, and in a suitable climate, full of charm. ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan
... a constant source of mingled amusement and dismay to editors to read some of the impossible or impracticable things that amateur photoplaywrights wish to have done in the course of the action of their stories. Three things are responsible for this common fault in photoplay plotting: the writer's very limited knowledge of the limitations of ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... and destructive to the objects of the expedition. In the present case, the army being without provisions before they left the Indian towns, their only sustenance consisted of weeds, an ear of corn each day, and occasionally, a small quantity of venison: it being impracticable to hunt game in small parties, because of the vigilance and success of the Indians, in watching and cutting off detachments of this kind, before they could accomplish their purpose and regain ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... wildly about them, but could offer no resistance to the power of the element. It was perhaps fortunate for Chingachgook that the attention of most of the Iroquois was intently given to the situation of those in the boat, else would his escape have been to the last degree difficult, if not totally impracticable. But not a foe moved, except to conceal his person behind some cover; and every eye was riveted on the two remaining adventurers. In less time than has been necessary to record these occurrences, the canoe was whirling and tossing in the rift, while both ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... elephant feeding on the grassy side of an opposite mountain. To cross the deep valley that separated us, and to ascend the mountain, would have taken several hours, and at this time of the day it was impracticable; we were thus compelled to turn our backs upon the game, and return towards our rocky home. Tired, more from our want of success than from the day's work, we strolled leisurely along, and we were talking of the best plan to be adopted for the next day's ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... State veto upon the laws of the Union carries with it internal evidence of its impracticable absurdity, our constitutional history will also afford abundant proof that it would have been repudiated with indignation had it been proposed to form a feature in ...
— Key-Notes of American Liberty • Various
... province was about to pass through an interesting crisis.' He was required, in obedience to his own principles, to accept as advisers persons who had very lately been denounced by the Secretary of State as well as by the Governor-General, as impracticable and disloyal. On the other hand he reflected, with satisfaction, that in these sentiments he himself had neither overtly nor covertly expressed concurrence; while the most extravagant assertors of responsible ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... his cap, and went back to Mr. Thorn, to whom he reported that the young Englishman was thoroughly impracticable, and that there was nothing to be gained by dealing with him; and the vexed conclusion of Thorn's own mind, in the end, was in favour of the wisdom of ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... constant inferiority but from constant self-repression. A common woman finding herself placed in a commanding position might have formed the design to become the second Mrs de Barral. Which would have been impracticable. De Barral would not have known what to do with a wife. But even if by some impossible chance he had made advances, this governess would have repulsed him with scorn. She had treated him always as an ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... handicaps the most serious by far was the lack of capital. Murray had foreseen as inevitable the abandonment by the Trust of its Cortez route, but its change of base to Kyak had come as a startling surprise and as an almost crushing blow. Personally, he believed its present plan to be even more impracticable than its former one, but its refusal to buy him out had disheartened his financial associates and tightened their purse-strings into a knot which no argument of his could loose. He had long since exhausted his own liquid ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... extensive and more transparent atmosphere than the earth: adding—"The difference is so great, that some of our astronomical observers have been induced to think she has none. If that, however, had been the case, our voyage would have been impracticable." ...
— A Voyage to the Moon • George Tucker
... state. But up to this hour their deliberations had been wholly fruitless. Project after project for the means of raising military forces had been brought forward and discussed; and each in turn had been thought to be impracticable, and had been consequently abandoned, till, wearied with their unavailing labors, and discouraged at the dubious prospect before them, they now began to think of giving up business for the day, when the door-keeper, ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... themselves to the service of God, and are being tried like gold in the furnace. Blame and neglect became her portion. Nobody thought it worth their while to assist a little band of women, whose heroic project had seemed admirable, indeed, in theory, but was now declared to be impracticable. They were considered as mere enthusiasts; and, indeed, as was said by M. Desgenettes, the venerable Cure of Notre Dame des Victoires, they were truly possessed with the holy folly ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... perhaps he may have been permitted to cause a deluge. Why not? You can't look at things from far enough off, Bickley. And if something seems big to you, you conclude that therefore it is impossible. The same Power which gives you skill to succeed in an operation, that hitherto was held impracticable, as I know you have done once or twice, may have given that old fellow power to cause a deluge. You should measure the universe and its possibilities by worlds and not by ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... invaluable allies of the home, the school, and the church, for they are the boys' and girls' own organizations and meet their desire for group activities. Just which one or how many of them are needed in any one community is a local problem, and it is impracticable to here attempt any evaluation of their particular advantages. Suffice it to say that every rural community which can find suitable leadership should have such an organization of boys or girls, and will find the assistance of the state and ...
— The Farmer and His Community • Dwight Sanderson
... when the Peace is concluded, but in effect looks forward to making Germans salute British officers until the end of the world. That is what war makes of men and women. It will wear off; and the worst it threatens is already proving impracticable; but before the humble and contrite heart ceases to be despised, the President and I, being of the same age, will be dotards. In the meantime there is, for him, another history to write; for me, another comedy to stage. Perhaps, after all, that ...
— Heartbreak House • George Bernard Shaw
... almost unconsciously descended this ravine, which even in broad daylight would have been considered impracticable. ...
— The Secret of the Island • W.H.G. Kingston (translation from Jules Verne)
... learnt to believe in a beyond, in a future that must succeed the darkest hour. But a child, as a rule, has neither past nor future; it lives in the present. The past lies behind, already half forgotten in to- day's happiness or trouble; the future is utterly wide, vague, and impracticable, in nowise modifying or limiting the sorrow which, to its unpractised imagination, can have no ending. When a child has learnt to live in the past, or the future, rather than in the present, it has learnt one of the first and saddest of life's experiences—a lesson so hard in the learning, ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter
... possible way to get this chance was to secure such an agreement of the two powers that they would meet and discuss the terms direct. Of course Japan will want to ask more than she ought to ask, and Russia to give less than she ought to give. Perhaps both sides will prove impracticable. Perhaps one will. But there is the chance that they will prove sensible, and make a peace, which will really be for the interest of each as things are now. At any rate the experiment was worth trying. I have kept the secret ...
— Letters to His Children • Theodore Roosevelt
... the close connexion of the cabinet with the legislature is that it is desirable to divide the strength of the ministry between the two Houses of Parliament. Pitt's cabinet of 1783 consisted of himself in the House of Commons and seven peers. But so aristocratic a government would now be impracticable. In Gladstone's cabinet of 1868, eight, and afterwards nine, ministers were in the House of Commons and six in the House of Lords. Great efforts were made to strengthen the ministerial bench in the Commons, and a new principle was introduced, that the representatives ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... disturb the birds. Being a cur, he did not bark, for which reason a strain of cur is preferred to this day by the mouchers who keep dogs. Now that the woods are regularly watched such a plan has become impracticable. It might indeed be done once, but surely not twice where competent ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies
... of ability is success. The measures were doubtless hard and severe; but Cromwell knew what he was about: he wished to bring the war to a speedy close, and intimidation was probably the best course to pursue. Those impracticable Irish never afterwards molested him. In less than a year he was at leisure to oppose Charles II. in Scotland; and on the resignation of Fairfax he was made Captain-General of all the forces in the empire. The ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord
... all saw, would render our expedition impracticable, as Dacoma's band alone outnumbered us; and should we meet them in their mountain fastnesses, we should have no ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... Did He mean it wholly?—He meant it far beyond what the words could convey. He meant it altogether and entirely. When people do not understand what the Lord says, when it seems to them that His advice is impracticable, instead of searching deeper for a meaning which will be evidently true and wise, they comfort themselves by thinking He could not have meant it altogether, and so leave it. Or they think that if He did mean it, He could not expect ...
— Annals of a Quiet Neighbourhood • George MacDonald
... been raised from time to time against proportional representation have been almost wholly disproved. Before it was put into operation it was said to be impracticable; wherever the new methods have been introduced the proceedings have in every case passed off without a hitch. Proportional representation, it was said, would result in unstable governments; now complaint is made that it has been difficult in Belgium under the new system to effect ...
— Proportional Representation - A Study in Methods of Election • John H. Humphreys
... rock, just above low-water-mark, a cell unapproachable by land, and high enough for you to stand erect. There you wished to play Constance in Marmion, and to be walled up alive, if convenient; but as it proved impracticable on that day, you helped me to secure some bits of drift-wood instead. Longer voyages brought waifs from remoter islands,—whose very names tell, perchance, the changing story of mariners long since wrecked,—isles baptized Patience and Prudence, ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... had already determined, while in the South Pass, that it would be impracticable to cross the Wahsatch range until spring, and shaped his arrangements accordingly. He resolved to establish winter-quarters in the vicinity of Fort Bridger, and on the 6th of November the advance towards that post commenced. The day was memorable ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... followers proposed for the adoption of the legislature? The truth is, nothing annoys him more than the desire manifested by the premier and the Parliament to remove all just grounds of complaint, and therefore it is that he has fixed on "repeal of the union," which he knows to be impracticable. A man's own interest must be considered, and "the Liberator" is well aware that, if agitation ceased, the twenty thousand a-year paid him by the "starving people" as a recompense for having patriotically rejected an office worth but five, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... Preacher, "He that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow." People generally give much the greater welcome and heed to him who tells them that their desires and schemes are righteous and can be realized, than to him who tells them that their desires are selfish or that their schemes are impracticable. It has always been the few who have sought the truth, resolute to find it and declare it, whether pleasant or unpleasant, in accord with the wishes of mankind or otherwise. Such men have sometimes suffered martyrdom in the past, ...
— Concerning Justice • Lucilius A. Emery
... instances, meet with disquisitions of a transcendental character, which, as a general rule, have been avoided: the truth is, that they were sometimes found so indissolubly intertwined with the more popular matter which preceded and followed, as to make separation impracticable. There are very many to whom no apology will be necessary in this respect; and the Editor only adverts to it for the purpose of obviating, as far as may be, the possible complaint of the more general reader. But there is another point to which, ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... ill-conceived expedition to the Chesapeake would doubtless have been carried out in 1776. In a contemporary English paper occurs the following significant item: "London, September 26th, 1776. Advices have been received here from Canada, dated August 12th, that General Burgoyne's army has found it impracticable to get across the lakes this season. The naval force of the Provincials is too great for them to contend with at present. They must build larger vessels for this purpose, and these cannot be ready before ...
— The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence • A. T. Mahan
... the rocks leads to a habitation sterile enough, you may suppose, when I tell you that the little earth on the adjacent ones was carried there by the late inhabitant. A path, almost impracticable for a horse, goes on to Arendall, ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft
... comparatively few (very few as compared with the mass who now are learned in the facts) who were in the habit of reading the scientific journals may have read of the thought of an electric telegraph about the year 1832, and even of Ronald's, and Betancourt's, and Salva's, and Lomond's impracticable schemes previously, and have forgotten them again, with thousands of other dreams, as the ingenious ideas of visionary men; ideas so visionary as to be considered palpably impracticable, declared to be so, indeed, ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... she had the real grace and distinction, and purity of profile that placed her in the actual category of beauty,—Nancy had inherited a healthy and equitable outlook on life, while her father, irresistible and impracticable being that he was, had endowed her with a certain eccentric and adventurous spirit ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley
... almost on the borders of China. From China to Sogd is about two months journey, through impracticable deserts of sand, where there is no water; for which reason the Chorassanians can make no irruptions into China. The most westerly province of China is Medu, which borders on Thibet, and the two nations are often at war. A person who had been in China, informed ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 1 • Robert Kerr
... longer and more circuitous than the footpath with which we are so familiar. The footpath, we know, went straight down the steep precipice of Brudenell hill, across the bottom, and then straight up the equally steep ascent of Hut hill. Of course this route was impracticable for any wheeled vehicle. The carriage therefore turned off to the left into a road that wound gradually down the hillside and as gradually ascended the opposite heights. The carriage drew up at a short distance from the hut, and the countess alighted and walked to the door. We have ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... marching from Cuzco to conquer the kingdom of Quito, had to march five hundred leagues by the mountains, where he had everywhere to encounter excessive difficulties, from bad roads, rocks, precipices and ravines, almost impracticable in many places. After he had successfully executed this great enterprize, by the conquest and submission of Quito and its dependencies, his subjects conceived that it was incumbent on them to do honour to his victorious career, by preparing ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... moor woman's brewery. Every barrel there has an odour that almost takes away one's senses; and the barrels stand close to each other; and wherever there is a little opening among them, through which one might push one's way, the passage becomes impracticable from the number of damp toads and fat snakes who sit out their time there. Among this company did Inge fall; and all the horrible mass of living creeping things was so icy cold, that she shuddered in all her limbs, and became stark and stiff. She continued fastened ...
— What the Moon Saw: and Other Tales • Hans Christian Andersen
... be impracticable," Mr. Mannering replied; "he is out of the city; and furthermore I know he would not care to appear in the transaction, but would prefer to have me conduct the negotiations. I was going to suggest that if you were to remain here a few days, I shall see my friend in a day or so, as I am going ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... the outer edges is from two to three miles. I am certain that in perpendicular depth it exceeds three thousand feet. The slopes from the edges were so steep and covered with loose stones that any attempt to descend even on foot was impracticable. From either side of this abyss, smaller ravines of similar character diverged, the distance between which seldom exceeded half-a-mile. Down them trickled small rills of water, derived from the range on which we were. We could not, ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... inclement sky, will ever forget the "Muddy March." We had scarcely reached the river-shore before we were compelled to return. In one instance a piece of artillery with its horses had to be abandoned, submerged so deeply in the mud that it was considered impracticable to extricate them. Men are frequently compelled to assist one another, unable to proceed alone. The ground is covered with snow, and yet the mud is so deep that it is almost an impossibility to move artillery or supplies. All our forage and rations are brought from Belle Plain on horses ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... so evidently just that all governments but one speedily acquiesced. The Emperor, highest in rank among Christian monarchs, the Spanish court, distinguished among all courts by sensitiveness and pertinacity on points of etiquette, renounced the odious privilege. Lewis alone was impracticable. What other sovereigns might choose to do, he said, was nothing to him. He therefore sent a mission to Rome, escorted by a great force of cavalry and infantry. The Ambassador marched to his palace as a general ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... heard a strange noise behind her. A rustling of branches and a rolling of small pebbles came from the ravine which skirted one side of the graveyard, and at the bottom of which flowed the Mascle, a stream which descended from the high lands of the Paradou. But the ascent here was so rough, so impracticable, that Desiree imagined that the noise could only have been made by some lost dog or straying goat. She stepped quickly to the edge, and, as she looked over, she was amazed to see amidst the brambles a girl who was climbing up the rocks with ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... son, to dam the Ganga so that there may be a commodious passage. People experience considerable difficulty in crossing and recrossing (the river) by boat.' Yavakri said, 'O thou of ascetic wealth, thou canst not dam up this mighty current. O Brahmana, desist from, what is impracticable, and take up something that is practicable.' Indra said, 'O sage, I have imposed on myself this heavy task, even as, for obtaining a knowledge of the Vedas, thou hast begun these penances, which can never be fruitful.' ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... Those who do not feel that it is superficial and pleasant, who grant that working for a state of being is the most profound and worthy and strenuous work a teacher can do,—that it is what education is for,—will feel that it is impracticable. It is thus that it has come to pass in the average institution of learning, that if a teacher does not know what education is, he regards education as superficial, and if he does know what education is, he regards education ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... of invasion it is sometimes impracticable, at least for a time, to provide for the immense forces placed on foot, by any regular system of magazines or of ordinary requisitions: in such cases their subsistence is entirely intrusted to the ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck
... to encourage settlement of the area. But the terminal date of the twenty-one year period stipulated in the charter of 1669 was approaching, and he appealed for a renewal of the grant on the basis that the amount of land intended by Charles II had not been taken up. Considering the restriction an impracticable one, King James II issued a new charter in 1688 with Lord Culpeper as the sole proprietor and with no time limit specified. Through changes and additions prompted by Culpeper's knowledge of Virginia's geography, the area of the grant included in the Northern ...
— Mother Earth - Land Grants in Virginia 1607-1699 • W. Stitt Robinson, Jr.
... which she was attired, lest the inflammable nature of the material might attract the fire. Thus he reached the summit of the stairs. There for a moment he stood aghast, for the wooden steps had already become the prey of the fiery element, and a descent appeared totally impracticable. In this emergency, Don Alonso firmly grasped his lovely burden, and with a promptness of decision and rapidity of execution congenial to his character, he threw himself fearlessly from the place, and clearing the flaming obstruction, alighted on the floor, without sustaining any ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... salaries to men scattered through hundreds of miles of bush country being impracticable, the department pays all salaries due to its servants into their bank accounts at Darwin, and therefore when Happy Dick found himself the backbone of the line party, he also found himself the possessor of a cheque-book. At first he was inclined to look upon it as a poor substitute for ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... accurate information. The subject has not been investigated with respect to the English periodicals, and since their number is far greater than the American, it would require a separate study to prepare a list of translations from the German published in them. It is, therefore, impracticable to exclude from the present discussion translations and poems by Englishmen, for it is only where the author's name is mentioned, or a note given, stating that the translation was made for such and such a magazine, that we can be sure whether ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... reactionaries, because on such an issue they think the people would stand with them, while the extremists care rather to preach discontent and agitation than to achieve solid results. As a matter of fact, our position is as remote from that of the Bourbon reactionary as from that of the impracticable or sinister visionary. We hold that the Government should not conduct the business of the nation, but that it should exercise such supervision as will insure its being conducted in the interest of the nation. Our aim is, so far as may be, to secure, for all decent, hard working men, equality of ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... whether a retreat was wholly impracticable, and he declared that it was so. Captain Hartley protested against this opinion, and showed how a retreat could be managed. His opinion was altogether overruled, and Mr. Holmes was sent with powers to conclude the treaty—which, however, the committee ...
— At the Point of the Bayonet - A Tale of the Mahratta War • G. A. Henty
... with a bowie-knife and evidently in deep thought. His continued stay in Richmond excited comment, because he was a man of such restless activity. He had never before been known to remain so long in one place, though now the frozen world, making military operations impossible or impracticable, offered fair excuse. ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... gratify their enquiries. But as the condition and abilities of such as would form Libraries are to be distinguished, so regard must likewise be had to places, for it is very difficult to procure, or collect books in some countries, without incredible expense; a design of that kind would be impracticable in America, Africa, and some parts of Asia; so that nothing can be determined as to the number of books, that depending entirely upon a variety of circumstances, and the means of procuring them, ...
— How to Form a Library, 2nd ed • H. B. Wheatley
... cavaliers traveled rapidly, having but one idea, one object. They soon buried themselves among the almost impracticable passes of the Cordilleras. Difficult pathways circulated through these reddish masses, planted here and there with cocoanut and pine trees; the cedars, cotton-trees, and aloes were left behind them, with ...
— The Pearl of Lima - A Story of True Love • Jules Verne
... more adequate, of the deep things to which the Lord gave expression. But it is useless to wait till one is satisfied of the adequacy of one's work, else life will have run its course before a beginning has been made. At the end of ten more years, the task would seem still more impracticable. ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer
... alone—and not talk to other parties." He passed his arm into that of his companion, and the two walked for some time up and down one of the less frequented corridors. Newman's imagination began to glow with the idea of converting his bright, impracticable friend into a first-class man of business. He felt for the moment a sort of spiritual zeal, the zeal of the propagandist. Its ardor was in part the result of that general discomfort which the sight of all uninvested capital produced in him; so fine an intelligence as Bellegarde's ought ...
— The American • Henry James
... continued among you? To this enquiry no better answer can be given than, that at the period of our political emancipation, the situation of the Southern States was supposed to render the measure of domestic emancipation dangerous, if not impracticable. Yet those who had the misfortune to be subjected to this evil, would willingly have commuted a species of precarious and artificial property for any other more substantial in itself, and more consonant with their own moral feelings. It has since been ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... of a number of attendants—not, indeed, more than sufficient to restrain a patient during a violent paroxysm, but nevertheless far beyond the ordinary exigencies of the establishment—is impracticable in asylums where only a small number ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... its movement diminishes progressively. The alluvium is deposited, banks multiply, the mouths are encumbered with submarine islets, locally called theys, which the waves and currents of the sea displace and remodel continuously, and render the entrance to the river impracticable. [1] ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... king went into Cumberland, and nearly laid waste the whole of it with his army, whilst his navy sailed about Chester with the design of co-operating with his land-forces; but, finding it impracticable, they ravaged Anglesey. The hostile fleet was this summer turned towards the kingdom ...
— The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle • Unknown
... clergy were by no means so lenient as the Bishop. They regarded Roberts as the ringleader of Dissent, an impracticable, obstinate, contumacious heretic, not only refusing to pay them tithes himself, but encouraging others to the same course. Hence, they thought it necessary to visit upon him the full rigor of the law. His crops were taken from his field, and his cattle from his yard. He was often ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... disappointing—to an outsider. The charm surrounding the life of Mr. Rhodes was more tangible; it appeared to extend to the roof that covered him. The greater part of the day was peaceful; but the Military were the Military, war was their profession; and a fight with the foe being for the moment impracticable, they ingeniously set about renewing the strife with their erstwhile friends—who, like Sancho Panza, clamoured merely for something to eat. Our recent experiences had tended to moderate our claims in this regard; we had become ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... "A set of poor tapsters and town apprentices," he warned Hampden, "would never fight against men of honour"; and he pointed to religious enthusiasm as the one weapon which could meet and turn the chivalry of the Cavalier. Even to Hampden the plan seemed impracticable; but the regiment of a thousand men which Cromwell raised for the Association of the Eastern Counties, and which in later times were known as his Ironsides, was formed strictly of "men of religion." He spent his fortune freely on the task he set himself. "The business . ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green
... of an enemy who had already surrounded the hill on which she stood was impracticable. In this extremity she called with a voice of despair for Kirkcaldy of Grange, a brave man, whom she saw at the head of the cavalry by whom she was surrounded, and he having halted his horse and procured leave from his ...
— Ringan Gilhaize - or The Covenanters • John Galt
... Easy!" Simon appealed. "I ain't 'Enry, dammit! You're bashing me—me—Simon!" He swore rather finely; but the fog, the general confusion, and, above all, the enthusiasm of bashing rendered identification by voice impracticable. Indeed, if any heard it, it had no effect; for, so they had some one to bash, they would bash. It didn't matter to them, just so it was a bash. Flanagan heard it quite clearly, but he knew the madness ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... this proposal in cold blood just nineteen hundred years after it was made, it may seem foolishly impracticable; to her, whose whole life was spent in unselfish devotion to her husband's interests, whose warm love for him was always mingled with discretion, it was simply an act of pietas—of wifely duty. Yet he could not for a moment think so himself: his indignation ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler
... the movies, however." [He refers to musical comedy as the "screamies."] "The play in the theatre is largely a matter of pantomime, you know. Dialogue is employed to advance the actual plot only when it is impossible or impracticable to do it with dumb show. And when I think of some of the lines I've been called upon to spout, I can't say that I regret the movies' ...
— Laugh and Live • Douglas Fairbanks
... saw, would render our expedition impracticable, as Dacoma's band alone outnumbered us; and should we meet them in their mountain fastnesses, we should ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... inculcates a cheerful, liberal, and charitable use of them, without expecting from them permanent or satisfying delight. He counsels us to take the transient pleasure which agreeable circumstances can afford, as far as consists with the fear of God; to be patient under unavoidable evil; not to aim at impracticable results; to fill up our allotted station in a peaceable, equitable, and prudent manner; to be contented, meek, and affectionate; and to do good abundantly as we have opportunity, in the expectation of a gracious reward. These general rules ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... ever had done first, was to set about the third. Almost thirty years have passed by; yet at this moment I cannot without something more than a smile moot the question which of the two things was the more impracticable, for a mind so eminently original to compose another man's thoughts and fancies, or for a taste so austerely pure and simple to imitate the Death of Abel? Methinks I see his grand and noble countenance as ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... open daylight. Since she was a hostage and belonged specially to Caesar, they might do that without fear of law. In the event of not finding her in Ostrianum they could follow Ursus, and the result would be the same. To go to the cemetery with a crowd of attendants was impracticable,—that might draw attention to them easily; then the Christians need only put out the lights, as they did when she was intercepted, and scatter in the darkness, or betake themselves to places known to them only. But Vinicius and he should arm, and, still better, take a couple of strong, trusty ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... streets to some vacant ground near the railroad depot, where we found most of our old Florence comrades already assembled. When they left us in the middle of February they were taken to Wilmington, and thence to Goldsboro, N. C., where they were kept until the rapid closing in of our Armies made it impracticable to hold them any longer, when they were sent back to Wilmington and given up to our forces ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... water, the object being to keep them dormant all winter, which can be done by keeping the soil as dry as possible, but not so dry as to allow the plants to shrivel, or become withered. Large plants of the kinds mentioned, often form desirable ornaments during the summer time, but it is impracticable, in most cases, to bring them into the house in winter, but they can be kept for years by cellaring through the winter as stated. Large Geraniums, Salvia and Heliotrope roots, and even Tea Roses, and Carnations, can be kept moderately well in the cellar by trenching them in dry, or moderately moist ...
— Your Plants - Plain and Practical Directions for the Treatment of Tender - and Hardy Plants in the House and in the Garden • James Sheehan
... in 1776. In a contemporary English paper occurs the following significant item: "London, September 26th, 1776. Advices have been received here from Canada, dated August 12th, that General Burgoyne's army has found it impracticable to get across the lakes this season. The naval force of the Provincials is too great for them to contend with at present. They must build larger vessels for this purpose, and these cannot be ready before next summer. The design was[3] that the two armies commanded by Generals Howe and Burgoyne ...
— The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence • A. T. Mahan
... the weather rendered mountain climbing impracticable. But the morning of the 28th was clear and cold, and I set out forthwith for the Eagle Lakes. If the grosbeaks were there, I meant to see them, though I should have to spend all day in the attempt. My botanist had returned home, ...
— The Foot-path Way • Bradford Torrey
... prodigious business with peasants, gondoliers, and laborers. Its more limited resources consist chiefly of fried eels, fish, polenta, and sguassetto. The latter is a true roba veneziana, and is a loud-flavored broth, made of those desperate scraps of meat which are found impracticable even by the sausage-makers. Another, but more delicate dish, peculiar to the place, is the clotted blood of poultry, fried in slices with onions. A great number of the families of the poor breakfast at these shops very abundantly, for three soldi ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... book according to subjects rather than according to daily lessons. The varying lengths of recitation periods in different schools, and the adaptation of the course to individual instruction as well as to class work, also made a division into lessons impracticable. Each teacher will soon discover about how much matter her class, if she uses the class method, can take each day. Probably the average section will require about 2 days to cover; the longest sections, 5 days. The entire course should easily be covered in one year with recitations ...
— Common Science • Carleton W. Washburne
... arrangements were in hand above, the skipper and the boy were busy over others below. Various startling schemes propounded by the skipper for obtaining possession of his men's attire were rejected by the youth as unlawful, and, what was worse, impracticable. For a couple of hours they discussed ways and means, but only ended in diatribes against the mean ways of the crew; and the skipper, whose head ached still from his excesses, fell into a state of sullen despair ...
— Many Cargoes • W.W. Jacobs
... For mistakes made now will handicap both community and school for years to come. The attempt to secure better schools by "improving" conditions in local districts should be definitely abandoned except in localities where conditions make consolidation impracticable for the present. The new consolidated school building should take definitely into account the fact that the school is to become the neighborhood social center, and the structure should be planned as much ...
— New Ideals in Rural Schools • George Herbert Betts
... a retreat was wholly impracticable, and he declared that it was so. Captain Hartley protested against this opinion, and showed how a retreat could be managed. His opinion was altogether overruled, and Mr. Holmes was sent with powers to conclude the treaty—which, however, the ...
— At the Point of the Bayonet - A Tale of the Mahratta War • G. A. Henty
... method will come into general use, however, is very unlikely, since the expense, the time, and the trouble will be so great that it will be impracticable to use it in every case, especially in hospitals or dispensaries, where crowds of patients have to be attended to in a relatively brief time. In the surgical dispensary alone of the Jefferson Medical College Hospital, about one hundred patients are in attendance ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 • Various
... as I am concerned. They are so much waste paper. I ask you nothing about the arrangement, because I know it will never come into effect so far as relates to my work on the paper." Finding that I was impracticable, Mr. Morley left and concluded his arrangement without consultation. One month later Mr. Ashton Dilke sickened with his fatal illness, and Mr. Morley was elected on February 24th, 1884, as Liberal candidate for Newcastle-on-Tyne. ...
— Real Ghost Stories • William T. Stead
... it is a fair presumption that the bottoms were plastered with clay, so that there would be no seepage and the only loss would be by evaporation. Yet this loss, in a dry and windy climate such as that of the region here treated, would be sufficient to render impracticable a storage reservoir of a cross section and a site like the one under discussion. Most of the rainfall is in the winter months, from December to March, and it would require a fall of over 12 inches during those months to render the reservoir of any use in June; ...
— Aboriginal Remains in Verde Valley, Arizona • Cosmos Mindeleff
... in the church of God, while admitting in the abstract the loveliness and advantages of such an ideal life, tell us as they told Israel that it is impracticable and impossible, and many of us have to stand alone for years witnessing to the power of Christ to save His people to the uttermost and like Caleb following Him wholly, if alone. But this is the real victory of faith and the proof of ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson
... on the long-neglected composer pressing applications for concerti and sonata, adapted to his more peculiar science on the violin. He had been employed for some weeks, day and night, on a piece in which he hoped to excel himself. He took, as usual, one of those seemingly impracticable subjects which it was his pride to subject to the expressive powers of his art,—the terrible legend connected with the transformation of Philomel. The pantomime of sound opened with the gay merriment of a feast. The monarch of Thrace is at his banquet; ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... his arts, he found it impracticable to surmount her objections to the proposed alliance, and therefore changed his battery. Instead of transferring her to the arms of his friend, he resolved to detain her in his own power by a legal claim, which would invest ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... steward, who considered the young count's attempts almost insane—unprofitable to himself, to the count, and to the serfs—made some concessions. Continuing to represent the liberation of the serfs as impracticable, he arranged for the erection of large buildings—schools, hospitals, and asylums—on all the estates before the master arrived. Everywhere preparations were made not for ceremonious welcomes (which he knew Pierre would ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... a violent jump, his thoughts flew to other things, and he considered one by one the various philanthropic schemes he had cherished against the day when he could realise them. That day had come. But the schemes seemed one and all wild now, impracticable, already accomplished by others better than he could hope to accomplish them, and none of them fulfilling the first essential his practical mind demanded—knowing his money spent precisely as he wished. Dreams, long cherished, seemed to collapse one by one before him just when ...
— A Prisoner in Fairyland • Algernon Blackwood
... owner. I took the road to Loretto, but turned out of it a short distance from Recanati, after a most violent struggle with myself, the attempt appearing to me at that juncture, quite desperate and impracticable; and the dreadful doom reserved for me should I miscarry, presented itself to my mind in the strongest light. But the reflection that I had it in my power to avoid being taken alive, and a persuasion that ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson
... to be done? While several absurd and impracticable plans were passing through his brain, the school bell began to ring, and he must start immediately to reach the schoolhouse ...
— The New McGuffey Fourth Reader • William H. McGuffey
... pieces which come to hand." To Robert Fulton, then laboring to perfect his torpedoes and submarine, Jefferson wrote encouragingly: "I have ever looked to the submarine boat as most to be depended on for attaching them [i. e., torpedoes].... I am in hopes it is not to be abandoned as impracticable." ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... beheld my father and my uncle Toby fast asleep—the respectfulness of his carriage was such, he would have retired as silent as death, and left them both in their arm-chairs, dreaming as happy as he had found them: but the thing was, morally speaking, so very impracticable, that for the many years in which this hinge was suffered to be out of order, and amongst the hourly grievances my father submitted to upon its account—this was one; that he never folded his arms to take his nap after dinner, but the thoughts of being unavoidably awakened by the first person ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... peaks. The road then keeps along left bank, undulating over the ravines, down which water flows from the hills on the eastern side; some of these are very steep, and the road itself is infamous, as may be supposed, crowded with boulders, and impracticable for wheeled carriages: one precipitous ravine we passed through, the rocks consisted of blackish, curiously laminated, and metallic looking stone. On descending one steep ravine, we then came on the road leading up to the Kulloo mountain, ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... should any one make his escape, they would force the natives to restore him, and would then shoot him as an example to the rest; well knowing, that any one by remaining there might be the means (should a ship arrive) of discovering their intended place of abode. Finding it therefore impracticable, I saw no other alternative but to rest as content as possible and return to Tooboui, and there wait till the masts of the Bounty should be taken out, and then take the boat which might carry me to Taheite, and disable those remaining from pursuit.[20] But Providence ...
— The Eventful History Of The Mutiny And Piratical Seizure - Of H.M.S. Bounty: Its Cause And Consequences • Sir John Barrow
... but he was now conspicuously poor, and in need of the friends who had power or interest which he believed they could exert on his behalf. Their omitting or declining to give this help could not seem to him so clearly as to them an inevitable consequence of his having become impracticable, or at least of his passing for a man whose views were not likely to be safe and sober. Each friend in turn offended him, though unwillingly, and was suspected of wishing to shake him off. It was not altogether ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... I think you clearly have done right in stopping Corry, it being so much our interest to prevent, and not to promote, negotiation. I think, on more reflexion, that the idea of refusing the power of dissolving is impracticable, and may be turned against us in the end; the other limitations will, I believe, be proposed; and that alone will be sufficient to put all negotiation out of ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... pleasant May morning, for a drive (or ride) of several miles across the Campagna is before us, and perhaps before the spot appointed for the business in hand is reached a scramble across a mile or so of open rolling ground impracticable for wheels. But nothing can be more lovely than the views of the hills around Rome in the fresh early hours of a May morning. Even the melancholy Campagna puts on a look of brightness and smiles a pale smile for the nonce. We soon overtake or ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... oils and a liberal mixing of alcohol with the gasolene afforded a safeguard against any sudden freezing of the vital fluids. The engine was, of course, jacketed, but was air-cooled, as water circulation would have been impracticable in the ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... was ordered to advance against the enemy. Now, Wayne thought he had to fight a rear-guard only, and so he moved forward boldly and rapidly; but, in a short time, he found himself directly in front of the whole British army, drawn up to receive him. Retreat was impracticable, as the enemy then might have had a fair chance to kill or capture the whole detachment. Wayne thought that the best plan was to put on a bold face, and so he commenced the attack at once. A fierce and bloody struggle followed, and I'm ...
— The Old Bell Of Independence; Or, Philadelphia In 1776 • Henry C. Watson
... against Indians is regarded as mere pastime, or you would have comprehended my meaning. Let us dismount from our horses where we are, and let my friend and myself steal forward, and mingle with the bushrangers; or if that is impracticable, find out their numbers, and whether they have made any impression on the hut—where the main body is stationed, and whether they suspect the presence of your force. An hour will be ample time to go and return. What ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... of the evening seemed like a dream. Would that they had been one! Only he would not have missed, at any cost, the sweet memories associated with Eva. But could she really become his own? He feared not; for the higher the sun rose the more impracticable his intentions of the night before appeared. At last he even thought of the religious conversation in the dancing hall with a superior smile, as if it had been carried on by some one else. The resolve to ask from her father the ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... up eventually Nigel's exact feeling towards him at this moment. It was hardly worth while undertaking the journey from England to gratify such a desire of the happy egoist. Better put the idea away. It was impracticable, and— ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... nearly thirty-four leagues wide; but they are obstructed by an innumerable quantity of islands, islets, breakers, and rocks, that make its navigation almost impracticable; so that Captain Nemo took all needful precautions to cross them. The Nautilus, floating betwixt wind and water, went at a moderate pace. Her screw, like a cetacean's tail, beat ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... all influence over the outcome? While you are repining over what is beyond recall, events are moving on. If you do not help shape them, others, without your high principle and purity of motive, may. Can you wonder if, while you are harassing the Administration with impracticable demands for an abandonment of territory which the American people will not let go, less unselfish influences are busy presenting candidates for all the offices in its organization? If the friends of a proper civil service persist in chasing ...
— Problems of Expansion - As Considered In Papers and Addresses • Whitelaw Reid
... "Irene is more lovable than I even to a beast, and Irene, Irene—" She sighed deeply at the name, and would have sunk down on her trunk there to consider of new ways and means—all of which however she was forced to reject as foolish and impracticable—but on the chest lay a little shirt she had begun to make for little Philo, and this reminded her again of the sick child and of the duty of ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... apart from fluctuations in the taste of the reading public, there are special reasons why a version of this portion of Horace's works should be a difficult, perhaps an impracticable undertaking. It would not be easy to maintain that a Roman satirist was incapable of adequate representation in English in the face of such an instance to the contrary as Gifford's Juvenal, probably, take it all in all, the very best version of a classic in the language. But though Juvenal has ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... having shown me how impracticable in the large majority of cases is any cure of a long-established opium habit while the patient continues his daily avocations and remains at home, [Footnote: In my article upon opium-eating, entitled, "What Shall They Do to be Saved?" published in Harper's Magazine for the month ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... of the orbs of heaven; and politicians, equally ignorant and equally presumptuous, may easily be led to suppose, that the happiness of our world would be promoted by a different tendency of the human mind. It appears, indeed, to a slight and superficial observer, that many things impracticable in our present state, might be easily effected, if mankind were better disposed to union and co-operation: but a little reflection will discover, that if confederacies were easily formed, they would lose their efficacy, since numbers would be opposed ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... own arms. The use and necessity of personal experience consisted in the power of choosing and applying what had been read, and of discriminating by the light of analogy the practicable from the impracticable, and probability from mere plausibility. Without a judgment matured and steadied by actual experience, a man would read to little or perhaps to bad purpose; but yet that experience, which in exclusion of all other knowledge ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... far was the lack of capital. Murray had foreseen as inevitable the abandonment by the Trust of its Cortez route, but its change of base to Kyak had come as a startling surprise and as an almost crushing blow. Personally, he believed its present plan to be even more impracticable than its former one, but its refusal to buy him out had disheartened his financial associates and tightened their purse-strings into a knot which no argument of his could loose. He had long since exhausted his own liquid capital, he had realized ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... well as in politics, is distrusted as hypocrisy. Now Uncle Jerry Hollowell was neither oily nor frank; he was long-headed and cautious, and had a reputation for shrewdness and just enough of plasticity of conscience to remove him out of the list of the impracticable and over-scrupulous. This reputation that business men and politicians acquire would be a very curious study. The world is very complacent, and apparently worships success and votes for smartness, but it would surprise some of our most successful ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... were by no means so lenient as the Bishop. They regarded Roberts as the ringleader of Dissent, an impracticable, obstinate, contumacious heretic, not only refusing to pay them tithes himself, but encouraging others to the same course. Hence, they thought it necessary to visit upon him the full rigor of the law. His crops were taken from his field, and ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... of evil arts, impracticable, thy stratagem has made noble Hector cease from battle, and put his troops to flight. Indeed I know not whether again thou mayest not be the first to reap the fruits of thy pernicious machinations, and I may chastise thee with stripes. Dost thou not remember when thou didst ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... so we had to give up the novelty of sailing down the river on a farm. We had one more arrow in our quiver: a Vicksburg packet, the 'Gold Dust,' was to leave at 5 P.M. We took passage in her for Memphis, and gave up the idea of stopping off here and there, as being impracticable. She was neat, clean, and comfortable. We camped on the boiler deck, and bought some cheap literature to kill time with. The vender was a venerable Irishman with a benevolent face and a tongue that worked easily in the socket, and from him we learned that he had lived in St. Louis thirty-four years ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... than nine nations between us and Abyssinia, who were always embroiled amongst themselves, or at war with the Abyssins, and enjoyed no security even in their own territories. We were now convinced that our enterprise was impracticable, and that to hazard ourselves amidst so many insurmountable difficulties would be to tempt Providence; despairing, therefore, that I should ever come this way to Abyssinia, I resolved to return back with my intelligence to my companion, whom I ...
— A Voyage to Abyssinia • Jerome Lobo
... increased. The disadvantage of inoculation was that the person inoculated was affected with a mild form of small-pox, which however, was contagious, and led to a virulent form in uninoculated persons. As universal inoculation was manifestly impracticable, any half-way measure was decidedly disadvantageous, and it was not until vaccination from cow-pox was instituted that the first decided check on the ravages of small-pox ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... beyond the scene of their encounter with the woodcutters, the path entered among the gorges of the mountains, and the level plains of France were for a time lost to their view. The route they were following was a mere bridle-track, quite impracticable for carriages, but leading to one of the "ports" already mentioned, by which they could pass through to the Spanish side. Through this port a considerable traffic is carried on between the two countries—most of the carrying being done by Spanish ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... plan of writing every evening the adventures of the day, I find it impracticable; for the diversions here are so very late, that if I begin my letters after them, I could not go to ...
— Evelina • Fanny Burney
... public stores.[290] The winter of 1842-1843 was particularly severe. On the first of November the ground was covered with snow which as late as April still lay from two to two and a half feet deep. No hunting was possible because of the drifts, and fishing through the ice was impracticable, the wind blowing the holes full of snow as soon as they were cut. The Indians living about Lac qui Parle, about two hundred miles up the Minnesota River, came with the missionary Dr. Thomas Williamson to winter on the site ...
— Old Fort Snelling - 1819-1858 • Marcus L. Hansen
... in making use of his right must, if possible, inflict damage, even death, upon the debtor or other wrongdoer or on some of his relatives, but should this prove impracticable he is at liberty to select anyone. If he kills a neutral party, he must compound with the relatives of the slain one for the death inflicted and enter with them into a solemn promise to act jointly ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... never seen or heard of a man on a brown horse." I was too thoroughly inured to disappointment by this time to feel angry—much less surprised—at anything in that line. Evidently I had to do with one of those impracticable yet timorous females—strong in their very weakness—who will persist in bearing a meek false-witness till the examiner's patience fails. So my answer was quiet enough. "Pardon me, I think your memory is treacherous. You surely must at least ...
— Border and Bastille • George A. Lawrence
... five hundred thousand cubic feet in one second—sufficient to fill all the streams in Europe, and swell them to overflowing. No plummet has hitherto sounded the depth of its bed at this point, the force of the stream probably rendering the operation almost impracticable. ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... searching for a way to put the Parisians to flight, and finding none that were not impracticable follies. ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... Claverhouse had apprehended, did not fail to take place. The troopers, who, with Lord Evandale, had rushed down upon the enemy, soon found their disorderly career interrupted by the impracticable character of the ground. Some stuck fast in the morass as they attempted to struggle through, some recoiled from the attempt and remained on the brink, others dispersed to seek a more favourable place to pass the swamp. In the midst of this confusion, the first line of the enemy, of which the ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... me to love Dora more than ever, I am sure I did. But I felt she was a little impracticable. It damped my new-born ardour, to find that ardour so difficult of communication to her. I made another trial. When she was quite herself again, and was curling Jip's ears, as he lay upon her lap, ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... reason and Christian principle as it is opposed to the past experience of our colonies. Yet a generation passed away while the abolitionists of Great Britain were trying to make ropes of sand—to give practical effect to an impracticable theory; pursuing a delusion, which this honored woman was the first to detect; and that less by force and subtlety of argument, than by the statement of self-evident truths, and by the enforcement of the simple and grand principle that Christianity admits of ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge
... Mattathias little trusted that courage which only follows in the train of success. The old man knew that the struggle with the power of Syria was only commencing; that it would probably be long protracted, and that it would be impracticable to defend Modin against the hosts which would soon be sent to assail it. The patriarch stood in the centre of the market-place, with his foot on the fragments of the broken altar, and once more his loud clear voice rang ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker
... conditions we must live with. In any event, it is useful to understand them, either to improve our situation or bear it patiently, sometimes to carry out appropriate reforms, sometimes to renounce impracticable reforms, now to assume the authority necessary for success, and now the prudence ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... discovering his son's partiality for Mademoiselle St. Aubert, his inferior in point of fortune, forbade him to declare it to her family, or to think of her more. During the life of his father, he had observed the first command, but had found it impracticable to obey the second, and had, sometimes, soothed his passion by visiting her favourite haunts, among which was the fishing-house, where, once or twice, he addressed her in verse, concealing his name, in obedience to the promise he ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... the wind was so high and the surf so loud that we could not hear so as to understand each other. There were canoes on the shore, and we made signs, and hallooed that they should fetch us, but they either did not understand us or thought it impracticable, so they went away, and night coming on, we had no remedy but to wait till the wind should abate. In the meantime, the boatman and I concluded to sleep if we could, and so crowded into the scuttle with the Dutchman, who was still wet, and the ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... dividing of the settled regions into definite parishes, each with its church and its learned minister. The democratic autonomy of each church was jealously guarded, and yet they were all knit together by terms of loose confederation into a vital system. The impracticable notion of a threefold ministry in each church, consisting of pastor, teacher, and ruling elder, failed long before the first generation had passed; but, with this exception, it may justly be said that the noble ideal of the Puritan fathers of New England of a Christian state in the New ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... travelling through the colony. As the plantations for many years did not extend far back from the rivers' banks, there was no need of roads or vehicles. And even when many settlements had been made beyond tidewater, the condition of the roads was so bad that the use of vehicles was often impracticable and riding was the common method of travelling. As the colony became more thickly populated and the roads were gradually improved, various kinds of carriages were introduced. During Governor Spotswood's administration ...
— Patrician and Plebeian - Or The Origin and Development of the Social Classes of the Old Dominion • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... measures were impracticable. "I was ordered by the Duke of Atholl" writes David Robertson from Blair, to his brother, an officer in Lord George's regiment, "to take up and imprison all deserters; but I might as well attempt to move ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... difficult to traverse, and possibly infested by the enemy. General Scott writes: "I had despatched several staff officers who had, within the space of two hours, returned and reported to me that each had found it impracticable to penetrate far into the Pedregal during the dark. . . . Captain Lee, having passed over the difficult ground by daylight, found it just possible to return to San Augustin in the dark, the greatest feat of physical and moral courage performed by any individual, ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden
... In other words, they will rule themselves, and it therefore behooves us to see that they are so educated that they shall do this wisely. They are not continually under the eye of a guardian. They are left to themselves to a degree which would be deemed in other countries impracticable and dangerous. We cannot follow them everywhere, and therefore, more than in any other country must we educate them, so that they will follow and rule themselves. But no platform of premise and conclusion, however logical and exact, is ...
— The Education of American Girls • Anna Callender Brackett
... replacing his drier half in his seat, laughingly strikes the heavier of the wet from his legs over the gunwale, before he gives them an inside berth. In rapids, the towing line has to be hauled along over rocks and stumps, through swamps and thickets, excepting that when the ground is utterly impracticable, poles are substituted, and occasionally also ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... contagion or 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 ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... ought to choose the most expert on each subject. But the choice of the expert, though a good deal easier than the choice of truth, is still too difficult and often impracticable. The experts themselves are not in the least certain who among them is the most expert. And at that, the expert, even when we can identify him, is, likely as not, too busy to be consulted, or impossible to get at. But there are people whom we can identify easily enough ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... and there is no limit to the numbers that we can write down. But there is one thing that we cannot do; we cannot fix upon a point when Time or succession began, or upon a point when it will cease. That is an operation not in keeping with our faculties; the very supposition is impracticable. We cannot entertain the notion of a state of things wherein the fact of continuance had no place; the effort belies itself. Time is inseparable from our mental nature; whatever we imagine, we must imagine as enduring. Some philosophers have supposed that we must be endowed ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... were concentrated at Karla, on the White Nile. It was known that the Khalifa was at Gedir, eighty miles away; but after proceeding half the distance, it was found that he had marched away, and the column returned, as pursuit through a densely-wooded country would have been impracticable. ...
— With Kitchener in the Soudan - A Story of Atbara and Omdurman • G. A. Henty
... be more impracticable than was supposed. "2. We may meet with land. "3. The dogs may fail us, may sicken, or freeze to death. "4. We ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... control, continence is as impracticable for most people as it is undesirable. Celibate women doubtless have their place in the regeneration of the world, but it is not they, after all, who will, through experience and understanding recreate it. It is mainly through ...
— Woman and the New Race • Margaret Sanger
... had stripped even the lash of its prevailing authority, and the terrors of an overseer for once were as nothing, in the terrible expectation of the advent of the universal Judge of men. They were utterly impracticable—so, like a very shrewd man as he was, he acquiesced in their determination not to work; but he expressed to them his belief that Sinda was mistaken, and he warned her that if, at the appointed time, it proved so, she would be severely punished. I do not know whether ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... "Absurd, no—impracticable, perhaps. You mean his suggestion that I should try a little speculation? Frankly, I had no idea that such things could be begun with so little capital. It seems incredible. I fancy that Del Ferice was exaggerating. You know how carelessly bankers talk of a few thousands, ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... these will continue to be indispensable, if it should only be against the ravages and depredations of the Indians. These garrisons must either be furnished by occasional detachments from the militia, or by permanent corps in the pay of the government. The first is impracticable; and if practicable, would be pernicious. The militia would not long, if at all, submit to be dragged from their occupations and families to perform that most disagreeable duty in times of profound peace. ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... Before proceeding further, however, the manner of the application of the cramp must be considered. And now, how are we to obtain a direct pressure of the cramp on the largest surface, and which would have to be in one direction, end to end of the violin, seemingly a perfectly impracticable matter? The answer is, it is not practicable, hence the above numerous injunctions as to preliminaries, and which have to do with counterbalancing the impossibility of direct and strong pressure. The only ...
— The Repairing & Restoration of Violins - 'The Strad' Library, No. XII. • Horace Petherick
... France had from time to time received permission from the authorities to carry arms, many carried them secretly and without a license; but proportionately there were so few in both classes that vigorous or successful armed resistance was in most places impracticable. The attitude of the department of war at Paris was regulated by Buttafuoco, and was of course hostile to the insidious scheme of a local militia. The minister of war would do nothing but submit the suggestion to the body against whose influence it was aimed, ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... a favourable wind; its waters were found to be generally very shallow, and the long, narrow, and winding channel by which it communicates with the ocean was found, as it had been feared, almost impracticable even for the smallest vessels. This channel unites itself with the sea on the south-western coast of New Holland, at the bottom of a bay named Encounter Bay, one boundary of which is Cape Jervis, by which it is separated from ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden
... reform, it may be said, was not as evidently impracticable in 1913 as it seems in retrospect. It was widely criticised at the time, and the phrase "watchful waiting" which he invented as a description of his Mexican Policy was made the object of much ridicule. Throughout the first winter of the new Administration the ...
— Woodrow Wilson's Administration and Achievements • Frank B. Lord and James William Bryan
... vague and impracticable title 'My Novel'! It must really be changed before the work goes in due ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and long inured to every kind of hardship and danger, they set to work with cool resolution to make as effective a defence as possible, to beat off their antagonists if they might, and if this proved impracticable, to sell their lives as dearly as they could. Having tethered the horses in a slight hollow, the only one which offered any protection, each man crept out to a point of the triangular brush patch and lay down ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt
... whittling a pine stick with a bowie-knife and evidently in deep thought. His continued stay in Richmond excited comment, because he was a man of such restless activity. He had never before been known to remain so long in one place, though now the frozen world, making military operations impossible or impracticable, offered fair excuse. ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... departmental career, he has won a lasting name as an explorer by his adventurous journey to Kafiristan in 1883, when on leave. It may be fairly claimed for him that he was the first European officer who set foot in that impracticable country, and he is still the best authority on many of the routes leading to it. His services to geographical science were recognised by the Royal Geographical Society, who awarded him the Murchison grant, and there can be little doubt ...
— Memoir of William Watts McNair • J. E. Howard
... passing vessel with the mine. To insure this, the line was triple; those in the second and third rows not being in the alignment of the first, but so placed as to fill the interstices and make almost impracticable the avoidance of all three torpedoes belonging ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... it seemed to Mainwaring that he should give it all up, but this was at once so impracticable and so quixotic that he presently abandoned it, and in time his qualms and misdoubts faded away and he settled himself down to enjoy that which had come to him through ...
— Howard Pyle's Book of Pirates • Howard I. Pyle
... Heart of Tartary with the Army; not considering, That to run up a Hundred Mile into the Country, and leave the Enemies Towns untaken, and their Armies in a Condition to Recruit, cut off their Convoys and Communication, and make their Subsistence impracticable, was the ready way to destroy them, as has been seen by a woful Example in Spain. But the General was wiser, and regarded more the Safety of the Army, and the Honour of his Mistress; and therefore, by the unanimous Approbation of all the allied Generals, ...
— Atalantis Major • Daniel Defoe
... Twelfth-day. It seems worth remembering that this day I did hear my Lord Anglesey at the table, speaking touching this new Act for Accounts, say that the House of Lords did pass it because it was a senseless, impracticable, ineffectual, and foolish Act; and that my Lord Ashly having shown this that it was so to the House of Lords, the Duke of Buckingham did stand up and told the Lords that they were beholden to my Lord Ashly, that having first commended ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... thermometer fell to 70 deg.. At 3 P.M. started for some huts we saw at the foot of Lumpu Balong, having first sent our horses back to Lengan Lengang, being assured their farther progress was impracticable. When, however, our guide from Lokar understood our intention of reaching Lumpu Balong, he objected to proceed, on the plea that the village in advance was inhabited by people from Turatte. We managed to coax him on, and, after two and a half hours' walk, reached Parontalas. The country, ascending ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... also impracticable. It was not long before somebody came hammering at his "oak" just as he was getting to sleep, and next morning he told his mother that he really ought to have a glass of wine to give. So she sent him a couple of bottles over, and that very night "Mr. Liddell and Mr. ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood
... and thought, a strong dose of aristocratical qualities also,—of pride, defiance, turn for resistance—this truly aristocratical [73] side of them, so far from adding any strength to them really neutralises their force and makes them impracticable and ineffective. ...
— Culture and Anarchy • Matthew Arnold
... heightened their complexions considerably. Not to be behind-hand in the bustle, Mr Quilp went to work with surprising vigour; hustling and driving the people about, like an evil spirit; setting Mrs Quilp upon all kinds of arduous and impracticable tasks; carrying great weights up and down, with no apparent effort; kicking the boy from the wharf, whenever he could get near him; and inflicting, with his loads, a great many sly bumps and blows on the shoulders of Mr Brass, as he stood ...
— The Old Curiosity Shop • Charles Dickens
... and Phillips seemed always anxious to secure articles from Taylor for the Monthly, and even books for his publishing-house. Hence the introduction from Taylor that Borrow carried to London might have been most effective if Phillips had had any use for poor and impracticable would-be authors. ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... remedy have you to suggest." His answer was, "We must make for the cottonwood timber." Two miles and a half lay between us and the timber referred to, which, of course, rendered his suggestion utterly impracticable with two thousand noncombatants to move, and I said: "White, they would slaughter us like sheep should we undertake such a movement. Our strongest hold is in this town, and if you will get together fifty volunteers, I will drive the Indians ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau
... upon it from the west; the monotonous roll-call of the long Pacific surges regularly beat upon it from the sea. Almost impossible to face by day through sliding sands and buffeting winds, at night it was impracticable through the dense sea-fog that stole softly through the Golden Gate at sunset. Thence, until morning, sea and shore were a trackless waste, bounded only by the warning thunders of the unseen sea. The station itself, a rudely built ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... Carmelites of Louvain, of the Flemish manuscript written while the Mother was still alive, by her daughters. Where can I unearth that? In any case the search must be a long one. No, I must set aside that scheme, which for the present is impracticable. ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... "sponge," to rise, they industriously dotted its top with lumps of coal from the hod, in imitation of a huckleberry pudding which had appeared at table. They even essayed to eat the mixture; but finding this impracticable set to work to force one another down into the pan of dough—with sufficient success to ruin the new suits they wore as well as Aunt Malinda's "risin'." Having discovered that sugar was sweet they emptied ...
— Dorothy's House Party • Evelyn Raymond
... inconspicuous part, was now to become the scene of the greatest naval battle of the war. A British army of 11,000 men under Sir George Prevost undertook the invasion of New York by advancing up the western bank of Lake Champlain. This advance was impracticable unless there was a sufficiently strong British naval force to drive back the American squadron at the same time. Accordingly, the British began to construct a frigate, the Confiance, to be added to ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... and brotherhood, was achieved by a few untutored missionaries. From that era was first dated the emancipation of slaves, no less from bondage of limbs than of mind, until by degrees a civilisation without slavery became apparent, a state of society believed to be utterly impracticable by the ancient philosophers. A review of history from the appearance of Christ to the present age, would finally demonstrate that the religion he established had invariably been found adapted to all possible grades in civilised society. ...
— My Ten Years' Imprisonment • Silvio Pellico
... there; and seeing my mother about to go up to the next floor, he stopped her, indicating the dilapidated condition of the stairs. 'This floor is abandoned,' he said; 'the platform above is in a very bad state, and the staircase impracticable and dangerous. Mme. de Combray begs that you will never go above the first landing, for fear of an accident.' After which he ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre
... Sturgeon Bay and Penetanguishene; whilst, on the other hand, no sagacious enemy would penetrate the country from Sturgeon Bay and leave such a stronghold as Penetanguishene in his rear, whereby all his vessels and supplies might be suddenly cut off, and his return rendered impracticable. ...
— Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... Henry VIII. all parties looked forward to a complete change in the religious condition of England. On the one hand, those, who longed for a return to Roman obedience, believed that royal supremacy must of necessity prove both unintelligible and impracticable in the case of a mere child like Edward VI. (1547-53); while, on the other hand, those, who favoured a closer approximation to the theology and practices of Wittenberg or of Geneva, saw in the death of Henry and the succession of a helpless young king an exceptional opportunity ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance • Rev. James MacCaffrey
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