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Unable   /ənˈeɪbəl/   Listen
Unable

adjective
1.
(usually followed by 'to') not having the necessary means or skill or know-how.  "Unable to obtain funds"
2.
(usually followed by 'to') lacking necessary physical or mental ability.  "The sun was unable to melt enough snow"
3.
Lacking in power or forcefulness.  Synonyms: ineffective, ineffectual.  "Like an unable phoenix in hot ashes"



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"Unable" Quotes from Famous Books



... into Baker's hand. The man was shaking like a leaf from emotion. He stood like one spellbound, unable to take in all at once the good that was said of him and ...
— Bart Stirling's Road to Success - Or; The Young Express Agent • Allen Chapman

... our own, and shall give him my confidence and friendship. If, on the other hand, he assumes too much, and tries to lord it over us, I shall seek other support and gather a party which even he will be unable successfully to withstand. I should have thought, Edward, that you would be even more glad than I that this long time of weary waiting for action is over, and that once again the banner of Lancaster will be spread ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty

... Holy Ghost, through whom they should be made strong to meet every need and emergency, was the inspiring theme of this part of the Lord's discourse. Many things which Christ yet had to say to His apostles, but which they were at that time unable to understand, the Holy Ghost would teach them. "Howbeit," said Jesus, "when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come. He shall ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage

... the signature Civis Americanus—the use of my own name at the time being impossible. Two others, "Lights Out" and "Remarks about Kings," were read for me by Robert Underwood Johnson at the meeting of the American Academy in Boston, November, 1915, at which I was unable to be present. ...
— The Red Flower - Poems Written in War Time • Henry Van Dyke

... Sydney to Lifu, and that it would do harm to have two rival systems on the island. They acquiesced but not heartily, and it was a sad affair altogether, all parties unhappy and dissatisfied, and yet unable to solve the difficulty. Then came a talk with Angadhohua, John's half-brother, the real chief. The poor lad feels now what a terrible thing it will be for him and his people if they should lose John. Nothing can be nicer than his way of talking: "I know you don't think me ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge

... and then she was uncatchable, slipping through his very fingers like a ray of sunlight a child tries to hold; but the other half of the time she was timidity itself, and crept from tree to tree, and if he were near became like a little frightened rabbit, forgetting, or being through fear unable, to touch safety; and then she was snared ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon

... here yesterday thought that you were calling too, and that she could find you?" she continued, pushing him forward, for, though he had promised an explanation, he seemed unable to ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster

... a last trace of the blood of the young tribune, which the attendants had been unable to remove. And this indelible mark of the crime which she had witnessed brought the image of the wounded Aurelius before her: just as he now lay, shaken with fever, so had she seen her lover a few days before. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... that had been laid before him. Whether his friend was really driving at some unheard-of and unearthly solution of the problem which he himself had raised, or whether he was merely discussing the possible issue of some abstract question in physiology, he was utterly unable to discover, and so he thought it best to confine himself to the matter in hand, without hazarding any risky guesses that might possibly result in his own confusion. So he answered as quietly as ...
— The Romance of Golden Star ... • George Chetwynd Griffith

... who for bribes his faithless counsels sold, And voted Helen's stay for Paris' gold. Atrides mark'd, as these their safety sought, And slew the children for the father's fault; Their headstrong horse unable to restrain, They shook with fear, and dropp'd the silken rein; Then in the chariot on their knees they fall, And thus with lifted hands for ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer

... standing at Waterloo and of fighting Napoleon's army, if Marshal Bluecher would come to his assistance with one Army Corps. Napoleon attacked on June 18 with 72,000 men and 246 guns, against Wellington's 68,000 men with 156 guns, at 11 a.m., but he was unable to shift the line or break through the squares. At 4.30 p.m. one of Bluecher's corps was delivering the promised counter-attack against Napoleon's line of communications. Soon after 9 p.m. Wellington and Bluecher met at La Belle Alliance, Napoleon's ...
— Lectures on Land Warfare; A tactical Manual for the Use of Infantry Officers • Anonymous

... appeared dark and sinister, threatening not only himself, but her who was so dear to him. He saw the villain in the act of harming her, while he himself was powerless to assist her. He was bound, and no matter how he struggled, he was unable to free himself. ...
— Glen of the High North • H. A. Cody

... Poniatovsky's daughter?" he asked in surprise, unable to connect this splendid young creature with the ugly little Pole he knew as the proprietor of ...
— A Girl of the Klondike • Victoria Cross

... their search, confused by the fog; or were they still stealthily seeking to locate our position? Could there be more than one boat, and if not what force of men might such a boat contain? These questions never left me, and were alike unanswerable. Unable to withstand inaction any longer I arose to my feet, thinking to pass down the line with a word of encouragement to each man. A glance upward told me the heavy mist was passing, driven away by a light breeze from the south. Through the thick curtain which still clung to ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish

... six days in London without going to H——, and on each of those days he paid a visit to Lord Lilburne. On the seventh day, the invalid being much better, though still unable to leave his room, Camilla returned to Berkeley Square. On the same day, Vaudemont went once more to see Simon ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... pretty repartees, or well-turned compliments? In order to admire or esteem any thing for a continuance, we must, at least, have our curiosity excited by knowing, in some degree, what we admire; for we are unable to estimate the value of qualities and virtues above our comprehension. Such a respect, when it is felt, may be very sublime; and the confused consciousness of humility may render the dependent creature an interesting object, in some points of view; but human love must have grosser ingredients; ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]

... source, and the detective he had employed had thus far discovered nothing. She might be in difficulties, in actual want and would not ask assistance from sheer pride. The thought was maddening and for days Stafford, distraught, unable to attend to his affairs, remained in the house, hoping, half expecting, she would return until the uncertainty and continual disappointment nearly drove him insane. He could not eat; he could not sleep. His ears still rang with her reproaches, her stinging words of bitter denunciation. ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow

... was unable to see anything more of Niagara; the others crossed the ferry. We left at twenty minutes to five, and owing to the steamer being late on Lake Ontario we did not reach the Macpherson's till half-past nine. They waited dinner, and we rushed ...
— The British Association's visit to Montreal, 1884: Letters • Clara Rayleigh

... ensued. M. Desmalions once more inspected this curious individual; and he could not refrain from saying, as though in obedience to an association of ideas for which he himself was unable to account: ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc

... be full of vanity, anxious to show what superior qualities he possesses; whilst at another time he will be bored. Not to labour the point further, these methods, whatever they may become in the future, are at present unable to afford any criterion whatever of the mental ability that goes with race. They are fertile in statistics; but an interpretation of these statistics that furthers our purpose is still ...
— Anthropology • Robert Marett

... thirty yards away, and coming fast, but the withering hail of lead that greeted them crumpled their front line as though it were made of paper. The others, unable to see their assailants, wavered a minute, and then broke, with the exception of ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams

... translation is of no inconsiderable merit, though this is more apparent when read apart from the original. It bears evidence of having been written by a man capable of appreciating the poetry of Tasso, and one who, while unable to strike the higher chords of lyric composition, was yet able to render the Italian into graceful and unassuming, if seldom wholly musical or adequate, verse. Thus the version hardly does itself justice in quotation, ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg

... is tragic in it and the whole tragic sense of life is founded upon this—this feeling is a feeling of hunger for God, of the lack of God. To believe in God is, in the first instance, as we shall see, to wish that there may be a God, to be unable to live ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno

... path, to show us our next step, to give us strength for duty. We should not always look outside for aid, remembering that some time we must be able to stand alone. Let us not deny our own deeper being, our obscured glory. That we accepted these truths, even as intuitions which we were unable intellectually to justify, is proof that there is that within us which has been initiate in the past, which lives in and knows well what in the shadowy world is but a hope. There is part of ourselves whose progress we ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell

... other banks of issue in an ill-advised effort to force them immediately to a specie basis, loans were called in everywhere, the circulation was greatly contracted, prices fell, manufacturers and merchants were unable to meet their obligations, factories shut down, mercantile firms went into bankruptcy, banks closed their doors, and business everywhere was completely prostrated. To make matters worse, the export price of the great "money crop," cotton, fell from 32 cents in 1818 to 17-1/2 cents in ...
— Outline of the development of the internal commerce of the United States - 1789-1900 • T.W. van Mettre

... consequence of the death of the last peer it has been discovered in Scotland that the titles and family estates have devolved upon Captain Murdoch Mackenzie of London. This gentleman is naturally anxious to establish his rights, but being unable to prosecute so important a claim without the aid of sufficient funds he has been advised to solicit the aid of some individuals whose public spirit and liberal feelings may prompt them to assist him ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie

... dragged out an F.B.I. file showing I was a crank and maverick, unable to hold a job, and guilty of signing a peace petition in 1949. If Bishop or Cavanaugh tried to help, I don't know about it. I suppose I'm lucky that the Syndicate has been equally skeptical. Otherwise, being out many millions, they would ...
— Revenge • Arthur Porges

... for instance, unable to get along with the prison rations, but the interesting thing about Ruhleben was not its discomfort, but the remarkable fashion in which the prisoners had contrived to make the best of ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl

... spear, the dragon had wound its coils around him, and he heard its horrible teeth crunching against the side of his crystal helmet, and he felt the pressure of its coils around his side, and the breath almost left his body; but the dragon, unable to pierce the helmet, unwound his coils, and soon Enda's hands were free, and before the dragon could attempt to seize him again, he drove his spear through one of its fiery eyes, and, writhing with pain, the hissing dragon darted through a cave behind him. Enda, gaining courage from the dragon's ...
— The Golden Spears - And Other Fairy Tales • Edmund Leamy

... in camp, and very cold at that. There was a certain amount of confusion owing to the Christmas festivities and leave, and so forth, and one man was unable to find any of his outer garments. He wandered about, asking all his mates if they ...
— Best Short Stories • Various

... by his first wife, whom he treated cruelly; after his second marriage cruelly treated the children of his first wife, but conceived a criminal passion for the youngest of them, a beautiful girl named BEATRICE, whom he outraged, upon which, being unable to bring him to justice, she, along with her stepmother and a brother, hired two assassins to murder him; the crime was found out, and all three were beheaded (1599); this is the story on which Shelley founded his tragedy, ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... is the following: When after a long search the wife discovers her husband, it is only to find him in the power of a second wife, who, however, by various bribes, is induced to permit the first wife to spend a night in her husband's chamber. She is unable to awaken her husband, who has been drugged by the second wife. The third night she succeeds, makes herself known to him, and they escape. As an example of this trait, we give in full De Gub., Sto. Stefano, No. ...
— Italian Popular Tales • Thomas Frederick Crane

... to be at church the day I preached about the clock; and declared likewise that I said there was a clock in hell. The sermon had evidently made a great impression upon him. He came to church again the next day, and heard something else that he was unable to forget. After the service, as soon as I was free, he asked me to walk with him, to which I assented, though I was feeling very tired. We rambled on the beach, and talked about many things. I tried in vain to bring up the subject of my discourse. When I spoke about ...
— From Death into Life - or, twenty years of my ministry • William Haslam

... leading to the underground passage, her throne an upturned whiskey barrel, her back against the wall of the cave. She glared at Rosalie through the semi-darkness, frequently addressing her with the vilest invectives cautiously uttered—and all because her victim had beautiful eyes and was unable to close them ...
— The Daughter of Anderson Crow • George Barr McCutcheon

... God, sirs, for bringing us to such good quarters; for, if I do not deceive myself, the ground we stand on is that of Velez Malaga unless, indeed, all my years of captivity have made me unable to recollect that you, senor, who ask who we are, are ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... the (as he supposed) natural faculty of divination. The dream may be of Jove[19]—Homer is a sound heathen authority upon this point; but Talleyrand was no dreamer. His "presentiments" (for so he loved to call them), were, apparently, sudden intuitions, which he was wholly unable to explain, but in which he placed so much confidence that he acted upon them to the letter—so says M. Colmache—and never, it would seem, in vain. They directed him rightly; and when, in old age, he had gathered around him at Vallencay all that remained of the wit, genius, and talent ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various

... a great disappointment about the delay that occurred in the sending of my passport from Peking. In consequence of its not coming I was unable to go to Urga with Lobsung and Sherrub in February. I felt it much at the time, but some months after (in June) I learned that these men with whom I wanted to go suffered excessively on the road; so much so that, ...
— James Gilmour of Mongolia - His diaries, letters, and reports • James Gilmour

... that the pathetic picture we so often see is found in American business life more frequently than in that of any other land: men unable to let go—not only for their own good, but to give the younger men behind them an opportunity. Not that a man should stop work, for man was born to work, and in work he should find his greatest refreshment. But so often it does not occur to the ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok

... worthy magistrate, foreseeing the issue, and feeling that one so guilty should not be left till the last moment, had sent the good priest. The latter, although he had objected that the Conciergerie had its own two chaplains, and added that he was too feeble to undertake such a task, being unable even to see another man bled without feeling ill, accepted the painful mission, the president having so strongly urged it, on the ground that in this case he needed a man who could be entirely trusted. The president, in fact, declared that, ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... Edw. VI. obtained, concurrently with several other families, the power of conversion. This Thomas Lovelace was not improbably the same, who was admitted a student of Gray's Inn in 1541; and that he was of the Kentish Lovelaces there is not much reason to doubt; although, at the same time, I am unable to fix the precise degree of consanguinity between him and Serjeant William Lovelace of Gray's Inn, who died in 1576, and who was great-grandfather to the author of LUCASTA. The circumstance that the real property of Thomas Lovelace aforesaid, situated in Kent, was released by Act ...
— Lucasta • Richard Lovelace

... if scientifically launched. The fenders protected her sides and copper, though the movement was little more than slowly sinking on the fragment of the cake, which, by means of the cuts, had been gradually so much reduced as to be unable to uphold so great a weight. It was merely reversing the process of breaking the camel's back, by laying the last ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper

... the demand, the margin of defeat grew smaller. Whenever these state contests were critical, Susan managed to be on hand, giving up profitable lecture engagements to speak without fees; in Michigan in 1874 and in Iowa in 1875, she made new friends for the cause but was unable to stem the tide of prejudice against granting women the vote. After the defeat in Michigan, she wrote in her diary, "Every whisky maker, vendor, drinker, gambler, every ignorant besotted man is against us, and then the other extreme, every ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz

... in my note on the late Charles Matthews, and do feel myself so totally unable to do justice to his talents, that the passage must stand for the very reason you bring against it. To him all the men I ever knew were pigmies. He was an intellectual giant. It is true I loved Wingfield ...
— The Works of Lord Byron: Letters and Journals, Volume 2. • Lord Byron

... breath, almost out of her wits, the girl ran as far as the door-yard fence, then stopped, as if unable or afraid to go farther, caught hold of the pickets, and, putting her pale face between them, gasped out something which ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge

... phenomena of the first and second dentition. The work, however, which demonstrates at once the great merit and the unhappy fate of Eustachius is his Anatomical Engravings, which, though completed in 1552, nine years after the impression of the work of Vesalius, the author was unable to publish. First communicated to the world in 1714 by G. M. Lancisi, afterwards in 1744 by Cajetan Petrioli, again in 1744 by B. S. Albinus, and subsequently at Bonn in 1790, the engravings show that Eustachius had dissected with the greatest ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... offspring. This leaves the evolutionists to account for one of the most difficult things in connection with this theory, namely, how did varieties of animals of the same species become cross-sterile?* [[*So that they were unable to interbreed. Only if such cross-sterility exists, could they exist thereafter as independent new species.—G.]] Several things must occur simultaneously before cross-sterility between parent and offspring could occur and become effective, namely, a ...
— Evolution - An Investigation and a Critique • Theodore Graebner

... Susan, and I shall have to depend on your honor to let that revolver stay where it is. Unfortunately I am unable to SEE whether ...
— Dawn • Eleanor H. Porter

... this meanes they might never make a confession (as they thought) of their witchcraftis.'[631] Here the idea of sympathetic magic is very clear; by eating the flesh of a child who had never spoken articulate words, the witches' own tongues would be unable to articulate. ...
— The Witch-cult in Western Europe - A Study in Anthropology • Margaret Alice Murray

... and was about to retire his men, when he heard something which made him bound forward, for Celia, unable to bear the horror and alarm any longer had ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn

... more to commend to you the very special care of my children while I am away. My wife, not being very strong, is unable to see as much of them as she would wish, and I do not like her to be worried. But there are many dangers on a farm, and I have already, by most unhappy chance, lost two young sons. Both deaths occurred during absences of ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley

... way. O heavens! Why does my blood thus muster to my heart, 20 Making both it unable for itself, And dispossessing all my other parts Of necessary fitness? So play the foolish throngs with one that swoons: Come all to help him, and so stop the air 25 By which he should revive: and even so The general, subject to a well-wish'd king, Quit their own ...
— Measure for Measure - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare

... was driven from Canada, and surrendered his army and the whole Northwest, at Detroit; Van Rensselaer, defeated at Queenstown, was unable even to get a footing in Canada; while Dearborn, after reaching the northern boundary line of New York, stopped, and the year 1812 ...
— A School History of the United States • John Bach McMaster

... was unable to imagine what else could anybody believe. Yes, Sotillo believed that the lighter was sunk, and the Capataz de Cargadores, together with Martin Decoud and perhaps one or two other political fugitives, had ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad

... the morning, when he came down, Dick met him at the foot of the stairs. It was a changed Dick. His lip was trembling. Raven concerned, yet unable to deny himself a flippant inward comment, thought the boy looked as if he'd been saying ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown

... sound. He ventured out and peered down the staircase into the dark chasm marking the lower hall. He heard distinctly the sound of a key being fitted rather clumsily into the lock, then an inrush of air as the door was thrown open and someone entered, clutching at the wall as though unable ...
— The Web of the Golden Spider • Frederick Orin Bartlett

... of nations held at The Hague in 1899, being unable to dispose of all the business before it, recommended the consideration and settlement of a number of important questions by another conference to be called subsequently and at an early date. These questions were the following: (1) The rights ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt

... she had reached the ground before she actually had, and her feet would go backwards and forwards, running upon nothing at all, like those of a chicken on its back. Then she would laugh like the very spirit of fun; only in her laugh there was something missing. What it was I find myself unable to describe. I think it was a certain tone, depending upon the possibility of sorrow,—morbidezza, perhaps. She ...
— Half-Hours with Great Story-Tellers • Various

... successors in philosophy a task of synthesis. He had tumbled the soul off her high watch-tower, but how to combine her shattered fragments again into a working unity he declined to say. He saw the sceptical implications of his analysis, but professed himself unable to suggest a remedy. ...
— Pragmatism • D.L. Murray

... not return, but when evening came at length and with it the blessed coolness of approaching night, Jeanie was so exhausted as to be unable to speak above a whisper. She lay white and still, scarcely conscious, only her difficult breathing testifying to the fluttering life that ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell

... what it is she smuggles, she is glad to smuggle successfully, but smuggling is not, as might be supposed, a sport for women, though women need more nervous excitement and sport than men. Their attitude shows that they are really unable to see that they are running into danger because they are violating the law. When you tell them that the state is justified in forbidding smuggling, they always answer that they have smuggled such a very little, that nobody ...
— Robin Hood • J. Walker McSpadden

... against little Val when he was a boy of seven. Some playmates had insisted upon his walking into a pond, and standing there. Poor Val, quite unable to say "no," walked in, and was nearly drowned for his pains. It had been a joke against him then; how many such "jokes" could have been brought against him since he grew up, Val himself could alone tell. As the child had been, so was the man. The scrapes his irresolution brought him into ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood

... have it in himself to be cured. The truth is that no life, and least of all a farmer's life, is simple—unless it is simple. I know a man and his wife who came out here to the country with the avowed purpose of becoming, forthwith, simple. They were unable to keep the chickens out of their summer kitchen. They discovered microbes in the well, and mosquitoes in the cistern, and wasps in the garret. Owing to the resemblance of the seeds, their radishes turned out to be turnips! The last I heard ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson

... at this spot. And yet she was here, and had written her answer! In sudden embarrassment I took a step backward, and involuntarily asked, "You are here? Here with me?" My voice was so hollow that I myself noticed its unnaturalness. "With me?" I repeated, sighing, unable to comprehend. And then, like a liberation, a feeling of terror and awe thrilled my whole being, and I looked down upon myself cautiously, almost timidly, as though thereby I might injure somebody. In vague apprehension ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various

... the ordeal before her. She felt that she must take leave of these people and say a word of kindness to them, since she was so miserably unable to do more; but these visits were always depressing. Since the tenants had discovered that they had a sympathetic listener in her, they had luxuriated in the pouring out of their sorrows. Of course they had not ventured to accuse her husband of being connected with them, but the ...
— A Manifest Destiny • Julia Magruder

... would come backwards and forwards sent by Harpagos to see that this was done, and he would perish by a miserable death if he should fail to do this. And as she could not after all persuade her husband, the wife next said as follows: "Since then I am unable to persuade thee not to lay it forth, do thou this which I shall tell thee, if indeed it needs must be seen laid forth. I also have borne a child, but I have borne it dead. Take this and expose it, and let us rear the ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 1(of 2) • Herodotus

... said Thorn, giving his name. "Make a note to tell him he need not call on me to-morrow. I find I am unable to ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss

... invective against horseflesh went on like the brook for ever. It is an ill wind that blows nobody good; the truth of this was well exemplified in the luck of the dogs. The poor animals looked shockingly thin and wasted, and had for a long time been unable to move about with their wonted agility in pursuit of locusts and mosquitoes. The mongrels that had any fight or vitality left in them would engage in a terrific struggle on the streets at night for the contents of the refuse buckets which ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan

... dearest little one, have you anything to tell me?" Unable to bear the suspense any longer, Lady Cinnamond had pursued her daughter ...
— The Path to Honour • Sydney C. Grier

... Seminole War. That the Negroes were working shoulder to shoulder with the Indians in these encounters may be seen from the report of Captain Belton,[1] who said, "Lieut. Keays, third artillery, had both arms broken from the first shot; was unable to act, and was tomahawked the latter part of the second attack, by a Negro"; and further: "A Negro named Harry controls the Pea Band of about a hundred warriors, forty miles southeast of us, who have done most of the ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley

... to answer him, that she thought my arguments in behalf of polygamy were convincing. This set him a raving, and he threw some coarse reflections upon her, which could not be repeated, if one may guess at them, by her being unable to tell me them; and then to vex him more, and to revenge herself, she said something like what was reported: which was handle enough for her uncle; who took care to propagate it with an indiscretion peculiar to himself; for I heard it in three different companies, before I knew any thing ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson

... had borne fruit beyond his wildest imaginings. Fact had piled upon fact with bewildering rapidity. As yet he had been unable to sort them in his mind, to catalogue each properly, ...
— Midnight • Octavus Roy Cohen

... Jackson's intuitions, and to Powers's idea that he was unable to render a reason to himself or others for what he chose to do, I should have thought that this very probably might have been the case, were there not such strong evidence to the contrary. The highest, or perhaps any high administrative ability is intuitive, and precedes argument, and ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... for the entertainment was gratuitous, but the girl was hurt, for she hated to see her future husband laughed at. The leadsman frowned and grew silent. He no longer enjoyed the festivities. But he carefully hid his real feelings, for otherwise he would have been laughed at for a fool unable to appreciate a joke. But still worse things happened, for his impersonator danced and cut all sorts of ridiculous antics, in the endeavour to act the leadsman's name in dumb charade; first his surname, which he had inherited from his father, and then his Christian ...
— In Midsummer Days and Other Tales • August Strindberg

... his duty as Rector of the University and that as Father-Superior of the Oratory pulling him in different directions, the congregation, not from any one's fault, but from the nature of the case, being unable to get on without him, it was to the same faithful counsellor he turned. I may here mention that Mr. Hope-Scott warmly took up the idea of founding an oratory at Oxford (January 1867), and gave 1,000l. towards this object, which he refused to take back when the ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby

... so long a march, mostly threw off their military clothing, and assumed an uniform of Maria Island cloth, thus reserving their full dress to celebrate the coming triumph. The enthusiasm was universal: a blacksmith, at Sorell, unable to follow the army, offered to repair all the guns belonging to the volunteers of his district. His example was followed by another, who, having but one leg, contributed the same service to the common cause. Nor was supplication forgotten: a ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West

... use interrupting him with questions; he answered them with others; he whispered ambiguities in a manner most portentous; hinted at bewildering paradoxes with an air; nodded mysterious nothings, and finally left them gaping at him, exasperated, unable to make any sense out of what most astonishingly resembled a candid revelation of the hopes, fears, ambitions, and worldly circumstances of ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers

... must go then, I suppose,' said Festus, laughing; and unable to get a further glance from her he left the room and clanked into the back yard, where he saw a man; holding up his hand ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy

... travellers an impression of dignity; in their quieter moments they remind one of very placid sheep, for they have not half the energy of pigs, which in Spain at least are restless and spirited creatures. But a trifle will rouse them; and then, quite unable to restrain themselves, pallid with rage, they hurl abuse at their enemy—Spanish, they say, is richer in invective than any other European tongue—and quickly long knives are whipped ...
— The Land of The Blessed Virgin; Sketches and Impressions in Andalusia • William Somerset Maugham

... information received at the Department of State it is ascertained that owing to unforeseen circumstances several of the marshals have been unable to complete the enumeration of the inhabitants of the United States within the time prescribed by the act of the 23d March, 1830, viz, by the 1st ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, - Vol. 2, Part 3, Andrew Jackson, 1st term • Edited by James D. Richardson

... employment;(12*) and in Ireland this effect has taken place to such a degree, as to threaten the most distressing, and even alarming, consequences. The farmers, in some districts, have entirely lost the little capital they possessed; and, unable to continue in their farms, have deserted them, and left their labourers without the means of employment. In a country, the peculiar defects of which were already a deficiency of capital, and a redundancy ...
— The Grounds of an Opinion on the Policy of Restricting the Importation of Foreign Corn: intended as an appendix to "Observations on the corn laws" • Thomas Malthus

... then withdrew hastily to a convenient stall. The thought of the plump, blond Sarah mounted on a steed bearing such a wild Indian name was too much for him. He emerged a moment later very red in the face and unable to meet Blue Bonnet's eye. Their sense of humor was curiously akin, and Blue Bonnet knew, without being told, what ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs

... Ladies' Commission, unable to do my daily visit to hospital; three have died—Mrs. Kruger, Miss Ackerman, and ...
— Woman's Endurance • A.D.L.

... reality. Most of the amusements in the world are imitations of the reality for which we long. They promise a satisfaction they are unable to give. Drink, mechanical love-making, all snatched gratification of the senses, religious excitement, revivalist meetings, and so forth, most theatre-going and sports, all simulate the real glory of ...
— The Healthy Life, Vol. V, Nos. 24-28 - The Independent Health Magazine • Various

... awakened she expected to be unable to rise—she hoped she could not—but life seemed multiplied in her, and inaction was impossible. Something young and sweet and hopeful that had been in her did not greet the sun this morning. In their place was a woman's ...
— To the Last Man • Zane Grey

... advertisement such as he sought. An old and pleasant family residence, situated on the outskirts of Polterham (he remembered it very well), would be vacant at Christmas. Application could be made on the premises. Still in a state of very high pressure, unable to keep still or engage in any quiet pursuit, he set off the instant to view this house. It stood in a high-walled garden, which was entered through heavy iron-barred gates, one of them now open. The place had rather a forlorn look, due in part to the decay ...
— Denzil Quarrier • George Gissing

... and London fell under the ban. The recklessness of these censors, who ceased even to read what they destroyed, was such that they held up and made away with state orders transmitted by the great munitions factories, and one of these was constrained to close down because it was unable to ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon

... zero. A decision requiring a qualified majority shall be adopted if the votes cast in favour represent at least two thirds of the subscribed capital of the ECB and represent at least half of the shareholders. If a Governor in unable to be present, he may nominate an alternate to cast his weighted vote. 10.4. The proceedings of the meetings shall be confidential. The Governing Council may decide to make the outcome of its deliberations public. 10.5. The ...
— The Treaty of the European Union, Maastricht Treaty, 7th February, 1992 • European Union

... language, but they adopt an expedient rendered possible by the peculiarity of their written characters, with which a large proportion of their adults are acquainted, and which are common in form to the whole empire. The inhabitants of different provinces when meeting, and being unable to converse orally, do not try to do so, but write the characters of the words upon the ground or trace them on the palm of the hand or in the air. Those written characters each represent words in the same manner as do the Arabic or Roman numerals, ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery

... established peace on the roof, approached again, Audrey discreetly examined his face and his demeanour, to see if she could perceive in him any of the sinister things that Tommy had implied. She was unable to make up her mind whether she could or not. But in the end she decided that she was as shrewd as anybody in ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett

... said that having, like the right hon. gentleman the member for Calne, visited Canada not once but frequently, he felt unable to corroborate the description given of Quebec; nor could he agree as to what had been said of other places. The fortifications of Quebec were not those of the days of Wolfe; they had been systematically enlarged and strengthened. Quebec, naturally a position of enormous strength, ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin

... desire to know the real truth, and to see August, to do for him, to give her life for him, were wearing her away. It is hard to see a friend go from you when you have done everything. But to have a friend die within your reach, while you are yet unable to help him, is the saddest of all. All this anxiety Julia suffered without even the blessed privilege of showing it. The pent-up fire consumed her, and she was at times almost distract. Every morning she managed to be on the upper porch ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston

... had enjoyed to the utmost the hospitality of Bar U ranch. Mr. Bellmore had been made very welcome, and he had had every care and attention while unable to use his injured foot. Now it seemed that a spirit of ...
— Cowboy Dave • Frank V. Webster

... with the rest of the public debt, and be made payable at a future period; but this could only be by forcing a loan from the people, many of whom are unable to make it, and of consequence it would be a hard measure, if not an unjust one. Perhaps it could not be executed, for laws repugnant to the general feelings of mankind are only a dead letter. 2dly. Another mode is by receiving ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various

... Master all furnished food for mirth. His Cousins roared with delight. "Clever child!" exclaimed his Aunt, "what a treasure you are in a house! one could never be dull where you are!" "Sister, Sister!" cried Joachim's Mother, "do not say so!" "My dear," said the Aunt, "are you dull enough to be unable to appreciate your own child's wit; oh, I wish you would give him to me. Come here, my dear Joachim, and do the boy that walks so badly once more for me; it's enough to kill one to see you take him off!" Joachim's spirits rose above all control. Excited by his Aunt's praise and the sense of ...
— The Fairy Godmothers and Other Tales • Mrs. Alfred Gatty

... horsemen of fire thronged it in every part. High up into the viewless air mounted their wheeling bands: rank beyond rank, and army beyond army, they seemed to stretch on into the vastness of space, until the gazer's wearied eye was unable to gaze on them. And all of these were gathered round his master. They were God's host, keeping guard over God's servant. And they who would injure him must first turn aside those flashing swords, must break up that strong and serried array, and ...
— The Rocky Island - and Other Similitudes • Samuel Wilberforce

... faint, nauseated, and his neck seemed unable to hold his heavy head. He laid his cheek on the cold shale, and, with his arms and legs outstretched like a giant starfish, he weakly slid. His body, moving slower than the mass, acted as a kind of wedge, his head serving as a separator to divide the moving bank. He was conscious, too, ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart

... in first. Spencer, incautiously trying to score too many notches for one of his hits, was stumped out by Ripon, and Melbourne succeeded him. Great expectations had been formed of this player by his own party, but he was utterly unable to withstand Wellington's rapid bowling, which soon sent him to the right-about. Clanricarde was likewise run out without ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various

... last line oh, so loud, like a little bull, right in the Presidentboardeducation's face. And the Presidentboardeducation was so startled that he almost knocked the pitcher of water off the table. And the teacher's glasses fell off her nose, and she seemed to be unable to find them in her embarrassment—and then—the whole audience roared till the walls of the little Red Schoolhouse echoed to their laughter, and Jehosophat saw Fatty slapping his ...
— Half-Past Seven Stories • Robert Gordon Anderson

... forces; civil war ensued and in July 1993 the Cotonou Peace Treaty was negotiated by the major warring factions under UN auspices; a transitional coalition government under David KROMAKPOR was formed in March 1994 but has been largely ineffective and unable to implement the provisions of the peace treaty; Ghanaian-led negotiations are now underway to seat a new interim government that would oversee elections proposed ...
— The 1995 CIA World Factbook • United States Central Intelligence Agency

... And at last unable to content himself in the old routine of things he quitted home and England, even before he was of age, and roved from place to place, trying, and trying in vain, to soothe the vague restlessness that called for a ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner

... Benedetto's bed, was coming down in search of him, leaning on the arm of an elder sister. He heeded neither the cry nor the movement among those up above, who parted, allowing the two women to pass. Being unable to persuade the crowd to rise, he himself fell upon his knees. Then those around him rose, and the excited movement and the cry of "La miracolata, la miracolata!" having reached them, they forced him to rise also; he did not seem to have heard. "La miracolata!" ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro

... the castles as they used to be, long ago. When there were bright lights in them, and knights and ladies, and music, and maybe a—what do you call them?—a harper to come in out of the storm to sit beside the fireplace and tell tales." He seemed unable to fill in the picture more completely, but Will o'Dreams began where ...
— Everychild - A Story Which The Old May Interpret to the Young and Which the Young May Interpret to the Old • Louis Dodge

... "I am unable to advise you, sir, for he is not personally known to me," said Hamilton, who was not long wishing that he had had a previous and extensive knowledge of Thomas Jefferson. "Madison thinks well of him—is a close personal friend. He has rendered great services ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton

... me eat what I like while I'm here. When we get back to Lakeview Hall you know Mrs. Cupp will want to put us all on half rations to counteract our holiday eating. I heard her bemoaning the fact to Dr. Beulah that we would come back with our stomachs so full that we would be unable to study for ...
— Nan Sherwood's Winter Holidays • Annie Roe Carr

... Palestinian winter, which are dreaded as peculiarly unhealthy, while verse 4b and verse 5 present the advent of spring, and contrast the new life in animals and plants with the feebleness of the man dying in his chamber and unable to eat. Still another explanation is that the whole is part of a dirge, to be taken literally, and describing the mourners in house and garden. I venture, though with some hesitation, to prefer, on the whole, the old allegorical theory, for reasons which it would be impossible to condense here. ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... league, and called Point of all Devils.[292] from the dangerous nature of the place. The winds from the south-south-east strike the harbor, which are not to be feared; but those, however, from the Saguenay are. The two points above mentioned are dry at low tide: our vessel was unable to enter the harbor, as the wind and tide were unfavorable. I at once had the boat lowered, in order to go to the port and ascertain whether Pont Grave had arrived. While on the way, I met a shallop with the pilot of Pont Grave and a Basque, who came to inform ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 2 • Samuel de Champlain

... For Felicity, unable not to enjoy a little the boy's inarticulate devotion, had indulged herself. With artistry that would have called down from Hamilton even hotter sarcasm, she had let Perry glimpse her soul; not the cheap and tawdry thing which unsympathetic persons ...
— Winner Take All • Larry Evans

... spirits which had to be propitiated and honoured in special rites. Their appearances among the living were not regulated by religion. They wandered at will over the earth, belonging neither to this world nor to the next, restless and malignant, unable to escape from the trammels of mortal life, in the joys of which they had no part. Thus, in the Phaedo[15] we read of souls "prowling about tombs and sepulchres, near which, as they tell us, are seen certain ghostly apparitions ...
— Greek and Roman Ghost Stories • Lacy Collison-Morley

... attention, asked, in his gentlest tone, "What effect would the death of P. have on the suit?" We started, and asked eagerly why he put the question. "P. is dead," he replied, "as this letter informs me; will the suit abate?" The colonel was himself ill at the time, and unable to leave his sofa; and even if there was some affectation in his demeanour, there ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis

... did not spare the whip, but pressed on up the stony hills on the Pretoria side of Heidelberg without a halt. They were, however, unable to keep up with the cart ahead of them, which was evidently more freshly horsed. About midnight, too, the moon vanished altogether, and they must creep on as best they could through the darkness. Indeed, so dark was it, that Mouti was obliged to get out and lead the exhausted horses, ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard

... prince did France a foul wrong in setting himself against his rightful monarch, but it cannot be denied that he was a splendid soldier. With his war-cry ringing high and clear above the tumult he came at us; the fight grew terrible; our infantry, unable to avoid the horses, fell back in confusion, leaving a scattered handful of cavaliers to continue the contest alone. Seeing his advantage, the prince flung every available horseman at us, and, though fighting desperately, we were driven back by ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens

... the hardest punishments the involuntary wrong of giving pain to her neighbor. She was utterly ignorant of life; accustomed to be waited on by her mother, who did the whole service of the house, for Celeste was unable to make much exertion, owing to a lymphatic constitution which the least toil wearied. She was truly a daughter of the people of Paris, where children, seldom handsome, and of no vigor, the product of poverty and toil, of homes ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac

... to the chair in a fashion that would have done credit to a sailor. He left Myerst literally unable to move either hand or foot, and Myerst cursed him from crown to heel for his pains. "That'll do," said Breton at last. He dropped his revolver into his pocket and turned to the two old men. Elphick averted his eyes and sank into a chair in the darkest corner of the room: old Cardlestone ...
— The Middle Temple Murder • J.S. Fletcher

... round made me feel sure that the sand had been conveyed there from the South. This one could plainly see from depressions and wavelike undulations, showing that it had travelled (roughly) in a northerly direction; and although, having been unable to ascertain this for a fact, I do not wish to be too certain with regard to the movements and sources of these sand deposits, I was pretty firmly convinced that the sand had been deposited there by ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... be going back soon enough," replied Dick somewhat shortly, while he inwardly cursed the stupidity of a slave who could be free and would not, and registered a secret vow that if he were unable to get rid of Grandison without assassinating him, and were therefore compelled to take him back to Kentucky, he would see that Grandison got a taste of an article of slavery that would make him regret his wasted opportunities. ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt

... whose generous help this study would not have been planned, and whose criticism and advice have been invaluable in bringing it to completion. Professor Seager also has given helpful criticism. Professor Seligman has allowed me the use of books from his library which I should otherwise have been unable to obtain. For material which could not be found in American libraries I am indebted to my mother and father, who obtained it for ...
— The Enclosures in England - An Economic Reconstruction • Harriett Bradley

... her on her return home. She was unable to sleep. She formed desperate plans. At last she resolved to throw off the yoke of servitude, and the still more painful slavery of feelings which her pride disdained. Having learnt the address of the prima donna, she went early one morning ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. I, No. 6 - Of Literature, Art, And Science, New York, August 5, 1850 • Various

... friend Mr. D——, of New York, who, as the son of, perhaps, the most conspicuous and influential American advocate of Home Rule, had confidently counted upon seeing Mr. Parnell in London, when he found that the most important member of the Irish Parliamentary party, in point of position, was utterly unable to get at Mr. Parnell for him, or even to ascertain where Mr. Parnell could be reached ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (1 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert

... upon his listener an effect of depraved intellectual power, strangely combined with artless simplicity,—an unspeakably distasteful conjunction! Imagination, freed from the check of the senses, easily becomes grotesque; and Helwyse, unable to see his companion, had no difficulty in picturing him as a grisly monster, having a satanic head set upon the ingenuous shoulders of a child. And what was Helwyse himself? No longer, surely, the gravely humorous moralizer? The laws of ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne

... have a scene here to-night, no doubt. The night before last, Ballantyne, unable to get in, had a seat behind the screen, and was nearly frightened off it by the "Murder." Every vestige of colour had left his face when I came off, and he sat staring over a glass of champagne in ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 2 (of 3), 1857-1870 • Charles Dickens

... Since he was unable to separate himself from her without a subsequent return, if at least he had seen her continuously and without separations his grief would ultimately have been assuaged, and his love would, perhaps, have died. And from the moment when she did not wish to leave Paris ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust

... standing like a shadow projected upon the smoky vapour. It was the figure of a slight tall man, with his arm extended, as if pointing to a remote object, which no mortal eye certainly could discern through the mist. Sir Bale gazed at this figure, doubtful whether he were in a waking dream, unable to conjecture whence it had come; and as he looked, it moved, and was almost ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

... procession approached the palace gates, the crowds were thicker, made up of those who had been unable to squeeze themselves inside. The panic was worse, here, too. A good many were trampled and hurt in the rush to escape, and it became necessary to use paralyzers to clear a way. That made it worse: everybody was sure that Yat-Zar was striking sinners dead left ...
— Temple Trouble • Henry Beam Piper

... violin strings, for the notes are clearer, more subtle and piercing, and more impassioned (so to say) than those of an organ. The music itself is doubtless very fine, as everyone says, but I found myself unable to understand all parts of it. Here and there it was extremely fine, but it is impossible to understand such a composition on once or twice hearing. In its style it is more like Corelli's music than any other I know ...
— Cardinal Newman as a Musician • Edward Bellasis

... the only reply was that the king's service required his continual residence in his department. Botello was not a man to quietly submit to such unjust restraint; but unluckily his health began to fail. His body found itself unable to withstand the chafings and struggles of his energetic and adventurous spirit under the mortifications and disappointments of his position; the fears and suspicions of the court of Lisbon were soon removed by ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various

... Anthony in so affected and indecent a manner, that the Indignation I conceived at it made me forget my self so far, as from the Tune of that Psalm to wander into Southwell Tune, and from thence into Windsor Tune, still unable to recover my self till I had with the utmost Confusion set a new one. Nay, I have often seen her rise up and smile and curtsy to one at the lower End of the Church in the midst of a Gloria Patri; and when I have spoke the Assent to a Prayer with a long Amen uttered with decent Gravity, ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... step across the threshold, Lord Evandale bent forward as if something unexpected had struck him. Though accustomed not to manifest his emotions, he was unable to repress a prolonged and thoroughly British "Oh!" On the fine gray powder which covered the ground showed very distinctly, with the imprint of the toes and the great bone of the heel, the shape of a ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier

... else required of a man than simply self-distrust and reliance on Jesus Christ, then this great Gospel that I am feebly trying to preach would be a more sectional and narrower thing than it is. But its glory is that it requires nothing which any man is unable to bring, that it has no invitation for sections, classes, grades of culture or intelligence or morality, but that in its great cosmopolitanism and universality it comes to every man; because it treats all ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren

... who is generally one of the leading citizens. There are also two alcaldes-in-ordinary, and one notary for the cabildo and the public. If all these officials were not also encomenderos, they would be unable to support themselves; for the town possesses no commerce which comes within their reach. The town has the best port of these islands, and it was for this reason that Miguel Lopez de Legazpi founded a settlement there. It was he who founded the above-mentioned town, in the year of sixty-four. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803, Volume V., 1582-1583 • Various

... follow the fortunes of two American lads unable to leave Europe after war is declared. They meet the soldiers of the Allies, and decide to cast their lot with them. Their experiences and escapes are many, and furnish plenty of the good, healthy action that every ...
— Miss Elliot's Girls • Mrs Mary Spring Corning

... I can never do:—I am quite unable to put into words my friend's intensely strong feeling with regard to the sacredness of his profession. It seemed to me not unlike the feeling of Isaiah when, in the vision, his mouth had been touched with the celestial fire. And I can only hope that something of this may be read between ...
— Derrick Vaughan—Novelist • Edna Lyall

... is Motor Suggestion. It simply means that we are unable to have any thought or feeling whatever, whether it comes from the senses, from memory, from the words, conduct, or command of others, which does not have a direct influence upon our conduct. We are quite unable to avoid the influence of our own thoughts upon our conduct, ...
— The Story of the Mind • James Mark Baldwin

... I visibly perceived the alteration in the Simple, I was utterly unable to make any guess at the occasion. I had not the least suspicion of Adelaide; for, besides her being a very good-humored woman, I had often made severe jests on her reputation, which I had all the reason imaginable to believe ...
— From This World to the Next • Henry Fielding

... the Earls of Crawford and Montrose, both of whom were slain, and their forces routed. On the left, the success of the English was yet more decisive; for the Scottish right wing, consisting of undisciplined Highlanders, commanded by Lennox and Argyle, was unable to sustain the charge of Sir Edward Stanley, and especially the severe execution of the Lancashire archers. The King and Surrey, who commanded the respective centres of their armies, were meanwhile engaged in close ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott

... Madame Wang heard this, she clasped her hands and uttered the invocation, "O-mi-to-fu!" Unable to resist the impulse, she drew near Hsi Jen. "My dear child," she added, "you have also luckily understood the real state of things. What you told me is in perfect harmony with my own views! Is it ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... a locked chest, sir, in which I left it this morning before I was taken by those people. Here is the book, sir, but the letters are gone. My trunk and valise have also been tampered with. And I am a miserable, guilty man, unable to make you the restitution which I owe you." Sampson looked the picture of woe as he uttered these sentiments. He clasped his hands together, and almost knelt before Harry in an attitude ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray

... methods he [Sadornil] should calm and pacify them, and give them the governor's letters; and do other things set down clearly and ordered by the instructions given by his Lordship; and, inasmuch as the said captain had come to this said port of Mohala, but has been unable to have any intercourse in regard to the above matters, as the said governor orders, although he has tried and done his utmost, and in the manner which his Lordship orders by his instruction; and inasmuch as, having arrived at ...
— The Philippine Islands 1493-1898, Vol. 4 of 55 - 1576-1582 • Edited by E. H. Blair and J. A. Robertson

... more a Frenchman. He settled in Hamburg, where he married the daughter of a bourgeois, a girl devoted to music, who fell in love with the singer (whose fame was ever prospective) and chose to devote her life to him. But after fifteen years of Bohemia, Joseph Mirouet was unable to bear prosperity; he was naturally a spendthrift, and though kind to his wife, he wasted her fortune in a very few years. The household must have dragged on a wretched existence before Joseph Mirouet reached the point of enlisting ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac

... Corentin to allow him to take it, urging a press of business; but in his soul he was distrustful of his traveling companion, whose diplomatic dexterity and coolness struck him as being the result of practice. Corentin remained three days longer at Mansle, unable to get away; he was obliged to secure a place in the Paris coach by writing to Bordeaux, and did not get back till nine days after ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac

... linked his arm through his friend's, and said he felt that he had a right to know all about the happy ending of the affair, since he had been told of that miserable phase of it at Portland. But when he came to the facts he found himself unable to give them with the fulness he had promised. He only imparted a succinct statement as to the where and when of the whole matter, leaving the how ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... decreased, and still decreasing in size, it floated onwards—preserving its blood-red hue, in appalling contrast with the murky sky. Slowly Morales turned in the direction of the castle, glancing up at times, and unable to suppress a thrill of supernatural horror, as he observed this remarkable appearance floating just before him wherever he turned. Denser and denser became the atmosphere, and blacker the sky, till ...
— The Vale of Cedars • Grace Aguilar

... Lamington, we were not out on the open water long before the current carried us back to the ice ledge. Reddy jumped off and soon returned with the steering oar; then we proceeded on our way homeward, now in the water and now on ice. Once or twice the scow was unable to climb out of the water, because she had not sufficient headway, and was clumsy and heavy with four boys aboard. Then we had to push off until we could get a sufficient start. It struck me that while Dutchy was ...
— The Scientific American Boy - The Camp at Willow Clump Island • A. Russell Bond

... recovered consciousness, but was quite unable to move. Besides the cut on her forehead, she had sprained her ankle, and the attempt to rise had given her such agony that she had fallen ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall

... for wiping them, will save much trouble and noise, and the loud whispers of the attendants to each other, 'Where is the sugar? where is the arrowroot? where did you put down the medicine?' of which we hear so much in the sick-room, so much especially in the sick-room of the child, who is unable to tell how extremely all this ...
— The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases • Charles West, M.D.

... ever been noticed. Some residents declared that they had observed sudden fluctuations of level, which, from their suddenness, they were disposed to ascribe to disturbances of the bottom of the Lake due to volcanic agencies, although they were unable to coordinate such oscillations with any earthquake manifestations on the ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James

... his life Mr. Ewing replied: "I didn't have any life. I just growed like Topsy. I didn't have any educating. I just picked it up; and as for poetry, I never wrote any, only rhyme." Notwithstanding this assertion, Mr. Ewing being unable to resist the prompting of the "divinity which stirred within him," when quite young, began to write poetry. There seems to be a subtle influence pervading the romantic Octoraro hills, which if not the direct cause of poetic inspiration seems to encourage its growth, Mr. Ewing being one of five poets ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various

... state this merely as a fact: I am unable satisfactorily to account for it on optical principles, and were it otherwise, the investigation would be of little interest to the general reader, and ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin

... perishes by the assistance it receives. But the contrivers of this scheme of government will not trust solely to the military power; because they are cunning men. Their restless and crooked spirit drives them to rake in the dirt of every kind of expedient. Unable to rule the multitude, they endeavor to raise divisions amongst them. One mob is hired to destroy another; a procedure which at once encourages the boldness of the populace, and justly increases their discontent. ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... care was to examine the dogs. Prince's shoulder was laid open by the stroke of the claws, and both dogs had numerous scratches. Flora had fortunately seized him by the neck, and he had thus been unable ...
— Out on the Pampas - The Young Settlers • G. A. Henty

... her pillow now with a cry of Joy; the black woman stood and wept by the wall and Israel, unable to bear up his heart any longer was melted and unmanned. The sun had gone down, and the room was darkening rapidly, for the twilight in that land is short; the streets were quiet, and the mooddin of the neighbouring ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine

... through the house after breakfast, unable to decide to spend her Saturday morning as usual at a piano in one of the bedrooms, Miriam went, wondering in response to a quiet call from Fraulein Pfaff into the large room shared by the Bergmanns and Ulrica Hesse. ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson

... of mamma's first husband. Then I'm not a Callingham at all!" I cried, unable to take it all in at first in its full ...
— Recalled to Life • Grant Allen

... these little pellets, and there was such a confounded laugh that I had to wind up and leave off with a preposition instead of a good mouthful of polysyllables. I have watched our young Doctor, however, and have been entirely unable to detect any signs of communication between him and this audacious child, who is like to become a power among us, for that popgun is fatal to any talker who is hit by its pellet. I have suspected a foot under the table as the prompter, but I have been unable ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... tired; he had been unable to get a fly at Earlsfield, and the long climb in the heat had rather taken it out of him, so he was well content to lie back in his lounge and let ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... proceeded through the olive-wood, and mounted the acclivity, they arrived at a path which permitted the ascent of only one person at a time. Cadurcis was last, and followed Venetia. Unable any longer to endure the suspense, he was rather irritated that she kept so close to her father; he himself loitered a few paces behind, and, breaking off a branch of laurel, he tossed it at her. She looked round and smiled; he beckoned to her to fall back. 'Tell me, ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli

... brethren he heaved heavy sighs and was deeply grieved; and he followed the murderers by their track, and found them in the harbour, sweating to carry their boat in the harbour to the water, but unable to do so. For God so fastened their skiff to the land that by no means could they remove it. So being unable to resist the will of the All-Powerful, they beseech as suppliants pardon of the man of God, then present. Mindful of his Master as ...
— The Latin & Irish Lives of Ciaran - Translations Of Christian Literature. Series V. Lives Of - The Celtic Saints • Anonymous

... first took possession of the Marquesas. Here already were missionaries and beach-combers of many nationalities, ardent spirits all, fighting each other for the souls of the natives; gin and the commandments at odds, ritual and exploitation contending. Unable to subdue the forces that threatened the peace of his people, Iotete, Vait-hua's chief, sent a message asking the help of the French admiral. It came at once; a garrison was established on the ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien

... The marquise heard her father moan; then she heard groans. At last, unable to endure his sufferings, he called out to his daughter. The marquise went to him. But now her face showed signs of the liveliest anxiety, and it was for M. d'Aubray to try to reassure her about himself! He thought it was only a trifling indisposition, and was not willing that ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE MARQUISE DE BRINVILLIERS • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... cravat. It was now Miss Ashton's turn to sign the writings, and she was guided by her watchful mother to the table for that purpose. At her first attempt, she began to write with a dry pen, and when the circumstance was pointed out, seemed unable, after several attempts, to dip it in the massive silver ink-standish, which stood full before her. Lady Ashton's vigilance hastened to supply the deficiency. I have myself seen the fatal deed, and in the distinct characters in which the name of Lucy Ashton is traced on each page there ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott

... rod, which he had been in the act of jointing, and started on a run to meet the two fishermen; for he could hear them shouting, though unable to distinguish just what ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren

... person who was unknown to her." Then, and always, he must have experienced the bitter sense of exclusion from active amusements; but it is a hasty assumption that Byron only denounced waltzing because he was unable to waltz himself. To modern sentiment, on the moral side, waltzing is unassailable; but the first impressions of spectators, to whom it was a novelty, ...
— Byron's Poetical Works, Vol. 1 • Byron

... now, what is't that strikes thy sceptic mind, Constraining thee to sundry arguments Against belief that from insensate germs The sensible is gendered?—Verily, 'Tis this: that liquids, earth, and wood, though mixed, Are yet unable to gender vital sense. And, therefore, 'twill be well in these affairs This to remember: that I have not said Senses are born, under conditions all, From all things absolutely which create Objects that feel; but much it matters ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius

... the discoveries of Layard and Rawlinson to assume an intelligible coherency. The tenth and eleventh chapters of Genesis, written a thousand years before Herodotus or Manetho, and which Rationalistic commentators were so long "unable to verify by their own consciousness," and which were therefore consigned to the realm of mythology, are now acknowledged by the first scholars and discoverers to stand at the head of the page of reliable history, and to form the basis of ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson



Words linked to "Unable" :   unable to help, incapable, ineffectual, impotent, ineffective, ability, able



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