"Deficient" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... all men of the future could look forward to so far as happiness was concerned. These views, however, were no longer tenable if our arts, philosophies and scientific attainments fail to civilize and refine us. Clearly, modern man's conception of ethical progress was as deficient in certain respects as that of the great historic civilizations. The secret of right living had not yet been discovered. History proved this, and unless the trend of modern materialistic tendencies was supplanted by something higher, the same fate ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... needs, his movements, were now the centre around which her fine and ceaseless activity revolved. There was not a trace of sentimental expression to this absorption. A careless observer might have said that her manner was deficient in tenderness; that she was singularly chary of caresses and words of love. But one who saw deeper would observe that not the smallest motion of the doctor's escaped her eye; not his lightest word failed to reach her ear; and every act of hers was planned with either direct or ...
— Hetty's Strange History • Anonymous
... Somerset is peculiarly deficient in large rivers, for the Avon can hardly be included amongst its belongings, since it is the dividing line between the county and Gloucestershire. The Parrett is the one stream of any moment. It is a sluggish and uninteresting bit of water, rising in Dorset, entering Somerset near Crewkerne, ...
— Somerset • G.W. Wade and J.H. Wade
... senior wrangler probably showed himself very unskilful and deficient in the combat with wild beasts, but no conduct could have displayed a more engrossing anxiety for the safety of his fair companion. Most men would have been willing to reap advantage from the grateful sentiment which such a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... Sublimity the Caliph. Between ourselves, I do not think this very important. So far as I have observed, we have matter enough in this world on every possible subject already. It is manner in which the literature of all nations is deficient. It appears to me that the great point for persons of genius now to direct their attention to is the expansion of matter. This I conceive to be the great secret; and this must be effected by the art of picturesque writing. For instance, my dear Mr. Grey, I will open the Arabian ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield
... phenomena, until Professor Espy broached a questionable principle, (and which is rendered still more so by the late investigations of Regnault,) in opposition to Hutton's theory. That the theory is deficient, no one can gainsay. That Espy has rendered the question clearer, is equally hazardous to assert. Hutton failed in showing a cause for such intermingling on a sufficient scale; while Espy, it may be suspected, has misinterpreted facts, and incautiously rejected ...
— Outlines of a Mechanical Theory of Storms - Containing the True Law of Lunar Influence • T. Bassnett
... in uniform, Mabel," Mr. Penfold went on. "I am afraid that respect is one of the moral qualities in which you are deficient. Still I think that when you see Ralph in his uniform, you will ...
— One of the 28th • G. A. Henty
... than a name, Babylon and Phoenicia were growing weaker every day; the Jews, absorbed in questions of religious ethics, were deficient in material power, and had not as yet attained sufficient moral authority to exercise an influence over the eastern world: the Egypt indestructible had alone escaped the general shipwreck, and seemed fated to survive her rivals for a long time. Of all these ancient nations ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 9 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... ease in the handling of a rollicking measure. The internal rhymes are for the most part well introduced, though greater uniformity might have been used in their distribution. The first two lines have none. In the last stanza there are two lines whose metre seems deficient, but being conscious of the uncertainties of the secretarial and typographical arts, we suspend judgment on the author. "A Song of Cheer", by Alfred H. Pearce, is an optimistic ode of real merit. The last line furnishes a particularly ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... the proportions are altered. The smaller waves are in excess, and, as a consequence, in the scattered light blue will be the predominant colour. The other colours of the spectrum must, to some extent, be associated with the blue: they are not absent, but deficient. We ought, in fact, to have them all, but in diminishing proportions, from the violet ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall
... be the proper judge of the completeness of your confession.—Knowing previously, and by unerring means, your whole history, I shall be able to detect all that is deficient, as well as all that is redundant. Your confessions have hitherto adhered to the truth, but deficient they are, and they must be, for who, at a single trial, can detail the secrets of his life? whose recollection ...
— Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist - (A Fragment) • Charles Brockden Brown
... accumulated, he set down with absolute faithfulness; his bibliographies supplementing his own contributions and also those of the many writers whom he inspired and guided in like labours are exhaustive. Rarely is there a wisp to be gleaned where Winsor has garnered. If he was deficient in the power of vivid and picturesque presentment, it is only that like all men he ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... beleeve, that if they were true, they were dependancies from my nature, as far forth as it had any perfection; and if they were not, I made no accompt of them; that is to say, That they were in me, because I had something deficient. But it could not be the same with the Idea of a being more perfect then mine: For to esteem of it as of nothing, was a thing manifestly impossible. And because there is no lesse repugnancy that the more perfect should succeed from and depend upon the less perfect, ...
— A Discourse of a Method for the Well Guiding of Reason - and the Discovery of Truth in the Sciences • Rene Descartes
... could that remarkable statesman have confined his labors to affairs purely Spanish in their character and purpose, that country might have taken, and have continued to hold, the first place in Europe. He, however, with all his talents, was intellectually deficient in some important respects, and so all his schemes came to nought, and he fell. He tried to effect too much, and though fully sensible of the necessity of peace to Spain, he plunged into war. He did, in fact, what the rulers of Spain are doing ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... causes that produce this auspicious result, we must acknowledge the excellence of the constitutional system, and the wisdom of the legislative provisions;—but we should be deficient in gratitude and justice, did we not attribute a great portion of these advantages, to the virtue, firmness, and talents of your administration; which have been conspicuously displayed, in the most trying times, ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 5 (of 5) • John Marshall
... Toulon. In August 1793 that city admitted the British troops and a Spanish force a few days later. Thereupon Pitt claimed the help which he had a right to expect from his Allies. Naples and Sardinia sent contingents deficient in quality or numbers; and the Court of Vienna, after promising to send 5,000 troops from the Milanese, neglected to do so. Quarrels and suspicions hampered the defence; but the arrival of the Austrian contingent would probably have ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... well-meaning persons, even for a few days, will demoralise a whole nursery. Tempers grow wild and unruly, sleep disappears, fretfulness and irritability take its place. Yet of most mothers it is probably true that they are neither strikingly proficient nor utterly deficient in the power of managing children. If they lack the gift that comes naturally to some women, they learn from experience and grow instinctively to feel when they have made a false step with the child. Although by dearly bought experience ...
— The Nervous Child • Hector Charles Cameron
... being seventeen members all told. The vessel was stanch, well-fitted, and suitable, the scientific instruments satisfactory, but the provisions were illy chosen for Arctic service, and the equipment in many respects inadequate or deficient. The Greenland ports supplied skin-clothing, dogs, and Eskimo dog-drivers; the latter being destined to play an important part in establishing harmonious relations with the Etah natives. On reaching ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... over the shoulders, or falling in one smooth fold from the back of the head. They were attired in black velvet vests, with full white sleeves and skirts of some gay color, which were short enough to show to advantage their red stockings and polished shoe-buckles. Many of them were not deficient in personal beauty—there was a gipsy-like wildness in their eyes, that combined with their rich hair and graceful costume, reminded me of the Italian maidens. The towns too, with their open squares and arched passages, have quite a southern look; but the ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... is by no means deficient in a good opinion of his own capacity and his Prophet's all-sufficiency, but he never took me to task about ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... this, turned upon her with sudden asperity. "You know nothing whatever about the matter!" Then she added for Peter that, as it happened, her children did have a good deal of artistic taste: Grace was the only one who was totally deficient in it. Biddy was very clever—Biddy really might learn to do pretty things. And anything the poor child could learn was now no more than her duty—there was so little knowing what the future had ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... passion as was his is not often seen mated to such self-control; for while he spoke with utter abandon, he rarely if ever did so until he had carefully deliberated the cause he was espousing. He thought himself deficient in memory, and in fact rarely borrowed illustrations from his reading either of history or of literature; but his keenness of observation photographed living scenes upon an unfading memory which years after he could and did produce at will. All these ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... its enunciation, by Casper Friederich Wolff, who in his "Theoria Generationis," published in 1759, placed the opposite theory of epigenesis upon the secure foundation of fact, from which it has never been displaced. But Wolff had no immediate successors. The school of Cuvier was lamentably deficient in embryologists; and it was only in the course of the first thirty years of the present century, that Prevost and Dumas in France, and, later on, Doellinger, Pander, Von Baer, Rathke, and Remak in Germany, founded modern embryology; while, at the same time, ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... scarcely less frightened to see that of Madame de la Rougierre. She was dressed in a sort of grey silk, which she called her Chinese silk—precisely as she had been in the daytime. In fact, I do not think she had undressed. She had no shoes on. Otherwise her toilet was deficient in nothing. Her wide mouth was grimly closed, and she stood scowling into the room with a searching and pallid scrutiny, the candle held high above her head at the full ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... alone is unable to supply the amount of skill required, and is very deficient in technical instructors, as well as in skilled workmen. One was told, over and over again, that the first step in improvement would be the obtaining of spare parts for locomotives. It seems strange that these could not be manufactured in Russia. ...
— The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism • Bertrand Russell
... the product was 22 bushels. Yet I would advise no one to rely upon guano exclusively. Its analysis shows that it contains salts of ammonia, alkaline phosphates and the other mineral elements necessary to produce the grain of wheat, but is deficient in most of the elements of the straw and roots of the plants. Hence, (says Liebig) 'a rational agriculturist, in using guano, cannot dispense with stable dung.' We should, therefore, be careful not to exhaust the soil of organic manures, but by retaining ...
— Guano - A Treatise of Practical Information for Farmers • Solon Robinson
... between those within our compass more particularly as spoiled and those producible on a different basis and which should involve detachment, involve presence of mind; just the qualities in which Marie's possible output was apparently deficient. It didn't in the least matter accordingly whether or no a scene was then proceeded to—and I have lost all count of what immediately happened. The mark had been made for me and the door flung open; the passage, gathering up all the elements of the troubled ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... the thirsty a living spring, the feeble a staff, and the victorious warfarer songs of welcome and strains of music; and as long as each man asks on account of his wants, and asks what he wants, no man will discover aught amiss or deficient in the vast and many-chambered storehouse. But if, instead of this, an idler or scoffer should wander through the rooms, peering and peeping, and either detects, or fancies he has detected, here a rusted sword or pointless shaft, there a tool of ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... expectations, and perhaps wishes of the lawyers, he behaved in a manner not unworthy of that high station: his good natural capacity supplied the place of experience and study; and his decisions were not found deficient, either in point of equity or judgment. His enemies had contributed to this promotion, in hopes that his absence from court, while he attended the business of chancery, would gradually estrange the queen from him, and give them an opportunity of ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... the higher thought centers are involved but the typical dream is the product of a restricted, primitive self, lacking the resources of the complete personality and limited in power of expression. In dreams we are deficient in self-consciousness because it is only a partial self that dreams. Our wishes are rarely given clear and definite expression for the reason that the section of the mind then active is incapable of clear, definite and adequate concepts. Symbolism and reasoning by analogy are the ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... doctrine of the Fall the heretic Marcion wrote: "The Deity must either be deficient in goodness if he willed, in prescience if he did not foresee, or in power if he did not ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... relevancy of this, and refused to allow the professional ability or standing of an expert to be called in question. The witness thus adjudged competent brought no results into court; had kept no laboratory notes; relied solely on a memory so deficient that although he had been teaching for thirty-five years, he could not tell the shape of a crystal of tartar emetic, the poison in question; and upon the stand made a statement different from one which he had furnished officially ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... that Captain Dave and John were able to claim at once, as they bore the brand of the maker from whom they obtained their stock. There were boxes of copper and brass ship and house fittings, and a very large quantity of rope, principally of the sizes in which the stock had been found deficient; but to these Captain Dave was unable to swear. In addition to these articles the cellar contained a number of chests, all of which were found to be filled with miscellaneous articles of wearing apparel—rolls ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... all for granted that no human creature attains fruitful culture unless he learns his own powers and then resolves to apply them only in the directions where they tell best; without so much of self-knowledge he is no more a complete man than he would be were he deficient in self-reverence and self-control. He must dare to think for himself, or he will assuredly become a mediocrity, and probably more or less offensive. All his possible influence on his fellow-creatures must depart unless he thinks for himself; and he cannot ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... just described. The patriotic reader must not imagine that, because the Crescent had "none" either killed or wounded, the captain and officers of La Reunion did not do their utmost, and far less that they were deficient in courage. The severe loss they sustained, and the obstinacy with which their ship was defended, has fully proved their bravery. Had the Crescent at once boarded the Reunion, which was in her power, and carried her sword in hand, as in the case of the Nymphe and Cleopatre, it would have ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez, Vol. I • Sir John Ross
... characteristics of the two races. It is a well-established fact that, while the lower races possess marked capacity to deal with simple, concrete ideas, they lack power of generalization, and soon fatigue in the realm of the abstract. It is also well known that the inferior races, being deficient in generalization, which is a subjective process, are absorbed almost entirely in the things that are objective. They have strong and alert eyesight, and are susceptible to impressions through the medium of the eye to an extent that is impossible to any of the white races. This fact is ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... friend Selden. 2. Historia Saracenica Georgii Elmacini, opera et studio Thomae Erpenii, in 4to., Lugd. Batavorum, 1625. He is said to have hastily translated a corrupt Ms., and his version is often deficient in style and sense. 3. Historia compendiosa Dynastiarum a Gregorio Abulpharagio, interprete Edwardo Pocockio, in 4to., Oxon. 1663. More useful for the literary than the civil history of the East. 4. Abulfedoe Annales Moslemici ad Ann. Hegiroe ccccvi. a Jo. Jac. Reiske, in 4to., Lipsioe, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... cries. He talks about coming home. I shall write and remind him he went for a year, and has only been away eight months. A young man with money in his pocket who can't amuse himself somewhere on the Continent of Europe must be deficient, Francis." ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... such as tracking, which are concerned with their everyday life, and upon efficiency in which they actually depend for their livelihood, the natives show conspicuous ability, there are other directions in which they are as conspicuously deficient. This is perhaps shown most clearly in the matter of counting. At Alice Springs they occasionally count, sometimes using their fingers in doing so, up to five, but frequently anything beyond four is indicated by the ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... military drill fails to bring into varied and vigorous play the chest and shoulders? Indeed, in almost the entire drill, are not these parts held immovably in one constrained position? In all but the cultivation of erectness, the military drill is singularly deficient in the requisites of a system of muscle-training ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... perhaps, the most dangerous aspect of the doctrine. It prescribes a course of systematic ungodliness, a practical disregard of the future, and an engrossing attention to things seen and temporal, as if these were virtues in which mankind are greatly deficient, and as if their general prevalence would be a prelude to a secular millennium, or the commencement of an atheistic paradise. But the purely negative part of the system, however accordant with the natural tendencies of men, is felt to be in itself somewhat unattractive; it ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan
... words shall reveal the inner spirit. The beauty of the life to me was that he attained, unconsciously and gradually, to the very virtues which he most desired and in which he felt himself to be most deficient. He had to bear a series of devastating calamities. He had loved the warmth and nearness of his home circle more deeply than most men, and the whole of it was swept away; he had depended for stimulus and occupation alike upon his artistic ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... exposed abuses, and in slaughtering rioters whom oppression had driven into outrage. Is that the weakness of the present Government? I think not. As compared with any other party capable of holding the reins of Government, they are deficient neither in intellectual nor in moral strength. On all great questions of difference between the Ministers and the Opposition, I hold the Ministers to be in the right. When I consider the difficulties with which they have to struggle, ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Colonel Moultrie, ii. 187; attack made upon, by a British fleet, ii. 190; the attack upon, as described by a British writer, ii. 192; deficient supply of ammunition in—great loss of life in the British ships engaged in the attack upon, ii. 193; name of, changed to Fort Moultrie, ii. 196; great importance of the American victory at, ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... brute," one of the officers remarked. "The only thing to be said for him is that he is not deficient in personal courage. He has fought several duels, into which he brought himself by ...
— With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty
... of ninety thousand men, the greatest military array that Hispanic America had ever seen. Though admirably drilled and disciplined, they were poorly armed, mostly with flintlock muskets, and they were also deficient in artillery except that of antiquated pattern. With this mighty force at his back, yet knowing that the neighboring countries could eventually call into the field armies much larger in size equipped with repeating rifles and supplied ...
— The Hispanic Nations of the New World - Volume 50 in The Chronicles Of America Series • William R. Shepherd
... for revision and preparation for the press, to the late Professor W.W. Turner. Although it received the critical examination of that distinguished philologist, and was of use in directing attention to the language, it was deficient in the number of words in use, contained many which did not properly belong to the Jargon, and did not give the sources from which the words ...
— Dictionary of the Chinook Jargon, or, Trade Language of Oregon • George Gibbs
... possessed of the necessary knowledge enabling it to communicate easily through a medium, or even to develop the medium so that he may become an efficient channel of communication. Spirits are frequently found to be sadly deficient in such knowledge and experience, and the development of the medium as well as the production of satisfactory phenomena, suffer from this lack. The spirits who seek to use a medium may or may not be fitted for such task. Many spirits are utterly unable ...
— Genuine Mediumship or The Invisible Powers • Bhakta Vishita
... qualified for it. He was conscious, it is true, that he was not altogether unacquainted with the language and literature of the country with which the appointment was connected. He was likewise aware that he was not altogether deficient in courage and in propriety of behaviour. He knew that his appearance was not particularly against him; his face not being like that of a convicted pickpocket, nor his gait resembling that of a fox who has lost his tail; yet he never believed ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... sought an explanation for their defeat in everything save their own actions. After only twelve years, and twelve years passed in creating an efficient from a deficient government, the people had turned against them. "No party ever existed knew itself so little," said John Adams, "or so vainly overrated its own influence and popularity as ours. None ever understood so ill the causes ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks
... realistic exchange rate, fairly low inflation, and the continued support of international organizations. Economic recovery since the 2005 flood-related contraction has been buoyed by increases in remittances and foreign direct investment. Chronic problems include a shortage of skilled labor and a deficient infrastructure. The government is juggling a sizable external debt against the urgent need for expanded public investment. In March 2007, the Inter-American Development Bank, Guyana's principal donor, canceled Guyana's nearly ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... this so fervently, that, in spite of Mr Bitpin's burlesque of his manner of speaking, "Joe" fairly roared with laughter, in which the gunnery lieutenant, who had just come up from below to see about something deficient in one of the upper deck guns, which had been reported to him by Mr Triggs during the morning's inspection, ...
— Crown and Anchor - Under the Pen'ant • John Conroy Hutcheson
... fever is ended. If I have no brother the law will so declare it. If my brother makes a Can with the Diamond Notch, the law will hear of its value. If my brother does not make a Can with the Diamond Notch you will know me as one deficient in truth. There is no point under the stars that the law cannot be got to declare upon. But as is right, the law is slow, and will wait for a man to come out of his fever. Before it can decide, another man's good name, like a little cloud riding across the sky, is gone from ...
— Waysiders • Seumas O'Kelly
... returned the gallant Blandois, 'would be to slight a lady; to slight a lady would be to be deficient in chivalry towards the sex; and chivalry towards the sex is a part of my character!' Thus expressing himself, he threw the draggled skirt of his cloak over his shoulder, and accompanied Mr Flintwinch to the tavern; taking ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... places, are high, precipitous bluffs, and along the eastern shore of Michigan are hills of pure sand, blown up by the winds from the lake. Much of the country bordering on lakes Erie, Huron, and St. Clair, is level,—somewhat deficient in good water, and for the most part heavily timbered. The interior is more undulating, in some places rather hilly, with much fine timber, interspersed with oak "openings," "plains," ...
— A New Guide for Emigrants to the West • J. M. Peck
... them during the coming year? The thought is death itself. She must go to the fields. No matter how young her child, nor how near to death her aged mother or father; no matter how rigorous the climate or deficient her clothing: she must go to the fields. They are miles away, perhaps—for in Russia, serfdom, the communal system and other circumstances have forced the peasantry to live in villages—but go she must, with the child on her back ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... accumulation of blood; when the heart by its lessened excitability does not contract sufficiently forcibly, or frequently, to receive, as fast as usual, the returning blood; and their apparent prominence on the skin is occasioned by the deficient secretion of fat or mucus in the cellular membrane; and also to the contraction and coalescence and consequent less bulk of many ...
— The Temple of Nature; or, the Origin of Society - A Poem, with Philosophical Notes • Erasmus Darwin
... some localities, is exerted by those diseases which are attributed to some disorder of the lymphatic system, as scrofula and rickets. Though not entirely unknown to the affluent classes, yet it is chiefly in the dwellings of the poor that these diseases find their victims. Cold, moisture, bad air, deficient nourishment,—too frequent accompaniments of poverty,—are peculiarly favorable to their production. The physical depravation thus induced is frequently transmitted to the brain in the next generation, and appears in the shape of mental disorder.—Again, it is now well known that the qualities ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... independently by battalions and batteries, arriving by different trains and even at different stations, up to 10 A.M. in the morning. I thought it showed distinctly good work on the part of all concerned that we concentrated our "Brigade Area" so quickly and without being deficient of anything except the few vehicles which had perforce been left behind for want of trucks; but they turned up all right a day or two after. The Brigade staff billeted at the chateau (as usual!), a strangely ruined-looking little ...
— The Doings of the Fifteenth Infantry Brigade - August 1914 to March 1915 • Edward Lord Gleichen
... defective, feat, defeat, feature, feasible, forfeit, surfeit, counterfeit, affair, fashion; (2) factor, factotum, malefaction, benefaction, putrefaction, facile, facsimile, faculty, certificate, edifice, efficacy, prolific, deficient, proficient, artifice, artificer, beneficiary, versification, unification, exemplification, deify, petrify, rectify, amplify, fructify, liquefy, disaffect, refection, comfit, pontiff, ipso facto, de facto, ex post facto, au fait, ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... hear what you did on the seventh of December, three days ago. I was speaking to you of the flight of the hawk, and of the knowledge of hunting, in which you are deficient. I said to you, on the authority of La Chasse Royale, a work of King Charles IX, that after the hunter has accustomed his dog to follow a beast, he must consider him as of himself desirous of returning to the ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... the heathen. The Spaniards would appear in the East, knowing that their presence was desired. In reality they would come in answer to an invitation, and might look for a welcome. Making up by their zeal for the deficient enterprise of Rome, they might rescue the teeming millions of Farthest Asia, and thus fulfil prophecy, as there were only a hundred and fifty-five years to the end of the world. The conversion of Tartary would be the crowning glory ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... knowledge only to be obtained by honest study, the value of which no one can doubt, whatever branch of art the student might choose to follow afterwards; secondly, because the practice would bring out that gravity and nobility deficient in the English school, but not in the English character, and which being latent might therefore be brought out; and, thirdly, for the sake of action upon the public mind. For public improvement it is necessary ...
— The Mind of the Artist - Thoughts and Sayings of Painters and Sculptors on Their Art • Various
... after which we saw nothing distinctly, till our journey, properly so called, had terminated. For our course lay down a very steep street, and across the bridge into the Alt Stadt, where at a hotel, rich in all the essentials of food, and wine, and couches, though somewhat deficient in the superfluity of cleanliness, we established our head-quarters ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... deficient in wit, and could talk very well whenever she chose. She did not like to be called La Marquise, but preferred the simpler and shorter ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... Governor, and several men of lesser note. We touched at the public farm, and found only a single man in charge. The sugar-cane was small in size, was ill-weeded, and, to my eye, did not appear flourishing. The land is apparently good and suitable, but labor is deficient, and my impressions were not favorable in regard to the manner of cultivation. The mill was exposed to the atmosphere, and the kettles were full of foul water. We landed likewise at New Georgia, a settlement of recaptured Africans. There was here ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... have shown that from the point of view of anyone who regards civilisation as an organisation of human interdependence and believes that the stability of society can be secured only by a conscious and disciplined co-ordination of effort, it is a tradition extraordinarily and dangerously deficient in what I have called a "sense of the State." And by a "sense of the State" I mean not merely a vague and sentimental and showy public-spiritedness—of that the States have enough and to spare—but a real ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... five and twenty years before him? True, he was no great dramatist. He never tried to be one; but there was no one in his generation who could have written either 'Comus' or 'Samson Agonistes.' And if, as is commonly believed, and as his countenance seems to indicate, he was deficient in humour, so were his contemporaries, with the sole exception of Cartwright. Witty he could be, and bitter; but he did not live in a really humorous age: and if he has none of the rollicking fun of the foxhound puppy, at least he has none of the obscene ...
— Plays and Puritans - from "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley
... gave himself excellent reasons for his determination. It must not be thought that scoundrels are deficient in self-esteem. They enter into details with themselves in their lofty monologues, and they take matters with a high hand. How? This Josiana had bestowed charity on him! She had thrown some crumbs of her enormous wealth ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... her education had newly begun. The fixed aim, and the union with a practical man, had opened her faculties, not deficient in themselves, but contracted and nipped by the circumstances which she had not known how to turn to good account. Such a fresh stage in middle life comes to some few, like the midsummer shoot to repair the foliage that has suffered a spring blight; but it cannot be reckoned ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... true love to all that art and beauty in their manifold forms can supply to render life lovely and pleasant, and welcome all that can be written in their illustration. Our columns will never be deficient in tales, poetry and sketches, and that nothing may be neglected, we shall always devote full room to genial gossip with the reader, and to such original humors, quips, jests and anecdotes as chance or the kindness of correspondents ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... the best possible dispositions in which Allan could find her. He had not reckoned upon these better influences; he had not thought that when she came to contrast his behavior with that of others she would see how deficient in all honor and manliness it had been; he trusted to the glamor of love, and behold! there had been no love on her ...
— Marion Arleigh's Penance - Everyday Life Library No. 5 • Charlotte M. Braeme
... people on a holiday, you will see them doing a large amount of "nothing," dawdling, in fact; and "amusements" are, when they are not excitements, that is to say, stimulations to deficient energy, full of such "doing nothing." Think, for instance, of "amusing conversation" with its gaps and skippings, and "amusing" reading with its perpetual chances ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee
... a very distinguished position by mere (15) perseverance and common sense, which (52) (10 a) qualities are perhaps mostly underrated, (30) though he was deficient in tact and not remarkable ...
— How to Write Clearly - Rules and Exercises on English Composition • Edwin A. Abbott
... Doctor Hilton, it will be by far the worst. For you must learn to use almost all the portions of both your minds, the conscious and the unconscious. This must be, because you are the actual peyondixer. The others merely supply energies in which you yourself are deficient. Are you ready for a terrible ...
— Masters of Space • Edward Elmer Smith
... precedes it, at page 131., upon a passage in Palamon and Arcite, is less valuable, it is because it is deficient in one of the most essential conditions which such communications ought to possess—that of originality. No suggestion ought to be offered which had been previously published in connexion with the same subject: ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 72, March 15, 1851 • Various
... like to know what flower you call insignificant," said Charlotte; "not this little houstonia, I hope; that has a perfection of organization in which many of your splendid green-house flowers are deficient. But that is the way with us: we call those things sublime which are on a large scale, because they are magnified to our narrow minds, and we can comprehend them without any trouble.—But I must not display all my wisdom to you at once—how, like Solomon of old, I can speak of trees, from 'the ...
— Rich Enough - a tale of the times • Hannah Farnham Sawyer Lee
... almost without even the elements of civilization, ignorant and brutal beyond any existing white community, and superior only in the fact that they were organized and armed, whereas those they trampled upon were deficient in both these respects. Having no votes, these were powerless to better their condition by the means common to civilized communities throughout the world. They were ground down by an enormous taxation, ...
— With Buller in Natal - A Born Leader • G. A. Henty
... not to reveal personal actions and character as a formative moral influence in the education of the young. Even as sources of valuable information, Spencer shows that our histories have been extremely deficient; but for moral purposes they are ...
— The Elements of General Method - Based on the Principles of Herbart • Charles A. McMurry
... deficient in works representative of the earliest and purest tendencies of art, our National Gallery nevertheless affords a characteristic and sufficient series of examples of the practice of the various schools of painting, after oil had been finally substituted for the less manageable glutinous vehicles ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... women, are wofully deficient in sanitary knowledge; although it is to women that we must look, first and last, for its application, as far as household hygiene is concerned. But who would ever think of citing the institution of a Women's Hospital as the way to cure ...
— Notes on Nursing - What It Is, and What It Is Not • Florence Nightingale
... intellectual stimulus emanating from the Euphrates Valley. At all events, many of the features found in Babylonian myths and legends bear so striking a resemblance to those occurring in lands lying to the east and west of Babylonia, that a study of Aryan mythology is sadly deficient which does not take into account the material furnished by cuneiform literature. How extensive the Babylonian mythology was must remain for the present a matter of conjecture, but it is easier to err on the side of underestimation ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow
... She encountered a text replete with hideous examples of backward and deficient children, victims of adenoids who had been restored to a state of normality by the removal of the affliction. She had no idea what an adenoid was. She had a hazy notion that it was a kind of superfluous bone in the region of the breast, but her ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley
... "a father," Old-fashioned and rather Deficient in stiffness of spine, So, feeling unequal To facing the sequel, My name I'm unwilling to sign; For the call for more powder Grows stronger and louder From every daughter of mine, And any restriction Of puffs or nose-friction Would end ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 18, 1919 • Various
... man. Though so candid and straight, he could be grandly silent; he told his womankind all that he considered it good for them to know, and the rest he kept to himself; he had that quality of rulership without which manhood always seems deficient. ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... about that young woman in the morning, Anice," he said. "I should like to attend to the matter myself. Singular that Grace should not have mentioned her before. It really seems to me, you know, that now and then Grace is a little deficient ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... like mice; and yond tall anchoring bark, Diminished to her cock; her cock, a buoy Almost too small for sight: the murmuring surge, That on th' unnumbered idle pebbles chafes, Cannot be heard so high.—I'll look no more, Lest my brain turn, and the deficient ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... agreeable. The neck, long and twisted, suggests an heroic ostrich in a Roman breastplate. The attitude, too, is ungraceful. The hero sits with his knees projecting beyond the perpendicular, so that his legs seem to be doubling under him, a position deficient ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... deficient in spirit. As soon as she had ascertained beyond a doubt that all that Willan had told her was true, and that there was no possibility of her ever getting from the estate anything except her annuity, she packed up all her possessions and left the house. ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson
... regarded of sound capacity or intellect:—but if in his career from infancy to manhood it is clearly ascertained that education is hopeless,—that the seeds of instruction take "no root, and wither away,"—that he is deficient in the capacity to attain the information requisite to pilot himself through the world and manage his concerns, such a person would be deemed an idiot, and it might be safely concluded that his intellect was unsound, by wanting those capacities that constitute the sound mind. According to ...
— A Letter to the Right Honorable the Lord Chancellor, on the Nature and Interpretation of Unsoundness of Mind, and Imbecility of Intellect • John Haslam
... Munro has justly observed, 'I do not exactly know what is meant by civilizing the people of India. In the theory and practice of good government they may be deficient; but if a good system of agriculture—if unrivalled manufactures—if a capacity to produce what convenience or luxury demands—if the establishment of schools for reading and writing—if the general practice of kindness and hospitality—and above all, if a scrupulous respect ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey
... skilful. He thought that he might vie with Henry IV even in field sports; but he was not hindered by his fondness for these amusements from continuing his studies with unwearied application. He was impelled to these not, strictly speaking, by thirst for general knowledge, although he was not deficient in this, but principally by interest in the theological controversies which engaged the attention of the world. He more than once went through the voluminous works of Bellarmin; and, in order to verify the citations, he had the old editions of the Fathers and of the Decrees of ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... of Courtois on Robespierre's papers, though very able, is an instance of the pedantry I have often remarked as so peculiar to the French, even when they are not deficient in talents. It seems to be an abstract of all the learning, ancient and modern, that Courtois was possessed of. I have the book before me, and have selected the following list of persons and allusions; many of ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... this comfortable and egoistic quietism which finds nothing abnormal in the misery ... of others—we perceive how deficient M. Garofalo is, in the most elementary accuracy, in the ascertainment of facts when we recall the suffering and ever-growing multitude of the unemployed, which is sometimes a "local and transitory" phenomenon, but which, in its acute or chronic forms, is always the necessary and incontestable ...
— Socialism and Modern Science (Darwin, Spencer, Marx) • Enrico Ferri
... a gentleman of great urbanity of manner, and of considerable experience in the southern traffic, to which he had devoted a great portion of his life. He was deficient, however, in energy, and, consequently, in that spirit of enterprise which is here so absolutely requisite. He was part owner of the vessel in which he sailed, and was invested with discretionary powers to cruise in the South Seas for any cargo which might come ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... twenty-six, and very nearly such as she has taken care to describe herself in the Divers Portraits of Mademoiselle de Montpensier. The head stands out wonderfully. It would be impossible to instance a more charming countenance, but it is somewhat deficient in character and grandeur, and quite different from that of Madame de Longueville. The latter's face was not so regularly symmetrical, but it wore a far loftier expression, and an air of supreme distinction characterised her ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... talk so sensibly. I was afraid from what Etta said that you were a little eccentric and strong-minded, and I have such a dislike to that in young people; young ladies are so terribly independent at the present day, in my opinion, and I know the colonel thinks the same. They are sadly deficient in good manners and reverence. That is why I am so fond of the Hamilton girls: they are perfect young gentlewomen; they never talk slang or slip-shod English, and they know how to respect gray hairs. The colonel is devoted to Gladys: I tell him he is as fond of her as though ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... it was not the will, but the power that was deficient. He succeeded with men, but the ladies were too much for him ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... he was deficient in the gift of humour: "I am," he wrote to Mr. J.W. Marshall (May 6, 1905), "still grinding away at my autobiography. Have got to my American lecture tour, and hope to finish by about Sept. but have such lots of interruptions. I am just reading Huxley's Life. Some of his ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences Vol 2 (of 2) • James Marchant
... frightened at his vast size that he ran away. After a time, perceiving the meekness and gentleness of the beast's temper, he summoned courage enough to approach him. Soon afterwards, observing that he was an animal altogether deficient in spirit, he assumed such boldness as to put a bridle in his mouth, and to let a ...
— Aesop's Fables • Aesop
... a shadow from any prominent object; and from thence having observed the direction which the Rapparee and his men took, without any risk of being seen himself, he appeared satisfied. The name of this individual—who, although shrewd and cunning in many things, was nevertheless deficient in reason—or rather the name by which he generally went, was Tom Steeple, a sobriquet given to him on account of a predominant idea which characterized and influenced his whole conversation. The great delight of ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... the faithful guard indulged in double-meaning quips, but they, on the other hand, were at the proper time soundly berated. "The short campaign of fifteen days," wrote one of them, "made us ten years older." There was also danger in advancing beyond reach of the commissary department,—deficient and contemptible as it was in the hands of unscrupulous speculators,—and there was indeed little to be gained by such a pursuit as was possible, except prestige, which at that moment and at that distance from France was not a ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... departure from the principle now asserted, until the State governments shall derive all the funds necessary for their support from the Treasury of the United States, or, if a sufficient supply should be obtained by some States and not by others, the deficient States might complain; and to put an end to all further difficulty Congress, without assuming any new principle, need go but one step further and put the salaries of all the State governors, judges, and other officers, with a sufficient ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson
... importance. A man who can play and sing is always useful. We are an extremely social College, and the—the friction of mind with mind, you know—it is the best education possible for a man—I'm sure it is—much better than poring over Plato. Then I found so many things in which I was deficient. French fiction, for example; and I knew so very little about Art—oh! I have passed a most busy and ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 25, January 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... belief; it grieves the sincerely pious, gives rise to the expression of angry feeling in those more fanatical or prejudiced, and offends even the sceptic as a breach of good manners in any one—but in a woman peculiarly disgusting—even when the listeners are themselves deficient ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 462 - Volume 18, New Series, November 6, 1852 • Various
... back through the historical records. The materials are remarkably deficient between the fourteenth century and the Roman classical period.[7] At this earlier period {17} various breeds, namely hounds, house-dogs, lapdogs, &c., existed; but as Dr. Walther has remarked it is impossible to recognise the greater number ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin
... this want of zeal for true Catholic education in so many of our clergy, who are otherwise models of every virtue, than by supposing the fact that their ecclesiastical training must have been deficient in many respects, or that they must have spent their youth in our godless Public Schools, where they were never thoroughly imbued with the true spirit of the Catholic Church—the ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
... creation is turned upside down and the very womb of the world is laid bare before our impious eyes. Then go to Arizona and see it all for yourself, and you will realize what an entirely inadequate and deficient ...
— Roughing it De Luxe • Irvin S. Cobb
... or decry the utility, of such an education, are generally deficient in a sense of what makes good literature—they are 'word-deaf,' as others are colour-blind. All writing is a kind of word-weaving; a skilful writer will make a splendid tissue out of the diverse fibres of words. ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Walter Raleigh
... considered as a fertilizer except on soils actually deficient in it. But it will usually be advisable to apply from one thousand five hundred to two thousand pounds of fresh burned lime or its equivalent, in order to correct any natural soil acidity, to hasten the decay of organic material, to increase the activity of the soil bacteria, and ...
— Apple Growing • M. C. Burritt
... soil is not fertile, and fertilizers are needed as an important source of plant-food throughout the season, the application should be liberal. If it is necessary to plant a field that is deficient in fertility, expending labor and money for tillage and seed, the only rational course is to furnish all needed plant-food for a good yield. There may be little net profit from the one crop, but there will be more than could ...
— Crops and Methods for Soil Improvement • Alva Agee
... the murdered children were away from home when the awful crime was committed by their farm servant, a young man aged about nineteen, inoffensive, but of somewhat deficient intellect. It is quite clear from the facts which have come down to us that he was insane, for in his confession he stated the devil suggested the deed to his mind, saying, "Kill all, kill all, kill all." The eldest of the family, a ...
— Bygone Punishments • William Andrews
... bird—a billow—a breeze— A kind of creature that moves among men as a wind among trees. And a bard who is also the pet of patricians and dowagers doubly can Express his contempt for canaille in his fables where beasts are republican. Yet with all my disdainful forgiveness for men so deficient in ton I cannot but feel it was cruel—I cannot but think it was wrong. I with the heat of my heart still burning against all bars As the fire of the dawn, so to speak, in the blanched blank brows of the stars— ...
— The Heptalogia • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... admiration in Notre-Dame, had no such effect upon these serious-minded Christians. They never thought that the dogma had any need to be toned down, veiled, or dressed up to suit the taste of modern France. They showed themselves deficient in the critical faculty in supposing that the Catholicism of the theologians was the self-same religion of Jesus and the prophets; but they did not invent for the use of the worldly, a Christianity ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan |
