"Incompetency" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... competent to teach a common school, by which I hoped to earn enough to carry me through another year of study. I was examined as to my qualifications for teaching by the chairman of the school committee of the town of Grafton, having applied for one of the district schools. Between fright and incompetency I passed a most inadequate examination. What little I did know deserted me at the pinch. The reverend gentleman, who conducted me through questions in the various common school studies, was one of the most amiable souls in the world, as I had many subsequent opportunities of knowing, ...
— Confessions of Boyhood • John Albee
... hypothesis that his raising of Lazarus may also have been such critically examined.—The record allows this supposition.—Further considerations favoring it: 1. The real interests of Christianity secure.—2. The miracle as a work of mercy.—3. Incompetency of the bystanders' opinion.—4. Congruity with the general conception of the healing works of Jesus, as wrought by a peculiar psychical power.—Other cases.—The resurrection of Jesus an event in a wholly different order of things.—The practical result of regarding these resuscitations as in ...
— Miracles and Supernatural Religion • James Morris Whiton
... desired to see a change of the system, and to "try the experiment whether Ireland might not be managed by open rectitude and real integrity."[128] But his first efforts were baffled by the carelessness or incompetency of the Viceroys, since it was difficult to find any man of ability who would undertake the office. And for some years things went on with very little change, great lords of different ranks having equally no object but that of controlling the Castle and engrossing the patronage ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... occupant, S.A. SEVERNE, Esq., of the beautiful domain of Thenford; to ransack the Library; to scatter abroad pictures and curiosities of every description; on the alleged ground of insanity, or incompetency to make a will, on the part of Mr. Wodhull. As I had been very minute in the account of Mr. Wodhull's person, in the work just alluded to, I became a witness in the cause; and, as it was brought into Chancery, my deposition ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... dishonest, and addicted to gambling. One quality, imitativeness, is possibly neutral. It would appear that his virtues do not especially look toward thrift—i.e., economic independence—and that his defects positively look the other way. If the witnesses testifying be challenged on the score of incompetency, let us turn to the reports of the supervisors of the census, contained in the volume already cited; for these cover the entire Archipelago, and set forth actual conditions at one and the same epoch, 1903, the date of the ...
— The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon From Ifugao to Kalinga • Cornelis De Witt Willcox
... and Colonel Arthur Wellesley's first foreign service was in 1794, when his regiment was sent to the support of the Duke of York, who was near the end of his ignominious campaign in the Low Countries. In March, 1795, he was back in England, disgusted with the incompetency of his superiors. Of the value of this experience he afterward said, "Why, I learned what one ought not to do, and that is always something." At the time, however, he was less philosophical, and after consulting with his wise elder brother as to the future possibilities ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... and the bodies of the men I struck at and my own came close together after each blow, through the shadowy arms I struck with. My blows were delivered with more extreme violence than I ever think I exerted, but I became painfully convinced of my incompetency. I have no consciousness of what happened after this feeling ...
— Clairvoyance and Occult Powers • Swami Panchadasi
... critical, not a philosophical one. This distinction seems to have been imperfectly realised by several of those critics, writing in India, who have examined the views expressed in my Introduction to the translation of Sankara's Commentary. A writer should not be taxed with 'philosophic incompetency,' 'hopeless theistic bias due to early training,' and the like, simply because he, on the basis of a purely critical investigation, considers himself entitled to maintain that a certain ancient document sets forth one philosophical ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... former lost 41 and the latter 22 men. This affair, in which hardly a tenth of the American force was engaged, has been, absurdly enough, designated a "battle" by most British and Canadian historians. In reality it was the incompetency of their general and not the valor of their foes that caused the retreat of the Americans. The same comment, by the way, applies to the so-called "Battle" of Plattsburg, in the following year, which may have been lost by Sir George Prevost, but was certainly ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... The point in dispute was the right application of personal judgment. Catholics maintained, and always have and always will maintain, that a divine revelation necessitates a divine interpreter. Catholics resisted, and always will resist, on the ground of its incompetency, a human authority applied to the interpretation of the contents of a divinely-revealed religion. They consider such an authority, whether of the individual or the state, in religious matters an intrusion. Catholics insist, without swerving, upon believing ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... of her womanly graces. If she had at times contemplated eventual marriage, it was only as a possible practical partnership in her business; but as she lived in a country where men thought it dishonorable and a proof of incompetency to rise by their wives' superior fortune, she had been free from that kind of mercenary persecution, even from men who might have worshiped her in hopeless ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... as he was not called upon to make a difficult adjustment, but with the loss of his child he develops a mental disorder. That he should have reacted to his daughter's injury with murder is quite in line with his general inability and incompetency for proper adjustment, and the development of a mental disorder which has kept him in an institution for the past twelve years and will in all probability keep him there the rest of his life, in reaction to the committed murder, further emphasizes ...
— Studies in Forensic Psychiatry • Bernard Glueck
... colleges would sometimes put on a similar boldness; they would help heads of colleges out of very trying difficulties with well-meaning but incompetent or indolent professors. Undergraduate popularity is often illusive and unstable, but undergraduate perception of incompetency is often ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... remained quiet, thinking, the idea expanding. "Chuck it," he repeated half to himself. "It sounds sensible certainly, to-night particularly." New thoughts came, thoughts like the sifting of dead ashes. "Chuck it," feverishly, "and admit incompetency, cowardice, failure absolute!" For the third time he was on his feet. "No, never. I'll go to the devil first." His fingers were on the red decanter, his brown ...
— The Dominant Dollar • Will Lillibridge
... the beetleheadedness of a domestic, or Baboo JALPANYBHOY'S incompetency in the art of equivocation, I am not to say—but the sequel of her inquiries was the unshakable conviction that I had not struck root in the habitation from which my ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... he quietly lodged at the Hotel de Roma in Madrid, and then took a private residence. Out of courtesy he was offered a position in the Cuarto Militar, which he declined to accept. For several months he remained under a political cloud, charged with incompetency to quell the Philippine Rebellion. But there is something to be said in justification of Blanco's inaction. He was importuned from the beginning by the relentless Archbishop and many leading civilians to take the offensive and start ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... the man "paid off'' is sometimes retained and the foreman, on the evidence of prejudice, bad temper, or other incompetency, is discharged. In consequence every workman knows that his place does not depend upon the whim of his immediate superior, but that faithful service will ...
— Increasing Efficiency In Business • Walter Dill Scott
... closing this chapter, from saying a word or two about the incompetency of the large majority of "general practitioners" and "family physicians," and their evident carelessness, and in some instances, even disgust, in the diagnosis and treatment ...
— Manhood Perfectly Restored • Unknown
... got into the Neumark of Brandenburg, on those bad terms; and are clearly aware that, without some Fortress as a Place of Arms, they are an overgrown Incompetency and Monstrosity in the field of War; doing much destruction, most of which proves self-destructive before long. But how help it? If the carrying of meal so far be difficult what will the carrying of siege-furniture be? A flat impossibility. Fermor, aware of these facts, remembers ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... constantly remember that it was the almost incomparable faith of this woman in the God of Jacob, amid the greatest difficulties and discouragements, that gave her such remarkable success. Incompetency for Christian work is a lack, not only of patience, but of faith in the great love of our God, and the triumphant death of Christ, and the persistent power of the Holy Spirit, combined with a humble trust in our own capabilities to do valiantly for Jesus. These are the allied forces ...
— Gathering Jewels - The Secret of a Beautiful Life: In Memoriam of Mr. & Mrs. James Knowles. Selected from Their Diaries. • James Knowles and Matilda Darroch Knowles
... individual, with people murmuring words of admiration, of speculation concerning the brilliancy of my future!... When at last my name was called and I rose to receive my diploma it seemed as though my incompetency had been ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... marry. A refusal of the permission to marry will not change the desire to marry. Many, of course, to whom a permit is refused, will accept the situation, will be thankful to be possessed of the knowledge of their incompetency in order that they may seek medical aid. These individuals will remain under medical supervision until their ailments are cured and their competency established. In this way the eugenic aim is materially furthered. Others may not abide by the decree which forbids marriage. It would wholly defeat ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume I. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague, M.D.
... majority of men are incapable of making. A vicious priest degrades the priestly vocation—a hypocrite brings reproach upon the religious profession—a dishonest lawyer sinks the legal character—and even the bravest men care but little for promotion in an army, when cowardice and incompetency are rewarded with rank and power. But manifest incapacity, culpable neglect of duty, or even a positively vicious character, will not reduce a calling to contempt, or bring it into disrepute so soon, as any quality which ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... either entirely a slave-holding nation, or entirely a free labor nation." Thus, while others dodged this issue, William H. Seward came squarely out in language which could not be misinterpreted. When the Whig party had proved its incompetency to deal with the slavery question, Mr. Seward, in conformity with his past public career, withdrew and figured most conspicuously in the founding of the ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... un pen trop." Of Constantine[85] he spoke with indignation, and his whiskers vibrated as he described his detestable character—debauched, depraved, cruel, dishonest, and a coward. Constantine was abusing a Colonel in very gross tones, a short time ago, for misconduct and incompetency in battle. "Indeed!" said the officer; "you must have been misinformed; this cannot arise from your own observation, as I do not recollect having ever seen you ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... Lady Bertram, with all her incompetency and languor, could feel this, the inference of what her niece, alive and enlightened as she ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... teach at all. The pupil of a Normal School gains there a start and an impulse, which carry him forward the rest of his life. A very little judicious experimental training redeems hundreds of candidates from utter and hopeless incompetency, and converts for them an awkward and painful drudgery into keen, hopeful and ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart
... not impossible," he continued, "to get the nurse who left you before Nell Beecroft came, saying that she knew enough about you both to 'send you over the road.' It is not too difficult to bring to light the examples of your incredible incompetency which prove you unfit to sign a death certificate, nor is your record in ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... than handle a brush, and on dark days he couldn't see to paint (so he said). In truth, he was not well, and his slender store of strength did not permit him to do as he would. To cover the real seriousness of his case he loudly admitted his laziness and incompetency. ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... about servants not knowing and performing their proper duties; in fact, of their incompetency to fill the office they apply for: and it ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
... bring him to terms. Since the defeat of the Irish and Spanish confederacy at Kinsale, O'Neill comforted himself with the assurance that Philip III. would send another expedition to Ireland to retrieve the honour of his flag, and avenge the humiliation it had sustained, owing to the incompetency or treachery of Don Juan d'Aquila. That the king was inclined to aid the Irish there can be no question; 'for Clement VIII., then reigning in the Vatican, pressed it upon him as a sacred duty, which he owed to his co-religionists in Ireland, whose efforts to free themselves from ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... or at least the majority of his subordinates. If this majority be displeased with their minister, governor, president, manager, chief, or director, the fact is considered proof of administrative incompetency.... Perhaps educational circles afford the most curious examples of this old idea of responsibility. A student-revolt is commonly supposed to mean, not that the students are intractable, but that the superintendent or teacher does not know [399] his business. Thus ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... had run for several days without especial incident, but this morning Devlin's nervous incompetency manifested itself in a new direction. He forgot to fill the oil-tank of the car he served as mechanician, before Corrie took it out. One of the testers drove into the busy courtyard, about ten o'clock, shouting the information that the Titan was stuck ...
— From the Car Behind • Eleanor M. Ingram
... "Incompetency, if you want the brutal truth," Dudley broke in not unkindly. "He was too old-fashioned to make good elsewhere, I expect; and if he found it out, I don't wonder if he did ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones
... otherwise known as "Uncle Ben," a good-humored but not over-bright miner, who occupied a small cabin on an unambitious claim in the outskirts of Indian Spring. His avuncular title was evidently only an ironical tribute to his amiable incompetency and heavy good-nature, for he was still a young man with no family ties, and by reason of his singular shyness not even a visitor in the few families of the neighborhood. As the master looked up, he had an irritating ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... stand against the spirit of the times. The call on all sides now is for young men, and I have not the nerve to put myself in opposition to the demand. Were 'The Jupiter,' when it hears of my appointment, to write article after article setting forth my incompetency, I am sure it would cost me my reason. I ought to be able to bear with such things, you will say. Well, my dear, I own that I ought. But I feel my weakness, and I know that I can't. And to tell you the truth, I know no more than a child what ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... crushed if the other man had not. He had never been wilfully unfair, nor had he used dishonourable means to secure his ends: his name stood high in his own country for commercial integrity; men said: he "played square." He had, maybe, too keen a contempt for dulness and incompetency in enterprise, and he loathed red-tape; but this was racial. His mind was as open as his manners. He was utterly approachable. He was a millionaire, and yet in his own offices in New York he was as accessible as a President. He handled things without gloves, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... while on duty in General Hospitals, are under the exclusive control of the senior medical officer, who will direct their several duties, and may be discharged by him when considered supernumerary, or for incompetency, insubordination, or violation of his orders. Such discharge, with the reasons therefor, being endorsed upon the certificate, will be at ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... the accountant tried to take it upon himself to dismiss a clerk without any agreement with his associates, or the consent of the government. In fact, he abolished the position. I was informed that it was not for incompetency, or for any failure of which the clerk had been guilty in his office, but only for the accountant's own private reasons. He was ordered to return the man to his place, and to have him serve as before. The ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIII, 1629-30 • Various
... Court with a commission to inspect a province. Such persons were frequently of royal rank, brothers or sons of the king. They were accompanied by an armed force, and were empowered to correct whatever was amiss in the province, and in case of necessity to report to the crown the insubordination or incompetency of its officers. If this system had been properly maintained, it is evident that it would have acted as a most powerful check upon misgovernment, and would ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson
... Emperor!" which must have been said to him often enough before. Let no one reproach me if, henceforth, I keep silence on the subject of Soliman. Offenses of this kind are not mere blunders, they are the sign of complete incompetency on the part of the poet, and solely out of curiosity, not because it is necessary to demonstrate my argument, I shall continue to analyze Zriny, Helena, and the ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... sailor. He was about two years and eight months younger than the poet, who found in him quite a congenial spirit. He perished, with nearly all his crew, in the 'Earl of Abergavenny,' East-Indiaman, which he commanded, and which, owing to the incompetency of a pilot, was in his last outward voyage wrecked on the Shambles of the Bill of Portland on the night of Friday, February 5, 1805. His brother William speaks of him in verse, as 'a silent poet,' and in prose describes him as 'meek, affectionate, silently enthusiastic, loving all quiet things, ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth
... that moulds, forms and fashions our stature, and that is determining the greatness or the littleness of our destiny. And not only is the future architectonic, it is also an inspiration and refuge for our anxieties, defeats and inadequacy, his incompetency, how little he has achieved, realizes his inconsequence and insignificance, and he looks forward and sees triumph in tomorrow; he beholds the summit of the hill, and says, "There I shall stand victorious some future day." Today incomplete, tomorrow complete; today imperfect, tomorrow ...
— The Jericho Road • W. Bion Adkins
... House of Lords on a long string of charges. Many of these charges were exaggerated, and some were untrue. His real crime was his complete failure as the leader of the administration. But as long as Charles refused to listen to the complaints of his minister's incompetency, the only way in which the Commons could reach him was by bringing criminal charges against him. Charles dissolved his second parliament as he had dissolved his first. Subsequently the Star Chamber declared the duke innocent of the charges, and on the 1st of June Buckingham ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... Veracity. He devotes a chapter to each. In Chapter I., on Benevolence, he re-opens the consideration of the Ethical systems founded on Benevolence or Utility, and argues against them; but merely repeats the common-place objections—the incompetency of individuals to judge of remote tendencies, the pretext that would be afforded for the worst conduct, and each one's consciousness that a sense of duty is different from ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... incompetency to enter upon the duties of my office without first making all the Officers of the Colony well acquainted with the principal objects which should engage our attention, I invited them to meet at the Agency House on the 27th, at ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... of every previous traveller. Beltrami (1823) attacked Pike (1806); Schoolcraft (1832) fleshed his pen in Beltrami; Allen, who accompanied Schoolcraft, afterward became his enemy and branded him as a geographical quack; Nicollet (1836) arraigned both Schoolcraft and Allen for incompetency; and so on. And now, at this late day, in a mild way tradition repeats itself. Your great original geographer, Mr. Siegfried, concluded his two essays on the "High Mississippi" by saying, "Beyond reasonable doubt our party is the only one that ever ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... observes that Fleischmann's whole aim is to accumulate observational data, meanwhile avoiding speculation as far as possible. His criticism is replete with bitter personal epithets, e.g., "reactionary," "mental incompetency," "dishonest mask of hypercritical exactness," which manifest the writer's inability to enter upon an objective discussion ...
— At the Deathbed of Darwinism - A Series of Papers • Eberhard Dennert
... (says the publisher of that account) has heard Cooper himself describe with great pleasantry his first interview with the Scotch manager; he was at that time a raw country youth of seventeen. On his arrival in Edinburgh, little conscious of his appearance and incompetency, he waited on Mr. Kemble, made up in the extreme of rustic foppery, proud of his talents, and little doubting his success. When he mentioned his name and errand, Mr. Kemble's countenance changed from a polite smile to a stare of disappointment: Cooper ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... Secretary die or be expelled, there is no doubt that an election for a successor, to fill the unexpired term, may be held by dispensation from the Grand Master. But the incompetency of either of these officers to perform his duties, by reason of the infirmity of sickness or removal from the seat of the lodge, will not, I think, authorize such an election. Because the original officer may recover from ...
— The Principles of Masonic Law - A Treatise on the Constitutional Laws, Usages And Landmarks of - Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... have entered upon labors they were never fitted to accomplish. Such men undertake their labors in ways that want and must want the Divine sanction; and they are tempted to ward off a just verdict of unsuitableness and of incompetency by bringing many and grievous charges against their flocks. "A mania for church-extending"; "a hankering for architectural splendor"; "or for discursive and satirical preaching"; "or for something florid or profound": these and the like imputations have been put forward, as a screen, by ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... doctor at Sairmeuse, but he was the most stupid of men—a former surgeon in the army, who had been dismissed for incompetency. The peasants shunned him as they would the plague; and in case of sickness always sent for the cure. M. d'Escorval followed their example, knowing that the physician from Montaignac could not arrive until ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... Harbor. He was not a professional soldier but his troops had been trained and organized by Winfield Scott who was now a brigadier. After two years of dismal reverses, the United States was learning how to wage war. Incompetency was no longer the badge of high military rank. A general was supposed to know something about his trade and to have a will ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... gifts, powers, attainments, and at the same time doubt whether they would pass with those of others; it made him despise all flesh, as if he were of a superior race, and yet have an idle and weak fear of coming in contact with them, from a dread of his incompetency to cope with them; so he at once depreciated and exalted, to an absurd degree, ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... seal, she did not believe she would be able to rule. Any one who understood the nature of the political factions in Russia well knew that an uprising among the nobles might occur upon any pretext, and no pretext could be so powerful as the suspicion of incompetency in the sovereign. The seat of a ruler who did not ...
— The Vizier of the Two-Horned Alexander • Frank R. Stockton
... successor than I have been to exhibit in full relief the different phases of a life so varied, so laborious, so gloriously interlaced with the greatest events of the most memorable epochs of our history. Fortunately, the scientific discoveries of the illustrious secretary had nothing to dread from the incompetency of the panegyrist. My object will have been completely attained if, notwithstanding the imperfection of my sketches, each of you will have learned that the progress of general physics, of terrestrial physics, and of geology, will daily ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... having been formed where they now are found, that is, upon the surface of the earth, I would beg leave to transcribe what this author has said upon this species of petrifaction. It is not that he is ignorant of what mineralists have already said upon the subject; it is because he sees the incompetency of their explanations in those particular cases; and that he would employ some other more effectual means. ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 1 (of 4) • James Hutton
... lose, as the tide was on the turn to ebb, when we should have had it against us. What was our vexation, therefore, when the order was given to get under weigh, to find that the pilot, either from fear, incompetency, or treachery, had declared that he could not take charge of the ship! Sir Harry would have taken her out himself; but the delay was fatal to his purpose, and before we could have moved, boats from the other ships were seen approaching the San ...
— Tales of the Sea - And of our Jack Tars • W.H.G. Kingston
... deepen into despondency and despair. Let it be the news of the day that the Americans will stay, and the intelligence of the city would regard its redemption as assured, every drooping interest revive, and an era of prosperity unknown under the dismal incompetency of Spain, open at once. It is legitimate that there should be freedom of speech as to the details of the proceedings. If our Government should do what Admiral Dewey did when he was the master of Manila, because he had annihilated ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... Harts-horn, Amber, Blood, &c. are exceeding strongly scented, notwithstanding that most Chymists deduce Odours from Sulphur, and from them argue the Predominancy of that Principle in the Odorous body, because I must not so much as add any new Examples of the incompetency of this sort of Chymical arguments; since having already detain'd You but too long in those generals that appertain to my fourth consideration, 'tis time that I proceed to the particulars themselves, to which I thought fit they should ...
— The Sceptical Chymist • Robert Boyle
... your spirit. The great army of letters that marches Southward with every morning sun is a powerful engine of war. Fill them with tears and sighs, lament separation and suffering, dwell on your loneliness and fears, mourn over the dishonesty of contractors and the incompetency of leaders, doubt if the South will ever be conquered, and foresee financial ruin, and you will damp the powder and dull the swords that ought to deal death upon the foe. Write as tenderly as you will. In camp, the roughest man idealizes his far-off home, and every word of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... situation. But confidence in the generals of the Northern army was gone forever. The men of New England would not sit long in the shadow of defeat, but they said they would no more be sacrificed to the incompetency of leaders who had been tried and found wanting. Congress had to pay heed to this feeling. Washington had to admit the force of it, because he knew that New England must be chiefly looked to in this crisis, to make head against Burgoyne. If she ...
— Burgoyne's Invasion of 1777 - With an outline sketch of the American Invasion of Canada, 1775-76. • Samuel Adams Drake
... the devil's motto. All history is strewn with its brilliant victims, the wrecks of half-finished plans and unexecuted resolutions. It is the favorite refuge of sloth and incompetency. ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... felt than I can describe. It is now six weeks since I began to wear the matrimonial chain. I have clasped it without one thought of regret, and through grace I hope I ever shall; yet am conscious of my own incompetency to fill up the sphere I have entered. Oh! my God, help me, help me. I bless God my mind is drawn to seek my heaven in Jesus, although my earthly comforts are ready to ensnare me: yet having been taught to know the uncertainty of all transitory ...
— Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth
... reform in the administration of the Government and the application of business principles to public affairs. As a means to this end, civil-service reform should be in good faith enforced. Our citizens have the right to protection from the incompetency of public employees who hold their places solely as the reward of partisan service, and from the corrupting influence of those who promise and the vicious methods of those who expect such rewards; and those who worthily seek public ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... be had only from the various parts of society. It is an assemblage of practical knowledge, which no individual can possess; and therefore the monarchical form is as much limited, in useful practice, from the incompetency of knowledge, as was the democratical form, from the multiplicity of population. The one degenerates, by extension, into confusion; the other, into ignorance and incapacity, of which all the great monarchies are an evidence. The monarchical form, therefore, ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... of Professor Morgan, in spite of my obvious incompetency from a technical point of view, I undertook, at the request of his family, to complete the translation, and to see the book through the press. I must, therefore, assume entire responsibility for the translation of the tenth book, beginning with chapter thirteen, and further responsibility ...
— Ten Books on Architecture • Vitruvius
... weighed against it in the balance of the sanctuary. When the Lord hath spoken, well does it become the whole earth to be silent before him; when the eternal Judge Himself hath decided, the witness of man bears on its very face the stamp of incompetency ...
— Primitive Christian Worship • James Endell Tyler
... these strictures upon poor human nature are exceedingly delightful to our careerists. Every unpleasant social fact, every outrage to our best instincts, every exhibition of incapacity, incompetency, inefficiency, indifference, every example of super-criminal negligence is pardoned as an effect of that universal sin, human nature. Take the case of the statesman and the diplomats who failed to prevent the Great War, though they saw it coming for years, and who should therefore all, Entente ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... competent girl for general housework these days, and viewed in the light of past experiences with the able but unwilling, the willing but unable, the stupid, the dishonest, the ignorant servant within our gates, with the very occasional good genius of the kitchen to leaven the lump of incompetency, we are sorely tempted to give up the struggle and do our own work, feeling that the time and strength so consumed are more than compensated for by the peace of mind which comes with the cessation of hostilities. But after a breathing spell we are generally ready for another ...
— The Complete Home • Various
... While from the incompetency of the administration the country was fast approaching the real crisis of open war, the Republicans in Congress were deliberately destroying and undermining the basis of national credit, by which ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... through the closing years of the Revolutionary War and those of peace which immediately succeeded. That of John Jay was associated with them shortly after the peace, in the capacity of secretary to the Congress for foreign affairs. The incompetency of the articles of confederation for the management of the affairs of the Union at home and abroad was demonstrated to them by the painful and mortifying experience of every day. Washington, though in retirement, ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... of the southwestern miner's indolence and incompetency,—utterly distasteful to his northern habits of thought and education. Here was their old fatuous endurance of Nature's wild caprices, without that struggle against them which brought others strength and success; here was the old philosophy which accepted the prairie ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... who ever wore the name of king! When the distracted Louis gave the impotent order for the National Assembly to disperse, and for the three bodies to assemble and vote separately, according to ancient custom; and then when he gave still further proof of childish incompetency by telling the Tiers Etat they were "not to meddle with the privileges of the higher orders," kingship had become a mockery. It was a child telling the tornado not to come in ...
— A Short History of France • Mary Platt Parmele
... myself a good assistant; I knew Dr. Sandford approved of me; I triumphed, so far, in the consciousness that I had made good my claim to my position, and was in no danger of being shoved away on the score of incompetency. ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell
... had come to this pass in Canada, Lord Durham's Report on Canada had been presented to the British House of Commons and its proposals of reform had been made known to the British public. It revealed the incompetency of Lord Glenelg as colonial secretary; he resigned and made way for Lord John Russell, who was in hearty accord with the principles and recommendations of the Report. The chief recommendation was that the only possible solution of the Canadian problem lay in the ...
— The Winning of Popular Government - A Chronicle of the Union of 1841 • Archibald Macmechan
... as a formal demand that the President should acknowledge his own incompetency to perform his duties, content himself with the amusement of distributing post-offices, and resign his power as to all important affairs into the hands of his Secretary of State. It seems to-day ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... assisted in giving the choice men of his hunt a run that they can remember for the next six years! And how heavy should be his heart within him when he trudges home with them, weary after a blank day, to the misery of which his incompetency has, perhaps, contributed! A master of hounds should be an anxious man; so anxious that the privilege of talking to pretty girls should be of little ...
— Hunting Sketches • Anthony Trollope
... right of suffrage. It is on the same principle that a large portion of the inhabitants of France and England are deprived of the same privilege. As it is acknowledged that the slaves may be justly deprived of political rights, on the ground of their incompetency to exercise them without injury to the community, it must be admitted, by parity of reason, that they may be justly deprived of personal freedom, if incompetent to exercise it with safety to society. ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... many similar crimes of that day, with an eye to the main chance. The shares of the administrators who had emigrated were confiscated, in the names of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, and the confiscators sent sundry 'patriots' to sit on the administrative council of the company. Their incompetency was so ludicrous and mischievous that Robespierre, representing the State which had thus stolen an interest in the enterprise, could not stand it. He actually 'requisitioned' two noblemen—two 'aristocrats'—among the as yet undisturbed owners of the property, to come forward and direct ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... the absurdity and apparent illogicality of the dream, is probably nothing but the reasoning of our sleeping ego on the feelings about what was repressed; with greater right it should rest upon the incompetency of this disturber of our sleep. In sleep we are now and then aware of this contempt; the dream content transcends the censorship rather too much, we think, "It's only a dream," and ...
— Dream Psychology - Psychoanalysis for Beginners • Sigmund Freud
... MITRAL INSUFFICIENCY OR INCOMPETENCY.—This is the most common valvular disease. The segments of the valve may be shortened and deformed. There is often stenosis (narrowing) caused by this deformity. The effects are regurgitation, flowing back of blood from the left ventricle into the left auricle, which ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... new master of Fool's hall, "I reward with the government of Guienne, for he who governs his own house so ill is surely fitted for greater tasks of incompetency." ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... baked beans, and pies, and its cream cakes and doughnuts under glass covers. I don't believe English people are as good as we are; they can't be; they're too comfortable. I wonder if the little discomforts of living in America, the dissatisfaction and incompetency of servants, and all the other problems, will work out for the nation a more exceeding weight of glory, or whether they will simply ...
— Penelope's Postscripts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... are protesting strongly against permitting Gen. Lovell to remain in command in that State, since the fall of New Orleans (which I omitted to note in regular order in these chronicles), and they attribute that disgraceful event, some to his incompetency, and others to treason. These remonstrances come from such influential parties, I think the President must listen to them. Yes, a Massachusetts man (they say Gen. L. came from Boston) was in command ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... camaraderie, yet with such suggestiveness of an Old Guard in reserve, that his innocence became a supererogatory merit. Besides which, he had been, in a general way, a servant of servants in every quarter of the globe, and had been run out of every billet for utter incompetency; often having to content himself with a poor half-pennyworth of bread to this intolerable deal of sack. So he enjoyed (or otherwise) opportunities of seeing things that the literary tourist never sees; and, being a good ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... senses, partly from the effects of cold water sprinkled upon her face by the tender-hearted Juanita, and perhaps there might be something reviving in a soft kiss that the young seaman could not avoid dropping upon her lips as he supported her in his arms. I have already intimated my incompetency to describe a parting scene between two lovers, for reasons then specified: a tender meeting is liable to the same objections. Such things should always be left to the reader's imagination; for it is ten chances to one if the author's ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... are kept open but three months during the year.[64] The inadequacy of existing provisions for the proper education of the rising generation will be more strikingly apparent when we consider the incompetency of, I may perhaps safely say, the majority of persons who are put in charge of the public schools of the country. It is readily conceded that, in those states where education has received most attention, there are many teachers who are thoroughly ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... the prosecution. The court reconvened and a new talesman was called, resembling in appearance a professional hangman who for relaxation leaned toward the execution of Italians. Mr. Tutt examined him for bias and every known form of incompetency, but in vain—then challenged peremptorily. Thirty challenges! He looked on Tutt ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... of Wriothesley, who may be regarded as the most conspicuous and unquestionable instance of judicial incompetency in the annals of English lawyers, the multitudes have always delighted in stories that illustrate the ignorance and incapacity of men who are presumed to possess, by right of their office, an extraordinary share of knowledge and wisdom. What law-student does not ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... attitude which the Episcopate has a right to take with respect to any proposed work of liturgical revision. Bishops have probably become inured to the hard measure habitually dealt out to them in the columns of the Church Times, and are unlikely to allow charges of ignorance and incompetency so far to disturb their composure as to make them afraid to prosecute a work which, from time immemorial, has been held to lie peculiarly within their province. It may be affirmed, with some confidence, ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington
... followed by the approach of a Spanish squadron, commanded by Pedro Menendez, or Melendez, de Abila, sent by Philip the Second expressly to destroy the Frenchmen who had been so presumptuous as to settle in territories claimed by his Catholic Majesty. Nature seemed to conspire with their own incompetency to ruin the French. The French vessels, having gone out to attack the Spaniards, accomplished nothing, and, meeting a terrible storm, were driven far down the coast and wrecked. "Caroline" fell into the hands of Menendez, and its garrison was mercilessly put to death. The same fate befell the shipwrecked ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... times sorely tried. Various disappointed schemers, among these one person who had not been allowed to make an undue profit out of the university lands, and another who had been allowed to depart from a professorship on account of hopeless incompetency, were the main witnesses. The onslaught was led by the person who made the attack in the legislature, and he had raked together a mass of half-truths and surmises; but the evidence on Mr. Cornell's side consisted of a complete exhibition of all the ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... their having been, through adventitious circumstances, pushed in our country to a sudden and not wholly merited prominence, Sir. Spencer's republished essays may be named,—while they acknowledge some progress in details, disclose an undertone of growing conviction of the incompetency and unsatisfactoriness of our present modes of teaching and training. The Oswego School Report, speaking of primary education, tells us 'There has been too much teaching by formulas;' and that 'We are quite too apt, in the education of children, to "sail over their heads," to present subjects ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... Cabinet, and Laurier himself was as profoundly and sincerely a free trader in power as he had been out of office. Enemies aver that the Laurier government now launched reciprocity to divert public attention from criticism of the railroad policy, in which there had undoubtedly been great incompetency and gross extravagance—an extravagance more of a recklessly prosperous era than of dishonesty—but this motive can hardly be accepted. If Laurier had launched reciprocity as a political dodge, he would have sounded public opinion and learned that it was no longer with ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut
... The incompetency of the Irish engineering staff, and a defective commissariat, at that time was most deplorable; and although the town of —— was notoriously disaffected, the barrack chosen, temporarily, to accommodate the garrison—a company of militia—was a thatched building, two stories high, ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various
... from 1792 to 1809, son of preceding; his incompetency and stubbornness made him an ill ruler; territory was lost to the French, and Finland to Russia, while an attack on Norway proved a failure; popular indignation rose to a height in 1809; he was deposed, and the crown given to ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... remembered that the English writer in Longman's Magazine, had got to the point when after trying to get out of the expedition by pleading poverty, incompetency, and anything else I could think of, I was forced to go on my way to England with apparent satisfaction. We had putrid pork and mouldy biscuit, but still I informed the King that we were "content and cheerful." Had I given him any ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 3rd, 1891 • Various
... drink, idleness, and incompetency were the three great causes of emigration; and for all of them, and drink first and foremost, this trick of getting transported overseas appears to me the silliest means of cure. You cannot run away from a weakness; you must some time fight it out or perish; and if that be so, why not ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... opposed his own appointment, and bore testimony to his own incapacity." "He was slow and cautious in council, and it is no wonder that where Lord Raglan failed, General Simpson did not meet with success." The English press and people demanded his recall. His incompetency was everywhere acknowledged, and indeed he himself would have been the last man to deny it. In about three months from the date of General Simpson's appointment, "the Queen was graciously pleased to permit him to resign ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... the way of books, and consideration for general incompetency, reduced her to WILHELM TELL, and she began with a lecture first on Schiller, and then upon Switzerland, and on the legend; but when Bessie Merrifield put in a word of such history and criticisms as were not in the High ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... I know there were all kinds of graft and incompetency and jealousy and mutiny and outrages. And there were traitors and profiteers and slackers of every sort. But the Big Idea that focused the strength of the nation as a whole, Charlie, was so much bigger than any individual or group that it absorbed all. ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright
... their declamation and intrigue. They hint at faults, and if this is too ineffective, they invent them. Men in prominent public positions rarely escape the vituperation of the professional scandalmonger. These creatures exist everywhere. Their vanity is only equal to their incompetency in all matters that count. Their capacity consists in knowing the kind of diversion a certain class of people relish, and the more exalted their prey is, and the larger the reputation he may have for living a blameless ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... election to the United States Senate, where he served a full term; later he was twice appointed Register of the United States Treasury. In all these positions Mr. Bruce gave the greatest satisfaction, and not a single whisper of dishonesty or incompetency has ever been heard against him. During the period of his public life he was brought into active and daily contact with Northern and Southern white people, all of whom speak of him in the highest measure ...
— The Future of the American Negro • Booker T. Washington
... think that men had stayed and fought in them when only a mass of ruins. The French, indeed, were entirely sheltered the last days; to my unpractised eyes, the extent and thoroughness of their works seemed miraculous, and gave me the first clear idea of the incompetency of the Italians to resist organized armies. I saw their commanders had not even known enough of the art of war to understand how the French were conducting the siege. It is true, their resources were ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... Division Superintendent of a railway was attending closely to his business of placing obstructions on the track and tampering with the switches he received word that the President of the road was about to discharge him for incompetency. ...
— Fantastic Fables • Ambrose Bierce
... announced that "the attractions of man are proportioned to his destinies;" in other words, that every desire predicts its own satisfaction. Yet, all experience exhibits the reverse of this; the incompetency of power is the universal grief of young and ardent minds. They accuse the divine Providence of a certain parsimony. It has shown the heaven and earth to every child, and filled him with a desire for the whole; a desire raging, infinite; a hunger, as of space to be filled with planets; a cry ...
— Representative Men • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... The incompetency of the superior officers in the British army had of late become painfully manifest on both sides of the Atlantic. The American campaign of 1757 was even more disastrous than were British operations in Europe. Lord Loudoun, who had been despatched to America in ...
— Canadian Notabilities, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... article which produced a profound sensation throughout England. The burden of it was a bitter complaint that "the noblest army ever sent from our shores has been sacrificed to the grossest mismanagement. Incompetency, lethargy, aristocratic hauteur, official indifference, favor, routine, perverseness and stupidity reign, revel, and riot in the camp before Sebastopol, in the harbor of Balaklava, in the hospitals of Scutari, and how much nearer home we do not venture to say. We say it with extremest reluctance, ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... whalemen as a body. There are those this day among them, who, though intelligent and courageous enough in offering battle to the Greenland or Right whale, would perhaps —either from professional inexperience, or incompetency, or timidity, decline a contest with the Sperm Whale; at any rate, there are plenty of whalemen, especially among those whaling nations not sailing under the American flag, who have never hostilely encountered the Sperm Whale, but ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... hand there is nothing disgraceful in borrowing for productive purposes. The feeling that it is not quite respectable to go into debt has grown out of the old habit of borrowing to pay living expenses. That was regarded, perhaps rightly, as a sign of incompetency. ... But to borrow for a genuinely productive purpose, for a purpose that will bring you in more than enough to pay off your debt, principal and interest, is a profitable enterprise. It shows business sagacity and courage, and is ...
— Community Civics and Rural Life • Arthur W. Dunn
... of five little ones procured a divorce from her husband, whose incompetency and unkindness was the result solely of intemperance, and that intemperance the consequence of his strong social bias and inability to resist the temptations of a period, when every man put the bottle to his neighbor's month as ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... their heads off at a heavy cost to the country. I should be curious to know how many years it would take to reduce the intelligence of an ordinary banker's clerk to the level of a Foreign Office bureaucrat. How the long-suffering English public can continue to support the incompetency and the supercilious contempt with which these gentry treat their employers is to me a mystery. Bureaucrats are bad enough in all conscience, but a nest of fine gentleman bureaucrats is a public curse, when thousands are subjected ...
— Diary of the Besieged Resident in Paris • Henry Labouchere
... Brigadier-General Hascall to command the second division in place of General Judah. In the battle of Resaca the division suffered severe loss without accomplishing anything, and General Schofield found, on investigation, that it was due to the incompetency of the officer commanding it. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. iv. p. 243.] The brigade commanders, in their reports, complained severely of the way in which the division had been handled, and the army commander felt ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... and educator might as well admit the fact of their incompetency and with the admission bend themselves with renewed energy to hard study, laying aside all bogus degrees and meaningless titles, and acknowledge the fact that they are yet intellectual pigmies. If they will do this, perchance they themselves may not only add ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... deputation of prelates, barons, knights, and lawyers waited on the captive in the Tower, and reminded him that in the castle of Conway, while he was perfectly his own master, he had promised to resign the crown on account of his own incompetency to govern. On his reply that he was ready to perform his promise, a paper was given him to read, in which he was made to absolve all his subjects from their fealty and allegiance, to renounce of his own accord all kingly authority, to acknowledge himself incapable of reigning, and worthy for his ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... Egypt or Assyria to heal their wound, Hosea v. 13, and vii. 8, 11. The scripture holds out infidelity and distrust in God as the ground of such association, (2 Chron. xvi. 7-9, Isa. viii. 12, 13,) which proceeds from the incompetency of means as the occasion of it. 2. Suppose there was a necessity for the calling forth the body of the common people, yet certainly there is no necessity of employing any such persons of whom the question ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... the sixth, and entitled "Miscellaneous Objections to the Theory of Natural Selection." It was partly derived from modified portions of chapter iv. of former editions, but the latter and larger part was new, and relates chiefly to the supposed incompetency of natural selection to account for the very early stages of useful structures. Numerous cases, such as the development of the giraffe's neck, the baleen of the whale, the mammary glands, &c., are admirably discussed. Causes preventing the acquisition, ...
— Life of Charles Darwin • G. T. (George Thomas) Bettany
... met with Mr. Tennyson's poems; and the unequalled sketches of women that I found there, while they had, with the rest of the book, a new and abiding influence on my mind, were quite enough to show me my own fatal incompetency in that line. I threw my verses away, never to resume them. Perhaps I proved thereby the depth of my affection. Our mightiest feelings, are always those which remain most unspoken. The most intense lovers and the greatest poets have ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... the present! When it was taken up again his successor would be in charge. He, the indefatigable, the over-intense, with his mediaeval partisan fervor, who loathed in secret machines like Turcas, was the first man of the staff to go for incompetency. ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer |
