"Unequal to" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sigh to leave her bosom and to wander freely among the locks of those at the table. Sir Tiglath, who, on being assaulted by her learning, had shown momentary symptoms of apoplexy, now gave a loud grunt, while the Prophet, perceiving that his grandmother and Lady Julia were quite unequal to the occasion, hastily replied,— ...
— The Prophet of Berkeley Square • Robert Hichens
... brother, returned to the north, taking with her the little Harry. He was nearly a year old, and it gave great pain to his young aunts to part with him, now that he had endeared himself to them by many engaging ways, but Lily felt herself too unequal to the task of training him up to make any objection, and there were many promises that he should not be a stranger ...
— Scenes and Characters • Charlotte M. Yonge
... before the marriage of his dear child, a marriage which he, doubtless, would never have advised. The old father found his daughter a great care now that the Abbe was gone. The high-spirited girl, with nothing else to do, was sure to break into rebellion against his niggardliness, and he felt quite unequal to the struggle. Like all young women who leave the appointed track of woman's life, Nais had her own opinions about marriage, and had no great inclination thereto. She shrank from submitting herself, body and soul, to the feeble, ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... not answer. She was conscious only of wondering whether she were going to be able to escape from that alcove before she had expressed to her host her actual opinion of him and all his works, and she rather feared her powers of repression would prove unequal to the occasion. And her opinion of him was at its nadir. With unerring maladroitness Pelgram had chosen the time of all others when his star was burning with its feeblest flame. She continued to sit passively, while the waves of the ...
— White Ashes • Sidney R. Kennedy and Alden C. Noble
... Greek population in the city—at present close upon 350,000, though their numbers are likely to be materially reduced before this war is over. But in their case also Constantinople would be a fatal gift. The resources even of the enlarged Hellenic kingdom would inevitably prove unequal to the task. Moreover, it must not be forgotten that a Greek occupation would be opposed on many grounds by the entire commercial community of every ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... on, while he did so, in order that his words, and those of the other, might be audible. But the man in the field, demoralised by the advent of this being from the air, and gazing at him and his machine with an expression of blank amazement, was unequal to the task of giving even the simplest directions. He waved his arms, it is true, but no words that could be understood issued from his lips. The pilot repeated his questions, but it was no good. The man ...
— Learning to Fly - A Practical Manual for Beginners • Claude Grahame-White
... unequal to playing the part of chorus any longer. It was all very thrilling, but, if Milton was going to run through the entire list of his destroyed photographs, life would be too short for conversation on any ...
— The Gold Bat • P. G. Wodehouse
... language the subtlest thinking of a great world literature—we gain a new respect for his genius. Fifty years later Blom tried his hand at the same soliloquy. He was working in an old and tried literary medium—Dano-Norwegian. But he was unequal to the task: ...
— An Essay Toward a History of Shakespeare in Norway • Martin Brown Ruud
... as by magic when the slender, white-clad figure appeared round the last bend of the stairway. He had half feared that at the last moment the strain of the day's emotion might exact its penalty, and Diana prove unequal to the evening's demands. ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... Clifford, who had been unwell, and felt unequal to the labour of climbing the hill, proceeded in one of the boats towards a large village on the eastern side of the lake. He was met by a number of the inhabitants, whose dress and appearance were inferior to what we had been accustomed to see ...
— Account of a Voyage of Discovery - to the West Coast of Corea, and the Great Loo-Choo Island • Captain Basil Hall
... to think of fixing a settlement in the wasted provinces. The more distant barbarians, who occupied the deserted habitations of the former, advanced in their acquisitions, and pressed with their incumbent weight the Roman state, already unequal to the load which it sustained. Instead of arming the people in their own defence, the emperors recalled all the distant legions, in whom alone they could repose confidence; and collected the whole military ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... all the waste in life and treasure this frightful war involves. Think of the moral degradation. Think of the widows and orphans. Think of the...." He was unequal to the effort and his voice trailed away and then seemed to catch in his throat. But he recovered and with a kind of gasp he squeezed out a few more words: "Bill, forgive me for insulting you to-day—I didn't mean it, Bill. Forget it, Bill, forget it! If you get killed without forgiving ...
— Combed Out • Fritz August Voigt
... to speak, or is Middleton?" said Charles at last, in despair. "I will do a solo, or I will keep silence; but really I am unequal to a duet." ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... arrival, almost dragging them up the bank. Being rubbed and dosed they were soon restored. The horse that dropped had been substituted for the famous "Tanner," and not having sufficient training was unequal to the task. The surviving animal, belonging to Larry Stivers, afterwards became one of the best and fastest horses in the Province. This incident is not introduced to interest horsemen, but merely to show how far men's judgment may ...
— Lady Rosamond's Secret - A Romance of Fredericton • Rebecca Agatha Armour
... of asking him what he was looking for; but, feeling unequal to a technical discussion at least as deep as the deep-sea fishes, he ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton
... that is followed by fatal results; malignant diseases are deprived of many of their terrors; rules of living, founded upon scientific principles, are accessible to all; and yet we daily meet young men and women who are manifestly unequal to the lot that is before them. In some cases, the sin of the parent is visited upon the children, and the measure of life meted out to them is limited and insufficient. In other cases, the individuals, first yielding in their own persons, are the victims ...
— Thoughts on Educational Topics and Institutions • George S. Boutwell
... I here beg the reader's indulgence for a small digression on the health of the seamen, as it is a subject of much national importance, and those voyages the only test of what is found to succeed best, my duty leads me to the attempt, however unequal to the task: ...
— Voyage of H.M.S. Pandora - Despatched to Arrest the Mutineers of the 'Bounty' in the - South Seas, 1790-1791 • Edward Edwards
... passed between them, for Richard, feeling his strength again fail him, was anxious to reach the house, and Dorothy was quite unequal to conversation. They parted at the door, and as Alizon, after taking leave of her friends, turned to continue her walk in the garden, Richard staggered into the entrance-hall, and ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... and standing army soon became unequal to the task of enforcing conformity, and suppressing conventicles In, their aid, and to force compliance with a test proposed by government, the Highland clans were raised, and poured down into Ayrshire.[A] An armed host of undisciplined mountaineers, ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott
... and settle matters at once, by arranging with the purser for a second-class cabin to be put at the hero's disposal. I wanted him to do that part alone, but he pretended to be shy, and said he had grown to depend so entirely on my co-operation, that he felt unequal to undertaking any responsibility without it. He told the same story to the purser that he had told others, about my being the one to start the subscription, and he wanted me to sign a kind of letter which he wrote, to the effect that the passengers ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... Mr. Dombey; a delicate, sensitive little boy, quite unequal to the great things expected of him. He was sent to Dr. Blimber's school, but soon gave way under the strain of school discipline. In his short life he won the love of all who knew him, and his sister ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... nobles returned to Blathmac and they made various complaints of Mochuda, accusing him falsely of many things; finally they asked the king to undertake the expulsion personally, for they were themselves unequal to the task. The king thereupon came to the place accompanied by a large retinue. Alluding prophetically to the king's coming, previous to that event, Mochuda said, addressing the monks:—"Beloved brothers, get ready and gather your belongings, for violence and eviction are close at hand: ...
— The Life of St. Mochuda of Lismore • Saint Mochuda
... imagine if I felt competent to fulfil such a promise : openly, on the contrary, I assured her I was quite unequal to it. She had already, she said, written to Madame de la Roche, to come the next day, and if I would not meet her she must be covered with disgrace. Expostulation was now vain; I could only say that to answer for myself was quite, ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... decrees of fate!" The disguised lady was instantly conducted to the palace, seated on a splendid throne, and proclaimed amidst the acclamations of the people, sovereign of an extensive empire; nor were the abilities of her mind unequal to the task of government. In a few days the vizier offered to the supposed sultan his daughter in marriage; and his offer being accepted, the nuptials were celebrated with the utmost magnificence; but what was the astonishment of the bride, when, instead of being caressed, the sultan on retiring ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 4 • Anon.
... inundation from the brook-torrent which ran alongside the road in strange zig-zag windings, were a number of poorly tilled fields, half covered with stones. The season was backward, and I could see no trace of anything but hard, fruitless labour; and the peasants, who were working listlessly, seemed unequal to the labour of cultivating such unprofitable lands. Personally the men were a vigorous race enough, but the traces of the malaria fever, the sunken features and livid complexion, were painfully common; their dress too was worn ragged and meagre, while the boys working in ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey
... am a friend of Ward, I am after all convinced that Washington is the man," said Brown. "Nothing so became him as when he called upon all gentlemen present to remember that he thought himself unequal to the task." ...
— In the Days of Poor Richard • Irving Bacheller
... overtook our army on that day. As the two divisions of the enemy advanced, Kirk threw forward the Forty-fourth Illinois to support the skirmish line, and called on Willich's brigade for help. This brigade being without an immediate commander, no effort was made to support Kirk. The contest was too unequal to be maintained for any great length of time, and Johnson's division, after a sharp and spirited but fruitless contest, crumbling to pieces, was driven back with a loss of eleven guns. Kirk was mortally ...
— The Army of the Cumberland • Henry M. Cist
... to leave for Meadow Brook that afternoon, but the worry over the children being lost made Aunt Sarah feel quite unequal to the journey, so Aunt Emily prevailed upon her to ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at the Seashore • Laura Lee Hope
... convinced—this I infer from your general character, for had I judged only from your speeches I should have mistrusted you. But now, the greater my confidence in you, the greater is my difficulty in knowing what to say. For I am in a strait between two; on the one hand I feel that I am unequal to the task; and my inability is brought home to me by the fact that you were not satisfied with the answer which I made to Thrasymachus, proving, as I thought, the superiority which justice has over injustice. ...
— The Republic • Plato
... sworn to love and honor him. The next day was one of those appointed for receiving her singing lessons, but she sent a messenger to Mr. Grandison, telling him not to call for a few days, as she was unequal to even that slight exertion. Mr. Hazelton called to see me in great alarm, informing me that his wife's first child was prematurely born, and that he dreaded a recurrence of that terrible calamity. I, of course, had my own ideas concerning what was the matter, but I promised to call ...
— The Mysteries of Montreal - Being Recollections of a Female Physician • Charlotte Fuhrer
... become unequal to the task? Had they resorted to a more skilful man? An incident seemed to point to this. On the preceding evening a tall man had been seen, between five and seven o'clock, walking up and down before the cafe of the Place Saint-Michel; he had been joined ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... sea life'] who were about to venture on the Atlantic, taking counsel of Dutch builders or mariners as to the proportion of their craft." Why so discredit the capacity and intelligence of these nation-builders? Was their sagacity ever found unequal to the problems they met? Were the men who commanded confidence and respect in every avenue of affairs they entered; who talked with kings and dealt with statesmen; these diplomats, merchants, students, artisans, and manufacturers; these men who learned law, politics, state craft, ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames
... March 1785 was advised to try the Bath waters, and drank them under the direction of one of the faculty of that place. I was there soon seized with a fever, and a slight attack of gout in one knee. I should observe, that when I set out from home, I was in a weak and low state, and unequal to much fatigue; as appeared by my having a fainting fit one day on the road, after having travelled only about fifty miles; in the course of the summer I had two or three more slight attacks of gout of less consequence, till the ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... Xenophanes appeared as an enemy of Homer, only because he more emphatically insisted on the monotheistic element, which, in poetry, has been comparatively overlooked. The first philosophy reasserted the unity which poetry had lost; but being unequal to investigate its nature, it again resigned it to the world of approximate sensations, and became bewildered in materialism, considering the conceptional whole or First Element as some refinement of matter, unchangeable in ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... Mrs. Danvers feebly, feeling quite unequal to cope with the gravity of the situation, "I wish you both would not quarrel like this, Hilary; you talk so fast that you bewilder me. Now, Miss Carson, it is your turn to speak. I am quite sure that you can explain everything if you will. You are too ...
— The Rebellion of Margaret • Geraldine Mockler
... for it but to join the charging mass. "I was the first man but one," he says, "who reached and jumped into the rocks, and I was only second because my strength and speed were unequal to contend with the giant who got before me. He was the tallest and most active man in the regiment, and the day before, being sentenced to corporal punishment, I had pardoned him on the occasion of an approaching action. He now repaid me by striving always to place himself between me ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... last, when these were exhausted with their long gallop, took to flight on foot. They were all but caught, when a river saved them. For they crossed a bridge, of which, in order to delay the pursuer, they first cut the timbers down to the middle, thus making it not only unequal to a burden, but ready to come down; then they retreated ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... being now firmly seated in power, and the island, settled under a regular form of government, growing in strength, the Genoese found themselves unequal to cope with a brave and united people. After some further ineffectual attempts, they once more applied to France for succour, and engaged her to occupy the strong places in the island, as she had already done from 1737 to 1741. French ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... which we are always likely to remain with regard to questions wherein we have most interest, and which every day affords us fresh opportunity to examine: we may examine, indeed, but we never can decide, because our faculties are unequal to the subject; we see a little, and form an opinion; we see more, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... a bit of lime out of his whisker, put it between his lips, turned it with his tongue like a sugar-plum, considered, found himself unequal to the task of lucid explanation, and appealing to his wife, said, 'Sally, you may as well mention how it was, ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... he himself did not, that he had not of late been eating so well; and he had never quite recovered his exertions in Lord Lick-my-loof's harvest-fields. Now, for the first time in his life, he began to find his strength unequal to elemental war. But he laughed at the idea, and held on. The wind was right in his face, and the cold was bitter. Nor was there within him, though plenty of courage, good spirits enough to supply any lack of physical energy. His breath grew short, and his head began to ache. He longed ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... an opinion that Jack would either show himself at once unequal to the occasion, and immediately be put out,—which opinion I think that all Gladstonopolis was inclined to hold,—or else that he would get his "eye in" as he called it, and go on as long as the three others could ...
— The Fixed Period • Anthony Trollope
... to receive the infants; but the hallowed words of the inscription, distinct and legible—'Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of God'—met her eye, and, by the thoughts they awakened, made me fear that she would become unequal to the exertions which yet awaited her. At this moment Ratcliffe returned, and informed us that all was right; and that, from the ruinous state of all the buildings which surrounded the chapel, no difficulty remained for us, who were, in fact, beyond the strong ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... division, provided that the Committee were satisfied with the appointment made. The scheme was happily consummated by the choice of the Rev. Wm. Ridley, vicar of St. Paul's, Huddersfield, who had been a C. M. S. missionary in India, but whose health had been unequal to the trying climate of the Peshawar Valley. Mr. Ridley was consecrated on St. James's Day, July 25th, 1879, at St. Paul's Cathedral, at the same time as Dr. Walsham How to the Suffragan -Bishopric of Bedford (for East London), Dr. Barclay to the Anglican See of ...
— Metlakahtla and the North Pacific Mission • Eugene Stock
... might be preserved, so far as it goes, uninterrupted, the dialogue is printed entire in the present number, despite its length. Of the writer, but little can be said. He was an artist; but ill health, almost amounting to infirmity—his portion from childhood—rendered him unequal to the bodily labour inseparable from his profession: and in the course of his short life, whose youth was scarcely consummated, he exhibited, from time to time, only a very few small pictures, and these, as regards public recognition, ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... came; he can't even understand, he is bitterly indignant—heart-stricken, almost—at the scruples which actuate me in refusing it. I dissatisfy every body. A maimed, weak, imperfect wretch, it seems as if I am unequal to any fortune. I neither make myself nor any one connected with me happy. What prospect is there for this poor little frivolous girl, who is to take my obscure name, and share my fortune? I have not ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... who are capable of making that boast," he answered. "Even you, comrade, are unequal to it. Here now is something that is worth a hearing." Leaning from his saddle, he poured into Sigurd's ear a stream of low-toned words that caused the Silver-Tongued to stop short and stare at him incredulously, and then look back at the anchored ship and pound ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... Cranberry Lodge, existing in the year 1858, within seventy miles of New York, requires some explanation. Its foundation is—pies! Cape Cod, the great emporium of the cranberry-trade, has been running short for the last few years; in other words, its supply is unequal to the demand. The heavy Britishers have awakened to the fact, since 1851, that, of all condiments and delicacies, cranberry-sauce and cranberry-pie are best in their way; and John Bull takes many a barrel clean out of our market now. It so happened that in the Pines of New Jersey ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... talking of the favour to be acquired by the fair Alice as no passing caprice, but the commencement of a reign as long and absolute as that of the Duchess of Portsmouth, of whose avarice and domineering temper Charles was now understood to be much tired, though the force of habit rendered him unequal to ...
— Peveril of the Peak • Sir Walter Scott
... Mrs Durbeyfield looked unequal to the emergency. "Some young feller, perhaps, would go? One of them who were so much after dancing with 'ee yesterday," she ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... out, assuming a cheerfulness he did not feel. Madame leaned back in her chair with her eyes closed, exhausted by the stress of emotion. The maid came in for orders, she gave them mechanically, then went into the living-room. She was anxious to be alone, but felt unequal to the ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... He had allowed the chance to slip of making good, by redoubled diligence, his foolish mistake with regard to Schwarz. Now it was too late; though the master had let him have his way in the choice of piece for the coming PRUFUNG, it had mainly been owing to indifference. If only he did not prove unequal to the choice now it was made! For that he was out of the rut of steady work, was clear to him as soon as he put his ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... first time in twenty years Mark Twain was altogether dependent on literature. He did not feel mentally unequal to the new problem; in fact, with his added store of experience, he may have felt himself more fully equipped for authorship than ever before. It had been his habit to write within his knowledge and observation. To a correspondent of this ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... the text, "casting away your heart, and not knowing where to seek for it." Although these men profess to undertake any earthly thing, when it comes to the point, leave them to themselves, and they are unequal to the task; and if you ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford
... impunity: they gave shelter on their estates to bands of robbers, whom they employed in committing ravages on the estates of their enemies: the populace of London returned to their usual licentiousness: and the old king, unequal to the burden of public affairs, called aloud for his gallant son to return,[**] and to assist him in swaying that sceptre which was ready to drop from his feeble and irresolute hands. At last, overcome by the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... mischances which the life of a soldier carries with it; and the hero of Arcola, whose life had been endangered in a hundred battles, and elsewhere also, without lessening his fortitude, showed himself unequal to the endurance of the slightest pain. Her Majesty the Empress consoled and encouraged him as best she could; and she, who was so courageous herself in enduring those headaches which, on account ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... of the Germans in both these cases came from the impossibility of landing any efficient force or, indeed, any force at all from the air-fleet. The airships were quite unequal to the transport of any adequate landing parties; their complement of men was just sufficient to manoeuvre and fight them in the air. From above they could inflict immense damage; they could reduce any organised Government to a capitulation in the briefest space, but ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... obliged to you, if you would just call in and leave word that Benjamin is to bring up the phaeton. Mamma walked here, intending to walk home, but she finds herself so fatigued as to be unequal to it." ...
— East Lynne • Mrs. Henry Wood
... sentiment in his party, to adopt measures that made a conflict between the sections inevitable. The election of Fremont would probably have precipitated this conflict before the north was ripe for it. His conduct during the early period of the war proves that he would have been unequal to such an emergency. His defeat was the postponement of the irrepressible conflict until it became apparent to all that our country must be all free or all slave territory. This was the lesson taught by the administration of Buchanan, and Lincoln ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... legitimate successor of Byron and Shelley, to say nothing of Keats; he might easily surpass them all in a few years. In short they rehearsed all the stock phrases which the critics had set in motion years ago and which had been drifting about ever since for the use of those unequal to the exertion of making their own opinions, or afraid of not thinking with the elect. Had Warner been falsely appraised by the higher powers their phrases would have been nourished as faithfully; and Anne, with a movement ...
— The Gorgeous Isle - A Romance; Scene: Nevis, B.W.I. 1842 • Gertrude Atherton
... served at seven o'clock, and was truly a festive occasion. The dining-room table being unequal to the task of providing accommodation for sixteen people, the schoolroom table had to be used as a supplement. It was a good inch higher than the other, and supplied with a preponderance of legs, but these small drawbacks could not weigh against the magnificent effect of ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... brought home a Russian bride, Maria Paulovna, and for her reception he wrote The Homage of the Arts—a slight affair which served its purpose well. The reaction from these Russophil festivities left him in a weakened condition, and, feeling unequal to creative effort, he translated Racine's Phedre into German verse, finishing it in February, 1805. Then he returned with great zest to his Russian play Demetrius, of which enough was written to indicate that it might have become his masterpiece. But the flame had burnt itself out. Toward ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... their parents, who affected the most violent colours, an exceedingly pink pink upon a remarkably green green; and the shape of the garment was an obsolete caricature of London and Paris. They no longer assume the peculiar waddle, looking as if the lower limbs were unequal to the weight of the upper story; but the walk never equals that of the Spanish woman. This applies to Portugal as well. The strong points, here as in the Peninsula, are velvety black eyes and blue-black hair dressed a la Diane. It is still ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... else may cultivate science if he can, may write and publish if he can find readers, may give private instruction if anybody consents to receive it. But since the sacerdotal body will absorb into itself all but those whom it deems either intellectually or morally unequal to the vocation, all rival teachers will, as he calculates, be so discredited beforehand, that their competition will not be formidable. Within the body itself, the High Priest has it in his power to make sure that there shall be no opinions, and no exercise of mind, but such as he approves; ...
— Auguste Comte and Positivism • John-Stuart Mill
... reader much at present. The old marchioness and her daughters lived always at Manor Cross in possession of a fine old house in which they could have entertained half the county, and a magnificent park,—which, however, was let for grazing up to the garden-gates,—and a modest income unequal to the splendour which should have been displayed by the ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... hours in which to dispose of all my South American holdings before their value vanished. Telephone facilities in the Thario house, though adequate for the transaction of the general's daily business, were completely unequal to the emergency. Even if they had not been, Mama's occasional sallies from her fireplace fort, saber waving threateningly, frequently endangered half our communications and we suffered all the while from the idiosyncrasies of the continental operators who seem ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... and drove away the Ionians, and formed a confederacy of twelve cities, which in later times became of considerable importance. The dispossessed Ionians joined their brethren of the same race in Attica, but the rugged peninsula was unequal to support the increased population, and a great migration took place to the Cyclades and the coasts of Lydia. The colonists there built twelve cities, about one hundred and forty years after the Trojan war. Another body of Achaeans, driven out of the Peloponnesus by the Dorians, first settled ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... to you for writing to me again so soon; your letter yesterday was quite an unexpected pleasure. Poor Mrs. Stent! it has been her lot to be always in the way; but we must be merciful, for perhaps in time we may come to be Mrs. Stents ourselves, unequal to anything, and unwelcome to everybody. Your account of Martha is very comfortable indeed, and now we shall be in no fear of receiving a worse. This day, if she has gone to church, must have been a trial to her feelings, ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... we must depend upon revelation for an assurance of immortality; which promises, however, the resurrection of the body, as philosophy is unequal to its demonstration, and modern researches into animal life have rendered the proof more difficult than heretofore.' By the by, 'speaking of animals:' there is a letter from LEMUEL GULLIVER in the last number of BLACKWOOD, describing a meeting ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... Fathers are well chosen, and suitable for the greatest prayer and for the greatest prayerbook the world has ever known. The hymns are the wonder and study of scholars of every religion. St. Augustine, after his conversion even, felt a repugnance for the holy Scriptures as unequal to Cicero in form. But in his mature age and considered judgment, the saint reversed his judgment; "non habent," he wrote of the Pagan classics, "illae paginae vultum pietatis, lacrymas confessionis spiritum contribulatum cor contritum et humiliatum" ...
— The Divine Office • Rev. E. J. Quigley
... the place of the draught oxen, and a start was made. There was many "a strong pull, a long pull, and a pull all together," as the waggons rolled onward; but after ten days' hard struggle and slow progress, it became evident that the men sent were unequal to the task, and the monarch, who for some unknown reason had kept his oxen back, sent them at last to bring the waggons to ...
— Robert Moffat - The Missionary Hero of Kuruman • David J. Deane
... troop of her majesty's dragoons, they regarded as a victory. But others, more thoughtful and correct, mourned over the escape of the military, which was only to be justified on the ground that the incongruous force around the feeble barricades, would be unequal to the task. It is a singular thing that while Captain Longmore utterly despaired of forcing his way, Mr. Dillon was fully conscious of his inability to resist him. The latter assumed a superiority he was unable to sustain, ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... localities. I was entreated to care for these also. The Christian Churches, even when they were willing to receive these Converts, were as a result generally so much occupied with the maintenance of their own existence, or so lukewarm in coping with the necessities of the poor people, as to be unequal to the task of caring for them. I soon found that the majority of those who joined the Churches either relapsed again into open backsliding, or became half-hearted professors. I was, therefore, driven to select men and women who I knew to be lovers of souls, ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... action and recognized that his country could not emerge from the slough of revolution without American assistance, he was depressed at the condition of affairs, and in view of his physical feebleness felt himself unequal to the task of guiding the country through impending difficulties. He therefore on May 6, 1916, resigned the presidency of the Republic, and subsequently returned to Porto Rico to live. The council of ministers temporarily ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich
... clear and succinct orders the directions of the general. He was accurate, systematic, and untiring; always at his post, whether it were at his desk in camp, or by the side of his chief in the field. Of slight, almost frail body, with an intellectual face, he looked unequal to rough field work, but showed a stamina in fact which many a more robust man envied. Colonel Wherry was the incessantly active personal representative of the general, intrusted with his oral orders, and making for him those examinations and investigations which are only satisfactory ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... unequal to a struggle with the king, betook himself to the Hebrides, where a number of other Norse chieftains had sought a refuge from similar persecutions. His great strength and sagacity, no less than his distinguished birth, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... Aston, though he agreed it was impossible to disregard the amazing chance, had sighed to himself and trembled lest the carefully erected edifice of control and endurance that hedged in his son should be unequal to the strain. ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... Bible, among persons whose profession is the exercise of the intellect, who are impatient at being left behind in the intellectual race; who, when continental critics are going on into theories of inspiration, do not like the imputation (so freely cast upon us by foreign writers) of being unequal to such things, of having no turn for philosophy. So they must have a theory, or go along with one; they must receive the Bible,—for they do receive it,—in some intellectual way; through some lens which they hold up; with a consciousness of some ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... thousands of poor Indians have perished from famine, the sword, and the pestilence, or have died with hearts broken by the loss of liberty, or from being compelled to labour in the gold-mines with constitutions unequal to the performance of ...
— In New Granada - Heroes and Patriots • W.H.G. Kingston
... least four or five. He would have liked to go down, just out of gun range, and shout explanations and a request for some clothes—only for the women. Happy was always ill at ease in the presence of strange women, and he felt, just now, quite unequal to the ordeal of facing those two. He sat huddled in the shadow of a rock and wished profanely that women would stay at home and not go camping out in the Badlands, where their presence was distinctly inappropriate and undesirable. If the men down ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... discussion which took place on Friday night in the House of Commons, when the Chancellor of the Exchequer[2] opened his financial plan, he is deemed to have made a very bad speech, and Huskisson a very good one. Robinson is probably unequal to the present difficult conjuncture; a fair and candid man, and an excellent Minister in days of calm and sunshine, but not endowed with either capacity or experience for these stormy times, besides being disqualified ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... and ought to be recorded to the immortal honour of the receivers. We wish we could express their liberality in those handsome terms, in which it deserves to be represented, or applaud them sufficiently for deviating for once from the rigours of servile discipline. But we confess, that we are unequal to the task, and must therefore content ourselves with observing, that while the horse has one day in seven to refresh his limbs, the happy African[101] has but one in fifty-two, as a relaxation ...
— An Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species, Particularly the African • Thomas Clarkson
... Economist, a few letters from London, Birmingham, and Sheffield to City brokers—for the ivory-trade is confined to a very small number of houses—and a cargo of African or Indian ivory, amounting perhaps to L.50,000 sterling, is quickly and easily disposed of. The supply at this moment is unequal to the demand, and the ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal, No. 421, New Series, Jan. 24, 1852 • Various
... others dread, but who was so far blinded to his own qualities as to think his opinion of importance to those whom he felt, in the minutest fibre of his envious and malignant system, to be in every essential his superiors. He did not dare express all his rancour, while he was unequal to suppressing ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... house of some pretension, inhabited formerly by the maternal family of M. de Camors. He had never before seen this property when he reached it on the evening of a beautiful summer day. A long and gloomy avenue of elms, interlacing their thick branches, led to the dwelling-house, which was quite unequal to the imposing approach to it; for it was but an inferior construction of the past century, ornamented simply by a gable and a bull's-eye, but ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... be found himself in this solitary circumstance. I represented to him that he had some considerable substance in the world, and good friends, as I understood by himself, and the maid also; that the maid was not only poor, and a servant, but was unequal to him, she being six or seven and twenty years old, and he not above seventeen or eighteen; that he might very probably, with my assistance, make a remove from this wilderness, and come into his own country again; and that then it would ...
— The Further Adventures of Robinson Crusoe • Daniel Defoe
... of this criticism, and that Bailey's art and aptitude to teach are unequal to his native power and richness of mind, we are still willing to wait for a production more matured than "Festus," and less fragmentary and dim than the "Angel World;" and till then, must waive our judgment as to whether on his head the laurel ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... possible, but the Author of this Apology cannot persuade himself that it is. His poor faculties are unequal to the mighty task of conceiving the amazing Deity in question, whom Sir Richard Blackmore, in his Ode to Jehovah, describes as ...
— An Apology for Atheism - Addressed to Religious Investigators of Every Denomination - by One of Its Apostles • Charles Southwell
... conviction that Sancho was an unmitigated rascal; therefore were his palpable allusions to be accepted as mere pleasantries or deprecated as unmerited injustice. Blake had blackened the character of the ranch cuisine, even if he had been unequal to the task of blackening that of the owner. Blake had declared Sancho's homestead to be a den of thieves, and the repast tendered the stage passengers a Barmecide feast—the purport of which was duly reported ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... capers like that," she said, with a swing of her plump little arm in the direction of the horse, but upset her balance in the process, and tumbled into the arms of Billykins, who proved unequal to the strain of her sudden descent, and so they rolled ...
— The Adventurous Seven - Their Hazardous Undertaking • Bessie Marchant
... little mercy in those days, and there was no hesitation in carrying the sentence into effect. But an unexpected difficulty arose; the old headsman was but lately dead, and his son, a fine stalwart young man, was, from inexperience, considered unequal to the task. A crowd of eager competitors proffered their services in this emergency, but the ancient city of Hamburg, like some other ancient cities, was hampered with antiquated usages. Its profits and other advantages were tied up into little knots of monopoly, in various shapes of ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... shocked as to be almost offended by Lady Busshe, but their natural gentleness and habitual submission rendered them unequal to the task of ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... pulled himself together; after all, it was not for long that anything less than an army corps could make him feel unequal to a situation. This woman was the loveliest thing he had ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy
... smiles without art, Speak the softness and feeling that dwell in the heart, Where in manners enchanting no blemish we trace, But the soul keeps the promise we had from the face; Sure philosophy, reason, and coldness must prove Defences unequal to shield ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... upon me; still more for the steadfast confidence with which it has supported me; and for the opportunities I have thence enjoyed of manifesting my inviolable attachment, by services faithful and persevering, though in usefulness unequal to my zeal. If benefits have resulted to our country from these services, let it always be remembered to your praise, and as an instructive example in our annals, that under circumstances in which the passions, agitated in every direction, were liable ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various
... they retreated, and as we drew back they reappeared and renewed their parade and noisy demonstrations, all the time beating their drums and yelling lustily. They could not be tempted into a fight where we desired it, however, and as we felt unequal to any pursuit beyond the ridge without the assistance of the infantry and artillery, we re-crossed the river and encamped with Rains. It soon became apparent that the noisy demonstrations of the Indians ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... spent the afternoon in drilling Singelton, the kindest of friends, as to what he should do in any probable contingency of news of the next forty-eight hours, for I did not intend to be absent on a wedding tour even longer than that time; but I felt that Singleton was entirely unequal to such a storm of intelligence as this; and, as I hurried down to the office, my chief sensation was that of gratitude that the cloud had broken before I was out of the way; for I knew I could do a great deal in an hour, ...
— The Man Without a Country and Other Tales • Edward E. Hale
... Smith! What does it mean?" The doctor's language appeared unequal to his emotions. "Mean?" he cried, after an exhausting interlude of expletives. "Mean? Oh, I don't know—and I don't care. It's pretty plain what it means. It makes no difference to me. I gave her up to that other fellow who saved her life and then picturesquely got himself killed. There now, forgive ...
— The Patrol of the Sun Dance Trail • Ralph Connor
... to examine sufficiently into this matter." He resolutely took in hand the revision of his work, and continued it till October 1888. But it is clear from the entries in his journal that his powers were now unequal to the task, and although from time to time he suspected that he had discovered errors, yet it does not appear that he determined anything with certainty. He never doubted that there were important errors ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy
... Grant had saved his life, at risk of his own; the older man's endurance had been the greater and he had used it to good advantage. It embarrassed Johnny tremendously to realize that he had proved unequal to his share of the work, for he had never before experienced such an obligation. He apologized repeatedly during the few days he lay sick, and meanwhile Mort waited upon ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Campfire Stories • Various
... to be, Forgetting their old tyranny. The fearful hart next to the lion came, And wolf was shepherd to the lamb. Nightingales, harmless Syrens of the air, And Muses of the place, were there; Who, when their little windpipes they had found Unequal to so strange a sound, O'ercome by art and grief, they did expire, And fell upon the conquering lyre. Happy, oh happy they! whose tomb might ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... the author of her calamities, shouldst have attended her in her prison. I am unequal to such a task: nor know I any other man ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... paradox (Gorgias) that to be punished is better than to be unpunished, when he says, that to the bad man death is the only mitigation of his evil. He is not less ideal in many passages of the Laws than in the Gorgias or Republic. But his wings are heavy, and he is unequal to any sustained flight. ...
— Laws • Plato
... for purposes of moreover, all bear the sign concealment, and because of the Red Cross, and may the very large ambulance easily be recognised as supply always on duty at hospital vehicles. the great military hospitals at Potsdam was unequal to the task. I saw no ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... good to me! These imputations are too common, sir, And easily stuck on virtue when she's poor. You are unequal to me, and however, Your sentence may be righteous, yet you are not That, ere you know me, thus proceed in censure: St. Mark bear witness ...
— Volpone; Or, The Fox • Ben Jonson
... at Shadonake in the worst possible temper. Her butler and factotum, who always made every arrangement for her when she was about to travel, had for once been unequal to cope with Bradshaw; he had looked out the wrong train, and had sent off his lady and her maid half-an-hour too ...
— Vera Nevill - Poor Wisdom's Chance • Mrs. H. Lovett Cameron
... powers as problems in algebra or trigonometry. That such a sailor's yarn could be accepted seriously in an anthropologic treatise shows that anthropology is still in its cradle. The same is true of that Australian's alleged answer. The Australian is unequal to the mental effort of counting up to ten, and, like other savages, is easily fatigued by the simplest questions[99]. It is quite likely that Bulmer asked that native whether he ornamented himself ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... Rothesay's feeble strength was found unequal to a walk of two miles. Christal, apparently not sorry for the excuse, volunteered to remain with her, and Olive went to church alone. She was loth to leave her mother; but then she did so long to hear Mr. Gwynne preach! She thought, all the way, what kind of minister he would make. Not ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... brandy and her brow with cologne water, and chafed her hands. She had lain Nettie on the floor of the inner room and put a pillow under her head; the strength which had brought her so far having failed there, and proved unequal to lift her again and put her on the bed. Nettie presently came to, opened her eyes, ...
— The Carpenter's Daughter • Anna Bartlett Warner
... Christian virtue of humility. These must appear to you such odd results—so little like those produced on the great majority of your readers, that you must allow me to explain them to you. Humbled, I must be, by finding my own intellect unequal to following, beyond a first step, the explanations by which you seek to make easy to comprehension the marvellous phenomena of the universe—humbled, by feeling the intellectual difference between you and ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... your friendliness, your confidence, of which I have had so many instances, on which I so tranquilly repose; and after all, neither you nor I must ever be surprised, should it so happen that the Hand of Him, with whom are the springs of life and death, weighs heavy on me, and makes me unequal to anticipations in which you have been too kind, and to hopes in which I may ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... situation at large and in detail, with general reflections as to the advantage to tailors of sticking to their own trade, and direct references of so pointed a character to the mental abilities of the third delinquent, that that gentleman's self-control became unequal to further strain, and he also retired abruptly ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... the romantic woodlands and sequestered scenes of Ayr, and the heathy mountainous source and winding sweep of Doon, emulate Tay, Forth, Ettrick, (p. 022) Tweed. This is a complaint I would gladly remedy; but, alas! I am far unequal to the task, both, in native genius and in education. Obscure I am, obscure I must be, though no young poet nor young soldier's heart ever beat more ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... may succeed with a minority, and even with these only for a time, least easily during the years of ardent youthful energy. Most others become neurotic or otherwise come to grief. Experience shows that the majority of people constituting our society are constitutionally unequal to the task of abstinence. We say, indeed, that the struggle with this powerful impulse and the emphasis the struggle involves on the ethical and aesthetic forces in the soul's life 'steels' the character, and for a few favorably organized natures this is true; it must also be acknowledged that the ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... the box with great caution; but the shrivelled substance which it contained bore now no resemblance to what it might once have been, the means used having been apparently unequal to preserve its shape and colour, although they were adequate to prevent its total decay. We were quite satisfied, notwithstanding, that it was, what the stranger asserted, the remains of a human heart; and David readily ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... conquest. The closing years of Augustus' reign were clouded by a general rising of the Rhine peoples. Quintilius Varus, an officer who had been entrusted with the government of the provinces beyond the Rhine, proved totally unequal to curbing the bolder spirits among the Germans, who under their chief, Arminius, boldly challenged the forces of this short-sighted officer. Arminius belonged to the Cherusci. He had served with the ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... Thea left the studio that night. She knew she had offended Bowers. Somehow she had hurt herself, too. She felt unequal to the boarding-house table, the sneaking divinity student who sat next her and had tried to kiss her on the stairs last night. She went over to the waterside of Michigan Avenue and walked along beside the lake. It was a clear, frosty winter ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... defence, but put a little more ginger into it. Incidentally he mentioned that a prolonged search for the nonagenarian pensioner had produced nobody more venerable than a comparative youngster of sixty-five. Deprived of this prop the Opposition felt unequal to walking through ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Apr 2, 1919 • Various
... you would take it off!" she gasped, feeling unequal to leaning forward again, and closing her ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... him one of the best riders in the world. The foreign diplomats in Washington, with their education that their first duty was to be in close touch with the chief magistrate, whether czar, queen, king, or president, found their training unequal to keeping close to President Roosevelt, except one, and he told me with great pleasure that though a poor rider he joined the president in his horseback morning excursions. Sometimes, he said, when they came to a very steep, high, and rough hill the president would shout, "Let us climb to ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew
... although Caspar could wade in to his side, he was quite unable to drag him out of the sand. In fact, Caspar himself sank so rapidly, whenever he stood still, that he was compelled to keep constantly moving, and changing from one foot to the other. His strength, then, was quite unequal to the task, and both began to ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... as his prey, great Heaven! What the lion would not dare to do, the ape has done! what the eagle would have dreaded to seize in his talons, the parrot has taken in his claws! What! Louis XI failed! Richelieu destroyed himself in the attempt! Even Napoleon was unequal to it! In a single day, between night and morning, the absurd became the possible! All that was axiomatic has become chimerical. All that was false has become living fact. What! the most brilliant concourse of men! the most magnificent movements of ideas! the most ...
— Napoleon the Little • Victor Hugo
... Russian! I love thee with my whole heart, and more than myself. I feel, therefore, on seeing thee again in my country, a joy which our poor language is unequal to express. Thou wilt find all here much changed. While Tameamea lived, the country flourished; but since his death, all has gone to ruin. The young King is in London. Karemaku and Kahumanna are absent; and Chinau, who fills their place, has ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue
... "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 ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 18, 1919 • Various
... dismay and fearing, if he continued the healths, to be unequal to cope with such an intrepid Dublin student, he the last gave up, flinging himself majestically back in his chair, exclaiming ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... immediate issues of the conflict between Clay's Whigs and Jackson's Democrats, though it must be acknowledged that the personalities of the leaders were quite as much an issue as any of the policies which they espoused. The Whigs, however, proved unequal to the task of unhorsing their foes; and, with two exceptions, the Democrats elected every President from Jackson to Lincoln. The exceptions were William Henry Harrison and Zachary Taylor, both of whom were ...
— The Boss and the Machine • Samuel P. Orth
... up: we must save the swag. (To DUMONT.) Sir, since your key, on which I invoke the blight of Egypt, has once more defaulted, my feelings are unequal to a repetition of yesterday's distress, and I shall simply pad the hoof. From Turin you shall receive the address of my banker, and may prosperity attend your ventures. (To BERTRAND.) Now, boy! (To DUMONT.) ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XV • Robert Louis Stevenson
... that ensued I am powerless to describe. My pen is unequal to it. The doctor arose, not so much angry as astonished, white and incredulous. "What did you do that for, any way?" he asked, glaring fiercely at my brother-in-law. Charles was all abject apology. He began by profusely expressing his regret, and offering ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen
... colonists whose temporal interests were not at stake in the question of liberating the Indians, were unwilling to antagonise the Audiencia and to face the condemnation of their fellow-citizens. Even the Bishop of Guatemala, who had formerly been a close friend and warm sympathiser, proved unequal to the pressure brought to bear upon him. He deserted his fellow-bishop, and his letter of August 17, 1545, to the Emperor, was singularly unworthy of his episcopal character, especially when dealing with one of equal dignity ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... and felt as they Were in their own dear native land once more. Then they resolved to settle on the spot; Erected there the ancient town of Schwytz; And many a day of toil had they to clear The tangled brake and forest's spreading roots. Meanwhile their numbers grew, the soil became Unequal to sustain them, and they crossed To the black mountain, far as Weissland, where, Concealed behind eternal walls of ice, Another people speak another tongue. They built the village Stanz, beside the Kernwald The village Altdorf, in the vale of Reuss; Yet, ever mindful of their parent stem, The ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... a plunge into the past, and such a faith in the transforming power of the biological laws, and in the divinity that lurks in the soil underfoot and streams from the orbs overhead, that the ordinary mind is quite unequal to the task. For the book of Genesis of the old Bible we have substituted the book of genesis of the rocky scripture of the globe—a book torn and mutilated, that has been through fire and flood and earthquake shock, ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs
... somehow or other, started between Collins and me, of the propriety of educating the female sex in learning, and their abilities for study. He was of opinion that it was improper, and that they were naturally unequal to it. I took the contrary side, perhaps a little for dispute's sake. He was naturally more eloquent, had a ready plenty of words; and sometimes, as I thought, bore me down more by his fluency than by the strength of his reasons. As we parted without settling the point, and were not to see one another ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... study and philosophical speculation; arrived at that period of life, when the springs of activity and enterprize in the human frame have begun to lose their force! consider that his health, even in youth, had appeared unequal to common fatigue! his stature low! his deportment humble! his voice almost effeminate! Such was the wonderful being, who relinquished the retirement, the tranquillity, the comforts, that he loved and enjoyed, to embark in labours at which the most hardy might tremble; to plunge ...
— The Eulogies of Howard • William Hayley
... articulation distinctness, I was fain, at the pinch of the game, to come to his aid, and trumpet his orders after him with my best stentorship. The old pilot had taken the helm; but his nerves were unequal to his work; and a younger man was sent to take his place. Once or twice the ship struck smaller masses of ice, but at so sharp an angle as to push them and herself mutually aside, and slide past without a crash. But a wind from the land was steadily urging the floe-field ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various
... said that we have descended to mere detail to illustrate Mr. Stephens' peculiar genius—that we ought to treat of the grand design, or plot of the Hungarian Daughter; but we must confess, with the deepest humility, that our abilities are unequal to the task. The fable soars far beyond the utmost flights of our poor conjectures, of our limited comprehension. We know that at the end there are—one case of poisoning, one ditto of stabbing with intent, &c., and one ditto of sudden ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 5, 1841 • Various
... of Cologne, and the Count of Cloves by fire and sword, was powerless against the dissolute morals of his own monks, who were chiefly engaged in the corruption of women. Indeed, the Swiss clergy in 1230, frankly stated that they "were flesh and blood, unequal to the task of living like angels." The Council of Cologne, in 1307, tried in vain to give the nuns a chance to live virtuous lives; to protect them from priestly seduction. Conrad, Bishop of Wurzburg, in 1521, accused his priests ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... we ordered; the Point affording no facilities for marketing or daily household needs. He was a great friend and crony of our two young servant-lads, and to him as well as to Bill had Jim confided his plans; but the three heads had proved unequal to the settlement of the arithmetical difficulties which presented themselves, and Jim had applied to Allie, as being possessed of greater educational advantages. This had not proved equal to the situation, however, as has been seen; the ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews |
