"Unfit" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... carefully treated. The reason is to be sought in the special nature of the treatise. It is not a general survey of agriculture, but merely a handbook of cultivation for a particular farm, that of Manlius or Mallius, and so probably unfit for wheat crops. Other subjects, as medicine, are touched on. But his prescriptions are confined to the rudest simples, to wholesome and restorative diet, and to incantations. These last have equal value assigned them with rational remedies. ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... looked continually to the sun, and those of the other peering eternally out at the stars, some such difference as actually exists between ourselves and our longitudinal antipodes. For our conception of the cosmos is of a sunlit world throbbing with life, while their Nirvana finds not unfit expression in the still, cold, fathomless awe of the midnight sky. That we cannot thus directly account for the difference in local coloring serves but to make that difference of more human interest. The dissimilarity between the Western and the Far ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell
... which was drifting hopelessly into ruin. They began the solution of this complex problem by arresting the entire race and immuring them within the protecting walls of a system which recognized as its cardinal principle that the natives were unfit to think or act for themselves. For a generation the Fijians have been in a prison wherein they have become the happiest and best behaved captives upon earth. During this time they have become reconciled to a life of peace, and have forgotten the taste of human flesh; and while they cherish ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... as though they suffered from water on the brain... Many of them were sent home afterward. General Haldane, as commander of the 6th Corps, paraded them, and poked his stick at the more wizened ones, the obviously unfit, the degenerates, and said at each prod, "You can go... You. ..You...." The ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... to me, saying I was the sociologist, and I explained that the laws of nature require a struggle for existence, and that in the struggle the fittest survive, and the unfit perish. In our economic struggle, I continued, there was always plenty of opportunity for the fittest to reach the top, which they did, in great numbers, particularly in our country; that where there was severe ...
— Herland • Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman
... what were the easiest methods of raising money, or, more properly speaking, what we could most conveniently sell. The deliberation was soon finished, it was found that our remaining horse was utterly useless for the plow, without his companion, and equally unfit for the road, as wanting an eye, it was therefore determined that we should dispose of him for the purposes above-mentioned, at the neighbouring fair, and, to prevent imposition, that I should go with him myself. Though this was one of the first mercantile transactions of my life, ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith
... been a martyrdom. The man who removes Antony Ferrara from the earth will be doing mankind a service worthy of the highest reward. He is unfit to live. Sometimes I cannot believe that he does live; I expect to wake up and find that he was a figure of ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer
... he could not live. On his dying bed he designated Peter as his successor, passing over his brother John. The reason for this was that John was so extremely feeble and infirm that he seemed to be wholly unfit to reign over such an empire. Besides various other maladies under which he suffered, he was afflicted with epilepsy, a disease which rendered it wholly unsuitable that he should assume any burdens ...
— Peter the Great • Jacob Abbott
... and untrained troops are unfit for night attacks or for night operations demanding the exercise of ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... slowly along. As I moved again to the front, I passed scores of men who had fallen from utter exhaustion. Many were delirious, and begged piteously for water in ever so small a quantity. Several died from excessive heat, and others were for a long time unfit for duty. Reaching the spring which gave its name to the locality, I was fortunate in finding only the advance of the command. With considerable effort I succeeded in obtaining a pint cupful of water, and thus allayed ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox
... you have a strange vision, denotes that you will be unfortunate in your dealings and sickness will unfit you for pleasant duties. ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... safety of the National troops. He said the enemy had come out of his lines in full force and attacked and scattered McClernand's division, which was in full retreat. The roads, as I have said, were unfit for making fast time, but I got to my command as soon as possible. The attack had been made on the National right. I was some four or five miles north of our left. The line was about three miles long. In reaching the point where the disaster ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... in need of would-be theologians, but we have been and are now sorely in need of pastors and preachers. They have discouraged honest investigation, if that investigation has the least taint of rationalism. In their supreme disgust for innovations they have made our Church as inflexible and unfit for the various conditions of modern life as the customs and practises of the Middle Ages would be out of place now. They have been completely oblivious of the fact that there are necessarily change and progress in theology and religion as well as in everything ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 2: The United Lutheran Church (General Synod, General - Council, United Synod in the South) • Friedrich Bente
... thing, then, all that I toiled for?" Finer natures often experience a keen depression and sense of littleness in the pause that follows a success. But the fool is so swollen by thought of his victory that he is unfit for all healthy work till somebody jags him and lets the gas out. He never forgets the great thing he fancies he did thirty years ago, and expects the world never to forget it either. The more of a weakling he is, and the more incapable ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... had set his face in opposition to many of these superstitions, which he justly thought were derived from the dark ages of Popery, perhaps even from those of paganism, and unfit to be entertained or believed by the Christians of an enlightened age. Some of his more attached parishioners considered him as too rash in opposing the ancient faith of their fathers; and though they honoured the moral intrepidity of their ...
— Chronicles of the Canongate • Sir Walter Scott
... And I have not altogether got to shut down," the young man said, "only the show is growing rather rotten over here. We have let the rabble—the most unfit and ignorant—have the casting vote, and the machine now will crush any man. I have kept out of politics as much as I can ...
— The Reason Why • Elinor Glyn
... frithii, removing the shattered glass, wiping up the oil, and putting chairs and tables on their legs, the professor was urged to go to bed,—advice which, in his excitement, he refused to take until it was suggested that, if he did not, he would be totally unfit for exploring ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne
... declares that in the treaty it is "appointed" that the French force shall leave Scotland on August 10. (The printed calendars are not accurate.) No such matter occurred in the treaty "wyth the quene." Knox added, next day, that he himself "was unfit to treat of so great matters," and Croft appears to have agreed with him, for, by the Reformer's lack of caution, his doings in Holy Island were "well known and published." Consequently, when Whitelaw returned to Knox with Cecil's reply to the requests of the brethren, the performances of Knox and ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... Holy One. In vain did Zadde call attention to Zaddik, the Righteous One; there was Zarot, the misfortunes of Israel, to testify against it. Pe had Podeh, redeemer, to its credit, but Pesha: transgression, reflected dishonor upon it. 'Ain was declared unfit, because, though it begins 'Anawah, humility, it performs the same service for 'Erwah, immorality. Samek said: "O Lord, may it be Thy will to begin the creation with me, for Thou art called Samek, after ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... Emperor is able to maintain. And all those to whom any land falls by inheritance are in no better condition, for if they die without any male issue, all their lands fall into the hands of the Emperor; as, moreover, if there be any rich man amongst them, who in his own person is unfit for the wars, and yet hath such wealth, that thereby many noblemen and warriors might be maintained, if any of the courtries present his name to the Emperor, the unhappy man is by- and-by sent for, and in that instant deprived of all his riches, which with great pains and travail ...
— The Discovery of Muscovy etc. • Richard Hakluyt
... fittest to live and thrive in it. And yet how, on this hypothesis, are we to account for the absence of cattle in the Pampas of South America, when those parts of the New World were discovered? It is not that they were unfit for cattle, for millions of cattle now run wild there; and the like holds good of Australia and New Zealand. It is a curious circumstance, in fact, that the animals and plants of the Northern Hemisphere are not only as well adapted to live in the Southern ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... stay. Back he retired, and thus the heavens he told; "All things that are, are subject unto me, Both towns, and men, and what the world doth hold; But her fair Licia still immortal be." The heavens did grant; a goddess she was made, Immortal, fair, unfit to suffer change. So now she lives, and never more shall fade; In earth a goddess, what can be more strange? Then will I hope, a goddess and so near, She cannot choose my sighs ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Phillis - Licia • Thomas Lodge and Giles Fletcher
... two he was at Newport. But so hard had he ridden that man and beast alike were in a lather of sweat, and whilst he himself felt sick and tired, the horse was utterly unfit to bear him farther. For half an hour he rested there, and made a meal whose chief constituent was brandy. Then on a third horse he started upon the ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... so many circumstances during the voyage, which brought me in contact with this boy, and so many occasions to arouse my sympathies in his behalf, (for he was evidently in delicate health, and unfit for laborious work.) that in a short time I became deeply interested concerning him, and I determined as soon as I had recovered from sea-sickness, to watch for an opportunity of inquiring into the particulars of ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... this, I have no doubt, was why, When Members wished Lord Scutt good-bye, You could not see one humid eye. * * * * * The moral of this simple strain I trust is adequately plain. When people crave for information Unfit, in war, for publication, They take a line, from vice or levity, That's not ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 23, 1917 • Various
... life, or of such parts of it as are not deemed wholly unfit for publication, is read (and, no doubt, a public which devoured 'Scrawled Black' will stand almost anything), it will be found that I have sometimes acted without prim cautiousness—that I have, in fact, wallowed ...
— Much Darker Days • Andrew Lang (AKA A. Huge Longway)
... of Galway, the other in that of Cork—he was strongly attached to his brother, and evinced his affection by an active correspondence, and by deeply and proudly resenting that neglect which had marked Sir Arthur as unfit to mix in society. ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume II. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... public affairs. On the other side of the cause was the excess and obstinate actions of some ignorant Negroes, acting under ill advice. Father was trying to prevent excesses being done by either side. He realized that the slaves were unfit, at that time, to take their place as dependable citizens, for the want of experience and wisdom, and that there would have to be mental development and wisdom learned by his race, and that such would only come by ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves. - Texas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... I ask, oppressed by a consciousness which almost overmasters me—which renders me unfit to do any thing but feel—will you not settle this question here? I feel, and I cannot escape the feeling, that on your decision hangs the question, whether we shall be preserved an united people, or be broken to ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... At this time they had on board but ten gallons of water, four or five barrels of bread, two or three pounds of candles, no firewood. Their sails unfit to be trusted to any longer, and all their materials for mending them exhausted by the constant repairs which the violence of the weather had called for. They therefore took a pilot aboard, who carried them into Pont Duval; but being informed by the captain of a vessel there, ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... the doorpost to save herself. Yet even in that moment she realized that this was only what she had been expecting every time that she had returned from an absence all the winter through. But to-day found her so shaken and unfit for strain that it was not wonderful she broke down, feeling that this last disaster was too great to be borne. A moment she clung there sick and faint, while the ground under her feet seemed to rise up like the waves of the sea; then ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... sixteen, being then classed with boys so small that he looked ridiculous among them, he was removed at the special request of the headmaster. A private tutor, heavily paid, took him in hand, but was no more successful with him than the schoolmasters had been. At the age of eighteen he was found unfit to pass any of the examinations which open the way to gentlemanly employment. Various jobs were found for him by his desponding parents, but on every occasion he was returned to them politely. He drifted at last into an Irish land-agent's office. Mr. Tempest was a successful ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... been very trying tor Miss Evelyn, and she was so evidently nervously agitated that my mother begged her to go to her room, and lie down to repose herself, as after so much agitation she must be quite unfit for any school work, and that she herself would hear our lessons that morning and give us an afternoon's holiday in honour of the happy ...
— The Romance of Lust - A classic Victorian erotic novel • Anonymous
... walk a little first so that he might have more control. That was what he wanted, self-control! self- control! That was their plot, to make him lose command of himself, so that he should show to every one that he was unfit to hold his position. He must have perfect control of everything—his voice, his body, his thoughts. And that was why, just now, he must walk in the darker places, in the smaller streets, until soon he would be, outwardly, himself again. So he chose for his walk the little ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... May 12, 1808, "from Scrope Davies, that you have totally given up dice. To be sure you must give it up; for you to be seen every night in the very vilest company in town—could anything be more shocking, anything more unfit? I speak feelingly on this occasion, 'non ignara mali miseris, &c'. I know of nothing that should bribe me to be present once more at such horrible scenes. Perhaps 'tis as well that we are both acquainted with the extent of the evil, that we may be the more earnest in abstaining ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... is by your direction that three numbers of your new periodical have come to me. With many thanks for your kind thought, I will beg you not to waste your bounties on so unfit a recipient, for I have neither time nor taste for any such literature. I have much more work yet to do than I am likely to have life to do it in—and my taste for comic papers is defunct. We take in Punch in our Common Room, but ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... two sisters of John Leech, in a curious little cottage, since destroyed, at the bottom of Lower Belgrave Street. Just at the age when, in the ordinary course, I should have gone to a boarding-school, it was discovered that I was physically unfit for the experiment; and then I had a series of tutors at home. To one of these tutors my father wrote—"I must warn you of your pupil's powers of conversation, and tact in leading his ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... of the exposed coal barges flashed into his mind. He knew that they were utterly unfit to ride out a storm, being nothing more than great oblong boxes, loaded nearly to their gunwales with coal. He remembered, too, the exposed position in which they had been left ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston
... most important consequence. Men's active impulses are so differently mixed that a philosophy fit in this respect for Bismarck will almost certainly be unfit for a valetudinarian poet. In other words, although one can lay down in advance the {89} rule that a philosophy which utterly denies all fundamental ground for seriousness, for effort, for hope, which says the nature ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... say parenthetically, my sister, that it may be that our views on that subject, coming from the northern States as you and I have done, have not been according to the mind of the Lord. I would have no man a slave because of misfortune, but if a man proved himself unfit to rule himself, I'm not ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... He was utterly unfit to govern. While he thought only of profligate enjoyment, the barons fortified their castles and became petty kings in their several domains. The great prelates followed their example. Then, for the first time, did ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... well for a prince of the fifteenth century, exhausted the patience of the new generation, many of whom were bred at the Austrian universities. Without seeking for democratic institutions, for which Servia is totally unfit, they loudly demanded written laws, which should remove life and property from the domain of individual caprice, and which, without affecting the suzerainty of the Porte, should bring Servia within the sphere of European institutions. They murmured at Milosh making a colossal fortune out of ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... clothes," thought the Emperor. "Besides, if I had an outfit, I could find out which of my servants are unfit for the offices they hold; I should know the wise from the stupid! Yes, this cloth must be woven for me." And he gave the men much money that they might begin at once to weave ...
— The Book of Stories for the Storyteller • Fanny E. Coe
... passion. "What right has he to send such a piece of foolishness to my Polly Pepper? I can give her all the watches she needs. And this trumpery," pointing to the jewelled gift still lying in Jasper's hand, "is utterly unfit for a schoolgirl. You know ...
— Five Little Peppers Abroad • Margaret Sidney
... chances are that a man cannot get into congress now without resorting to arts and means that should render hint unfit to go there; of course there are exceptions; but do you know that I could not go into politics if I were a lawyer, without losing standing somewhat in my profession, and without raising at least a suspicion of my intentions and unselfishness? Why, it is ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... equality was all that the General could reasonably ask for his own Church. The King, he said, evidently meant that no man fit for public trust should be excluded because he was a Roman Catholic, and that no man unfit for public trust should be admitted because he was a Protestant. Tyrconnel immediately began to curse and swear. "I do not know what to say to that; I would have all Catholics in." [182] The most judicious Irishmen of his own religious persuasion were dismayed at his rashness, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... 7th Port Curtis was discovered and on the 21st Port Bowen, but by October 17th, when off the Cumberland Isles (a group off the east coast of Queensland in 20 degrees south), the Lady Nelson had become so unfit for service that she had to be sent back ...
— The Logbooks of the Lady Nelson - With The Journal Of Her First Commander Lieutenant James Grant, R.N • Ida Lee
... and intensity of my affection for him—he is my only son, you know, Walter—I have indulged him and allowed him to have his own way in everything to such an extent that, unless we are all very careful, he will be utterly spoiled, ruined, and rendered totally unfit to go out into the world and take a worthy place there when the time comes for him to do so. There have been occasions before to-day when I have been troubled by suspicions that something was going wrong with the dear boy, ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood
... evil; and if the working men of Lancashire continue to struggle through the present trying pass of their lives with the brave patience which they have shown hitherto, they will have done more to defeat the arguments of those who hold them to be unfit for political power than the finest eloquence of their best friends could have done ...
— Home-Life of the Lancashire Factory Folk during the Cotton Famine • Edwin Waugh
... fair Fame, Who on her bulwarks stand, to guard the way Unto the courts wherein her favored dwell, Where they have gained admittance by the pass "True merit," which alone can bring them there; Thine is the power the unworthy to debar, To tell them that they are unfit to come To seek a standing near her honored throne. Away in sorrow the beseigers turn, Foiled in their effort, to more humble scenes, With showers of censure pouring round them fast, And shame in volleys flying on to them. These are thy missiles, and they lose no mark, But bear ...
— A Leaf from the Old Forest • J. D. Cossar
... from their wounds only gradually, to suffer with the rest, returning to duty when really unfit, while the deadly work went on, the men braving the shell and shot with more spirit when they knew that the women and children were safe ...
— A Dash from Diamond City • George Manville Fenn
... cry when I wash you! not love to be clean? There, go and be dirty, unfit to be seen; And till you leave off, and I see you have smiled, I'll not take the trouble ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... a Florentine, long resident in England, had been sent to the Netherlands as secret agent of the Duke of Norfolk. Alva read his character immediately, and denounced him to Philip as a loose, prating creature, utterly unfit to be entrusted with affairs of importance. Philip, however, thinking more of the plot than of his fellow-actors, welcomed the agent of the conspiracy to Madrid, listened to his disclosures attentively, and, without ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... have an extremely troublesome business on at the Merchants' Guild—I've just come away from a four hours' meeting; and upon my word I don't think I can stand a—domestic revolution at the same time. It would utterly unfit ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... others in another. Now what way are you to help and serve, or to do your duty, in that station of life unto which it has pleased God to call you? Did it answer God's purpose, and serve Him, when the food was unfit for a child to eat, and unwholesome for any one?' Well! I would not give it up, I was so pig-headed about my soul; so says I, 'I wish folks would be content with locusts and wild honey, and leave other folks in peace to work out their salvation;' and I groaned out pretty loud to think ...
— Ruth • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of ...
— The Fathers of the Constitution - Volume 13 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Max Farrand
... a wild resolve. He was utterly unfit for it. The hospitable Namaqua, whose wives had nursed him well through that almost hopeless illness, did his best to persuade the rash Englishman from so mad a course, by gestures and entreaties, in his own mute language. But Granville was obstinate. He would NOT sit down quietly and be robbed ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... members. This extinguishes the debt of our guilt and makes us rich in Christ's righteousness. "As by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous." On the other hand, just as Adam transmitted to his posterity a carnal nature, alien to God and unfit for righteousness, so the new Adam imparts to the race of which He is the Head a spiritual nature, akin to God ...
— The Life of St. Paul • James Stalker
... now!" screamed the widow, at the tope of her voice; "and you can no longer deceive me, unworthy son of Neptune as you are! You are unfit to be a lubber, and would be log-booked for an or'nary by every gentleman on board ship. You, a full-jiggered sea-man! No, you are not even half-jiggered, sir; and I tell you ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... this girl will have plenty of money to spend, I think it would be a good thing if he were to marry her. If Felix had L20,000 a year, everybody would think him the finest fellow in the world.' In saying this, however, Mr Paul Montague showed himself unfit to gauge the opinion of the world. Whether Sir Felix be rich or poor, the world, evil-hearted as it is, will never think ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... interdicted subject. They hardly spoke; they perceived in their longing minds, that the imagined spell of, the Fiend was indeed the bile of the sea, secreted thickly for want of exercise, and they both regretted the days and nights of their angry controversies; unfit pilgrims of the Holy Land, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... add that when the bird Took in the situation He said one brief, emphatic word, Unfit for publication. The fox was greatly startled, but He only sighed ...
— The Best Nonsense Verses • Various
... down, Fred," said Tom, whose hopeful and earnest disposition often reanimated his friend's drooping spirits; "it will only unfit you for doing any good service. Besides, I think we have no cause yet to despair. We know that your father came up this inlet, or strait, or whatever it is, and he had a good stock of provisions with him, according to the account we got at Upernavik, and it is not more ...
— The World of Ice • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... care-worn, protesting walls. Through a gap that might once have been a door, they entered the heart of the sad unhoping thing dropt by the Past on its way to oblivion: nothing looks so unlike life as a dead body, nothing so unfit for human dwelling as a ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... Richmond? A sour Puritan who does not know how to enjoy a dance or anything else, who looks upon the beautiful face of a girl as a sin and an abomination, who thinks to be ugly is to be good, who is by temperament and education unfit to enjoy anything, while Thomas Langdon, who by the same measurements is fit to enjoy everything, is left here to hold back the Army of the Potomac. It's undoubtedly a tribute to my valor, ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... mountains when Uncle Billy rode his jaded pony down the faint wagon-track toward the ranch-house. He was weary from the saddle, for he had come a long distance that day—so long a distance that the horse was unfit for ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... upland meadow, and see how Bagley was progressing. He was raking manfully, and had accomplished a fair amount of work, but it was evident that he was almost exhausted. He was not accustomed to hard work, and had rendered himself still more unfit for ...
— Driven Back to Eden • E. P. Roe
... which we formed our camp, in a beautiful plain, to wait the arrival of the Sioux. At the first bluff the young Indian left us and joined their camp. Before reaching Calumet bluff one of the periogues ran upon a log in the river, and was rendered unfit for service; so that all our loading was put into the second periogue. On both sides of the river are fine prairies, with cotton wood; and near the bluff there is more timber in the points and valleys than we have been ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... Howe, these atrocities were at least committed with his guilty knowledge.[1] The calculated barbarities practised upon these poor prisoners, with no other purpose than to make them desert their cause, or if that failed, totally to unfit them for serving it more, are almost too shocking for belief. It was such acts as these that wrung from the indignant Napier the terrible admission that "the annals of civilized warfare furnish nothing more inhuman towards captives of war than the ...
— The Campaign of Trenton 1776-77 • Samuel Adams Drake
... worthy of note occurred until we reached Albany, where we left the cars and embarked upon the steamer Knickerbocker, an old dismantled craft, unfit for any purpose but the transportation of soldiers; whose decks were covered with mud an inch in depth, and whose doors having been thrown overboard, a free circulation of the rough November air was allowed in every part. The men had no rations, ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... of a book cased in cloth by modern methods are so injured as to make it unfit for more permanent binding unless an unreasonable amount of time is spent on it. It is a great pity that publishers do not, in the case of books expected to have a permanent literary value, issue a certain number of copies printed ...
— Bookbinding, and the Care of Books - A handbook for Amateurs, Bookbinders & Librarians • Douglas Cockerell
... results. It is inferred that magnetic disturbances, both solar and lunar, are produced mediately by the Earth, and that the Earth in periods of several years undergoes changes which fit it and unfit it for exercising a powerful mediate action.—The Earth-current records had been reduced, and the magnetic effect which the currents would produce had been computed. The result was, that the agreement between the magnetic effects so computed and ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy
... perfect chronology is, unfortunately, little more than guess work. Such was the modesty of their makers that the early bows were all sent into the world nameless. Many of them are marvels of workmanship, and, though utterly unscientific in construction and unfit for the requirements of modern violinists, they are for the most part exquisite works of art upon which no ...
— The Bow, Its History, Manufacture and Use - 'The Strad' Library, No. III. • Henry Saint-George
... are to say so! but for all that I know I am only a poor, humble, ignorant girl, quite unfit to be your wife! And, oh! sometimes it makes me very sad to think so!" said Nora, with a ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... called the elective franchise; and an elector, when deprived of this privilege, is disfranchised. An infamous crime is one which is punishable by imprisonment in a state prison. Men guilty of high crimes are deemed unfit to be intrusted with so important a duty as that of electing the persons who are to make and execute the laws of the state. It is provided, however, that if such persons are pardoned before the expiration of the term for which they were sentenced ...
— The Government Class Book • Andrew W. Young
... say it, but you think it!" she cried back. "It is the one thing you have in your mind. I was unhappy, I did wrong, so I can never be happy, I can never do right! I am unfit to marry again, to marry a good man, even if he loves me, even if ...
— No Hero • E.W. Hornung
... everlasting Father, we acknowledge and confess before Thy holy majesty that we are miserable sinners, conceived and born in guilt and corruption, prone to do evil, unfit for any good; who, by reason of our depravity, transgress without end Thy holy commandments. Wherefore we have drawn upon ourselves by Thy just sentence, condemnation and death. Nevertheless, O Lord, with heartfelt sorrow we repent and deplore our offences; ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... anxious to know if the same bounties would be extended to them as were being extended to their brethren of Norway House and Cross Lake, and also whether they could obtain a reserve on Lake Winnipeg, as the country in which they were living was totally unfit for cultivation, and that they had the greatest difficulty in procuring a livelihood. I told them that I had no idea what were the intentions of the Government with regard to those Indians living north of the present Treaty, but that I would make known ...
— The Treaties of Canada with The Indians of Manitoba - and the North-West Territories • Alexander Morris
... follows that some are more, some less, fit for the particular economic task. In view of the far-reaching division of labor in our modern economic life, it is impossible to avoid the question how we can select the fit personalities and reject the unfit ones. ...
— Psychology and Industrial Efficiency • Hugo Muensterberg
... All seemed unfit for conversation; a certain dizziness had interrupted the activity of their minds; and except to sing they were tongue-tied. There was present, however, one tall, powerful fellow of doubtful nationality, being neither quite Scotsman nor altogether Irish, but of surprising ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... none, Sir Edward. I regret that I should have conceived so mad a thought; it is enough to unfit me for longer holding position as you agent, which I beg humbly ...
— Our American Cousin • Tom Taylor
... permanent. It was therefore decided to dismiss him with a public notice of their belief in his guilt, and that the people of the largest County in the State were of opinion that he should resign the Judicial Office he held, and for which they deemed him unfit. Accordingly at an early hour in the morning his prison doors were opened, and he was permitted to go at large. In the afternoon of the same day he took the steamer and returned to his home in Stockton. No sooner was the decision, and the action of the Executive consequent ...
— A Sketch of the Causes, Operations and Results of the San Francisco Vigilance Committee of 1856 • Stephen Palfrey Webb
... only relative whom he knew, and his death, therefore, left the boy peculiarly, alone in the world. Everything reminded him of his dead father. But he did not allow himself to dwell upon thoughts that would depress his spirits and unfit him for the work that lay ...
— The Young Musician - or, Fighting His Way • Horatio Alger
... passengers and followed the lieutenant to the station restaurant. He plunged at once into conversation, talking the Dutch of Holland, which Peter, who had forgotten his school-days, found a bit hard to follow. He was unfit for active service, because of his eyes and a weak heart, but he was a desperate fire-eater in that stuffy restaurant. By his way of it Germany could gobble up the French and the Russians whenever she cared, but she was aiming at getting all the Middle East in her hands ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan
... the banks of these streams and lakes, in villages and out in the country, a great many dwelling-houses and shanties had been built, the occupants of which were in the habit of throwing all sorts of rubbish into the water, making it unfit ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 16, February 25, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... assembly and coming action. Ay, we are miles and miles away; we leave the dear old post, with homes and firesides, wives, children, and sweethearts, all to the care of the few whom sickness or old wounds or advancing years render unfit for hard, sharp marching; and, thank God! we'll be there to take a hand and help those gallant fellows out of their "corral" or to have one good blow at the cowardly hounds who ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... to brave the royal displeasure rather than keep a royal prince in a situation for which he was unfit met with general approval. The times were too serious to admit of pedantic trifling or unmanly shrinking. In quick succession there arrived news of the definite refusal of the Duke of Brunswick to come forward, of the incredible apathy of the Dutch, and of the demoralization of the Allies in ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... combustion; but may not this very impurity happen to make the blood more stimulative? May not this impure blood promote a more active cerebration precisely because it is impure? Water that is chemically pure is undrinkable. And may not also blood that is physiologically pure be unfit for the brain of the vertical mammal that has to live ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... had come to her, and an assertion that God would miraculously protect her whatever the court might decree, she impugned the position of her judges and roused keen resentment. Because of this it was that she was banished "as unfit for our society." In the colony records of Massachusetts the sentence pronounced reads as follows: "Mrs. Hutchinson (the wife of Mr. William Hutchinson) being convented for traducing the ministers and their ministry in this country, shee ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford
... women, brandishing the meat ration on high, literally laid siege to the official tent. The meat supplied was miserably lean, quite unfit for consumption. I myself wouldn't have given it to a dog. When thrown against a wall, for instance, it would stick. Throughout the Camp it was dubbed "vrekvlys" (a man dies, an animal "vreks"—vlys is meat). The flour given was good, for ...
— Woman's Endurance • A.D.L.
... the time of day to her, and the time of day meant some obscene remark unfit for women's ears. The young girl wore a simple grey dress, with fine lawn kerchief neatly folded across her bosom, a large hat with flowing ribbons sat above the fairest face that ever gladdened men's eyes ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... Charlotte, the nation was particularly sensitive with regard to the health of the heir to the crown. Whispers began to spread abroad, happily without much foundation, of pale cheeks, and a constitution unfit for the burden which was to ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... of its seclusion, and partly, perhaps, for the sake of its beauty. She and Dic could be seen only from the opposite side of the river, and she thought no one would be hunting at that time of the year. The pelts of fur-giving animals taken then were unfit for market. Venison was soft, and pheasants and turkeys were sitting. There would be nothing she would wish to conceal in meeting Dic; but the instinct of all animate nature is to do its ...
— A Forest Hearth: A Romance of Indiana in the Thirties • Charles Major
... forbid that I should acknowledge it, or I should consider myself as unfit to assume the office in which your sublime highness ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... the late meeting of the union masons that the "man who would lock up a pump was unfit to hold any situation of trust." On the strength of this opinion the Earl of Waklegrave and Captain Duff intend to proceed against the Marshal of the Queen's Bench for having locked them up for ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, November 13, 1841 • Various
... they had lost more than we. The battle cost them, in fact, seven lieutenant-generals, five other generals, about eighteen hundred officers killed or wounded, and more than fifteen thousand men killed or rendered unfit for service. They openly avowed, also, how much they had been surprised by the valour of the majority of our troops, above all of the cavalry, and did not dissimulate that we should have gained the day, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... McKinley any but the most conscientious desire to do his duty in what, as the case seems to me, was an entire change of purpose. Many military and naval officers, from whose reports he had to get his facts almost wholly, insisted that the Philippine people were unfit for self-government. After the unhappy conflict of arms the solution of the problem seemed to be to compel the Philippine people to unconditional submission. It would not be just or fair that I should undertake to state the reasons which controlled the President in adopting the ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... present life that, I fear me, we are largely forgetting what it does for us at the end, and beyond the end. And I would that we all thought more of our exodus and of our entrance in the light of Christ's death and resurrection. Such contemplation will not unfit us for any duty or any enjoyment. It will lift us above the absorbed occupation with present trivialities, which is the bane of all that is good and noble. It will teach us 'a solemn scorn of ills.' It will set on the furthest ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... his heart to wish himself more ignorant and less refined. That glamour of intellectual gentility, which England sets such store by, had made him unfit for the outdoor brutalities of northern life. In his catastrophe he knew that he was not single, though there was small consolation in that; all through Canada he had encountered younger sons, drawing-room bred young gentlemen, who worked in lumber camps, on railroads, and in mines ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson
... The necessity of appeal to it was a bitter pill, but it had to be swallowed, for the right of capital punishment had been withdrawn. A 'religious' scruple, too, stood in the way—very characteristic of such formalists. Killing an innocent man would not in the least defile them, or unfit for eating the passover, but to go into a house that had not been purged of 'leaven,' and was further unclean as the residence of a Gentile, though he was the governor, that would stain their consciences—a singular scale of ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... forward, both arms extended, but handicapped by his terrible injury, he toppled over upon his face, heart-broken. The spirit was there, but he was physically unfit for the task. ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... the bayonet. There never existed a great people so craven as to make such an admission; and were we to set the example of making it, we should justify all that has been said adversely to us by domestic traitors and foreign foes. We should prove that we were unfit to enjoy that greatest of all public blessings, constitutional freedom, by surrendering it at the demand of a faction, merely that we might live in security, and enjoy the property we had accumulated. Ancient history mentions a people who were so fond of their ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... get out a good boiling piece, in order to cook it in a more legitimate fashion, they found to their grief that, whether through damp, or exposure to the air, or from some other cause, the cask of beef was completely putrid and unfit ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... education that has been proposed for girls, whether coeducational or not, we have always heard the same fears expressed. Such education would make the girl unwomanly, it would unfit her for her true functions, a man could not wish to marry her, and so on. The first women teachers and doctors had indeed a hard time. After being admitted to the profession only at the point of the sword, so to speak, they ...
— The Trade Union Woman • Alice Henry
... Ahmed on a wall-eyed scrub that looked unfit to walk, but proved well able to gallop under his light weight. One of Anazeh's men took my bag, with a nod to reassure me, and without a word we were off full-pelt, Anazeh leading with four stalwarts who looked almost as hard-bitten as himself, six men crowding me closely, and the ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... to Harriet the disastrous event, for which, when once known to her, she can never be consoled; I am in a very unfit state to give advice. I am as I have always been of opinion, that it should be concealed from her as long as it can. It is a more generous cause of grief than the loss of a lover; and as Harriet's mind is built, I think more likely to shock and destroy her. ...
— A Sketch of the Life of the late Henry Cooper - Barrister-at-Law, of the Norfolk Circuit; as also, of his Father • William Cooper
... times, I heard seldom, and always briefly. His first notes were dated from Berlin, and those succeeding them from Vienna. He seemed restless, bitter, dissatisfied with himself, and with the world. Naturally unfit for a lounging, idle life, his active nature, now that it had to bear up against the irritation of hope deferred, ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... weddest unwisely thou dost double thy children's portion of difficulty, since thou art unwise and their mother unfit. If, perchance, thy only error lay in thy choice of wife, the result is still the same. Let her be most worthy, and yet she may be most unfitting. She must fit thy needs as the joint fits the socket. Virtue is essential, ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... Rule determines that East London is an unfit place in which to live. Where you would not have your own babe live, and develop, and gather to itself knowledge of life and the things of life, is not a fit place for the babes of other men to live, and develop, and gather to themselves knowledge of life and the things of life. ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London
... over years, and the most we can do is to give some of their interesting incidents. In 1502 the Great Captain lay in the far south of Italy, faced by a more powerful French army under the Duke of Nemours, a young nobleman not wanting in courage, but quite unfit to cope with the experienced veteran before him. Gonsalvo, however, was in no condition to try conclusions with his well-appointed enemy. His little corps was destitute of proper supplies, the men had been ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... new clothes. And to him came two tailors, who promised to make him some extraordinary clothes. The emperor engages them and they begin to sew at them, but they explain that the clothes have the extraordinary property of remaining invisible to anyone who is unfit for his position. The courtiers come to look at the tailors' work and see nothing, for the men are plying their needles in empty space. But remembering the extraordinary property of the clothes, they all declare they ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy
... she have heard the lady in her aunt's drawing-room, who was of opinion that she should "stay at home and mind the baby"? Education had made her an individual; she was nurtured into the disease of thought This child of hers showed in the frail tenure on which it held its breath how unfit the mother was for fulfilling her natural functions. Both parents seemed in admirable health, yet their offspring was a poor, delicate, nervous creature, formed for exquisite sensibility to every evil of life. Cecily saw this, and partly understood it; her heart was heavy through ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... firmly secured to be withheld. To remove his daughter was the next idea which presented itself; but that could not be effected. Emily was of a resolute disposition, and would not consent to leave her mother; and an appeal to Chancery would show how unfit a person he was to have the responsible charge of a young woman. The night was passed in anxious meditation, and before the morning his plans were arranged. Nothing could be accomplished by force; he must therefore resort to address—he ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... was duped by men who hate liberty every way. He is the cat's-paw. By much dragging of chestnuts from the fire for others to eat, his claws are burnt off to the gristle, and he is thrown aside as unfit for further use. As the fool said of King Lear, when his daughters had turned him out of doors, "He's a ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... But it is a spurious charity which, to remedy a modern injustice, hastens to its opposite; and when philosophic historians indulge in loose invective against the statesmen of the Reformation, they show themselves unfit to be trusted with the custody of our national annals. The Acts of Parliament speak plainly of the enormous abuses which had grown up under these bulls. Yet even the emphatic language of the statutes scarcely prepares us to find an abbot ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... refreshment, but should be used in moderation. The strength of the punch is so artfully concealed by its admixture with the gelatine that many persons, particularly of the softer sex, have been tempted to partake so plentifully of it as to render them somewhat unfit for ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 315, January 14, 1882 • Various
... she that holds herself unfit to mate with an honest man!" cried some. And others, "Nay, do but see the silken gown of the great lady Rosalind, see the fine jewels of her!" "She thinks she outshines the Queen of Bramber's self!" scoffed a woman. And a man demanded, ...
— Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard • Eleanor Farjeon
... adapted to the work of the cigar factories, where they excel in the occupation of cigar and cigarette making, and many hundreds are thus employed in Havana. But they are totally unfit for plantation labor, under the hardships of which their feeble frames succumb. They prove themselves very good servants in the cities, being very quick to learn, and ready to adapt themselves to any light occupation. A Chinaman is sly, cunning, and, to a certain degree, enterprising; but he must ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... children thronged about her, and called her "Mother," and seemed pleased at her courage at coming alone. The chief, Edem, one of the aristocrats of Okoyong, was sober, but his neighbour at Ifako, two miles farther on, whom she wished to meet, was unfit for human company, and she was not allowed to proceed. She stayed the night at Ekenge, where she gathered the King's boys about her to hold family worship. The crowd of semi-naked people standing curiously watching the proceedings exclaimed ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... under which was offered to the world the amazing spectacle of a Government paying its own subjects to quit its shores and its flag. Irish peasants, half starved, clad in garments promiscuously flung out from the slop-shop, often quite unfit to make their way in a strange country, were induced by the offer of a free passage (without even inspection to see that they were decently accommodated on board) to pour in thousands out of a country whose rulers had no better thing to offer them ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... have no time to discuss your letter[52] at any length. You seem to assume that we can say definitely who are the "fit" and who the "unfit." ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences Vol 2 (of 2) • James Marchant
... their toe-nails carelessly or tear them with their fingers. Where the soft tissues are pressed against the edge of the nail, the skin gives way and there is the formation of exuberant granulations and of discharge which is sometimes foetid. The affection is a painful one and may unfit the patient for work. In mild cases the condition may be remedied by getting rid of contributing causes and by disinfecting the skin and nail; the nail is cut evenly, and the groove between it and the skin packed with an antiseptic ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... did not think it right to forego the opportunity of making a very profitable sale; so, instead of the sublimate, he made up the same quantity of alum for the Cacique and received the price he demanded. Next morning all the water in Lima was unfit for use. On examination it was found that the enclosure of the Atarrea was broken down, and the source saturated with ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... give it, and it will perhaps put an end to this," answered Mary. "If you are in possession of anything in the way of evidence which would prove Dr. Ransford's innocence and you are wilfully suppressing it, you are bad, wicked, base, cruel, unfit for any decent being's society! And," she added, as she picked up her work and rose, "you're not going to ...
— The Paradise Mystery • J. S. Fletcher
... his poor boat. 'Go elsewhere, Lord,' he tried to say, 'to a place and to companions more fit for thee. I am ashamed to stand in thy presence. I am dazzled by the brightness of thy countenance, crushed down by the thought of thy wisdom and power, uneasy lest I say or do something unfit for thee; lest I anger thee unawares in my ignorance, clumsiness; lest I betray to thee my own bad habits: and those bad habits I feel in thy presence as I never felt before. Thou art too condescending; thou honourest me too much; thou hast taken me for a better man than I am; thou knowest not ...
— Discipline and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... every nook and corner of the South there comes a cry that the Negro as a laborer is unsatisfactory. It is said that he is inefficient, unreliable, indolent, lazy, in short, that he is unfit to do the work the South wants done. Less than two decades ago it was just the opposite. Then, it was said that the Negro was unfit for everything else except work. How inconsistent! We admit that ...
— Twenty-Five Years in the Black Belt • William James Edwards
... of dangerous free-thinking. The reading of books written in foreign languages, or even written in Hebrew, when treating of secular subjects, brought upon the culprit untold hardships. The scholastic education resulted in producing men entirely unfit for the battle of life, so that in many families energetic women took charge of the business and became the wage earners, [2] while their husbands were losing themselves in the mazes of speculation, somewhere ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... class. One of the oldest members, who was present on the occasion of her first meeting them, says, "I well recollect, with what profound humility, and with what fear and trembling, she undertook the office of class-leader. While she was confessing to us, that she felt utterly unworthy, and unfit for such a responsibility, my heart rejoiced, that we were privileged with the appointment of one, possessed of so many excellencies. She said, if the Lord had anything for her to do, she durst not refuse; that He had often employed very weak instruments to carry on His work; and added, "Oh! ...
— Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth
... now made its appearance in the army and, spreading rapidly through infection, caused great loss of life and brought the misery to a climax. The great number of the sick, crowded together in unfit quarters; the stench of the innumerable unburied and putrefying cadavers of men and animals in the streets of Moscow, among them the corpses of several thousand Russians who had been taken prisoners and then massacred, not to speak of ...
— Napoleon's Campaign in Russia Anno 1812 • Achilles Rose
... the mediaeval metaphysician would have said. From the standpoint of clear thinking, and also of social well-being, the confusion of them is, in theological language, damnable. In so far as Beauty is a personal lust it is unfit for wholesome social ends. Only in so far as it is lifted above personal desire is it fitted to become a ...
— Impressions And Comments • Havelock Ellis
... When Cromwell came. So from each cot They bore away what pleased them best, And to the flames consigned the rest. But now Dunbar is reached; yet he Finds himself in extremity; Midst swamps and bogs unfit to tent, By Lammermoor from hillside rent, Leslie in front defiant stands A noble army he commands Of thousands two score seven, or more, Ready on Cromwell shot to pour. Behind the sea cut off retreat; With such great odds can he compete? The mountain sheep may safely ...
— Gleams of Sunshine - Optimistic Poems • Joseph Horatio Chant
... ship unrigged, and all her stores, guns, &c., taken out, in readiness for her being laid up in ordinary, or going into dock, &c. &c. To dismantle a gun is to render it unfit for service. The ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... their independence and established the Republic of Holland. It has been the result of many years of silent, thoughtful, unobtrusive labor, and unless we are strangely mistaken, unless we are ourselves altogether unfit for this office of criticising which we have here undertaken, the book is one which will take its place among the finest histories in this or in any language. . . . All the essentials of a great writer Mr. Motley eminently ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... a factor, who sat for the picture I have drawn of one in my tale of "Twa Dogs." My father was advanced in life when he married; I was the eldest of seven children, and he, worn out by early hardships, was unfit for labour. My father's spirit was soon irritated, but not easily broken. There was a freedom in his lease in two years more, and to weather these two years, we retrenched our expenses. We lived very poorly; I was a dexterous ploughman for my age; and the next eldest ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various
... befell me yesterday; though I am sure you will, as usual, turn the opposite side of the spyglass on my poor narrative, and reduce, MORE TUO, to the most petty trivialities, the circumstance to which thou accusest me of giving undue consequence. Hang thee, Alan, thou art as unfit a confidant for a youthful gallant with some spice of imagination, as the old taciturn secretary of Facardin of Trebizond. Nevertheless, we must each perform our separate destinies. I am doomed to see, act, and tell; thou, like a Dutchman enclosed in the same diligence with ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... fortune here, as well as everywhere else, have nurses to suckle their children; and the total want of chastity in the lower class of women frequently renders them very unfit ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft
... charges made against him. But it does perhaps somewhat lessen his reputation for far-seeing statesmanship, since it shows how thoroughly base and worthless was the body for whose sake he sacrificed his loyalty to the new dynasty, how utterly unfit the Senate would have been to take its old place as ruler of Italy, if Byzantine Emperor and Ostrogothic King could have been blotted out of ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... hogs, &c., were collected and driven towards the settlements; and horses were prepared for Maud and the females, who were to thread the path that led to Fort Stanwix. In a word, the Knoll was to be abandoned, as a spot unfit to be occupied in such a war. None but labourers, indeed, could, or would remain, and Beekman thought it wisest to leave the spot entirely to nature, for the ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... so that, if he wished me to learn, he should rejoice at my misfortune. I went on (not very consistently) to beg him to set me up again, when I would solemnly promise to do a safe business in reliable railroads. Lastly (becoming somewhat carried away), I assured him I was totally unfit for business, and implored him to take me away from this abominable place, and let me go to Paris to study art. He answered briefly, gently, and sadly, telling me the vacation was near at hand, when ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to prepare a history or memoirs of the war, he replied: "In a former letter I informed you, my dear Humphreys, that if I had talent for it, I have not leisure to turn my thoughts to commentaries. A consciousness of a defective education and a certainty of a want of time unfit me for such an undertaking." He was misled by his own modesty as to his capacity, but his strong feeling as to his lack of schooling haunted and troubled him always, although it did not make him either indifferent or bitter. ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge
... be an absolute saint. I will not lower my ideal. I will comfort myself with that single word "called." If He has called me, He will do in me and for me what He wills.' This second way is the true way of dealing with feelings of unworthiness and unfitness. You and I are utterly unfit. But we are both called—called from our mother's womb—called to be saints and to be ministers. He who called us will help us. With man the call seems quixotic, impossible; with Him all things are possible. At times ...
— Letters to His Friends • Forbes Robinson
... land which reverted to the lord on this account was split up and leased at nominal rents, when leaseholders could be found, just as so much land was leased at reduced rents by landowners generally in the fourteenth century. Moreover, some of the land was unfit for cultivation at all and was converted to pasture under the direction of ...
— The Enclosures in England - An Economic Reconstruction • Harriett Bradley
... all clearly determined beforehand. "This twenty-five thousand dollars," he said, "will lift me and mine out of grinding poverty. If I give it up, my father and mother and sister will have none of it. Father has come home unfit for any further struggles; mother has aged during the last few days. She was nerved up to bear trouble, the shock of joy has taken her last strength. She can do little now. This money will make them happy and comfortable through their last days. If I give up this money, they may come to want. I ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... men would pay their own expenses to live in a place like Whitechapel, only to work on drain committees, as delinquent landlord mentors, or just to give special educational chances to promising minds, or physical training to unfit bodies. Yet one saw in their efforts undeniable messages of real love. Personally I could only occasionally run up there to meet friends in residence or attend an art exhibition, but they ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... function of language, determine the ideal which its structure should approach. Any sort of grammar and rhetoric, the most absurd and inapplicable as well as the most descriptive, can be spontaneous; fit organisms are not less natural than those that are unfit. Felicitous genius is so called because it meets experience half-way. A genius which flies in the opposite direction, though not less fertile internally, is externally inept and is called madness. ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... Vincent seemed to act very strangely; he was absent-minded, stupid, distracted—in fact altogether unfit for consultation ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... large number of boys of sixteen, fourteen, and thirteen; in short, the reprobate of great cities as we now see him, stunted, puny, and naturally insolent and insurgent.[3241] "One-third of them are found unfit for service" on reaching the frontier.[3242]—But, before reaching the frontier, they act like "pirates" on the road.—The others, with sounder bodies and better hearts, become, under the discipline of constant ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... him. He tried to, but I wouldn't. Besides, the major has said nasty things about him when Howard was present; nothing definite, only hints, smiling silences, innuendoes on the verge of matters rather unfit; and I had nothing definite to refute. I could not even appear to understand or notice—it was all done in such a horridly vague way. But it only made me like him; and no doubt that actress he took to the Patroons is better ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... "Houses unfit for human habitation, rooms destitute of light and ventilation, overcrowding in rural cottages, contaminated water supplies, accumulations of every description of filth and refuse, a total absence of drainage, a reign of unbelievable dirt in milk-shops and slaughter-houses, a total neglect of bye-laws, ...
— New Worlds For Old - A Plain Account of Modern Socialism • Herbert George Wells
... "but it was exactly the physical beauty of the picture that rendered it in my eyes unfit to represent one whose aspect should purify and purge the senses, instead of exciting them. Let all the pictures in the world be destroyed, if they be found to have caused the commission of one ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... swollen under-lip, with a crack in it which showed signs of festering. Now there was a base hospital at Figueira, to the surgeon in charge of which fell the duty of inspecting the men as they landed and detaining those who were sick or physically unfit. I need not say that his eye was arrested at once by my unfortunate ...
— The Adventures of Harry Revel • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... anything to say to him, beyond what was necessary in the store, having intuitively shunned him as an unfit associate. Now, however, he felt that any companion was better than solitude, for the unoccupied Sabbath hours; and although a sense of shame filled his breast, that he should ever have given the opportunity ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa
... be clearer{489}, as far as our reasoning powers can reach, than that teeth are for eating, extremities for locomotion, wings for flight, stamens and the entire flower for reproduction; yet for these clear ends the parts in question are manifestly unfit. Abortive organs are often said to be mere representatives (a metaphorical expression) of similar parts in other organic beings; but in some cases they are more than representatives, for they seem to be the actual organ not fully grown or developed; ...
— The Foundations of the Origin of Species - Two Essays written in 1842 and 1844 • Charles Darwin
... the Cariboo Road had an important influence on the camp that its builders could not foresee. The unknown El {108} Dorado is always invested with a fabulous glamour that draws to ruin the reckless and the unfit. Before the road was built adventurers had arrived in Cariboo expecting to pick up pails of nuggets at the bottom of a rainbow. Their disillusionment came; but there was an easy way back to the world. They did not stay to breed crime and lawlessness in the camp. 'The walking'—as ...
— The Cariboo Trail - A Chronicle of the Gold-fields of British Columbia • Agnes C. Laut
... of fish are best some time before they begin to spawn; and are unfit for food for some ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... principally owing to the different qualities of the water used in malting, some of which are so much better suited to the quality of the grain than others, that the difference is truly astonishing. Hard water is very unfit for every purpose of vegetation, and soft will vary its effects according to the predominating quality of its impregnations. Pure elementary water is in itself supposed to be only the vehicle of the nutriment ...
— The American Practical Brewer and Tanner • Joseph Coppinger
... people to arrange it as they choose." It was very easy for anyone to say that who had no daughters, but the princess realized that in the process of getting to know each other, her daughter might fall in love, and fall in love with someone who did not care to marry her or who was quite unfit to be her husband. And, however much it was instilled into the princess that in our times young people ought to arrange their lives for themselves, she was unable to believe it, just as she would have been unable to believe that, at any time whatever, the most suitable ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... called, is done by placing the rough stone in the end of a holder by means of a tough cement and then rotating holder and stone in a lathe-like machine. Another rough diamond (sometimes a piece of bort, unfit for cutting, and sometimes a piece of material of good quality which it is necessary to reduce in size or alter in shape) is cemented into another holder and held against the surface of the rotating diamond. The holder is steadied against a firm support. It now becomes a case of "diamond cut diamond," ...
— A Text-Book of Precious Stones for Jewelers and the Gem-Loving Public • Frank Bertram Wade
... demonstrating that, even with the worst odds against them, this race is entirely capable of achieving liberty and of self-government. He did more: by abolishing caste he proved the artificial nature of such distinctions, and further demonstrated that even slavery cannot unfit men for the full exercise of all the functions which belong to ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... inheritance (particularly after the war) and ashamed to work in communities where no gentleman had ever worked, they had set sail with a few hundreds to a land where a man, if he did not occupy himself lucratively, was unfit for the society ...
— Sleeping Fires • Gertrude Atherton |
