"Unsatisfactory" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Meredith's novels with insight is to find them full of the rarest qualities in fiction. If their author has a great capacity for unsatisfactory writing he has capacities not less great for writing that is satisfactory in the highest degree. He has the tragic instinct and endowment, and he has the comic as well; he is an ardent student of character and life; he has wit of the swiftest, ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... remarks it will be apparent that Mr. Barth's opinion regarding Sankara's date is very unsatisfactory. As Mr. Wilson seems to have examined the subject with some care and attention, we must now advert to his opinion and see how far it is based on proper evidence. In attempting to fix Amara Sinha's date (which ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... one of those unsatisfactory people whose soul and whose brain are not in accord. That doesn't make for inward calm or satisfaction. But I can only hope for ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... the lack of thoroughness will result in a slovenly job that you will be ashamed of, before it is done, and so disgusted with, on completion, that you will not feel like doing the work over again for fear another effort may be more unsatisfactory than the first one. Therefore do good work in every respect as you go along, and the work you do will be its ...
— Amateur Gardencraft - A Book for the Home-Maker and Garden Lover • Eben E. Rexford
... saw how the lion- hunters talked extravagantly of her, he took some satisfaction to himself that he had foreseen her triumph where others looked for her downfall. Lali herself was not elated; it gratified her, but she had been an angel, and a very unsatisfactory one, if it had not done so. As her confidence grew (though outwardly she had never appeared to lack it greatly), she did not hesitate to speak of herself as an Indian, her country as a good country, and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... duty, "climbing the fore cross- trees for a look-out," as he termed the scramble up the gorge; and, as regularly, three times every day, after his morning, midday, and afternoon observations, he would come back to Fritz with the same unsatisfactory tale—that no seals were ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... glad to retire with my friend, and ask seriously for some explanation of all this. It was in the highest degree unsatisfactory. He confirmed all that had been stated to me; assuring me that I had not only been assiduous in my endeavours to seduce a young lady of great beauty, which it seemed I had effected, but that I had taken counsel, ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... the Baliol dining room that evening which one might expect to find after an unsatisfactory time-trial. Nations might be falling, cities burning, important men dying; to these boys such events would be as nothing in the face of the fact that the crew of a traditional rival was to be met within the week—and that they ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... after a startled glance at the clock, either stammered, "O mother, I forgot!" or else rattled off an unsatisfactory excuse. ...
— Apples, Ripe and Rosy, Sir • Mary Catherine Crowley
... become a night-hawk, mainly through a growing fondness for gambling, and he had arrived at the point where daylight impressed him as an artificial and unsatisfactory method of illumination. Recently, too, he had been drinking more than was good for him, and he awoke finally to the unwelcome realization that he was badly in need of ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... thousand pounds from Stair, an old friend, for the purpose of ensuring Lady Mar's journey, has been censured, I think, with too great severity. But, although it be desirable to set to rights matters of fact, yet, it is always unsatisfactory to begin the defence of a bad cause. There is no evidence to show that Lord Mar ever received a pension: he was not thought worth conciliating; but that circumstance, in this case, and after a display of his willingness to receive ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... It was with this unsatisfactory guarantee that the settler unbarred his door. He could never be sure that the fringe of the woods was not alive with the enemy. And yet young men fell in love and amorously sought their mates, and were married, and their neighbors ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... case, too," said Andre. "Bonne Maman knows all my secrets; but we have not yet ventured to say anything to the father. My position is too unsatisfactory. Ah, when I shall ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... which this Society proposes to work is to collect expert opinion on matters wherein our present use is indeterminate or unsatisfactory, and thus to arrive at a general understanding and consensus of opinion which might be relied on to ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 3 (1920) - A Few Practical Suggestions • Society for Pure English
... describe what was in its own splendour of glory indescribable. How beautifully, without exciting any disappointment in a reader of taste, feeling, and judgment, does he, by a few artless words, render most impressive and sublime, what more elaborate description could only have made confused and unsatisfactory. Nothing can be more admirable than this brief and indistinct report of the perspective glass, it cannot offend the most fastidious taste, yet leaves scope for the exercise of the most ardent and ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... to write him a letter. I can't take a message, because he mustn't know I came to see you. It would spoil it all for him, I think. Write as if it were of your own accord. Don't explain in the letter. Letters are such hard, unsatisfactory things. The best one you could write wouldn't make up to him a bit for what he's suffered and what he must go on suffering, for you couldn't help studying your words, and they'd be stiff and disappointing, no matter how ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... salt-works, near Monument Station, and apply for accommodation, which is readily given. Here is erected a wind-mill, which pumps the water from the lake into shallow reservoirs, where it evaporates and leaves a layer of coarse salt on the bottom. These people drink water that is disagreeably brackish and unsatisfactory to one unaccustomed to it, but which they say has become more acceptable to them, from habitual use, than purely fresh water. This spot, is the healthiest and most favorable for the prolific production ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... straits to which Chips had latterly been reduced; for worked into it there were scraps of wood less than a foot in length, fastened to other pieces of similar size with nails or plugs, and presenting a most flimsy and unsatisfactory appearance. But when I came to look more closely I saw that the only unsatisfactory part of the work was its appearance; it was not nearly so flimsy as at first sight it had appeared to be. Chips had evidently fully realised his responsibility, and had taken care that, let the material ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... be difficulty in determining what or who is addressed by the imperative let, but there seems to be more in affirming that it has no subject. Nutting, puzzled with this word, makes the following dubious and unsatisfactory suggestion: "Perhaps it may be, in many cases, equivalent to may; or it may be termed itself an imperative mode impersonal; that is, containing a command or an entreaty addressed to no particular ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... year, and the most sought-after and popular for campaign speaking, was Governor Andrew, of Massachusetts. He had a series of appointments in New York State, but on account of some emergency cancelled them all. The national and State committees selected me to fill his appointments. The most unsatisfactory and disagreeable job in the world is to meet the appointments of a popular speaker. The expectations of the audience have been aroused to a degree by propaganda advertising the genius and accomplishments of the expected speaker. ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew
... made great strides. To build a good boat with the correct water-lines requires genius, and cannot be learned theoretically; for it is a matter of special skill on the part of the builder of each boat. Ill-constructed boats are sometimes put together but they are, of course, unsatisfactory and sail only moderately well. The Nordland boat-builders have long since discovered the high fore and aft, sharp-keeled boat, to be the most practical, with one mast and a broad, prettily cut square sail admirably suited ...
— The Visionary - Pictures From Nordland • Jonas Lie
... restored to health and the lovely, lazy life was ended. And Emmy, mindful of our last rather unsatisfactory conversation on horseback and perhaps also to offer an antidote for Heine, brought me a small New Testament as a parting gift, which I gratefully and reverently pressed to my heart ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... has an emotional recoil on the concepts good and bad. At the end a most surprising thing may happen. The moral values may get reversed in the boy's mind. Bad may come to represent the sum total of the satisfactory and desirable, while good may represent the sum total of the unsatisfactory and the undesirable. To the pained adult such a consequence is utterly inexplicable, only because he fails to realize that all mental products are developments. There is always a kind of reciprocity in emotional transfer. ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... low to the newcomer. The dim candle-light afforded him a most unsatisfactory glimpse of her features. He took in at a glance, however, her tall, trim figure, the burnished crown of hair, and the surprisingly modish frock she wore. He had seen no other like it since leaving the older, more advanced towns along the Ohio,—not even ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... exhaustion. It affects, for the most part, children who are intellectually alert, impressionable, and forward for their age, and who, when well, throw themselves into work or play with a great expenditure of nervous energy. Often their physical development is unsatisfactory, and we must set ourselves to correct this as the first step in prevention. It is highly important that children suffering in this way should have free opportunities for exercise in the open country, and that all the excretory organs—the skin, kidneys, and bowels—should ...
— The Nervous Child • Hector Charles Cameron
... gold-rimmed eyeglasses, in the ninth chapter. And so on. We would not imply that all this is lacking in distinction, but it seems to want that high distinction which Stevenson could give to his work. Ought one to look for it in a book confessedly unsatisfactory to its author, and a book which ...
— The Bibliotaph - and Other People • Leon H. Vincent
... "Firm friends and good neighbors, we Two, Majesties of Prussia and of All the Russias; will help each the other, if attacked, with 12,000 men,"—was signed on the 27th: whole Transaction, so important to Friedrich, complete in eight days. Austrian Botta, directly on the heel of those unsatisfactory Dialogues about Silesian roads, about troops that were pretty, but had never looked the wolf in the face,—had rushed off, full speed, for Petersburg, in hopes of running athwart such a Treaty as Winterfeld's, and getting one for Austria ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... TRIFLING OCCURRENCES, such as small disappointments, petty annoyances, and other every-day incidents, should never be mentioned to your friends. The extreme injudiciousness of repeating these will be at once apparent, when we reflect on the unsatisfactory discussions which they too frequently occasion, and on the load of advice which they are the cause of being tendered, and which is, too often, of a kind neither to be useful nor agreeable. Greater events, whether of joy or sorrow, should ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... and Abel Drugger. What a sight for sore eyes that would be! Who would not part with a year's income at least, almost with a year of his natural life, to be present at it? Besides, as he could not act alone, and recitations are unsatisfactory things, what a troop he must bring with him—the silver-tongued Barry, and Quin, and Shuter and Weston, and Mrs. Clive and Mrs. Pritchard, of whom I have heard my father speak as so great a favourite when he was young! This would indeed be a revival ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... were suffering from scarcity of food and raw materials and from high prices to a degree comparable with the distress inflicted by the German submarine campaign a century later. And although the terms of peace were unsatisfactory to many Americans, it was implied and understood that the flag and the nation had won a respect and recognition which should prevent a recurrence of such wrongs as had caused the War of 1812. One of the Peace Commissioners, Albert Gallatin, a man of large experience, unquestioned patriotism, ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... idea she could be so heartless. Then his thoughts turned to the nice girl at home. She, too, had elements in her character that were somewhat bewildering to an honest young man. Her letters for a long time had been infrequent and unsatisfactory. It couldn't be possible that she had heard anything. Still, there is nothing so easy as point-blank denial, and he would see to that when ...
— The Face And The Mask • Robert Barr
... own schoolmaster, evidently a type of his kind, who "knew of the human soul thus much, that it had a faculty called memory, and could be acted on through the muscular integument by appliance of birch rods." After four years of most unsatisfactory school life, Tennyson returned home, and was fitted for the university by his scholarly father. With his brothers he wrote many verses, and his first efforts appeared in a little volume called Poems by Two Brothers, in 1827. The next year he entered Trinity College, Cambridge, ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... himself. All this is the consequence of his being a man without intellectual needs. The great affliction of all philistines is that they have no interest in ideas, and that, to escape being bored, they are in constant need of realities. But realities are either unsatisfactory or dangerous; when they lose their interest, they become fatiguing. But the ideal world is ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer: The Wisdom of Life • Arthur Schopenhauer
... The unsatisfactory condition of the coast defences, whereby the navy lost the support of its complementary factor in the scheme of national sea power, imposed a vicious, though inevitable, change in the initial plan of campaign, which should have ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... humorists neither born nor made. Often enough they are wits, more frequently satirists. They can make, we are told, but they cannot take, a joke; at any rate, they are usually out of their element in the comic arena. Moreover, as butts for the caricaturist they are unsatisfactory, for in proportion as his efforts are successful, his sense of chivalry is outraged; and we have seen how Keene and others recoiled from the idea. Only on one occasion did Mr. Furniss make the attempt, and that indirectly ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... rumination, as applicable to all the animals in which it takes place, and the final purpose of this wonderfully-complicated function in the animal economy, are still imperfectly known; what has been already suggested on these points is quite unsatisfactory. Perrault and others supposed that it contributed to the security of those animals, which are at once voracious and timid, by showing the necessity of their remaining long employed in chewing in an open pasture; but the Indian ...
— Delineations of the Ox Tribe • George Vasey
... admirable mainly to the painter who envies and endeavors to imitate his wonderful power of technical expression—the thing that occupies most the conscious attention of the true painter. To others he must remain a little unsatisfactory, because he is not only not a dreamer, but because he does nothing with his material except to show it as it is—a great service surely, but largely excluding the exercise of that architectonic faculty, personally directed, which is the very life ...
— French Art - Classic and Contemporary Painting and Sculpture • W. C. Brownell
... career. You're a man after my own heart. I see quite unusual qualities in you that I would have found pleasure in cultivating. But I mustn't let my selfish regret interfere with what is for the good of the greatest number. At best it's an unsatisfactory world. You're well rid of it. Any last ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... signed by a firm of solicitors. It referred to the verbatim report, which it said would be found in the financial papers, of the annual meeting of the company held at the Cannon Street Hotel on the previous day, and to the exceedingly unsatisfactory nature of the Chairman's statement. It regretted the absence of Mrs. Alice Challice (her change of condition had not yet reached the heart of Cohoon's) from the meeting, and asked her whether she would be prepared to support the action of a committee which had been formed to eject ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... are experts who can get down to the facts and who ought to be able to propound some suggestions to ameliorate the present unsatisfactory state of affairs. They should, of course, be authorized, and indeed requested, to enlarge the departmental group and to take in representatives of ...
— Report of the Juvenile Delinquency Committee • Ronald Macmillan Algie
... tell her that this was as good as impossible—that she quite lacked the qualities necessary for that. Instead, he reassured her with the chivalrous fiction that he, at least, would like her as well as if she were a boy. And, indeed, as a girl, she was not wholly unsatisfactory. True, she played "school" (of all things!) in preference to "wild animals," practised scales on the piano an hour every day, wore a sun-hat frequently—spite of which she was freckled—wore shoes ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... "already sketched out some work for you to begin on. The legislature meets here in January. It is important to the State that our whole tax-system should be overhauled and reformed. The present system is a mere crazy-quilt, unsatisfactory in a thousand ways. I suggest that you begin with a careful study of the law, making yourself ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... carbohydrates, and proteids.[36] Milk alone is capable of sustaining life for comparatively long periods, and it is the chief article of food during many diseases. An exclusive milk diet for a healthy adult, however, would be unsatisfactory; in the case of young children, milk is essential, because the digestive tract has not become functionally developed for the digestion of ...
— Human Foods and Their Nutritive Value • Harry Snyder
... inspecter Gong I have seen no such person, oh thank you said Mr. Hose good morning, good morning Sir said the inspecter as he shut the door of the police office and Mr. Hose went down the steps and walked feeling very unsatisfactory. ...
— Daisy Ashford: Her Book • Daisy Ashford
... is their pronounced 'past finding out,' incomprehensible, and the like. 'Canst thou, by searching, find out God? Canst thou find out the Almighty to perfection?' are questions put by an 'inspired writer,' who felt the cloudy and unsatisfactory nature of all ...
— An Apology for Atheism - Addressed to Religious Investigators of Every Denomination - by One of Its Apostles • Charles Southwell
... was reorganized. Reason was soon found to be inadequate as the foundation of faith; and they passed on to an intuitional basis. That again seemed to be even more unsatisfactory than reason itself. After a few years, the movement gradually developed a doctrine of inspiration, when the utterances of the leaders themselves were regarded as inspired and became the voice of God to the members. Thus, within a few years, Brahmo Somaj moved almost in ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... effects, from which I had hoped for so much credit; for I was now ashamed and angry at having thought an instant upon the mode of receiving a visit which had commenced so agreeably, but terminated in a manner so unsatisfactory. I put my folios in their places—threw the foils into the dressing-closet—tormenting myself all the while with the fruitless doubt, whether I had missed an opportunity or escaped a stratagem, or whether the ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... fallen sick, and died at Ningpo, and another Mongol, named Atahai—written also Antahai—was sent to replace him. Now comes the sudden collapse of the whole expedition, recorded, unfortunately, in most laconic and unsatisfactory terms. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... From hence his party proceeded to a high and remarkable hill called BROOKS'S BLUFF: following the strait to the northward, they passed the remains of many Esquimaux habitations; and, though their short journey had been unsatisfactory on account of the badness of the weather, there was still sufficient to cause the most lively interest, and give strong hopes of the existence of some passage to the northeast of the small ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... generally read in French than in Latin, and better understood. The only apprehension I entertain is lest the title should deter some who have not been brought up to letters, or with whom philosophy is in bad repute, because the kind they were taught has proved unsatisfactory; and this makes me think that it will be useful to add a preface to it for the purpose of showing what the MATTER of the work is, what END I had in view in writing it, and what UTILITY may be derived from it. But although it might be my part to write a preface of this ...
— The Principles of Philosophy • Rene Descartes
... resurrection narratives are not only unsatisfactory, but they tend to blur the distinctive characteristics of each account. We shall therefore confine ourselves entirely to Matthew's version, and leave the others alone, with the simple remark that a condensed ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... so that even hundreds are drowned in them,—standing in water, and covered with mud and clay, they work night and day, dying of exposure and disease. Having read this, and partly forgotten it, I was thinking, accidentally, of my own unsatisfactory life, doing as others do; and with that vision of the diggings still before me, I asked myself, why I might not be washing some gold daily, though it were only the finest particles,—why I might not sink a shaft down to the gold within me, and work ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... significant becomes the simple mechanism of loading a rifle when one knows that it is at once the earnest of deadly battle and the preparation for it! The few details which we could gather from the deck hands concerning the fight were meagre and unsatisfactory. They told us of disaster that befell our army in the morning, and which it seemed very doubtful if the afternoon had yet seen remedied; and their testimony was borne out by evidences to which our own unwilling senses were the sufficient witnesses. The roar of battle sounded appallingly near, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... to find Miss Milbrey alone. His sister had just ventured alone with a candle into the library to study the face of her future husband in a mirror. The result had been, in a sense, unsatisfactory. She had beheld looking over her shoulder the faces of Mauburn, Fred Milbrey, and the Angstead twins, and had declared herself ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... originally formed with as much regularity as the nature of the materials would allow, both in order to render it more durable, and to make it serve the purposes of defence." This, I am afraid, is still very unsatisfactory. A fire lighted along the entire line of a wall inclosing nearly an acre of area could not be other than a very attenuated, wire-drawn line of fire indeed, and could never possess strength enough to melt the ponderous mass of rampart beneath, as if it had ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... She had been quite passive on each occasion, watching him ironically with a sort of dry amusement. She had given him no sign that she cared for him, and their conversation had always been bare and unsatisfactory. Once she had said to him ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... Betz make use of it; how noble and beautiful his voice sounded in all its ranges; of what even strength it was, and how infallibly fresh! And let no one believe that Nature gave it to him thus. As a beginner in Berlin he was quite unsatisfactory. He had the alternative given him either to study with great industry or to seek another engagement, for his successor had already been selected. Betz chose to devote himself zealously to study; he began also to play ...
— How to Sing - [Meine Gesangskunst] • Lilli Lehmann
... we never knew. The only possible solution was, that it might have been some somnambulist; and, in that case, it must have been some acquaintance who bad been in the house in his waking moments. But even this solution seemed unsatisfactory, and finally Kate and I gave up trying to solve the enigma, content to let it rest as the mystery of ...
— The Old Stone House • Anne March
... should keep him from her long, but he had no desire to interfere in any way with the duty which she owed to others. When the school was over and her work completed, then he would have his innings. Writing letters was too unsatisfactory a method of communication—he must see ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt
... "Unsatisfactory results," she said. "They could not adjust psychologically to changed conditions. They usually became unbalanced. Some suicides and a number of cases of extreme schizophrenia resulted. It was decided that it was no kindness to the older space-struck ...
— The Stars, My Brothers • Edmond Hamilton
... a name," he replied; and after this rather unsatisfactory interview I left him and slowly went on to ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... similarly with India, be held by the dominant white race with the sword. It is not for us to trace here what troubles may be in store for the white races in the far future. The situation in the present and near future appears unsatisfactory enough. The untutored mind of the Ethiopian does not appreciate the finer ethics of social intercourse and the equality of mankind. Freedom to his reasoning means independence; to possess independence, to the semi-savage, is a proof of power. The inherent vanity of the aboriginal then finds ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... nothing more unsatisfactory to the philanthropist than our meagre and inadequate system of education,—a system which aims to cram the memory with acquired knowledge, which does not develop original thought, and which does not elevate the moral nature. Such a system will never elevate society, will never repress any vice or ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, August 1887 - Volume 1, Number 7 • Various
... before, in the old days when Gibbon was a boarder in Pavillard's house, and the embers of old associations only wanted stirring to make them shoot up into flame. In a moment of expansion Gibbon wrote off a warm and eager letter to his friend, setting forth his unsatisfactory position, and his wish and even necessity to change it. He gradually and with much delicacy discloses his plan, that he and Deyverdun, both now old bachelors, should combine their solitary lives in a common household and carry out an old project, often discussed in younger days, ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison
... been most serious, and our military organization far from complete. War, as a science, was assuming new forms; steam was giving to navigation an independence of wind and tide, which might lead to invasion unawares. The state of our defences was considered most unsatisfactory. France was our ally, but the Emperor Napoleon III. only ruled by popular suffrage, and the memories of Waterloo still affected the sentiments of his people towards England. The facility with which England might be invaded was a subject of discussion in parliament in the ...
— A History of Horncastle - from the earliest period to the present time • James Conway Walter
... that at that time some of the patients were still chained, and that the funds of Bethlem had been to no slight extent appropriated to personal uses; its exemption from the official visitation of asylums required by the Act of Parliament passed in 1845 (8 and 9 Vict., c. 100);[93] the unsatisfactory condition of the institution as revealed by the investigations made in 1851 (June 28 to December 4); the placing of the hospital in 1853 in the same position as regards inspection as other institutions for the insane (16 and 17 Vict., c. 96); the sweeping away of the ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... oracle, the stars, and other signs announced some terrible catastrophe for the coming year with a certainty that he could not evade; and the few careless days that he had been permitted to enjoy at Lochias had ended with unsatisfactory occurrences. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... little dissociated. It should, then, be formed in the undissociated condition as soon as even a slight excess of OH^{-} ions is present in the solution, and there should be a prompt change from red to yellow as outlined above. On the other hand, it should be an unsatisfactory indicator for use with weak acids (acetic acid, for example) because the salts which it forms with such acids are, like all salts of that type, hydrolyzed to a considerable extent. This hydrolytic change is illustrated by ...
— An Introductory Course of Quantitative Chemical Analysis - With Explanatory Notes • Henry P. Talbot
... the door again, again gave it up, and sat down on the fish nets to think. Thinking was unsatisfactory and provoking. He gave that up, also, and, seeing a knothole in one of the boards in the landward side of his jail, knelt and applied his eye to the aperture. His only hope of freedom, apparently, lay in the arrival home of the lightkeeper. If Seth had arrived he could ...
— The Woman-Haters • Joseph C. Lincoln
... may have been detained by the storm, but I would rather they had been here," observed the captain. "The state of the whole country is unsatisfactory, for the natives are often hostile, and it is dangerous for a small party to move far from the settlement, although it was understood that the Indians in this neighbourhood were friendly. However, we will not anticipate evil, but hope ...
— The Settlers - A Tale of Virginia • William H. G. Kingston
... vanquish our enemies, and abolish death: and equally so that he should be coequal with God in order to procure salvation for the lost world by the merit of his atonement; otherwise his obedience must have been imperfect, his sufferings unsatisfactory, and his mediatorial character, by which he was allied to ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... leave the column and move off seven or eight thousand yards as targets for range measuring fire control and battery practice for the others, and at night certain ships do the same thing for night battery practice. I am sorry to say that this practice is unsatisfactory, and in some points misleading, owing to the fact that the ships are painted white. At Portland, in 1903, I saw Admiral Barker's white battleships under the searchlights of the army at a distance of 14,000 yards, seven sea miles, without glasses, while ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... ground, and a crop of white clover for which no seeds were sown is the consequence, the explanation that the seeds have been dormant there for an unknown time, and were stimulated into germination when the lime produced the appropriate circumstances, appears extremely unsatisfactory, especially when we know that (as in an authentic case under my notice) the spot is many miles from where clover is cultivated, and that there is nothing for six feet below but pure peat moss, clover seeds being, moreover, known to be too heavy to be transported, as many other seeds ...
— Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation • Robert Chambers
... nature—the cool, reflective, investigating faculty—had been gradually ripening, and the questions which it now began to present seriously disturbed the complacency of my theories. I saw that I had accepted many things on very unsatisfactory evidence; but, on the other hand, there was much for which I could find no other explanation. Let me be frank, and say, that I do not now pretend to explain all the phenomena of Spiritualism. This, however, I determined to do,—to ascertain, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... pattern, has proved to be seductive and alluring in prospect, but in retrospect unsatisfactory and frustrating. Civilization has proved to be not an opportunity for the ambitious, but a trap for the ignorant, inexperienced and unwary. For the many contestants who set out to conquer the world the experience has been disappointing ...
— Civilization and Beyond - Learning From History • Scott Nearing
... of the catastrophe was at first disbelieved, because of the unsatisfactory way in which it reached the city. A stranger, it is said, disembarked at Peiraeus, went into a barber's shop, and began to converse about what had happened as upon a theme which must be uppermost ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... unsatisfactory answer to my first question. "I thought you would have seen that we couldn't clear out too soon after restoring poor Shylock, like our brethren in the song, 'to his friends ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... what you find to like in it, Joe," she said softly, the note of insistence in her words betraying recent and unsatisfactory discussion. ...
— The Game • Jack London
... truth. Chief Inspector Heat had been all the way home, and had even gone so far as to think of getting into his slippers, since practically he was, he told himself, chucked out of that case. He indulged in some scornful and in a few angry thoughts, and found the occupation so unsatisfactory that he resolved to seek relief out of doors. Nothing prevented him paying a friendly call to Mr Verloc, casually as it were. It was in the character of a private citizen that walking out privately he made use of his customary conveyances. Their general direction was towards ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... her character. And though she was slow to believe ill-natured stories, and made, in general, a horrid jumble when she essayed to relate news, except of the most elementary sort; and used to forget genealogies, and to confuse lawsuits and other family feuds, and would have made a most unsatisfactory witness upon any topic on earth, yet she was a ready sympathiser, and a restless but purblind matchmaker—always suggesting or suspecting little romances, and always amazed when the eclaircissement came off. Excellent for condoling—better still for rejoicing—she ...
— The House by the Church-Yard • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... had no help for it. 'My chaplain, Dr Gwynne,' said he; 'my present chaplain, Mr Slope.' he certainly made the introduction as unsatisfactory to the chaplain as possible, and by the use of the word present, seemed to indicate that Mr Slope might probably not long enjoy the honour which he now held. But Mr Slope cared nothing for this. He understood the innuendo, and disregarded ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... of art perhaps the very best—is "The Bravo." But the character of Jacopo Frontoni is a sort of moral impossibility, and the clearing up of the mystery which hangs over his life and conduct, which is skilfully reserved to the last moment, is consequently unsatisfactory. He is represented as a young man of the finest qualities and powers, who, in the hope of rescuing a father who had been falsely imprisoned by the Senate, consents to assume the character, and bear the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... conventional, which is thus vague and unsatisfactory, we seek to find certain natural limits which we may regard as the proper boundaries of the country, in two directions we seem to perceive an almost unmistakable line of demarcation. On the east the high mountain-chain of Zagros. penetrable only in one or two ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... Cecilia," I say, "one can recommend an unsatisfactory gardener to a friend, but one can't so dispose ...
— The Professional Aunt • Mary C.E. Wemyss
... the ballot, they saw themselves written out of the Constitution by the words, "male inhabitants" and "male citizens," used to define legal voters. It was baffling to be kept from their goal by a single word in a provision which at best was the unsatisfactory compromise arrived at by radical and conservative Republicans and which sincere abolitionists felt was unfair to the Negro. That it was unfair to women, there was ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... which was currently attached to them. The one way of meeting such doubts was to compare the traditions of the older churches. This could be done by a provincial synod or a general council. But of these tribunals the former was unsatisfactory, as its decisions were of merely local validity and might be overruled by the voice of the universal Church. The general council was hard to convene, particularly after a rift had opened between the Eastern and the Western Churches. It was easier to ...
— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis
... politics in a shaky condition; everything is unsatisfactory and foreboding change. For I have no doubt you have been told that our friends, the equites, are all but alienated from the senate. Their first grievance was the promulgation of a bill on the authority of the senate for the trial of such as had taken bribes for giving a verdict. I ...
— The Letters of Cicero, Volume 1 - The Whole Extant Correspodence in Chronological Order • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... behind it became more riotous than ever. Violent quarrels, frequently ending in bloodshed, were of constant occurrence. The more peaceable frequenters of the bar began to talk seriously of lynching the two strangers who were the principal promoters of disorder. Things were in this unsatisfactory condition when our evangelist, Elias B. Hopkins, came limping into the camp, travel-stained and footsore, with his spade strapped across his back, and his Bible in the ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... this with honour to our Government and benefit to the people. To confiscate would be dishonest and dishonourable. To annex would be to give the people a government almost as bad as their own, if we put our screw upon them. My position here has been and is disagreeable and unsatisfactory: we have a fool of a king, a knave of a minister, and both are under the influence of one of the cleverest, most intriguing, and most ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... remained in London. When the term for which they had engaged the furnished house was expired he took lodgings in Grafton Street; and there he stayed, his frame of mind restless and unsatisfactory. Lady Hartledon wrote to him sometimes, and he answered her. She said not a word about the discovery she had made in regard to the alleged action-at-law; but she never failed in every letter to ask what he was doing, and when he was coming home—meaning to Hartledon. He put her off in the ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... was that, when completed, his House was lacking in Symmetry and Utility, and in a Hundred ways it was Unsatisfactory, and for each Defect there was a Neighbor who said, "Had you asked Me, I would have Warned ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume II. (of X.) • Various
... at the tight, cheap realism of the head; the accents violent without being impressive, the choice of relief common. The chest is the best part of the thing, and that strikes me as being traditional rather than felt. The view of the figure in profile is less unsatisfactory than the view from in front: but look at ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell
... nothing remarkable there. It was the kind of figure presented by unsatisfactory candidates for the men's club. And yet there was about him this ...
— None Other Gods • Robert Hugh Benson
... them. In time he wrote them all down and made a book of them, which it is said was printed by John Worthington & Son in the Strand, London, in 1712, under the name of "Ye Melodious Rhymes of Mother Goose." But even this story of Martha Gooch is based upon very meager and unsatisfactory evidence. ...
— Mother Goose in Prose • L. Frank Baum
... yesterday wrote you a very unsatisfactory letter. To day I have not much to add, but it may be some satisfaction to you that I have seen Gilpin, and thanked him in all your names for the assistance he tried to give: and that he has assured me that your Brother ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... images of you, but they do not become incarnate, and I am not sure that I should recognize you in the brief moment of passing. Your nature is not of those which are instantly legible. As an abstract power, it has wrought in my life and it continually moves my heart with desires which are unsatisfactory because so vague and ignorant. Let me offer you personally, my gratitude, my earnest friendship, you would laugh if I were ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... conversation to be so unsatisfactory that she occupied herself before dinner in writing a letter to her nephew, in which she treated him to some very plain-speaking, and pointed out that unless he made haste to atone for past shortcomings, his chance of winning the heiress of Bourhill ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan
... "I would not exchange the experience of the past decade for all the former years of worldly dissipation and pleasure put together. They have all been unsatisfactory. This is quite the opposite, and, better still, it is the enjoyment of indescribable peace and delight. You are not going to be much longer in this world. Mrs. R——, I beg of you to seek the Lord whilst he may still be found. It is not too late, but soon, yes, very ...
— Fifteen Years With The Outcast • Mrs. Florence (Mother) Roberts
... which I bade her remember ancient days, which I tied up with a single hair from the lock which I had purchased from her woman, and in which I told her that Sylvander remembered his oath, and could never forget his Calista. The answer I received from her was exceedingly unsatisfactory and inexplicit; that from Mr. Runt explicit enough, but not at all pleasant in its contents. My Lord George Poynings, the Marquess of Tiptoff's younger son, was paying very marked addresses to the widow; being a kinsman of the family, and having been called to Ireland relative to the will ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... repeated. At last he declared he would visit the strangers on the morrow, and directed them to occupy the buildings in the public square, and none other until he came to make arrangements. His demeanor was cold and forbidding to the last degree. The results of the embassy were highly unsatisfactory. One incident connected with the interview ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... more than a paraphrase, as may easily be seen by comparing it with the literal translation into Latin. But even as a paraphrase it is unsatisfactory. By way of general criticism it may be said that, while it attains a kind of dignity, it is not the dignity of Beowulf, for it is self-conscious. Like Beowulf it is elaborate, but it is the elaboration of art rather than of feeling. ...
— The Translations of Beowulf - A Critical Biography • Chauncey Brewster Tinker
... October I wrote to Brian, telling him of your silence, and asking if he could find out if you were well. He answered with one of his short, unsatisfactory scrawls that he had reason to know you were quite well. After this I felt really offended; for I thought you must have deceived me all along, and that you had never cared a straw about me; so I coiled ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... My unsatisfactory answers seemed to displease Sir Edward Grey, for with true British discourtesy he abruptly began working at something on his desk and without even saying good day, let a commissaire ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... to be expected, with the Roman horseshoe, that the mode of fastening became unsatisfactory and necessitated a remedy or change. An attempt of this kind has been preserved in the so-called "Asiatischen Koppeneisensole" (Asiatic cap-iron-sole) (Fig. 3), which the Hon. Mr. Lydtin at Karlsruhe had made according to a model of the Circassian Horse Tribe Shaloks, ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 819 - Volume XXXII, Number 819. Issue Date September 12, 1891 • Various
... brief outline of his son's meeting with the Englishman, backed the attack of his pleasant-faced vrouw by putting a number of questions as to the political state of Europe then existing, and the chances of the British Government seriously taking into consideration the unsatisfactory condition of the Cape frontier and its ...
— The Settler and the Savage • R.M. Ballantyne
... alive, but unconscious," was the unsatisfactory reply. "The police ordered him taken to a hospital and his people summoned. It is said that Mrs. Cameron is very ...
— Boy Scouts in Mexico; or On Guard with Uncle Sam • G. Harvey Ralphson
... this unsatisfactory note, not worn next to my heart, not covered with kisses, but thrust crumpled into my desk like a creditor's unwelcome bill, I flung myself on my horse and rode to Derval Court. I am naturally proud; my pride ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and daily press, and so forth, stating precisely the net result of his contrivances, and demanding financial aid. That alone would have sufficed for the suppression of his letters. He spent such holidays as he could arrange in unsatisfactory interviews with the door-keepers of leading London papers—he was singularly not adapted for inspiring hall-porters with confidence—and he positively attempted to induce the War Office to take up his work with him. There remains a confidential letter from ...
— Twelve Stories and a Dream • H. G. Wells
... to parade his contempt of a lucrative dependency—than he had felt for the countess. No wonder his diction was poor. It was a sample of limp thinness; a sort of tongue of a Master Slender:—flavourless, unsatisfactory, considering its object: measured to be condemned by its poor achievement. He had nevertheless a heart to feel for the dear lady, and heat the pleading for her, especially when it ran to its object, as along a shaft of the sun-rays, from the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... delightful prospect, and perhaps may suit me well; but I have sad trouble with a drunken house owner, who kept me twenty-three days out later than his contract,... and has given me roof and pipes either out of repair or insufficient, rat holes very troublesome,... cisterns and taps all in unsatisfactory state. Last night, for the third time in ten days, I have been inundated through two floors." But he adds more hopefully than the case seems to warrant," If I can get these matters right my house is very ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... body. I understand also that later on, within the gloomy solitudes of the snow-laden woods, when, in a sheltering hollow, a fire had been lit by the party, the condition of the quarry was discovered to be distinctly unsatisfactory. It was not thin—on the contrary, it seemed unhealthily obese; its skin showed bare patches of an unpleasant character. However, they had not killed that dog for the sake of the pelt. He was large. . . . He was eaten. . . . The rest is silence. . ...
— A Personal Record • Joseph Conrad
... with the cares and worries of an unsatisfactory business day, and a wife harrassed and fretted by overwork and petty annoyances, could succeed in talking pleasantly together only by the use of will-power and principle. It would require a big effort, but the effort would pay. It would be one of ...
— How to Cook Husbands • Elizabeth Strong Worthington
... diligent meditation, remain mere abracadabra, incomprehensible and worthless. For much of this in Emerson, the influence of Plato is mainly responsible, and it may be noted in passing that his account of Plato (Representative Men) is one of his most unsatisfactory performances. 'The title of Platonist,' says Mill, 'belongs by far better right to those who have been nourished in, and have endeavoured to practise Plato's mode of investigation, than to those who are distinguished ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 1, Essay 5, Emerson • John Morley
... for the falling-off in interest among countless former photoplay "fans." They have gone into the theatres expecting to see a "big star" in a "big story"—and have come out after having seen only the "big star." Just who is responsible for this very unsatisfactory state of affairs it is sometimes hard to say. Occasionally the story, if written by an "outside" writer, is lacking in plot-material in the first place, and, having been purchased on account of its having, none the less, several good situations, is allowed to go into production ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... witnessed two epochs, and that in advanced life he looks on a different world from one which he can remember. To elucidate this fact has been my present object, and in attempting this task I cannot but feel how trifling and unsatisfactory my remarks must seem to many who have a more enlarged and minute acquaintance with Scottish life and manners than I have. But I shall be encouraged to hope for a favourable, or at least an indulgent, sentence upon these Reminiscences, if to any of ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... of other countries. During the past year the attention of Congress was drawn to the formal invitations in this regard tendered by the Governments of England, Holland, Belgium, Germany, and Austria. The Executive has in some instances appointed honorary commissioners. This is, however, a most unsatisfactory expedient, for without some provision to meet the necessary working expenses of a commission it can effect little or nothing in behalf of exhibitors. An International Inventions Exhibition is to be held in London next May. This will cover ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 8: Chester A. Arthur • James D. Richardson
... son, the peasants became extremely cautious. He questioned them, but could obtain only vague and unsatisfactory answers. A peasant, when interrogated, will never give a response which he thinks will be displeasing to his questioner; he is afraid of ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... addition to puru@sa and this was the twenty-sixth principle. This agrees with the orthodox Yoga system and the form of Sa@mkhya advocated in the Mahabharata. The schools of Sa@mkhya of twenty-four and twenty-five categories are here denounced as unsatisfactory. Doctrines similar to the school of Sa@mkhya we have sketched above are referred to ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... the grantee of 2000, 1500, or 1000 acres? Richardson variously describes the term as almost any kind of dwelling, or "an enclosure of walls to keep cattle from being stolen at night;" in fact, a court-yard. This, however, conveys a very unsatisfactory idea, unless I am justified in supposing that a court-yard was insisted upon, even when a house could not be built, as insuring a future residential settlement, and thereby warding off the evils ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 27. Saturday, May 4, 1850 • Various
... it was written some years ago. His mother spent Saturday here. She is very bright and cheerful and full of sly humor; he did everything to amuse her and she enjoyed her visit amazingly. I long to see you. Letters are more and more unsatisfactory, delusive things. M. is going to have a "party" this afternoon, and is going to one this forenoon. The others are bright and busy ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... as a center, through distances increasing as the square of the time, the moon, having the tangential velocity that it has, could never get nearer to the earth than the circle in which it revolves around it. This is all very true, and very unsatisfactory. We know that this long tangential line has nothing to do with the motion of the moon, and while we are compelled to assent to the demonstration, we want something better. To my mind the better and more satisfactory explanation is found in the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XXI., No. 531, March 6, 1886 • Various
... regards the definition of capital arises from the difference in the point of view of the individual and of the community, suggests the use of two terms, "revenue capital" and "production capital." But these terms are doubly unsatisfactory. In the first place, the "productive consumption" economist might fairly claim that as his food, etc., enabled the workman to obtain his wages or revenue, they belonged to revenue capital. On the other hand, regarding it as essential ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... I must refer to the collections, however meagre and unsatisfactory they are; a condition for which I have already apologized. Nowhere did I find a trace of iron nor of copper, although they used the latter for ornaments (bracelets, etc.), and there can be no doubt that they ...
— Historical Introduction to Studies Among the Sedentary Indians of New Mexico; Report on the Ruins of the Pueblo of Pecos • Adolphus Bandelier
... it had been the termination of my professional life. My idea was to go forward in the career I had chosen. The junior work, if it had not lost its emoluments, no longer possessed the pleasurable excitement of the old days. It was never my ambition merely to "mark time;" that is unsatisfactory exertion, ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... occupation. I had studied medicine and law without being able to decide on either of the two professions; I had worked for a banker for six months and my services were so unsatisfactory that I was obliged to resign to avoid being discharged. My studies had been varied but superficial; my memory was active but ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset
... was the question on every lip, to which, as yet, there was no answer. The officers who hurried to and fro were mute, or gave short and unsatisfactory replies to the inquiries which poured in upon them. People did not pause to reflect that even an officer could hardly be expected to know off-hand what the cause of the sudden stoppage of the engine might be. ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr
... you, Captain Lawry, when you are ready," said Mr. Sherwood, after the question had been disposed of in this unsatisfactory manner. ...
— Haste and Waste • Oliver Optic
... keep trespassers at a distance. Betty darted before him and nimbly dropped on her knees, the twins stood on either side of the window-sill, while poor Pam grumbled and fretted in the background, dodging here and there to try all positions in turn, and finding each as unsatisfactory ...
— Betty Trevor • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey |
