"Inexperience" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... face the physiognomist might dwell longer,—but that rather because youth, hope, and inexperience had refused to make any of the life-marks that tell stories in faces. There was abundant room ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... diligence, came the feeling of uneasiness as to his situation. He was alone, on foot, lost in a forest, without any means of finding his right road again, and with a considerable sum of money about him, for which he was responsible. His anxiety was increased by his inexperience. The idea of a forest was connected in his mind with so many adventures of robbery and murder, that he expected ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... foot for the first time, and stood almost erect on the grass. Oh, how the little doll screamed and chuckled as she tumbled over and rolled about; ever and anon stretching out her little hand, and asking, as it were, my assistance in aiding her inexperience and weakness. However, "Tentando fimus fabri," by effort, frequently repeated, success is at last secured; and Phebe at last flew off from me like an arrow, and, like an arrow, too, alighted head foremost on the soft sward. Phebe won all hearts when she ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... some change for the better showed itself in a few hours, she must succumb. Probably she was only relieving the tension of her own feelings by looking facts fiercely in the face. It is a common attitude of inexperience, under like circumstances. Dr. Nash certainly had said to her that "the strength was well maintained." But do we not all of us accept that phrase as an ill-omen—a vulture in the desert? No—no! Look the facts in the face! ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... dalliance with the blushing stream, Transcribes each tree, branch, leaf, and rock and flower, Perfect in shape and colour, clear, distinct, With all the panoramic change of sky— Even as Youth's bright river, toying with The fairy craft where Inexperience dreams, And subtle Fancy builds its airy halls, In blest imagination pictures most Of bright or lovely that adorn life's banks, With the blue vault of heaven over all; On that serene and wizard afternoon, As hunters chase the wild ...
— Hesperus - and Other Poems and Lyrics • Charles Sangster
... various expressions of the various forms which that extraordinary judgment-court afforded, no wonder that Clarence forgot, with the artist himself, the disadvantages Warner had to encounter in the inexperience of an unregulated taste ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Philosophia, 1510; cf. Sigwart, Kleine Schriften, vol. i. p. 1 seq.) made the mixture still worse by the addition of the magic art. The impulse of the modern spirit to subdue nature is here already apparent, only that it shows inexperience in the selection of its instruments; before long, however, nature will willingly unveil to observation and calm reflection the secrets which she does not yield to the ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... me in the choice of my young friends. While I can honestly say that I was never in a position to stand aloof out of envy from any one who was specially gifted, I can only explain my indifference in the choice of my associates by the fact that through inexperience regarding the sort of companionship that would be of advantage to me, I cared only to have some one who would accompany me in my excursions, and to whom I could pour out my feelings to my heart's ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner
... property of his own, some fifteen hundred dollars a year, I believe, Lynde at first thought to go abroad. It was always his dream to go abroad. But I persuaded him out of that, seeing how perilous it would be for a young fellow of his inexperience and impressible disposition to go rambling alone over the Continent. Paris was his idea. Paris would not make a mouthful of him. I have talked him out of that, I repeat, and have succeeded in convincing him that the wisest course for him to pursue ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... Hampton and his guests. Trevors had misnamed him a fool, sweepingly mistaking youth, business inexperience and a careless way, for lack of brains. Just a breezy young fellow, likable, gay-hearted, keen for the joy of life, scarcely more than a boy after all. One of those rare beings whose attitude toward his fellow mortals ...
— Judith of Blue Lake Ranch • Jackson Gregory
... to the efficiency of that Department, in order to take a more tangible part in the war. After raising among his friends and the cowboys of the West a regiment of "Rough Riders," he declined its command on plea of military inexperience. Roosevelt made one of those happy choices which are a mark of his administrative ability in selecting as colonel Leonard Wood, an army surgeon whose quality he knew through common ...
— The Path of Empire - A Chronicle of the United States as a World Power, Volume - 46 in The Chronicles of America Series • Carl Russell Fish
... and very much the sport of slight and trivial occasions. A very small matter suffices to upset him, though, to be sure, he is apt enough to be set right again. All this, no doubt, is partly owing to his youth and inexperience; but in truth his character is mainly that of a brave and clever upstart, somewhat intoxicated with sudden success, and not a little puffed with vanity of the Prince's favour. Notwithstanding John's ingrained, ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... sums in blockade running during the American Revolutionary War. It was not without good reason, therefore, that the more cautious Scot addressed to him so many pathetic letters: "I beg of you to attend to these money matters. I cannot rest in my bed until they have some determinate form." Watt's inexperience in money matters caused apprehensions of ruin to arise whenever financial measures were discussed. He was at this time utterly wretched, and Mrs. Watt at last became anxious, long and bravely as she had hitherto borne up and striven to dispel her husband's fears. Never before had ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie
... business. Two years ago our women's fingers were busy making "Havelocks." It seemed to us then as if the Havelock made half the soldier; and now we smile to think of those days of inexperience and illusion. We know now what War means, and we cannot look its dull, dead ghastliness in the face unless we feel that there is some great and noble principle behind it. It makes little difference what we thought we were fighting for at first; we know what we are fighting for ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... advance yet," said the other general emphatically. "McClellan is right in making elaborate preparations and long drills before moving upon the enemy. It was inexperience, and not want of courage, that beat us at ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler
... hotels, so let myself be guided by a fellow-traveller. We went to the Hotel du Louvre, then so new that it smelt of plaster and paint. In those days, big, splendid hotels were almost unknown in Europe. The vast dining-hall, with its palatial decoration, impressed my inexperience very strongly. During my stay in the Hotel du Louvre, I made the acquaintance of some English officers. One was a splendid-looking man of about twenty-eight, physically the finest Englishman I was ever personally acquainted with, and another was a much older and ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... but who has since 1898 been giving quite a spectacular demonstration of waving a red light after the wreck, having become his most enthusiastic, almost hysterical, biographer: "Rizal is what is commonly called a character, but he has repeatedly demonstrated very great inexperience in the affairs of life. I believe him to be now about thirty-two years old. He is the Indian of most ability among those ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... the leviathan, died out of the minds of the whalemen as a body. There are those this day among them, who, though intelligent and courageous enough in offering battle to the Greenland or Right whale, would perhaps—either from professional inexperience, or incompetency, or timidity, decline a contest with the Sperm Whale; at any rate, there are plenty of whalemen, especially among those whaling nations not sailing under the American flag, who have never hostilely encountered ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... every assistance in the terrible scene when the two women had sworn to be like sisters. So she had brought from the depths of the Vosges a humble relation on her mother's side, a very pious and honest soul, who had been cook to the Bishop of Nancy. Fearing, however, her inexperience of Paris ways, and yet more the evil counsel which wrecks such fragile virtue, at first Lisbeth always went to market with Mathurine, and tried to teach her what to buy. To know the real prices of things and command the salesman's respect; to purchase unnecessary ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... a dress-rehearsal in the noble art of packing mules. The result was that I had to take a hand myself in putting the aparejos on the animals, shoeing them and curing the sore backs, which, as a matter of course, developed from the inexperience of ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... footing characteristic of first steps. Even if it could have seen the rapidly approaching carriage that was hidden by the angle of the building, its baby feet could not have carried it out of harm's way in time, and it is more than probable that its inexperience would have prevented ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... party went through under one leadership. Fortunate were those who possessed experienced men as leaders, or who in hiring the services of one of the numerous plains guides obtained one of genuine experience. Inexperience and graft were as fatal then as now. It can well be imagined what disaster could descend upon a camping party in a wilderness such as the Old West, amidst the enemies which that wilderness supported. It is bad enough today when inexperienced people ...
— The Forty-Niners - A Chronicle of the California Trail and El Dorado • Stewart Edward White
... think of Rose's wealth and his paltry twelve hundred per year. An ambition which had always slumbered within his mind awoke to full strength and activity. He began to sit up late at night and write articles for the papers and magazines. He had got one accepted, and received a check which to his inexperience seemed promisingly large. In spite of all his anxiety he was exalted. He began to wonder if circumstances would not soon justify him in reaching out for the sweet he coveted. He made up his mind not to be precipitate, to wait until he was sure, but his impatience had waxed ...
— The Shoulders of Atlas - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... fulfilment of Fitzgerald's promise, anxiety changed to distrust. She twice requested Tom to ask his master for the papers he had spoken of, and received a verbal answer that they would be sent as soon as they were ready. There were greater obstacles in the way than she, in her inexperience, was aware of. The laws of Georgia restrained humane impulses by forbidding the manumission of a slave. Consequently, he must either incur very undesirable publicity by applying to the legislature for a special exception in ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... willing, even anxious, to make himself secondary, subordinate. However he may have been on the Continent, here in England his desire to conform made him appear subservient and almost abject. My own unabashed and unconscious Americanism—the possible consequence of inexperience—sometimes embarrassed him, and he occasionally undertook to edit my dealings with members of the older half of our race, even with waiters and cabmen. As for the more boastful, aggressive, self-assertive sort of Americanism, ...
— On the Stairs • Henry B. Fuller
... Chosroes, and the retreat of Heraclius. Her tiara was placed on the head of Yezdegerd, the grandson of Chosroes; and the same aera, which coincides with an astronomical period, [18] has recorded the fall of the Sassanian dynasty and the religion of Zoroaster. [19] The youth and inexperience of the prince (he was only fifteen years of age) declined a perilous encounter: the royal standard was delivered into the hands of his general Rustam; and a remnant of thirty thousand regular troops was swelled in truth, or in opinion, to ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... life;) the loveliness of this inestimable blessing will shine forth, like the sun on a misty morning, and preserve the even temperature of the mind. To the youthful lover it is the polar star that guides him from the shoals and quicksands of vice, among which his wayward fancy and inexperience are too apt to lead him. But in the matrimonial state, the pleasures arising from the exercise of this virtue are manifold, as it sheds a galaxy of splendour around the social hemisphere; for it is such a divine perfection, that ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, Issue 353, January 24, 1829 • Various
... meant well in paying me this compliment, so I laughed at myself for blushing at it when he had shut the door and got upon the box; and we all three laughed and chatted about our inexperience and the strangeness of London until we turned up under an archway to our destination—a narrow street of high houses like an oblong cistern to hold the fog. There was a confused little crowd of people, principally children, gathered about the house at which we stopped, which ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... disposition was to deny, he could still fetter self and acquiesce. But he began to understand that half his strength lay in her unwillingness; half of their safety in her inexperience, her undisturbed tranquillity, her aloofness from physical emotion and her ignorance of the ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... affairs here. If you had addressed that question to me before my departure, most assuredly I should have replied without hesitation, 'It is Count Schwarzenberg!' But I have since then found out that I had done the count injustice in many things through my inexperience and want of foresight; that he is a very great and experienced statesman and politician, who with his far-seeing glances can discern much more clearly than I with my unpracticed eyes the relations of things. Who knows but that, after all, the peace of ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... literary character of her writings, (says the editor), it does not, perhaps, become me largely to speak; yet I must hazard the remark, that her defects will be perceived to be those of youth and inexperience, while in invention, and in that mysterious power of exciting deep interest, of enchaining the attention and keeping it alive to the end of the story; in that adaptation of the measure to the sentiment, and in the sudden change of measure to suit a sudden change of sentiment; ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 14, - Issue 400, November 21, 1829 • Various
... and loved by a being surpassing the brightest dream of his purest youth: yet the remembrance of the past poisons, even now, his joy. He is haunted by the suspicion that the affection, even of this being, is less the result of his own qualities, than of her inexperience of life—he has everything at stake—he dares to submit her devotion to the sharpest trial—he quits her without withdrawing the dark curtain with which he had enveloped himself—he quits her with the distinct understanding ...
— Sketches • Benjamin Disraeli
... of something new and rather wonderful. To contrast his wife with her was to contrast a field-flower with some rare, exotic bloom, and Gillian was conscious of a sudden rush of sympathy for June's unarmoured youth and inexperience. ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... wiser head than that of Berry Lawson, or even that of his more fortunate kinsman, the many-named Nimbus, has been sorely puzzled to understand how ignorance and poverty and inexperience should maintain the right, preserve and protect themselves against opposing wisdom, wealth and malicious skill, according to the spirit and tenor of the Reconstruction Acts. But it is a problem which ought to trouble no one, since it has been enacted ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... A woman who attempts to carry out any plans of system, order, and economy, and who has her feelings and habits conformed to certain rules, is constantly liable to have her plans crossed, and her taste violated, by the inexperience or inattention of those about her. And no housekeeper, whatever may be her habits, can escape the frequent recurrence of negligence or mistake, ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... situation, the more dreadful and impossible of remedy it appeared. How could they prove their innocence, when they did not have a single witness to appear in their defense? How could their youth and inexperience, friendless and alone, hope to combat successfully with the cunning and the experience of these two unprincipled men, who would stop at nothing to accomplish their ends? But, they were not the kind of boys to give up a fight for life, as long ...
— The Cave of Gold - A Tale of California in '49 • Everett McNeil
... the enemy's advance pickets at Middle Fork Bridge, and a spirited fight occurred in which he lost one man killed and inflicted some loss on the enemy. This unauthorized expedition caused McClellan to censure Schleich, who was only to be excused on the score of inexperience. ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... in that; the Camille of the dressmaker—nothing more. The audience, moreover, were not slow in recognizing this fact also. That day has gone by, apparently, when tyros may sally forth from the city and win country audiences with fine dresses, pretty faces, cheek, and inexperience. The theatre-going public knows the trick. The days of such ...
— A Pirate of Parts • Richard Neville
... children along this difficult way it is not wise to call direct attention to it, lest their inexperience and sensitiveness should turn to scrupulosity and their spontaneity be paralysed. It is both more acceptable and healthier to present it as a feat of courage, a habit of fearlessness to be acquired, of hardihood and strength of character. The more subtle forms of self-knowledge ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart
... most part the story of the land grants under this provision is an unfortunate one of speculation, misappropriations, and sale by venal Legislatures, whose only excuse was probably their inexperience and lack of vision; and the natural desire of the people to benefit at once from the endowment these lands represented. Michigan had her troubles in common with the other new states, but she did manage to acquire enough from these ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw
... remember that he had to "catch a car" if he were asked suddenly to explain the doctrine of the Trinity. I would not blame the most sturdy theologian for remembering that it was club night, if his wife were to ask him, unexpectedly, how Nebuchadnezzar, with his inexperience, could digest grass with only one stomach, when it takes four for the oxen that are used to it. That may account, however, for his hair ...
— Men, Women, and Gods - And Other Lectures • Helen H. Gardener
... brought it out with infinite tenderness but inexorable clearness in the parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin and the lost boy. The sheep were but young and silly, they did not wish to be lost on the mountain-side; they knew no better; inexperience, ignorance were theirs, and for their sad estate they were not held responsible. For them the compassionate shepherd sought until he found them in the wilds, took them, involuntary burdens, on his heart, brought them back to safety and the fold. The coin had no native affinity ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch
... Jammtzer had made for them, his resentment concerning the ornament sold by Barbara again awoke. He could no longer punish her for this "loveless" deed, as he called it, but he made the marquise feel severely enough his indignation for her abuse of the young girl's inexperience, for, without granting her a farewell audience, he sent her back to Brussels, with letters to Queen Mary expressing his displeasure. Instead of her skilful maid Alphonsine, a clumsy Swabian girl accompanied her—the former had ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... smoothed his spotless shirt-front, and looked daggers, while the Blues laughed heartily, and the Yellows cried "Shame!" "As for the other candidate on the same side, he [the maltster] had nothing to say against him.—He was, no doubt, seduced into presumption by his uncle and his own inexperience. It was said that that candidate, Mr. Fairfield, was an author and a poet; if so, he was unknown to fame, for no bookseller in the town had ever even heard of Mr. Fairfield's works. Then it was replied Mr. Fairfield had written under another name. What would that prove? Either ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... day as Bok was going out to lunch, he found a small-statured man, rather plainly dressed, wandering around the retail department, hoping for a salesman to wait on him. The young salesman on duty, full of inexperience, had a ready smile and quick service ever ready for "carriage trade," as he called it; but this particular customer had come afoot, and this, together with his plainness of dress, did not impress the young salesman. His attention ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok
... are his wits and his presence of mind. The violent death, the accidents, the illnesses to which he falls victim might be often warded off by proper knowledge. Nature is a zealous enemy; ignorance and inexperience keep ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... Bajazet. [61] The duke of Burgundy, sovereign of Flanders, and uncle of Charles the Sixth, yielded to the ardor of his son, John count of Nevers; and the fearless youth was accompanied by four princes, his cousins, and those of the French monarch. Their inexperience was guided by the Sire de Coucy, one of the best and oldest captain of Christendom; [62] but the constable, admiral, and marshal of France [63] commanded an army which did not exceed the number of a thousand knights and squires. [631] These splendid names were the source ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... Your inexperience still leaves your virtues in an inflexible condition that will inevitably cause your ruin, if you have not enough intelligence to bring them into accord with the morals of the times. One can not now wear his sentiments on his sleeve. Everything is show; payment is made in airs, demonstrations, ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... that, in spite of his inexperience, he was able to be of service to one more unaccustomed than himself to city scenes and ...
— Making His Way - Frank Courtney's Struggle Upward • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... impetus before they could get any pace on, and trotting quietly on with this object, he got within thirty paces, and then, cramming his spurs in, went at them as they got clear of the declivity. And he showed good judgment, in spite of his inexperience; for he bowled one enemy over with the force of the shock, and a Bashi- Bazook on his right served another the same, and got a slice at him as he rolled over, which made the number of ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... failures do not mean final failure. There is often said to be a malice, a spirit of rebellion, in inanimate things. They refuse to become slaves until they are once and for all utterly subdued, and then they are docile forever. Yet the malice truly lies in the inaptitude and inexperience of men. Had Field and his associates known how to make and lay an Atlantic cable in the beginning as well as they did in the end, the first one laid would have been successful. The years were passed in the invention of machinery for laying, and in improving the construction ...
— Steam Steel and Electricity • James W. Steele
... resist joining in the laugh against his inexperience in this respect, although he was not over-pleased. With all his head-knowledge of Gospel truth, he had not seen anything of the work of the Spirit, and moreover, like too many others, could not distinguish ...
— From Death into Life - or, twenty years of my ministry • William Haslam
... alive—these instances lost nothing in the telling. And they were true! Chayne could not deny to Garratt Skinner a certain criminal grandeur. He had placed Hine in no peril which he had not shared himself; he had taken him, a man fitted in neither experience nor health, on an expedition where inexperience or weakness on the part of one was likely to prove fatal to all. There was, moreover, one incident, not contemplated by Garratt Skinner in his plan, which made his position absolutely secure. He had actually saved Walter Hine's life on the rocky path of the Mont de la Brenva. There was ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason
... rise of the ground was so great and we had covered the position so completely that it was rather dangerous to attempt shelling. For about two hours there was hot firing, and every now and then there was a little work for our ambulance people, but not much. The only noticeable evidence of inexperience on the part of the Yeomanry was that they did not realise—and no one can realise this when fighting the Boers for the first time—how great is the enemy's firing range, and how far away one must keep to be able to live at all. They kept pressing forward, and Major Streatfeild had ...
— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young
... With the unwisdom of inexperience in communicating with an unlike thing, not realizing that the values of their kind of awareness might not be the values of this differing kind, they rushed in with all their powers and forces, a joyful rapturous ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton
... powerful. His conceptions and expressions were of corresponding vigour, and on all subjects were as remote as possible from commonplaces. Though somewhat authoritative, it was in a way which gave little offence, and was readily imputed to his inexperience in those modes of smoothing dissent and softening assertion, which are important characteristics ...
— Robert Burns • Principal Shairp
... watch the enemy," Carmen had said to Goutran, when they parted. The enemy was the man who had taken advantage of her inexperience, and induced her to call him father. Why had she not realized what she was doing sooner? She had, however, shown her womanly courage by the confession she had made to Goutran, and now she found herself without shield or buckler in opposition to the man under whose roof she lived. She resolved ...
— The Son of Monte Cristo • Jules Lermina
... amazement. The nearest were not more than half a mile off, so we picketed our horses under the sky line; and choosing the hollows, walked on till crawling became expedient. As is their wont, the outsiders were posted on bluffs or knolls in a commanding position; these were old bulls. To my inexperience, our chance of getting a shot seemed small; for we had to cross the dipping ground under the brow whereon the sentinels were lying. Three extra difficulties beset us - the prairie dogs (a marmot, so called from its dog-like bark when disturbed) were all round us, and bolted ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... round to call on me at the Abode of Unclaimed Domestic Angels. He was explicit and generous. 'Look here, miss,' he began; 'I didn't do fair by you when you interviewed me about your agency last evening. I took advantage, at the time, of your youth and inexperience. You suggested 10 per cent as the amount of your commission on sales you might effect; and I jumped at it. That was conduct unworthy of a gentleman. Now, I will not deceive you. The ordinary commission on transactions in wheels is 25 per cent. I am going to sell the Manitou retail at twenty ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... gone, but they called a Council, which agreed to own Avery as their Captain; which he accepted of with all humility imaginable, seeming to excuse himself on account of his inexperience at sea. But he did it so artfully that it more confirmed them in the good opinion of their choice. "Gentlemen," said he, "what we have done we must live or die by; let us all be hearty and of one mind, and I don't question but we shall make our fortune in a little ...
— Pirates • Anonymous
... crush the hope of inexperience. Till one day, having sat awhile silent, "I know not," said Rasselas, "what can be the reason that I am more unhappy than any of my friends. I see them perpetually and unalterably cheerful, but feel my own mind restless and uneasy. I am ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume V. • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... and unclean influences. For the forces of evil are infinite in their variety, insidious beyond the ability of natural sharpness to detect and guard against, and unsleeping in the pressure of their siege upon the heart of man. Who will explain how it comes to pass that youth, whose callowness and inexperience are the mockery of the world, has laid prostrate in single combat this giant of evil and won fields where the reputations of the world's wisest and noblest ...
— For Greater Things: The story of Saint Stanislaus Kostka • William T. Kane, S.J.
... lived so long, Lacedaemonians, without having had the experience of many wars, and I see those among you of the same age as myself, who will not fall into the common misfortune of longing for war from inexperience or from a belief in its advantage and its safety. This, the war on which you are now debating, would be one of the greatest magnitude, on a sober consideration of the matter. In a struggle with Peloponnesians and neighbours our strength is ...
— The History of the Peloponnesian War • Thucydides
... eyes, knew with mind and spirit untroubled by self-sickness. We were silent, having fallen into an accord which made all speech idle. Arduous as the road soon became, and, while unknown to both of us, more arduous to me because of my inexperience, we chose without hesitating, almost without consulting. Each difficulty brought decision, and with decision, its own help. Now it was I who steadied her leap across a chasm; now came her turn to underprop ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... follow this strange child through her school life, so monotonous, and yet full of incident, or what seemed such to her inexperience. All studies that she undertook were singularly broken up and independent. Indeed, I much doubt if regular methodical teaching can ever be applied to a nature like hers. Such organisms generally study through ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... long years the one passion of her life was her anxious solicitude about me. We lived together, and she always treated me as a small boy whose bringing up was her business. That I could exist more than at most two or three days away from her protection, without becoming the victim of my childish inexperience and of the wickedness of evil men, always seemed to her an utter impossibility. Imagine, then, the unutterable terror of my protectress when I was eventually compelled to disclose to her not only that I was a member of a socialistic society, had not only devoted the whole of my ...
— Freeland - A Social Anticipation • Theodor Hertzka
... crystallised with flaming speech. I could only listen to him dumbly, vaguely divinatory through my love for him and I suppose through a certain temperamental sensitiveness, but alas! uncomprehending by reason of my inexperience in the ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... But what with their inexperience and the nature of the channel, they found it hard to get along. The river was full of great stones, making narrow passages, so that, in some parts, it was not possible to row. They knew nothing about the management of a boat, and were no more at ease than if they had been afloat in a ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... something more in accordance with the object of their trip roused Dexter into action, and, after helping to force the boat from among the branches, he willingly took one of the sculls; and in obedience to the frequently given orders, rowed as well as his inexperience would allow, and they glided swiftly ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... to her coming to England...." The words were an evocation. He saw her again as she had looked at their first meeting, the poor woman of genius with her long pale face and short-sighted eyes, softened a little by the grace of youth and inexperience, but so incapable even then of any hold upon the pulses. When she spoke, indeed, she was wonderful, more wonderful, perhaps, than when later, to Glennard's fancy at least, the conscious of memorable things uttered seemed to take from even her most intimate ...
— The Touchstone • Edith Wharton
... if it had been fair, would have been a victory for Baree, even in his youth and inexperience. In fairness the pack should have waited. It was a law of the pack to wait—until one was done for. But Baree was black. He was a stranger, an interloper, a creature whom they noticed now in a moment ...
— Baree, Son of Kazan • James Oliver Curwood
... herself had brought her into the fields this week for the first time during many months. After wearing and wasting her palpitating heart with every engine of regret that lonely inexperience could devise, common sense had illuminated her. She felt that she would do well to be useful again—to taste anew sweet independence at any price. The past was past; whatever it had been, it was no more at hand. Whatever its ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... altogether to understand her youth, her inexperience, above all her coloured romantic fancy. Her romantic fancy had made him in her eyes for a brief hour something that he was not. After a month at the war I believe that she had grown into a woman. She had loved him ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... I had my first case when I was a young man. It was a minor case—a robbery. I won that despite my youth and inexperience. In those days the cases were much harder than now on account of the lawyers. The old-fashioned lawyer was the talkingest kind of a nuisance I ever had to deal with. He always reminded me of somebody talking at a mark for ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... answered, sometimes gently refuting and sometimes assenting to her proposition, it was always with a slow, deliberate earnestness, as if he felt but her deep sincerity, and forgot for the moment her sex, her youth, and her inexperience. It was just this kind of fellowship for which she had hungered so long, and her heart went out with a great gratitude toward this strong and generous man, who was willing to recognize her humanity, and to respond with an ever-ready frankness, unmixed ...
— Tales From Two Hemispheres • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... still attractive. From her first greeting to the end of the interview Cass felt that she knew all about him. This relieved him from the onus of proving his identity, but seemed to put him vaguely at a disadvantage. It increased his sense of inexperience ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... this quarter, and which, in the inexperience of the time, was regarded as a great battle, may claim a passing notice, as exemplifying the extent to which the individuality, self-reliance, and habitual use of small-arms by the people of the South was a substitute for military ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... stools seen in the picture. When they had all been thus stationed, the executioner proceeded to administer blows with his blunt sword until the heads were severed from the bodies. On the occasion in question, several of the bodies were hacked about most mercilessly through the inexperience or drunkenness of this brute. The third man in the illustration, for example, had a good part of his left shoulder cut off as clean as a whistle, although the blow had been meant to strike the neck; but let this suffice ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor
... these two generals, one of whom he knew by person, and the other by description, seemed to Morton decisive of the fate of his embassy. But, notwithstanding his youth and inexperience, and the unfavourable reception which his proposals seemed likely to meet with, he advanced boldly towards them upon receiving a signal to that purpose, determined that the cause of his country, and of those with whom he ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... were the hardest things she had to encounter, though all the housekeeping proved more onerous than, in her inexperience, she had expected it to be. After the first week or two, however, she managed very well, and gradually learned the little labor-saving ways which can only be learned by actual experiment. Getting breakfast and tea she enjoyed, ...
— Clover • Susan Coolidge
... loses will pay the stake. The officers realise this, and sitting down to their work they make the pace. The wild line careering behind them suits itself to their lead; instinctively in its excitement and inexperience it closes inwards. Only 200 yards more. The sky-line is clear and defined. No heads have appeared as yet. One hundred yards! Now we are under the rise, the horses feel the hill—a few seconds and we shall know who has won the race. "Steady, men, steady!" Up goes the squadron leader's arm. ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... died in 1343, Joanna became Queen of Naples and Provence at the age of fifteen; but on account of her youth and inexperience, and because of the machinations of the hateful monk, she was kept in virtual bondage, and the once peaceful court was rent by the bitterest dissensions. Through it all, however, Joanna seems to have shown no special dislike to Andreas, who, indeed, was probably innocent of any participation in the ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... reproached for their imprudence in preferring a small present pleasure to a large distant advantage: this errour also arises from inexperience, not from want of judgment, or deficiency in strength of mind. When that which has been the future, has in its turn become present, children begin to have some idea of the nature of time, and they can then form some comparisons between the value of present and future pleasures. ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth
... struggled earnestly to find a job. But his inexperience and the season of the year were against him. No newspaper wanted a dramatic critic when the only shows in town had been running three months, and on roof gardens; nor did they want a "cub" reporter ...
— The Man Who Could Not Lose • Richard Harding Davis
... visited only by the more daring and courageous among the children of the tribe. Tumbler and Pussi were unquestionably the most daring among these— partly owing to native bravery in both, and partly to profound ignorance and inexperience ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... clad in purple and fine linen and driving his own blood horses, talked and laughed with a one-legged mariner, and sought the companionship of his own valet; which irregularity must be excused by his youth and inexperience, and the lamentable fact that, despite his purple and fine linen, he was, as yet, only a ...
— The Amateur Gentleman • Jeffery Farnol et al
... was not exactly the woman to submit quietly to patronage from any Mrs. Val, however honourable she might be; but for a while Gertrude hardly knew what it meant; and at her first outset the natural modesty of youth, and her inexperience in her new position, made her unwilling to take offence and unequal to rebellion. By degrees, however, this feeling of humility wore off; she began to be aware of the assumed superiority of Mrs. Val's friendship, and by the time that their mutual affection was of a year's standing, ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... of three short years, and when he was but in his thirtieth summer, Desiderius was summoned from his cell on the lonely mountain, and, despite his tears and supplications and his protestations of ignorance and inexperience and extreme youth, made Archbishop of Sarras. Only one answer was vouchsafed to him. "One of thy vows was entire obedience, and the grace of God ...
— A Child's Book of Saints • William Canton
... smile; but that side of womanliness was one which her inexperience had no great zest ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... Lucca; and this last work has such qualities as indicate that he had studied the sculpture of classic days. The work upon this pulpit is a wonderful advance upon the sculpture of the period; and though there are marks of his inexperience in its arrangement, as a whole it is above criticism when the time to which it belonged and the circumstances of its sculpture are taken ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students - Painting, Sculpture, Architecture • Clara Erskine Clement
... "Your inexperience of the world, Miss Tulliver, prevents you from anticipating fully the very unjust conceptions that will probably be formed concerning your conduct,—conceptions which will have a baneful effect, even in spite of known evidence to ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... sometimes in among strangers, remote from the eye and advice of my father, without any willful gross immorality or injustice, that might have been expected from my want of religion. I say willful, because the instances I have mentioned had something of necessity in them, from my youth, inexperience, and the knavery of others. I had therefore a tolerable character to begin the world with; I valued it properly, and ...
— Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin • Benjamin Franklin
... place—and studying a Road Map of the South of England. Briggs of the "dresses," who shared the room with him, was sitting up in bed and trying to smoke in the dark. Briggs had never been on a cycle in his life, but he felt Hoopdriver's inexperience and offered such advice ...
— The Wheels of Chance - A Bicycling Idyll • H. G. Wells
... Foote, he contrived to persuade them that their flight was leading them right upon a body of royal cavalry posted to intercept their retreat. This fear effectually halted them. The insurgents, through a prejudice natural to inexperience, had an unreasonable dread of cavalry. A second time, therefore, facing about to retreat from this imaginary body of horse, they came of necessity, and without design, full upon their pursuers, whom unhappily the intoxication of victory ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... Ignorance or stupid Malevolence within. "Reproof," says Dr. Johnson, "should not exhaust its power upon petty failings;" and "the care of the critic should be to distinguish error from inability, faults of inexperience from defects of nature. On this principle the editors will unalterably act. And, since they have cited the great moralist's maxim as a direction for critics, they, even in this their first step into public view, beg leave to offer ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... Ethelberta's inexperience, but that her conception of self precluded such an association of ideas, which led her to dismiss the surmise that his attendance could be inspired by a motive beyond that of paying her legitimate attentions as ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... bright October sun overhead was making the rapid Garonne quiver in a sheen of golden light. I found we had made good progress, and were not many hours from our destination. I found it inexpressibly pleasant to float down that bright river, as it carried me to new scenes, which love, hope, and inexperience painted in pleasing colors. My feet were sufficiently painful for me to be glad to lie idly among the piles of cabbages and while the time in day-dreams. Aged confessors might go forth sighing, "How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?" but to the ...
— Jacques Bonneval • Anne Manning
... they baited with pieces of venison suspended just above them on a projecting limb of a tree. In the morning, when the trappers went out to look for their supposed victims, both the meat and the traps were gone. They had, in their inexperience, forgotten to fasten the traps to anything, and if any of the wolves were caught, they had walked ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... and wasted as much energy and interest over a two-gold-mohur race for maiden ekka-ponies with their manes hogged, as if it had been the Derby. One-half of this came from inexperience—much as the puppy squabbles with the corner of the hearth-rug—and the other half from the dizziness bred by stumbling out of his quiet life into the glare and excitement of a livelier one. No one told him about ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... confidence to Waitstill's mind. He was gay and young and thoughtless; how had he managed to do this wild thing?—and had he done all decently and wisely, with consideration for the girl's good name? The thought of all the risks lying in the train of Patty's youth and inexperience brought a wail of anguish from Waitstill's lips, and, dropping the beads and closing the drawer, she stumbled blindly down the stairway to the kitchen, intent upon one thought only—to find her sister, to look in her eyes, feel the touch of her ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... long way off, and felt that the hour of my departure from Egypt had come, so I left quietly. Instead of A (Ismail), who was a good man, you have B (Tewfik), who may be good or bad, as events will allow him. B is the true son of A; but has the inexperience of youth, and may be smarter. The problem working out in the small brains of Tewfik is this: 'My father lost his throne because he scented the creditors, I may govern the country as I like.' No doubt Tewfik is mistaken; but these are his views, backed up by a ring of pashas. Now look ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins
... little time for anything else, so their household tasks were not always well or cheerfully performed, especially Margaret's. Her love for music amounted to a passion, and she grudged the time for practice; then their inexperience tried her mother's patience sadly, and brought the inevitable scoldings, and made Margaret's irritable nerves flash up to meet her mother's. But that Saturday morning that we began to tell about, it was such a very exasperating ...
— Divers Women • Pansy and Mrs. C.M. Livingston
... delusion, and was unwilling to crush the hope of inexperience: till one day, having sat awhile silent, "I know not," said the Prince, "what can be the reason that I am more unhappy than any of our friends. I see them perpetually and unalterably cheerful, but feel my own mind restless and uneasy. I am unsatisfied with those pleasures which I seem most to ...
— Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia • Samuel Johnson
... tenderfoot. Mrs. Henry had in the beginning endeavored to shield me from this humiliation; but when she found that I was inveterate in laying my inexperience of Western matters bare to all the world, begging to be enlightened upon rattlesnakes, prairie-dogs, owls, blue and willow grouse, sage-hens, how to rope a horse or tighten the front cinch of my saddle, and that my spirit soared into enthusiasm ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... his inexperience of the water Finn was a quicker swimmer than the Master, and he reached little Tim within a very few seconds, and seized the youngster firmly between his great jaws, while turning in the water towards the ship he had left. Finn was careful enough ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... were considerably damped when I heard the charge of his lordship. With all respect for the eminent Senator who that day presided on the bench, I think he went rather too far when he designated my maiden-effort a rhapsody which could only be excused on account of the inexperience of the gentleman who uttered it. Passing from that unpleasant style of stricture, he went seriatim over all the crimes of M'Wilkin, and very distinctly indicated his opinion that a more consummate ruffian had seldom figured ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various |
