"Fall short of" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... paroling the boat. Made a circuit of forty miles, destroyed a train of twenty-one cars and an engine at Woodburn, on the Louisville and Nashville railroad, at 6 o'clock, P.M., February 26th. The whole amount of Federal property destroyed on the 21st, 25th and 26th, inclusive, can not fall short of half a million of dollars. In conclusion, Colonel, we have been twenty-one days, one hundred and fifty miles within the enemy's lines, traveled in thirty-six hours one hundred miles, injured the Federal Government half a million dollars, caused him ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... like to make the same journey again?' JOHNSON. 'Why no, Sir; not the same: it is a tale told. Gravina, an Italian critick, observes, that every man desires to see that of which he has read; but no man desires to read an account of what he has seen: so much does description fall short of reality. Description only excites curiosity: seeing satisfies it. Other people may go and see the Hebrides.' BOSWELL. 'I should wish to go and see some country totally different from what I have been used to; such as Turkey, where religion and every thing else are ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... twofold, but the man who takes interest fourfold, compensation; whence we may infer how much worse a citizen they deemed the usurer than the thief." There is no great difference, he elsewhere considers, between a money-lender and a murderer; and it must be allowed that his acts did not fall short of his words—when governor of Sardinia, by his rigorous administration of the law he drove the Roman bankers to their wits' end. The great majority of the ruling senatorial order regarded the system of the speculators with ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... for some time in the great work of the peace. Whereupon the British plenipotentiaries told those of the States, "That if the Queen's endeavours could not procure more than the contents of her speech, or if the French should ever fall short of what was there offered, the Dutch could blame none but themselves, who, by their conduct, had rendered things difficult, that would otherwise have been easy." However, Her Majesty thought it prudent to keep the States still in hopes of her good offices, to prevent them from taking ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... could Art have, than to represent that which in Nature actually is? Or how should it undertake to excel so-called actual Nature, since it must always fall short of it? ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... either produce a paroxysm of tertian fever; or may still become greater, and continue so till the next period of greatest terrene gravitation, and then produce a paroxysm of quartan ague. And lastly, the periodical times of these paroxysms may exceed, or fall short of, the time of greatest diurnal terrene gravitation according to the time of day, or period of the moon, in which the first fit began; that is, whether the diurnal terrene gravitation was then in an ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... neighbour is not only to wish him well, but also to do him all the good that it is in our power to do. If we fall short of this, we deserve the reproach of St. James, addressed to those who, though they have ample means for giving material aid to the poor, content themselves ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... ever who gives me so much and to whom I give so little! For what is he worth, O my Lord, who does not utterly abase himself to nothing for Thee? How much, how much, how much,—I might say so a thousand times,—I fall short of this! It is on this account that I do not wish to live,—though there be other reasons also,—because I do not live according to the obligations which bind me to Thee. What imperfections I trace in myself! what remissness in Thy service! Certainly, I could wish occasionally I had ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... instead of sending it to Peru, for guano; but that talk is all for Buncombe, there is not a particle of sound reason in it. If all the bones in the United States could be saved and applied to the land again, we should still fall short of a supply, and be obliged to do as England did before the introduction of guano; go about and ransack grave yards of great battlefields, for more bones. With all the guano imported, or that will be imported, and all the bones that will be saved, there will still be room for more ...
— Guano - A Treatise of Practical Information for Farmers • Solon Robinson
... proof of courage to thrust thy fist into another man's face:—Though thou art able to tear the scalp off an elephant, if deficient in humanity, thou art no hero. The sons of Adam are formed from dust; if not humble as the dust, they fall short of being men." ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... protection of liberty and justice is liable to fall short of humanity's hopes unless liberty and justice be themselves defined in a cooperative sense. The great liberties which man has gained, as step by step he has risen from savagery, have not been chiefly the assertion of already existing powers or the striking-off of fetters forged by his fellows. ...
— The Ethics of Coperation • James Hayden Tufts
... stars, and the most excellent things in nature; and, fearing to be accused of hyperbole, the common charge against poets, vindicates himself by boldly taking upon him, that these comparisons are no hyperboles; but that the best things in nature do, in a lover's eye, fall short of those excellences ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... the challenge and measures his height and reach in the same way, against the same tree. If he can bite as high, or higher, he keeps on, and a terrible fight is sure to follow. But if, with his best endeavors, his marks fall short of the deep scars above, he prudently withdraws, and leaves it to a bigger bear ...
— Ways of Wood Folk • William J. Long
... enthusiastically shouted, "Come on!" and in he plunged. Was there a lack of food? "I'm not hungry," he cried. "Help yourselves, men!" Had some poor soldier lost his blanket? "Mine is in my way," said Clark. "Take it, I'm glad to get rid of it!" His men loved him, and would die rather than fall short of ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... indissoluble good friends, and settled as well that her being the American girl was, just in time and for the relation they found themselves concerned in, a boon inappreciable. If, at least, as the days went on, she was to fall short of her prerogative of the great national, the great maidenly ease, if she didn't diviningly and responsively desire and labour to record herself as possessed of it, this wouldn't have been for want of Densher's keeping her, with his idea, well up to ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume II • Henry James
... him as a son-in-law, and who will see that money is not wanting to carry him triumphantly up the official ladder. Boys without any gifts of the kind required, remain to fill the humbler positions; those who advance to a certain point are drafted into trade; while hosts of others who just fall short of the highest, become tutors in private families, schoolmasters, doctors, fortune-tellers, geomancers, and ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... of training and cultivation that it shall be a perfect mirror of past times, and of the present, so far as the incompleteness of the present will permit, 'in true outline and proportion.' Mommsen, Grote, Droysen, fall short of the ideal, because they drugged ancient history with modern politics. The Jesuit learning of the sixteenth century was sham learning, because it was tainted with the interested motives of Church patriotism. To search antiquity with polemical objects in view, is destructive ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 5: On Pattison's Memoirs • John Morley
... used by Turkish mothers as a bugbear to frighten their children. But the stories have always seemed to me incredible; now I perceive they were true, and that the present members of the Order in no way fall short of the ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... in England to imagine a purely secular education, the very buildings of many of our schools would protest against it; perhaps it is equally difficult for us to realise how far we fall short of what we might accomplish did the spirit of Christianity really ...
— Cambridge Essays on Education • Various
... that I had exceeded all due bounds in praising him; wherefore, leaving on one side the merits of the man himself and of the family, I will simply tell what I cannot and should not under any circumstances withhold, if I would not fall short of the truth, on ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 3 (of 10), Filarete and Simone to Mantegna • Giorgio Vasari
... its prolix, didactic novels. The authors of the ghetto felt too much, suffered too much, were too much under the dominance of a life of misery, a semi-Asiatic, semi-mediaeval regime, to have had heart for the cultivation of mere form. Does the Song of Songs fall short of being a literary document of the first order because it does not equal the dramas of Euripides in artistic completeness? It is conceded that the proper aim of the artist is art, finished and perfect art, but to the philosopher, the social ...
— The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) • Nahum Slouschz
... planet is completely changed. These changes, together with the inevitable effects of foreshortening, render it often difficult to correlate the objects on the planet with those on the maps. The latter, it must be confessed, fall short of the maps of the moon in definiteness and in certainty; yet there is no doubt that the main features of the planet are to be regarded as thoroughly established, and some astronomers have given names to all the ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... motives could have been that, till this moment, have restrained them from facilitating an intercourse by means of good roads, in such parts of the country as have no inland navigations. In this respect they fall short of most civilized nations. Except near the capital, and in some few places where the junction of the grand canal with navigable rivers is interrupted by mountainous ground, there is scarcely a road in the whole country that ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... implying either arrogant self-sufficiency or mercenary servility—that to succeed, a man should write down to the public. Quite the reverse. To succeed, a man should write up to his ideal. He should do his very best; certain that the very best will still fall short of what the public can appreciate. He will only degrade his own mind by putting forth works avowedly of inferior quality; and will find himself greatly surpassed by writers whose inferior workmanship has nevertheless the indefinable ...
— The Principles of Success in Literature • George Henry Lewes
... those of the best; and though they were shut out from chaffer with the merchants of the City, yet whereas the whole countryside was open to them because of the riders of Longshaw, they were not like to fall short of victuals. Though true it is that the King's men set swift keels on the Sundering Flood stuffed of men-at-arms, and these would land on the eastern bank so far as a twenty or thirty miles up, and plunder and ravage the country-folk, or whiles would come ...
— The Sundering Flood • William Morris
... and pay your debts' is substituted the more abstract 'to do good to your friends and harm to your enemies.' Either of these explanations gives a sufficient rule of life for plain men, but they both fall short of the precision of philosophy. We may note in passing the antiquity of casuistry, which not only arises out of the conflict of established principles in particular cases, but also out of the effort to attain them, and is prior as well as posterior to our fundamental notions of morality. ...
— The Republic • Plato
... chief difference between them being, that the former lets his tongue run on from good impulses, while the latter makes it do so for good ends. If not so wise as Bassanio, they are more witty; and as much surpass him in strength, as they fall short of him in beauty, of character. It is observable that of the two Gratiano, while much the more prone to flood us with his talk, also shows less subjection of the individual to the common forms of social ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... their numbers; but this proportion they now exceeded. The Assembly of Jamaica had given it also as their opinion, "that when once the sexes should become nearly equal in point of number, there was no reason to suppose, that the increase of the Negros by generation would fall short of the natural increase of the labouring poor in Great Britain." But the inequality, here spoken of, could only exist in the case of the African Negros, of whom more males were imported than females; and this inequality ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson
... least, the proceeds would be in advance. In this case, it might be best, after deducting the expense incident to the surveys and sales, to place the surplus in a situation where its increase might correspond with the natural increase of the unpurchased slaves. Should the proceeds at any time fall short of the calls for their application, anticipations might be made by temporary loans, to be discharged as the land ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... Grief, too, sharpens the imagination; and music produced under its influence stirs a sensitive soul more powerfully than the brightest, merriest sounds. But these three sonatas, though they contain wonderful thoughts and some of Schubert's grandest, and most delicate harmonic colouring, fall short of perfection. They are too long, not because they cover so many pages, but because there is a lack of balance; at times, indeed, the composer seems to lose all sense of proportion. Then, again, the weakness of Schubert in the art of development is specially felt; the noble ...
— The Pianoforte Sonata - Its Origin and Development • J.S. Shedlock
... there?" saith Sir Robert. "It hath alway seemed to me that when Diogenes did define his gods as 'they that had no wants,' he pointed to a very miserable set of creatures. Is it not human nature that the thing present shall fall short of ...
— Joyce Morrell's Harvest - The Annals of Selwick Hall • Emily Sarah Holt
... await them, that as time went on and youthful passion diminished, their lives should be barren and silent and cold for want of all those things: children, legal bonds, social recognition, by which their union should fall short of a real marriage; this they could ...
— The Countess of Albany • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... minds which fall short of the highest order of originality, but by their erudition and appreciation of the wants of their time institute a movement by giving form to the current feeling of their day. Nurtured in pietism, he always retained signs of personal excellence; and his Christian earnestness is said not to have been ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... stories one has ever heard of sweetness in language and delicacy in pronunciation, fall short of Siennese converse. The girls who wait on us at the inn here, would be treasures in England, could one get them thither; and they need move nothing but their tongues to make their fortunes. I told Rosetta so, and said I would steal from them ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... price of their food, occasioned, in more cases than could well be imagined, disease and death. Whole families went through a gradual starvation. They only wanted a Dante to record their sufferings. And yet even his words would fall short of the awful truth; they could only present an outline of the tremendous facts of the destitution that surrounded thousands upon thousands in the terrible years 1839, 1840, and 1841. Even philanthropists who had studied the subject, were forced to own themselves perplexed in their endeavour to ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... examiner to be very easy, indeed; but we must bear in mind that they are often anything but easy for the child. Real effort and attention are necessary for his success, and occasionally even his best efforts fall short of the desired result. If the tests are to display the child's real intellectual ability it will be necessary, therefore, to avoid as nearly as possible every disturbing factor which would divide his attention or in ...
— The Measurement of Intelligence • Lewis Madison Terman
... offering a helping hand, and at another time praises as extravagantly as he before has blamed, and kills time in such ways as these,—he may be an encyclopaedia of knowledge, but his success will always fall short of his hopes. Firmness, decision, energy, and a delicate, quick perception; the art not to say too much or too little, and to be quite clear in his own mind, and with constant considerate kindness to increase the courage and confidence of his pupils,—these are requisite above all things for ...
— Piano and Song - How to Teach, How to Learn, and How to Form a Judgment of - Musical Performances • Friedrich Wieck
... injures the immediate sufferer by the fraud or wrong, but when it becomes frequent, *is a public injury* and calamity. In one way or another it alienates from the use of every honest man a very large proportion of his earnings or income. In this country, at the present time, we probably fall short of the truth in saying that at least a third part of every citizen's income is paid in the form of either direct or indirect taxation, and of this amount a percentage much larger than would be readily believed is pillaged on its way into the treasury or in its disbursement. ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody
... in the winter-garden he had been on the verge of trusting her, ready to believe in her, and she had vowed to herself that she would prove worthy of his trust. She had meant never to fall short of all that Michael demanded in the woman he loved. And now, before she had had a chance to justify his hardly-won belief, the past had risen up to destroy her, surging over her like a great tidal ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... and threats, forced out of the camp the soldiers, greedy of slaughter. As they were highly incensed at being thus interrupted in the gratification of their vengeance, a speech was immediately addressed to them, assuring the soldiers, that "the consuls neither did nor would fall short of any one of the soldiers, in hatred toward the enemy; on the contrary, as they led the way in battle, so would they have done the same in executing unbounded vengeance, had not the consideration of the six hundred horsemen, who were confined as hostages in Luceria, restrained their ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... described in those perfervid pictures of tropical life, at one time the passion of philanthropic imaginations, excited and exciting over the horrors of slavery. Although these pictures were then often accused of being purposely exaggerated, they seem now to fall short of, instead of surpassing, the truth. Stately walls, acres of roses, miles of oranges, unmeasured fields of cane, colossal sugar-house—they were all there, and all the rest of it, with the slaves, slaves, ...
— Southern Literature From 1579-1895 • Louise Manly
... church was to be shaken by a closer study of the Scriptures. In 1508 Lefevre completed a Latin commentary upon the Psalms.[134] In 1512 he published a commentary in the same language on the Pauline Epistles—a work which may indeed fall short of the standard of criticism established by a subsequent age, but yet contains a clear enunciation of the doctrine of justification by faith, the ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... and joy, will be found horridly at variance with a natural and rooted impulse towards self-devotion and indulgence. The worship and praise of God, not only in thought and word but in deed, will stumble and fall short of its goal—and then the tears of tragic failure will start and the cry of despair ring out. It was so with Peter in the porch and Paul beaten down in bondage under the Law. "Who shall deliver us from ...
— Thoughts on religion at the front • Neville Stuart Talbot
... should be written; and others upheld that the device should be "Embroidered Hill." Others again suggested: "Vying with the Hsiang Lu;" and others recommended "the small Chung Nan." And various kinds of names were proposed, which did not fall short of ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... life, without jostling others, or permitting myself to be jostled. I owe no man anythingI have the means of maintaining, myself with complete independence; and so moderate are my wishes in this respect, that even these means, however limited, rather exceed than fall short of them." ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... self-conscious, Mary. Always thinking about the impression you are making on people, and so eager to please that it makes you miserable if you think you fall short of any of their standards. I knew a girl at school who let her sensitiveness to other people's opinions run away with her. She was so anxious for her friends to be pleased with her that she couldn't be natural. If anybody glanced in the direction of her head, ...
— The Little Colonel: Maid of Honor • Annie Fellows Johnston
... command: he frankly confessed that as yet he was insufficiently acquainted with the Psalms; a comparison of his notes and lectures shows further, how continually he was engaged in prosecuting these studies. His explanations indeed fall short of what is required at present, and even of what he himself required later on. He still follows wholly the mediaeval practice of thinking it necessary to find, throughout the words of the Psalmist, pictorial allegories relating ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... earth, or a more dainty lady of the olden times, had never, since its foundation, done the honors of Houghton Castle. But the sweet old lady was already forced to exert all her strength, that nothing should fall short of the old hospitality on this the last fete ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens
... and its restraining influence afford both body and mind. Parental drudgery and self-denial for the purpose of relieving children from the necessity of wholesome effort is mistaken generosity. It makes parent and child alike fall short of the high purposes for which life is given. For life is intended for more important purposes than mere money-getting or the pursuit of objects from which man is utterly divorced at death. Poor indeed must be ...
— A Broader Mission for Liberal Education • John Henry Worst
... enforce them, but simply because the laws themselves as interpreted by the courts do not reach the difficulty. If the insufficiencies of existing laws can be remedied by further legislation, it should be done. The fact must be recognized, however, that all Federal legislation on this subject may fall short of its purpose because of inherent obstacles, and also because of the complex character of our governmental system, which, while making the Federal authority supreme within its sphere, has carefully ...
— Messages and Papers of William McKinley V.2. • William McKinley
... vigour of their own exertions, that they reconcile themselves to their low views of the satisfaction of Christ, and of the influence of the Spirit; but it should rather seem their plan so to depress the required standard of practice, that no man need fall short of it, that no superior aid can be wanted for enabling us to attain to it. It happens however with respect to their simple method of morality, as in the case of the short ways to knowledge, of which some vain ...
— A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity. • William Wilberforce
... welcoming each new honor as a so much greater heritage for their children. Each distinction won by her husband only established a higher standard for their children to live up to. She prayed and hoped and prayed again that they would all be worthy such a father, that they would never fall short of his excellence. To this end she taught, labored for, and loved them, and they, in turn, child-wise, responded to her teaching, imitating her allegiance to their father, reflecting her fealty, and duplicating her actions. So she molded these little ones with the mother-hand that ...
— The Moccasin Maker • E. Pauline Johnson
... willing to displeasure a man so esteemed as Mr. Richardson, here made an apology for his jesting, and said that, as to the Cambridge version, it was indeed faithful; and that it was no blame to uninspired men, that they did fall short of the beauties and richness of the Lord's Psalmist. It being now near noon, we crossed over the river, to where was a sweet spring of water, very clear and bright, running out upon the green bank. Now, as we stood thirsty, having no cup to drink from, seeing ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... of hers a fear was already mingled, a sweet fear, truly, and a delicious fear, but she had never feared anything before in her life. She was afraid now that it was all too wonderful to be true, that she would awaken in the morning to find it only a dream, that she would somehow fall short of Martin's ideal— somehow fail him—somehow turn all this magic of moonshine and kisses into ashes ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris
... was a kind of a blind madness in it of which men spoke afterward as a phenomenon that could only be recognized, that could never be explained or understood. They could not account for it. Yet it was a powerful factor, the most powerful, indeed, that enabled the Emperor to accomplish so much, and fall short of complete triumph by so narrow ...
— The Eagle of the Empire - A Story of Waterloo • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... commencement of his career. It was favourably received during ten successive performances. "You have only to imagine all that you could wish to give success to a play," wrote Sir Walter Scott to the author, "and your conceptions will still fall short of the complete and decided triumph of the 'Family Legend.' The house was crowded to a most extraordinary degree; many people had come from your native capital of the west; everything that pretended to ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... interval, no fewer than eighteen slight shocks were felt by one observer at Dochgarroch, while another near Aldourie estimates the number of shocks up to October 23rd at about seventy. The total number probably did not fall short of one hundred. ...
— A Study of Recent Earthquakes • Charles Davison
... the sanguinary result. This atrocious scene, when I think of it, still makes me shudder, as it did on the day I beheld it; and I would wish it were possible for me to forget it, rather than be compelled to describe it. All the horrors imagination can conceive, relative to that day of blood, would fall short of the reality. ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, v3 • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... of the Sower is given to each of us in this world, and we fall short of our duty when we let those with whom we are brought in contact leave us without having given them a kind thought or ...
— Gold Dust - A Collection of Golden Counsels for the Sanctification of Daily Life • E. L. E. B.
... the words and gestures of the actor impose themselves on the imagination of the spectator, the latter will pass over a thousand imperfections, which reveal themselves to the reader, who, as he has to satisfy himself with the drama of silent images, will nor be content if this or that in any way fall short of his conception of truth ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... had Mr Farmer been all the day before with taking in Irish beef and pork, for the West Indian storehouses, and extra water to supply any of the convoy that might fall short of that necessary article, that he had totally forgotten the sand expedition, and it was eight in the evening, just at the time that I was, in the words of the song, "Far, far at sea," that he was reminded of it. Mr Silva, the second-lieutenant, begged as a favour, that a boat might be lent ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... and on that account it behoves us, as officers, to keep up our own spirits, and to cheer up the men," he replied. "I am sorry to say also, that I very much fear we shall fall short of water before we get into port, if this wind continues; and, with all these poor blacks on board, that will indeed be a very serious thing. Good seamanship may enable us to keep, the ship afloat, but God only can provide ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... Night like the bright Day appear; Then we poor useful Mortals nimbly run To light your Lamps before the Day is gone: With strictest Care, we to each Lamp give Fire, The longest Night to burn: you do require Of us to make each Lamp to burn that time, But, oft, we do fall short of that Design: Sometimes a Lamp goes out at Master's Door, This happens once which ne'er did so before: The Lamp-man's blamed, and ask'd the reason why That should go out, and others burning by? Kind, worthy Sirs, if I may be so bold, A truer Tale to you was never ...
— A Righte Merrie Christmasse - The Story of Christ-Tide • John Ashton
... us Philistines, and Normanism enough to make us imperious, and Celtism enough to make us self-conscious and awkward; but German fidelity to Nature, and Latin precision and clear reason, and Celtic quick-wittedness and spirituality, we fall short of. Nay, perhaps, if we are doomed to perish (Heaven avert the omen!), we shall perish by our Celtism, by our self-will and want of patience with ideas, our inability to see the way the world is going; and yet those very Celts, by our affinity with whom we are perishing, ...
— Celtic Literature • Matthew Arnold
... little out, let him have been ever so used to pulpit reading, to see the knowing way in which the farmers cocked their ears and set about a mental criticism as to whether their new minister did or did not fall short of the excellence of him who had lately departed from them. A mental and silent criticism it was for the existing moment, but soon to be made public among the elders of St. Ewold's over the green graves of their children and forefathers. The excellence, however, ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... course of trade shall be as unhampered as it is possible to make it, and there shall be no unwarranted manipulation of the nation's food-supply by those who handle it on its way to the consumer. This is our opportunity to demonstrate the efficiency of a great democracy, and we shall not fall short of it! ...
— Why We are at War • Woodrow Wilson
... President says, force must be used to the limit—force for a social end as opposed to force for an evil end. There are those among us who advocate a boycott of Germany after peace is declared. These would seem to take it for granted that we shall fall short of victory, and hence that selfish retaliative or vindictive practices between nations, sanctioned by imperialism, will continue to flourish after the war. But should Germany win she will see to it that there is no boycott against her. A compromised peace would indeed ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... past, scattered in confusion by charitable mice,—blue and crimson wax-flowers melt underneath the eaves, all destitute of petals that would not fit on; patchwork quilts and cushions, in silk and satin distractions, just fall short of harmony in the arrangement of their squares and colors; vivid buttercups and daisies mingle with bulky cat-o'-nine-tails,—all on canvas covered with paint; blacking-jugs adorned with pictures, embossed and otherwise; moth-eaten Kensington, partly outlined in conventional lilies ...
— Hold Up Your Heads, Girls! • Annie H. Ryder
... the declared enemies to the principles of his reform? His character is here at stake. If he proposes for his own ends (but he never will propose) such names as, from their want of rank, fortune, character, ability, or knowledge, are likely to betray or to fall short of their trust, he is in an independent House of Commons,—in an House of Commons which has, by its own virtue, destroyed the instruments of Parliamentary subservience. This House of Commons would not endure the sound of ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... perseverance was remarkable, and he had a depth of feeling which no ill treatment or vicissitude could diminish. He must have risen amongst men; for mind is buoyant, and leaps above the grosser element. He had resolved, in his first situation, to do his duty strictly, rather to overdo than to fall short of it, and to make himself, if possible, essential to his employers. He saw, likewise, the advantage of respectful behaviour, and cheerfulness of temper. Whatever he did, he did with a good grace, and with a willingness to oblige, that secured for him the regard of those he served. He was not ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... pictures arise, quaint devices, Rude emblems, baked funeral meats, Strong incense, rare wines, and rich spices, The ashes, the shrouds, and the sheets; Does our thraldom fall short of completeness For the magic of a charnel-house charm, And the flavour of a poisonous sweetness, And the ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... at the deprecating look he turned on her. 'Let me be your moral physician. Already I notice that you fall short of perfect health: the refusal of that invitation is a symptom. Pray give faith to what I say; if any one knows you, I ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... that I might, even in this branch of the question; but respect for your space makes me pause. In conclusion, I will merely state, that I have no doubt myself of the author of the Taming of a Shrew having been Marlowe; and that, if in some scenes it appear to fall short of what we might have expected from such a writer, such inferiority arises from the fact of its being an imitation, and probably required at a short notice. At the same time, though I do not believe Shakspeare's play ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 22., Saturday, March 30, 1850 • Various
... grammatical treatises already published, the author conceived that the objects above referred to, might be better effected than they had been in any work within his knowledge. And he persuades himself, that, however this work may yet fall short of possible completeness, the improvements here offered are neither few nor inconsiderable. He does not mean to conceal in any degree his obligations to others, or to indulge in censure without discrimination. He has no disposition ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... this sudden sweetness—this sudden sauciness? Is she holding out the olive-branch to him? If so, he will accept it. After all, he may have wronged her in many ways; and at all events, her faults—her very worst fault—must fall short of crime. ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford
... lovers. But no love is altogether perfect, and for most men and women love is no more than a partial and temporary lowering of the barriers that keep them apart. With many, the attraction of love seems always to fall short of what I hold to be its end, it draws people together in the most momentary of self-forgetfulnesses, and for the rest seems rather to enhance their egotisms and their difference. They are secret from one another even in their embraces. There ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells
... distant mountains in a sunset glow, or the surface of water undotted by a sail, than the highest effect of man-made beauty, be it even York Minster or the Parthenon. What man does has value by reason of the meaning in it, and of course man cannot but fall short of the perfection of his own meaning; whereas Nature is of herself perfection, and perfection in which there is no effort. Valle Crucis is hardly a rival of Fountains or Rivaulx. The Cistercians in the beginning of their foundation ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... admitted. "But from the ship's actions, I'd say we were aiming for the far side of the asteroid belt. Anyway, we'll fall short of Jupiter." ...
— Rip Foster in Ride the Gray Planet • Harold Leland Goodwin
... straw sat down to inscribe self and shadows, and became a dishonest writer of fiction; for the art he now commenced appears to fall short of forgery proper, but to be still more distinct from justifiable fiction. The ingenious Mr. De Foe's certificate by an aeial justice of the peace to the truth of his ghostly narrative comes nearest to ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... the ancient peoples by representations of their productions. Unfortunately, the materials of this kind which recent explorations have brought to light are very unequally spread among the several nations of which it is proposed to treat, and even where they are most copious, fall short of the abundance of Egypt. Still in every case there is some illustration possible; and in one—Assyria—both the "Arts" and the "Manners" of the people admit of being illustrated very largely from the remains still extant.—[See ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 1. (of 7): Chaldaea • George Rawlinson
... where those measures are most necessary and can be most effectual. It gives to this Government the footing of a treaty right to such measures and the means and opportunity of insisting upon their adoption and of complaint and resentment at their neglect. The fifth article, therefore, if it fall short of what the pressure of the later experience of our Pacific States may urge upon the attention of this Government as essential to the public welfare, seems to be in the right direction and to contain important advantages which once relinquished can ...
— Messages and Papers of Rutherford B. Hayes - A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents • James D. Richardson
... difference between appearance and reality, between the ideal and its embodiments. For all men it is true that the full expression of oneself is impossible. Each man's deeds fall short of disclosing the essential self in the man. Every will is hampered by the fleshly screen of the body. 'I would that my tongue could utter the thoughts that arise in me,' is the yearning of every heart ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... difficulty of making such arrangements as to derive the full benefit from the instructions rendered. They are, in the nature of things, available to the extent I have represented, but, in actual practice, the full benefit cannot be derived. Now, so far as we thus fall short of this full benefit, so far there is, of course, waste; and it is difficult or impossible to make such arrangements as will avoid the waste, in this manner, of a large portion of every effort, ...
— The Teacher - Or, Moral Influences Employed in the Instruction and - Government of the Young • Jacob Abbott
... not presume to declare myself competent to effect so much, and I am more conscious than my critics how far I fall short of my high aim; but the modest attempt, made with the resolution to accept all criticism offered with courtesy and good faith, does not imply culpable presumption nor ...
— Myth and Science - An Essay • Tito Vignoli
... of the community who fall short of this, somewhat indefinite, normal degree of prowess or of property suffer in the esteem of their fellow-men; and consequently they suffer also in their own esteem, since the usual basis of self-respect is the respect accorded by one's neighbours. ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... need not say, will deplore the mischance which has prevented him from welcoming you. I have telegraphed to him; he is at one of the Baths in Germany, and will come assuredly, if there is a prospect of finding you here. None? Supposing my telegram not to fall short of him, I may count on his being here ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... if we might hold this place for an indefinite period," said Dan, on the day following. "That is, if we don't fall short of provisions." ...
— For the Liberty of Texas • Edward Stratemeyer
... Home' called 'Eyes and No Eyes,' where the prudent boy saw so much during his walk, and his companion nothing at all. Travelling has become so serious a business from its labours and accompaniments, that the result often seems to fall short of what was expected, and the means seem to overpower the end. On the other hand, a visit to unpretending places in an unpretending way often produces unexpected entertainment for the contemplative man. Some such experiment was the following, where everything ...
— A Day's Tour • Percy Fitzgerald
... must be left free to follow his own light: "If we differ there is no help for it: Wee must forbear one another. . . . If you conceeve otherwise of me than as a lover and pursuer after truth, you think amisse. . . . Wherein I fall short of your expectation, I fail for ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... clear and frequent impressions about living according to nature, and what kind of a life that is, so that, so far as depended on the gods, and their gifts, and help, and inspirations, nothing hindered me from forthwith living according to nature, though I still fall short of it through my own fault, and through not observing the admonitions of the gods, and, I may almost say, their direct instructions; that my body has held out so long in such a kind of life; that I never touched either Benedicta or Theodotus, and that, after having fallen ...
— Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
... without you have a bellyful of the milk of God's word? Can you be satisfied without you have peace with God? Pray you consider it, and be serious with yourselves. If you have not these marks, you will fall short of the kingdom of God, you shall never have an interest there; there is no intruding. They will say, "Lord, Lord, open to us; and he will say, I know you not." No child of God, no heavenly inheritance. We sometimes give something to those that are not our ...
— Miscellaneous Pieces • John Bunyan
... the constant choice of the best within our reach," says Bulwer. "Continue to cultivate the mind, to sharpen by exercise the genius, to attempt to delight or instruct your race; and, even supposing you fall short of every model you set before you, supposing your name moulder with your dust, still you will have passed life more nobly than the unlaborious herd. Grant that you win not that glorious accident, 'a name below,' how can you tell but that you ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... are particularly charged to stimulate the zeal of the workmen, to induce them to engage in new labors and enterprises for the good of Masonry, their country and mankind, and to give them fraternal advice when they fall short of their duty; or, in cases that require it, to invoke against them the rigor ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... world! Handsome, clever, admired, distinguished—what can woman desire more in her lover, her husband? Have you ever formed some fancy, some ideal of the one you could love, and how does Lord Vargrave fall short of the vision?" ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of the Postmaster-General herewith communicated contains a detailed statement of the operations of his Department during the past year. It will be seen that the income from postages will fall short of the expenditures for the year between $1,000,000 and $2,000,000. This deficiency has been caused by the reduction of the rates of postage, which was made by the act of the 3d of March last. No principle has been more generally acquiesced in by the people ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... the first time of hearing the gospel, and gave themselves no rest till they found it in the Saviour. O, I tremble and can scarcely hold my pen while I think of the awful account you must render to God, if after all your privileges, you fall short of Heaven at last.... How can you resist any longer? You cannot, you will not—something tells me you will give yourself immediately, unreservedly to that compassionate Saviour whose love was ...
— Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons • Arabella W. Stuart
... to be wounded in almost every battle he fights. Nevertheless, he has gained a glorious victory. Our loss in killed and wounded will not exceed 5000; while the enemy's killed, wounded, and prisoners will not fall short of 13,000. They lost, besides, many guns, tents, and stores—all wrung from them at the point of the bayonet, and in spite of their formidable abattis. Prisoners taken on the field say: "The Southern soldiers would charge into hell if there was a battery before ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... eternal secret.' Thereupon he said that if I did not believe his word of honour and his oath, he was ready to deposit with me sixty thousand florins, ready money, and if ever he should be such a scoundrel as to fall short of his word and desert you, he would forfeit the money. Now, sixty thousand florins is a great sum of money. Nobody would be such a fool as to lightly chuck it away. A man would think twice about breaking his word when all that was at stake, especially when he had ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... labours but in the middle of the day. Once the soldiers had vied with each other in courage and discipline: now they were rivals in ribaldry and riot. They were determined that the fury with which they denounced Aponius should not fall short of their outcry against Flavianus. The Moesian legions remembered that they had helped the Pannonian army to take their revenge; while the Pannonian troops, feeling that their comrades' mutiny acquitted them of blame, were glad enough to repeat the crime. They invaded the ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... done. But the event proved otherwise. Towards the end of his life, Herbert Spencer was constrained to admit this. "Now that ... I have succeeded in completing the second volume of The Principles of Ethics ... my satisfaction is somewhat dashed by the thought that these new parts fall short of expectation. The doctrine of Evolution has not furnished guidance to the extent ...
— God and the World - A Survey of Thought • Arthur W. Robinson
... has been to give a general impression of each group, I have not burdened the descriptions with superfluous scattered observations. The original records are available in Cambridge for any desirous of consulting them. The statistics given refer to the several recorded observations; where these fall short of the total number it may be taken for granted that as a rule the remainder did not depart markedly from the normal standard of the group in question — the presence of salient characters would be noted, ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall |
