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More "Incompetent" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in this time of war to the working people have the tendency to clear the environment of the suggestion that common labor, that is the wage earning class (as distinguished from salaried people, employers and the profiteers pure and simple) are incompetent to play a responsible part in the work of wealth production. A responsible part does not mean merely doing well a detached and technical job; it means facing the risks and sharing in the experimental experience of productive enterprise as it serves the promotion ...
— Creative Impulse in Industry - A Proposition for Educators • Helen Marot
... voice whatever in the discussion which followed, for they were regarded as incompetent judges, under the circumstances. It was finally decreed by the council that the man's life should be spared, but that he must be exposed to the indignity of a public whipping, and resign all his earthly possessions to the parents of his victim. ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... the first very great opposition to the marriage of Nunez and Medina-sarote; not so much because they valued her as because they held him as a being apart, an idiot, incompetent thing below the permissible level of a man. Her sisters opposed it bitterly as bringing discredit on them all; and old Yacob, though he had formed a sort of liking for his clumsy, obedient serf, shook his head and said the thing could not be. The young ...
— The Door in the Wall And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... and blood. But Sir Walter had called it a matter of life and death, and I had told him that I was out to serve my country. He could not give me orders, but was I not under orders—higher orders than my Brigadier's? I thought myself incompetent, but cleverer men than me thought me competent, or at least competent enough for a sporting chance. I knew in my soul that if I declined I should never be quite at peace in the world again. And yet Sir Walter had called the scheme madness, and ...
— Greenmantle • John Buchan
... the methods of Biology—methods which are obviously identical with those of all other sciences, and therefore wholly incompetent to form the ground of any distinction between it and ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... of honesty and fair play. It was she who championed the servants, or insisted, young as she was, on bills being paid, when it would have been more agreeable to buy frocks and go to London for a theatre. She was a great power in the house, and both her languid, incompetent mother, and her pretty sister were often afraid of her. Nora was a "Home Student," and had just begun to work seriously for English Literature Honours. Alice on the other hand was the domestic and social daughter. ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... for any sort of wages from me," interrupted Timothy Robinson decidedly. "I tell you plainly that I won't hire you. You're the wrong man's son for that. Your father was lazy and incompetent and, worst of all, untrustworthy. I did try to help him once, and all I got was loss and ingratitude. I want none of his kind around my place. I don't believe in you, so you may as well take yourself off, Ellis. I've no ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... while at the same time the armies of Radetzky and Windischgraetz were stamping out every trace of (p. 455) insurrection in Lombardo-Venetia, in Bohemia, and eventually in Vienna itself. December 2, 1848, the easy-going, incompetent Emperor Ferdinand was induced by the reactionaries to abdicate. His brother, Francis Charles, the heir-presumptive, renounced his claim to the throne, and the crown devolved upon the late Emperor's youthful nephew, Francis Joseph I., whose phenomenally prolonged reign ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... would-be actors (male and female), vain and incompetent managers, flippant and unequal critics, puffed and translating authors, in short, of all before and behind the curtain who have injured, or may injuro, the legitimate drama. Let the theatres, like our trade, be free, and monopoly thrive not, and for their success the Spirit will ever pray; at ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... multiplex personalities, and, most startling of all, vivid intensities of mental action when the brain, that should be the generator of thought, was reduced to a comatose state. Fact after fact came hurtling in upon me, demanding explanation I was incompetent to give. I studied the obscurer sides of consciousness, dreams, hallucinations, illusions, insanity. Into the darkness shot a ray of light—A.P. Sinnett's "Occult World," with its wonderfully suggestive letters, expounding ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... as this painful interview was over, Bindon gave way to rage. He settled that the medical man was not only an unsympathetic brute and wanting in the first beginnings of a gentleman, but also highly incompetent; and he went off to four other practitioners in succession, with a view to the establishment of this intuition. But to guard against surprises he kept that little prescription in his pocket. With each he began by expressing his grave doubts ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... happened to have anything to eat, which was not always. There were no provision shops on Lochaweside; Inverary was at some distance in one direction and Oban in the other, and as I had never given a thought to feeding before, I was an utterly incompetent provider. The consequence was that we fasted like monks, except that our abstinence was not on any regular principle; in fact, sometimes we had so little to eat for days together that we began to feel quite weak. This gave us no anxiety, and we only ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... apparent and not real. But see to what such an admission commits us: if we have no grounds for saying that evil is evil, we can have no grounds either for saying that good is good; if our faculties are incompetent to diagnose the one kind of phenomena accurately, they cannot be any more competent to diagnose and deliver reliable verdicts upon the other kind. It is quite a mistake to think that by getting rid of the reality of evil we ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... the scene of my real labors, I discovered how incompetent a conspirator Kossuth was. He had given me the name of his correspondent in Pesth and his residence, in the Karolyisches Haus, as if that were his ordinary residence, without warning me, though he knew it, that he was really in hiding from the police, and probably ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... miscellaneous—Aberdeen pale ale—the enormities of Warren Hastings' government—the late James Prinsep and the moral precepts of the Rajah Piyadasee—and a most incomprehensible rhapsody about "a red mustached member of the Bengal civil service," of which we profess ourselves utterly incompetent to make either head or tail, and strongly recommend the colonel to expunge it if the work reaches another edition. The voyage presents no incidents but the usual ones of pelicans, alligators, and porpoises: and on January 15, he arrived at Dhacca, "the once famous city of muslins." ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... favorites. From being a mere dancer he had risen in the course of a few years to the highest dignities. His name was Theocritus, and although he was distinguished by great personal beauty and exceptional cleverness, his unbridled greed had made him hated, and he had proved equally incompetent as ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... honey out of sand as to get good or evil out of the blank nature. There can be no fruit of good or evil where there is no seed of good or bad nature. Thus we find no satisfactory solution of the problem at issue in these four theories proposed by the Chinese scholars—the first theory being incompetent to explain the problem of human depravity; the second breaking down at the origin of morality; the third failing to explain the possibility of moral culture; the fourth ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya
... in the little town, whether under that name or not, I forget. But I can testify from experience, acquired some forty years afterwards, that Mr. and Mrs. Clemow now keep there one of the best inns of its class, that I, no incompetent expert in such matters, know in ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... liter of sljivovica and a water tumbler, to his left. Red of eye, he pored over endless reports from his agents, occasionally taking time out to growl a command into his desk mike. Tired he was, from the long sleepless hours he was putting in, but Number One was in his element. As he had told that incompetent, Kardelj, he had been through this thing before. It was no mistake that he ...
— Expediter • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... days of Clovis to the days of Charles Martel and Charlemagne the history of the Frankish realm, so far as its kingship is concerned, is almost a blank. It was an era of several centuries of incompetent and sluggish monarchs, of whom we can say little more than that they were born and died; they can scarcely be said to have reigned. But from the midst of this dull interregnum of Merovingian sluggards comes ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... be necessary for the long extract which we are about to give, to any person who will read it with attention. It is from a lecture on Agricultural Science, by Dr. Madden, and we confess ourselves incompetent to condense or improve the language of the ...
— Farm drainage • Henry Flagg French
... amount of regularity, attentive obedience, respect for others: obtained by fear, if the master be incompetent or foolish; by love and reverence, if ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... don't trust you," Lord Henry replied. "That must be the reason. They have learned not to trust the mature adult. British parents are either too indolent, or too incompetent to do the thing properly. And the consequence is young people have been trained by tradition to believe that, in the matter of choosing their mates, concerning which they know literally nothing, and are taught less, they must be left to their ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... Hazel reached the top of the chapel that the congregation observed Foxy, a small red figure, trotting willingly in Hazel's wake—a loving though incompetent bridesmaid. ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... this planet to be nothing but a howling wilderness, inhabited by us poor savages and wild beasts, shall take formal possession of it, in the name of his most gracious and philosophic excellency, the Man in the Moon. Finding however that their numbers are incompetent to hold it in complete subjection, on account of the ferocious barbarity of its inhabitants, they shall take our worthy President, the King of England, the Emperor of Hayti, the mighty Bonaparte, and ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... made a serious blunder and were blaming each other, hating each other for it. Neale was conscious of anger. This section of line came under his survey, and he had been proud to be given such important and difficult work. Incompetent or careless engineers had bungled Number Ten. Neale strode on among the idle and sleeping laborers, between the tents, and then past the blacksmith's shop and the feed ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... high over one ear like a cavalier's, was softened by drooping white ostrich feathers; her lace parasol had a knot of yellow ribbon at one side, to match the tint of her sash. Her long tan gloves and the Marechal Niel roses at her neck were finishing touches of the picture which Sydney was incompetent to grasp in detail, although he felt its charm on a whole. The sweet, delicate face, with its refined features and great dark eyes, was one which might well cause a man to barter all the world for love; ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... thought of Ahulah, but some of those well-intentioned friends that everyone possesses had told of the misadventure to her husband, and the latter, cruel as a woman, had spat upon her, and now through the suburbs she wandered, distraught, incompetent to aid. Her brother occurred to her. It was on him she could rely. His devotion was surpassed only by her own. Thereupon she sought him out, instructed him in his duty, and sent him ...
— Mary Magdalen • Edgar Saltus
... have shown himself more helpless, useless, incompetent, than Arthur Delaine since the accident? Yet he was still on the spot. She realised, indeed, that it was hardly possible for their old friend to desert them under the circumstances. But he merely represented ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... in possession of London bureau are incompetent to establish guilty connivance of either Lanier in any crime except those assaults ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... smaller, on those of the Adirondacks and of many lower chains. The quantity of water which, in great rains or sudden thaws, rushes down the steep declivities of the Alps, is so vast that the channels of the Swiss and Italian rivers would be totally incompetent to carry it off as rapidly as it would pour into them, were it not absorbed by the capacious basins which nature has scooped out for its reception, freed from the transported material which adds immensely both to the volume and to the force ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... our mission work it may be affirmed that no sooner did a chapel open its doors than a hospital was opened by its side for the relief of bodily ailments with which the rude quackery of the Chinese was incompetent to deal. Nor is there at this day a mission station in any part of China that does not in this way set forth the practical charity of the Good Samaritan. This glorious crusade against disease and death began, so far as Protestants are ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin
... Holding in trust and subject to an accounting the property of the indolent, the incompetent, the unthrifty, the envious and the luckless. That is the view that prevails in the underworld, where the Brotherhood of Man finds its most logical development and candid advocacy. To denizens of the midworld the word ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... Dorth had scarcely entered upon his duties when he fell into an ambush of native levies near San Salvador and was killed. His successor, Willem Schouten, was incompetent and dissolute; and, when the fleet set sail on its homeward voyage at the end of July, the garrison soon found itself practically besieged by bodies of Portuguese troops with Indian auxiliaries, who occupied the neighbouring woods ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... Christian religion, appoint a time, and hear me." The proconsul said: "Persuade the people." The martyr replied: "I addressed my discourse to you; for we are taught to give due honor to princes as far as is consistent with religion. But the populace is an incompetent judge to justify myself before." Indeed, rage rendered them incapable ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... soldier was so unwilling to submit to the orders of incompetent people, he never liked to be under the direct command of Washington, and, if it were possible to do so, he managed to be concerned in operations not under the immediate eye of the commander in chief. In fact, he was very jealous indeed ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... is said that you cite causes between two Romans, even against their will, before your tribunal. If you are conscious that this has been done by you, do not so presume in future, lest while seeking the office of Judge, for which you are incompetent, you wake up to find yourself a culprit. You, of all men, ought to be mindful of the Edictum, since you insist on its being followed by others. If not, if this rule is not observed by you, your whole power of decreeing shall be taken from you. Let the administration of the laws ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... Commander: this idea of a Catholic Church will survive Islam, will survive the Cross, will survive even that vulgar pageant of incompetent schoolboyish gladiators which ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... be like without the churches, faulty or incompetent as we may know some of them to be, what that life would lose and miss without them is precisely, and perhaps in larger degree, what the family life misses without its own institution of regular ...
— Religious Education in the Family • Henry F. Cope
... old friends, and remembering every detail of their circumstances, opinions, and conduct. Concerning the latter, he did not fail to remind them of any failings he had taken note of. Those who were frauds, incompetent, or lazy, he never spared, and often such conversations were a source of much amusement to me. On the other hand, those who had been true to him, and had not veered round with the tide of public opinion after 1896, were ever remembered and rewarded. It was ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... thing essential to be regarded. On the dissolution of the late constitution in France, by removing so integral a part of it as the King, the National Assembly, to whom a part only of the public authority had been delegated, appear to have considered themselves as incompetent to transact the affairs of the nation legitimately. They invited their fellow-citizens, therefore, to appoint a National Convention. In conformity with this their idea of the defective state of the national authority, you were ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... before the husband was released on probation. This was done apparently in the hope that it would influence the court in the disposition of the case. After a study of the situation had been made by the probation officer, it was found that the wife was totally incompetent as a housekeeper, that she possessed an antagonistic disposition, had a violent temper, and that no sincere attachment for each other existed between the couple. Before any constructive measures ...
— Broken Homes - A Study of Family Desertion and its Social Treatment • Joanna C. Colcord
... Proposals for an Historical Account of that most universally celebrated as well as useful Art of Typography. The work, which was also to contain a history of bookbinding, paper-making, etc., was, however, never published, and it has been often stated that Bagford was quite incompetent to carry out such an undertaking. This may possibly have been the case, for although he was certainly a man of much ability, and possessed an extensive knowledge of books, he had received but little education. ...
— English Book Collectors • William Younger Fletcher
... The difficulties with which he had to struggle were, of course, very great. On the other hand, he seems to have been deficient both in strength of character and in military capacity; and his ill-health made still more difficult a task for which he was fundamentally incompetent. The comparative failure of this, Cromwell's pet enterprise, was a bitter blow to the Protector. For a whole day he shut himself up in his room, brooding over the disaster for which he, more than any other, was responsible. ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring
... Henry IV by a crazed fanatic in 1610 threatened for a time to nullify the effects of his labors, for supreme power passed to his widow, Marie de' Medici, an ambitious but incompetent woman, who dismissed Sully and undertook to act as regent for her nine- year-old son, Louis XIII. The queen-regent was surrounded by worthless favorites and was hated by the Huguenots, who feared her rigid Catholicism, and by the nobles, Catholic ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... there was mystification. The one woman—notorious as she was—who knew the truth had been rendered mentally incompetent by an assassin's bullet, while he, himself, ...
— Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo • William Le Queux
... case was prosecuted in the interest of Ward. If so, this would exclude his testimony wholly. This was in the dark legal days, when not only were parties excluded from giving evidence, but a pecuniary interest in the result of the suit to the value of one mill, would render a man incompetent as a witness. ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... Governor-General and Council on the college at Calcutta. There is nothing so important as to preserve young men, who are to govern an Empire, from idleness, dissipation, and debt. This must be done. The Governor-General's own superintendence may effect much. The suspension of the incompetent may do more; but while the habits of expense are given at Hayleybury, and continued by their residence without any control in the midst of a dissipated capital, nothing will reform ...
— A Political Diary 1828-1830, Volume II • Edward Law (Lord Ellenborough)
... And when I add that the injured husband has been married before and that his first wife, honestly supposed to be dead, returns to threaten his happiness, you will see that Mrs. Woods sets forth upon a path trodden by many hundreds of thousands of incompetent feet. To start with such a situation almost suggests bravado. If it be bravado, it is entirely justified as the tale proceeds: for amid the crowd of failures Mrs. Woods's solution wears the singular distinction of truth. ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... of the adjoining counties, and the establishment of a line of forts and block-houses, dispersed along a considerable extent of country, and occupied by detachments of British colonial troops, or by militiamen. All these were utterly incompetent to effect security; partly from the circumstances of the case, and somewhat from the entire want of discipline, and the absence of that subordination which is absolutely necessary to ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... wars, and Lord Holland, commanding the Royalist troops, conceived the idea of a rising near London. There was to be a horse-race on Banstead Downs, to draw the people together, and he was to lead them. Unhappily for his followers, he was a thoroughly incompetent soldier. He hoisted his standard at Kingston, and marched through Dorking to Reigate, where he held the castle and posted his vedettes on Red Hill. Sir Michael Livesey, commanding some Kentish horse for the Parliament, was ordered up from Sevenoaks to meet ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... began a slow and bloody siege of the defences of the Dardanelles, clambering up to the surprise landing of a fresh British army in Suvla Bay in August, and its failure in the battle of Anafarta, through incompetent commanders and a general sloppiness of leading, to cut off and capture Maidos and the Narrows defences.... Meanwhile the Russian hosts, which had reached their high-water mark in the capture of Przemysl, were being forced back first in the south and then in the north. ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... also spoken of the fact that, when Grant was re-nominated for President in 1872, a large section of the party, believing him incompetent, broke away from the party and named a candidate of their own. The party they formed was called the Liberal Republican, and their candidate was Horace Greeley. They managed to secure for him the support of the ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... gloomy. And, so far from attempting to make the best of things, he had set himself deliberately to look on the dark side. He thought, for instance, that he had never seen a more repulsive porter, or one more obviously incompetent than the man who had attached himself with a firm grasp to the handle of the bag as he strode off in the direction of the luggage-van. He disliked his voice, his appearance, and the colour of his hair. Also the boots he ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... vast accumulation of capital made it possible for a man to purchase his way to power, in spite of repeated attempts to check the evil by legislation, the old principle of honourable association was used to help the small man to make a living by choosing the unprincipled and often the incompetent to undertake the government ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler
... to succour the Lazi, II. xxix. 10; with Goubazes besieges Petra, II. xxix. 11 ff.; sends an insufficient force to guard the pass into Lazica, II. xxix. 33-34; his incompetent conduct of the siege of Petra, II. xxix. 34 ff.; deceived by Mirranes, II. xxx. 7; abandons Petra, II. xxx. 11; with Phoubelis attacks Mermeroes, II. xxx. 22; with Goubazes attacks and almost annihilates the Persians, ...
— History of the Wars, Books I and II (of 8) - The Persian War • Procopius
... to weariness, I write down my opinion, that Liberia is firmly planted, and is destined to increase and prosper. This it will do, though all further support from the United States be discontinued. A large part of the present population, it is true, are ignorant, and incompetent to place a just estimate on freedom, or even to comprehend what freedom really is. But they are generally improving in this respect; and there is already a sufficient intermixture of intelligent, enterprising and ...
— Journal of an African Cruiser • Horatio Bridge
... incompetent fools! Don't expect me to tell you your business. Why do I pay you? Why indeed? Nothing you have done has been of the very slightest use; on the contrary, through your beastly mismanagement I have been dragged into this degrading position, held up to ridicule and contempt before ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths
... judgment, the court condemns Jerome Morel to pay to Pierre Petit-Jean, merchant,[Footnote: The crafty notary incompetent to proceed in his own name, had got from the unfortunate Morel a blank acceptance, and had introduced a third party's name.] by all his goods, and even with his body, the sum of thirteen hundred francs, ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... kill Grouse. At least I can't. I sometimes suspect there are others of the population equally incompetent, and perhaps still less interested in battues; though the Twelfth figures in everybody's calendar like a Church festival, and the newspapers devote leaders to it, and the comic papers have pictures, ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... truly said of Decatur: "He was one of the most chivalric men of any age or country." He was one of the little band of naval commanders who by heroic exploits at sea did so much to redeem the American name from the humiliation and disgrace caused by incompetent generalship upon land, in our second war with Great Britain. His encounters with the enemy were of frequent occurrence, and in each instance added new laurels to our little navy. If Commodore Decatur had rendered no other service to his country, that ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... situation by insisting that she would put on the kettle, and Mr. Murdoch, in a burst of almost divine inspiration, insisted that his wife was quite incompetent to light the gas alone at that hour of the night. When the old folks had shuffled into the kitchen Grant found himself ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... extend the franchise any farther for fear that universal suffrage will result in the corruption of national politics, which is now comparatively pure. They prefer the present restrictions, which give the ballot only to women who pay taxes, because it deprives ignorant and incompetent women of a voice in the government, and avoids the dangers that often attend the participation of the masses in elections. They prefer to direct their efforts to securing an increase in women's wages, so that they may receive the same compensation as men for the same work, and hope to accomplish ...
— Norwegian Life • Ethlyn T. Clough
... assigned to poverty are both subjective and objective, or individual and social. It was formerly customary to throw most of the blame on the poor themselves, to charge them with being lazy, intemperate, vicious, and generally incompetent, and it is useless to deny that these appear to be the direct causes in great numbers of instances, but as much of the negro and poor white trash in the South was found to be due to hookworm infection, so very many of the faults of the ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... up; but she was not to be diverted. Suddenly she turned, and caught him by the arms. "Thyrsis!" she cried. "Tell me! Do you blame me as she does? Do you think I'm weak and incompetent?" ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... the spot. Such saws as, "The pot must not call the kettle black," "One swallow does not make a Spring," "Nought is never in danger," "Out of sight, out of mind," often give employment to an otherwise freightless tongue, and serve as excusing makeshifts for a mind incompetent, from ignorance, indolence, or fatigue, to discharge the duty of furnishing its own thought ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... inability to do so. Privately, she was not at all sure what he meant, but dread of Miss Hardy's wrath should she be returned to the office marked "Incompetent" forced her to ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... bit that way, myself; and I think,' said poor Milly, making an effort, and growing very red; she quite lost her head at that point, and was incompetent to finish the sentiment ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... sloth that hastened the fall of the Roman Empire. Owing to the gradual exhaustion of the supply of slaves its economic basis was crumbling away. The ruling class was content to administer and enjoy rather than to govern: unwilling or incompetent to grapple with the new order of things.[19] For centuries the Gauls had been untrained in arms and habituated to look to the imperial legions for defence against the half-savage races of men, giants in stature and ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... and peasantry that it was all true, that the Emperor would be in Paris again very shortly and that once more there would be an end to tyranny and oppression, to the rule of the aristocrats and a number of incompetent and fatuous princes. ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... with the most perfect information, an unqualified, inexperienced, or unprepared military commander may not win except with extraordinary luck or an incompetent foe. And, we repeat that there are cases where NO military force may be able to succeed if the objectives are unobtainable. The match of the entrepreneurial individual with the potential of the technology base is key. Optimizing ...
— Shock and Awe - Achieving Rapid Dominance • Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade
... crisis at which experience had taught one to expect a crass sentimentality. The fairy-tale was well told, with some excellent characterization, and very well played. Indeed, Mr. Frank Craven's rendering of the incompetent clerk was a masterly and unforgettable piece of comedy. I enjoyed "Bought and Paid For," and it is on the faith of such plays, imperfect and timid as they are, that I establish my prophecy of a more glorious hereafter ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett
... Mr. Laurence Fairfax had Master Justus on his lap when his father unexpectedly walked into his garden. There was a lady in blue amongst the flowers who vanished; and the incompetent Sally, with something in her arms, who also hastily retired, but not unseen, either her or her burden. Master Justus held his ground with baby audacity, and the old squire recognized a strong young shoot of the Fairfax stock. One or two sharp exclamations and ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... no longer owned the forests, nor the salt marshes, nor the vineyards; for I had heard them say that she had sold them one at a time to put the money into investments upon the mainland; and that an incompetent notary by his bad investments had greatly ...
— The Story of a Child • Pierre Loti
... denunciation had arisen from the Opposition when he had been raised to the peerage some months earlier, after the glorious victory of Talavera, and how, that victory notwithstanding, it had been proclaimed that his conduct of the campaign was so incompetent as to deserve, not reward, but punishment; and he was aware of the growing unpopularity of the war in England, knew that the Government—ignorant of what he was so laboriously preparing—was chafing at his inactivity of the past few months, so that a member of the Cabinet wrote ...
— The Snare • Rafael Sabatini
... moved by a beneficent purpose to the acts which have inspired them. The sun is a symbol of this creative power—by many even imagined to be its reality. But that mighty orb is unconscious of the feelings it may inspire; and the Divine Omnipotence, which it symbolizes, must be no less incompetent to earn them. For purpose is the negation of power, implying something which power has not attained; and would imply deficiency in an existence which presents itself to our intelligence as complete. Reason therefore tells us that God can have ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... suddenly assert her starved abilities, and make him become far greater than anything Trudy had ever been able to do! It would cause such a jolly row and excitement and pep everyone up. Pet and flatter him and show Trudy that after all she had only been an incompetent ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... parties of two over the plains, which the antelope invariably prefers to the woodlands, and to which it always retreats if by accident it is found straggling in the hills, confiding no doubt in its wonderful fleetness. We also killed a few young geese, but as this game is small and very incompetent to the subsistence of the party, we have forbidden the men any longer to waste their ammunition on them. About four and a half miles above Gass's creek, the valley in which we have been travelling ceases, the high craggy cliffs again approach the ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... safety valve, declared in his desperation, that "either she or he should go." At length the machinery was set in motion, on which, as Jonathan Foster described to the author "she flew all to pieces, and it was the biggest wonder i' the world that we were not all blewn up." The incompetent and useless engine was declared to be a failure; it was shortly after dismounted and sold; and Mr. Blackett's praiseworthy efforts thus far proved ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... seen too much of incompetent labor to be satisfied with anything but the best. Although his ideas were not as yet formulated, he hoped to be able to pick up a crew of first-class men from those who had come down with the advance, or "jam," of the spring's drive. They should have finished their orgies by now, and, ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... of the atoms is not available by any of our mechanical appliances. The process of radio-activity involves the expulsion of atoms of helium with a velocity three hundred times greater than that ever previously known for any material mass or particle, and this power we are incompetent to use. The atoms remain unchanged amid the heat and pressure of the laboratory of nature. Iron and oxygen and so forth remain the same in the sun as here on ...
— The Breath of Life • John Burroughs
... Owen Roe—an honourable and gallant man, who had served with much distinction upon the Continent, landed in Donegal, accompanied by about a hundred French-Irish officers. He instantly took the command of the disorganized and fast-dissolving northern levies; superseded the incompetent Sir Phelim, who from that moment fell away into contempt and impotence; suppressed all disorders, and punished, as far as possible, those who had been foremost in the work of blood, expressing at the same time his utter detestation of the horrors which ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless
... clergy are backward to perceive. The consequences of this backwardness are very hurtful to their interests. Because of this, we have an indefinite amount of puerile and undignified complaint from disappointed men, of disingenuous misrepresentation from incompetent men, who have entered upon labors they were never fitted to accomplish. Such men undertake their labors in ways that want and must want the Divine sanction; and they are tempted to ward off a just verdict of unsuitableness and of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... to jeer at their helplessness; soon they learnt to disregard them as if they were not there. From having believed himself to be the wisest of living creatures the Man discovered himself to be the most incompetent. Often and often he would creep to the gold-locked gates and peer between the bars, hoping to see God walking there as formerly. But God walked no more. As He had climbed back into Heaven, He had destroyed the sky-blue stairs behind Him. There was no way in which the Man could reach Him ...
— Christmas Outside of Eden • Coningsby Dawson
... week passed in a blind confusion. She did not know how to teach, and she felt she never would know. Mr. Harby came down every now and then to her class, to see what she was doing. She felt so incompetent as he stood by, bullying and threatening, so unreal, that she wavered, became neutral and non-existent. But he stood there watching with the listening-genial smile of the eyes, that was really threatening; he said nothing, he made ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... manipulations must necessarily contaminate the site of operation; for this reason and others as well women who attempt to perform an abortion upon themselves imperil their lives. The danger is scarcely less when abortion is induced unlawfully by incompetent operators; for lack of skill, the need of secrecy, and the desire of haste all interfere with necessary aseptic technique. Everyone knows that sad accidents befall those who submit to such operations; but it is not generally ...
— The Prospective Mother - A Handbook for Women During Pregnancy • J. Morris Slemons
... this work,) a brief but most important statute (6 and 7 Vict. c. 85) was enacted, "for improving the Law of Evidence"—the chief object of which was, to remove all such difficulties as that which formed the subject of Mr. Parkinson's inquiries. Witnesses are now no longer "incompetent" to give evidence by reason of crime or of any interest which they may have in, or in respect of, the ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... a picture of what passes every day at Florence—in Pisa, on the contrary, all is stagnation and repose—even the presence of the sovereign, who usually passes a part of the winter here, is incompetent to give a momentary liveliness to the place. The city is nearly as large as Florence, with not a third of its population; the number of strangers is few; most of them are invalids, and the rest are the quietest people in the world. The rattle of carriages is rarely heard in ...
— Letters of a Traveller - Notes of Things Seen in Europe and America • William Cullen Bryant
... who can look through the Clothes of a Man (the woollen, and fleshly, and official Bank-paper and State-paper Clothes) into the Man himself; and discern, it may be, in this or the other Dread Potentate, a more or less incompetent Digestive-apparatus; yet also an inscrutable venerable Mystery, in the meanest Tinker that sees ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... ignorant of its nature or opposed to its precepts engaged in its administration. While an irreligious or immoral governor would pervert the course of justice in the administration of laws truly excellent, he would be utterly incompetent to the improvement of those that might be defective. The acts of the best of civil governments—even those founded upon the statutes of Divine truth—from the very nature of society, require frequently to be modified. And, since the modelling and increase of laws, as well as their dispensation, ...
— The Ordinance of Covenanting • John Cunningham
... Mr. Alfred Percy—he seemed to grow in an instant several feet in their estimation: but he shrunk again when he acknowledged that he had merely met Count Altenberg accidentally at Greenwich—that he knew nothing of the count's estate in Yorkshire, or of his foreign possessions, and was utterly incompetent to decide whether he had ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... with great spirit. He would not, he said, disobey the King by objecting to a measure an which his Majesty was determined to hear no argument; but he would most earnestly entreat his Majesty, if the present Council was incompetent to give advice, to dissolve it and select another; for it was absurd to have counsellors who did not counsel, and who were summoned only to be silent witnesses of the acts of others. The King listened courteously. But the members of the Cabinet resented ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... millions of people not organised as they should be, not educated as they should be, not simply prevented from but incapable of nearly every sort of beauty, mostly kindly and well meaning, mostly incompetent, mostly obstinate, and easily humbugged and easily diverted. Even the tragic and inspiring idea of Marx, that the poor were nearing a limit of painful experience, and awakening to a sense of intolerable wrongs, began to develop into the more appalling ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells
... Pitt to the ministry the whole course of events was changed because of the great statesman's wonderful personality. The teacher who wishes to make such a dramatic circumstance really vital to his class must have more information with which to work. A picture of the coarse, vulgar England with its incompetent army and navy, apathetic church, and corrupt government, followed by a stirring character sketch of the great Pitt, will cost but a few minutes of the recitation and will metamorphose a moribund attention to a ...
— The Teaching of History • Ernest C. Hartwell
... to be remembered, that the plot failed because a man unauthorized and incompetent, William Paul, undertook to make enlistments on his own account. He happened on one of precisely that class of men,—favored house-servants,—whom his leaders had expressly reserved for more skilful manipulations. He being thus detected, one would have supposed that the discovery of many ...
— Black Rebellion - Five Slave Revolts • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... brewing. Her expertness, perhaps, never reached a high level, but at all events she made a gallant effort. But that was long, long ago, before the new enlightenment rescued her. Today, in her average incarnation, she is not only incompetent (alack, as I have argued, rather beyond her control); she is also filled with the notion that a conscientious discharge of her few remaining duties is, in some vague way, discreditable and degrading. To call her a good cook, ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... by Philip to make ready to take in hand the affairs of Flanders, sadly disorganized under the incompetent rule of Alva. It occurred to him that if he were to issue victoriously from that enterprise—and so far victory had waited upon his every venture—if he were to succeed in restoring peace and Spanish ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... it be objected to me, that, being a layman, I ought not to have concerned myself with speculations which belong to the profession of divinity; I could answer, that perhaps laymen, with equal advantages of parts and knowledge, are not the most incompetent judges of sacred things; but in the due sense of my own weakness and want of learning, I plead not this: I pretend not to make myself a judge of faith in others, but only to make a confession of my own. I lay no unhallowed hand upon the ark, ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... vigorous prosecution of the war in America. General John Forbes was sent, in 1758, with about nine thousand men to reduce Fort Duquesne. The illness which caused his death in the following year may be fairly accepted in excuse and explanation of the incompetent management of the expedition, and its almost fatal delays. Fortunately the French appeared to have lost the vigor and daring which they had displayed in the defeat of Braddock, and the sullen roar of an explosion, when the British troops were within a few miles ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... of his authority. The law fixes the age of majority, when the child is completely emancipated; and even during his nonage, takes him from the father and places him under guardians, in case the father is incompetent to fulfil or grossly abuses his trust. This is proper, because society contributes to the life of the child, and has a right as well as an interest in him. Society, again, must suffer if the child is allowed to grow up a worthless vagabond or ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson
... mysterious affairs of Monday night, including the views and theories of well-known citizens. It also took occasion to "lambast" Constable Foss with great severity. The Constable, being a Republican, (and not a subscriber to the Sun), was described as about the most incompetent official Windomville had ever known, and that it would have been quite possible for the miscreant or miscreants to have poisoned every dog in town, in broad daylight, accompanied by a brass band, without Bill ever ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon
... had been brutally contemptuous of the city and its inhabitants. "They can't even put up the names of the streets so that people can read them," he said to John Marsh soon after he arrived in Dublin. "They're so damned incompetent!" And Marsh had told him to control his Ulster blood. "You're right to be proud of Ulster," he had said, "but you oughtn't to go about talking as if the rest of Ireland were inhabited ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... the Laconian capital, Themistocles demanded no public audience, avoided all occasions of opening the questions in dispute, and screened the policy of delay beneath the excuse that his colleagues were not yet arrived—that he was incompetent to treat without their counsel and concurrence—and that doubtless they would speedily appear ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... rises full in vision. The poet flings forth his melody, and to the gross ear it seems a mere tinkle of inanity. That is simply because the crowd who worship at the shrine of the Sminthean Apollo have been accustomed by an old-fashioned and ridiculously incompetent priesthood to look for an instant and mechanical relation between sound and sense. I would not exaggerate, sire; but the kind of poetry lately cultivated, not only at Delphi, but in Delos also, is ...
— Hypolympia - Or, The Gods in the Island, an Ironic Fantasy • Edmund Gosse
... her lot, because of the error of her incompetent heart, to take charge of this flotsam. That was so evident that she had ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... a big city where Sam got a chance to travel for a grocery store, and Jane Olive opened a inteligence office, where for an ample consideration she furnished incompetent help to distracted housekeepers, receivin' pay from both victims, and they laid up money fast. Then he went into pork and first we knew Sam wuz a very rich man, lived in great style, kep' his carriage, but wuz awful mean, so we heard, hadn't no morals at all to speak on so fur as wimmen wuz concerned, ...
— Samantha at the St. Louis Exposition • Marietta Holley
... of them, been degraded in rank. Many of them had been retired on pittances which were not paid. Those who were lucky enough to be retained in active service were superseded by superannuated, often incompetent old officers of the old royal army before the revolution, or by young scions of nobility with no knowledge or fitness to command veterans, to whom the gross-bodied, uninspiring, gouty old King did not appeal. Again, the regimental names and associations had ...
— The Eagle of the Empire - A Story of Waterloo • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... chin-deep through flattery and loving attentions. Then, after the judging is over, he is about as popular with those same exhibitors as a typhoid germ. No one can say bad enough things about him. He's 'incompetent,' he's 'a grafter,—'he's 'afraid of the big kennels,'—he's 'drunk.' He's any of these things; or all of them put together. Nobody's satisfied. Everybody has had a raw deal. Everybody's hammer is out for the poor slob of a judge. Well, ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... was very sharp for a time. I seemed to have lost M. Paul's affection; he treated me strangely. In his most unjust moments he would insinuate that I had deceived him when I appeared, what he called "faible"—that is incompetent; he said I had feigned a false incapacity. Again, he would turn suddenly round and accuse me of the most far-fetched imitations and impossible plagiarisms, asserting that I had extracted the pith out of books I had not so much as heard of— and over ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... any legislative interposition, on whatever plea of humanity, between workmen and capitalist? Because it will fail of its humane intention. We should heartily rejoice—who would not?—if a reasonable minimum of wages could be established and secured. But it cannot. Is the legislature equally incompetent when it steps in to prevent children and very young persons from being overworked; from being so employed that the health and vigour of ensuing generations may be seriously impaired, (which would be a grave mistake even in the economy of labour;) from being so ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... the new commander-in-chief, from whom he expected vigor and improvement. Unfortunately he was destined to have only fresh disappointment from the new general, for Lord Loudon was merely one more incompetent man added to the existing confusion. He paid no heed to the South, matters continued to go badly in the North, and Virginia was left helpless. So Washington toiled on with much discouragement, and the disagreeable attacks upon him increased. That it should have been so is not surprising, ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge
... of letters. Languages, ancient and modern, were housed within his brain, and, to use the words of his epitaph, 'he first penetrated the obscurity which had veiled for ages the hieroglyphics of Egypt.' It fell to the lot of this man to discover facts in optics which Newton's theory was incompetent to explain, and his mind roamed in search of a sufficient theory. He had made himself acquainted with all the phenomena of wave-motion; with all the phenomena of sound; working successfully in this domain as an original discoverer. Thus informed and disciplined, he was prepared to detect ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall
... journal: Our pilot proved incompetent, and we narrowly escaped shipwreck in consequence at Martin Garcia Bar, a bad spot in the River Plate. A small schooner captain, observing that we needlessly followed in his track, and being anything but a sailor in principle, wantonly meditated ...
— Voyage of the Liberdade • Captain Joshua Slocum
... mind to conceive either an infinite world or a world stopping abruptly with not even space beyond. A common answer to this antinomy is that the mind is attempting to deal with a subject with which it is incompetent to deal, that the question is wrongly formulated and that every answer to it thus formulated must be wrong. The way of truth lies in first finding the true question. The real difficulty of the Buddha's teaching, though it does not stimulate ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... the scholar, the devout and the high-minded, the seats of learning and the resting-places of the studious and the aged, who hated war and tumult, and only longed for repose. Some that were mere hiding holes for the lazy and the incompetent, the failures among the younger sons of the gentry, who had not the power of pushing their way in the world, or whose career had been a disappointment. Such men, where all else failed, could get ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... JALPANYBHOY and Baboo CHUCKERBUTTY RAM attended for the purpose of arranging their evidence, when I regret to say the former made a rather paltry exhibition of himself, being declared by Mr SMARTLE himself to be totally incompetent to prove anything whatever material to the case, and I am therefore resolved to refuse him ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... way, and a climate of incomprehension may suit orators and metaphysicians admirably; but it will not do for politics. The party or people that fails to make its programme understood is politically incompetent, and Ireland is assuredly safe from any such imputation. She has her spiritual secrets, buried deep in what we may call the subliminal consciousness of the race, and to the disclosure of these secrets ...
— The Open Secret of Ireland • T. M. Kettle
... legislative interposition, on whatever plea of humanity, between workmen and capitalist? Because it will fail of its humane intention. We should heartily rejoice—who would not?—if a reasonable minimum of wages could be established and secured. But it cannot. Is the legislature equally incompetent when it steps in to prevent children and very young persons from being overworked; from being so employed that the health and vigour of ensuing generations may be seriously impaired, (which would be a grave ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... officers had, most of them, been degraded in rank. Many of them had been retired on pittances which were not paid. Those who were lucky enough to be retained in active service were superseded by superannuated, often incompetent old officers of the old royal army before the revolution, or by young scions of nobility with no knowledge or fitness to command veterans, to whom the gross-bodied, uninspiring, gouty old King did not appeal. Again, the regimental names and associations ...
— The Eagle of the Empire - A Story of Waterloo • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... of whom is "disabled" and weak, but both are shining examples of goodness and bravery. The women of the tale are of course all beautiful and devoted members of their various households. The men of the tale vary between the competent and the incompetent; the lazy and idle, and the industrious; the cunning, ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... primitive virtue which had characterised the farmers broke down in the face of temptation. The country Boers were little affected, some of them not at all, but the Pretoria Government became a most corrupt oligarchy, venal and incompetent to the last degree. Officials and imported Hollanders handled the stream of gold which came in from the mines, while the unfortunate Uitlander who paid nine-tenths of the taxation was fleeced at every turn, and met with laughter and taunts ...
— The War in South Africa - Its Cause and Conduct • Arthur Conan Doyle
... belongs to the state, and to the state the father is answerable for the use he makes of his authority. The law fixes the age of majority, when the child is completely emancipated; and even during his nonage, takes him from the father and places him under guardians, in case the father is incompetent to fulfil or grossly abuses his trust. This is proper, because society contributes to the life of the child, and has a right as well as an interest in him. Society, again, must suffer if the child is allowed to grow up a worthless vagabond or a criminal; and has a ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson
... deserve it," declared Beth. "And think of what the public would gain! Instead of having to suffer during the performances of incompetent actors and singers, as we do to-day, the whole world would be able to see and hear the best talent of the ages for an insignificant fee. I hope your prediction ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Out West • Edith Van Dyne
... drink excessively, and that he is fitted for his duties by temperament. After this he will be permitted to undergo examinations in fitness and knowledge of driving. It is a tight-meshed net through which an incompetent would find it ...
— Scotland Yard - The methods and organisation of the Metropolitan Police • George Dilnot
... Mr. Wax, eagerly, "it is that which I have vainly sought for weeks. I have been out of employment ever since the combined efforts of our National Administration and of our incompetent Congress succeeded in sowing the seeds of distrust in every mind, thereby stagnating business and precipitating a financial crisis, from the debris of which I can never hope ...
— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field
... did not prove so favourable to the measures of the minister as he expected: Monsieur DE CALONNE was displaced, and the assembly was soon after dissolved, having declared itself incompetent to decide ...
— Historical Epochs of the French Revolution • H. Goudemetz
... nullifies all, as a bad link in an otherwise good chain renders the whole useless. Omitting the other portions of the correspondence, the following letter from Major-general D'Aguilar, dated Hong-Kong, August 21, 1847, to Major-general Smelt, reveals sufficiently the incompetent arrangements for British ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... he said now. "Will's a coward and desperately ill. He wants to pay his way into heaven, and I can't blame him. But I—I'm an incompetent fool! I can't even pay my girl's way on earth!" The captain's life, in fact, was a long ague of feverish conceit and chills of humility. Yesterday he was an inventor who would benefit the world: to-day he was fit for nothing but to dig clams. Going up and down the lonely walk, he summed up all the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... it, by the bye), let us take it. And as to where an untried child goes, whether to join the assembly of its elders who have borne the heat of the day—fire-purified martyrs, and torment-sifted confessors—what know we? We promise heaven methinks too cheaply, and assign large revenues to minors, incompetent to manage them. Epitaphs run upon this topic of consolation, till the very frequency induces a cheapness. Tickets for admission into Paradise are sculptured out at a penny a letter, twopence a syllable, &c. It is all a mystery; and the more I try ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... to enumerate instances; people have suffered too severely at the hands of careless and incompetent hosts not to know pretty well what the title of this paper means. So many of us have come away from fruitless evenings, grinding our teeth, and vowing never to enter those doors again while life lasts, that the time seems ripe ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... didn't know how to snare a bird, or were hopelessly stupid in the art of chipping flint arrowheads, died out of starvation, leaving no representatives. The beneficent institution of the poor law does not exist among savages, in order to enable the helpless and incompetent to bring up families in their own image. There, survival of the fittest still works out its own ultimately benevolent and useful end in its own directly cruel and relentless way, cutting off ruthlessly the stupid or the weak, and allowing only the strong and the cunning to become the parents ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... law proves, then it is still only one and the same reason which, whether in a theoretical or a practical point of view, judges according to a priori principles; and then it is clear that although it is in the first point of view incompetent to establish certain propositions positively, which, however, do not contradict it, then, as soon as these propositions are inseparably attached to the practical interest of pure reason, it must accept them, though ...
— The Critique of Practical Reason • Immanuel Kant
... voyagers, finding this planet to be nothing but a howling wilderness, inhabited by us poor savages and wild beasts, shall take formal possession of it, in the name of his most gracious and philosophic excellency, the Man in the Moon. Finding however that their numbers are incompetent to hold it in complete subjection, on account of the ferocious barbarity of its inhabitants, they shall take our worthy President, the King of England, the Emperor of Hayti, the mighty Bonaparte, and the great King of Bantam, ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... so difficult a word is No to us all. There is some malformation or defect of the vocal organs, which either prevents our uttering it at all, or gives it so thick a pronunciation as to be unintelligible. A mouth filled with the national pudding, or watering in expectation thereof, is wholly incompetent to this refractory monosyllable. An abject and herpetic Public Opinion is the Pope, the Anti-Christ, for us to protest against e corde cordium. And by what College of Cardinals is this our God's-vicar, our binder and looser, elected? Very like, by the sacred conclave of Tag, Rag, ...
— The Biglow Papers • James Russell Lowell
... their Christianity was, it was altogether unprogressive in its form. It was inelastic, incompetent to adapt itself to changing circumstances. Some of their leaders were inclined at one time to favour a scheme of comprehension. It is, however, impossible to believe they would have agreed to any concession which was not evidently superficial. They longed ...
— The English Church in the Eighteenth Century • Charles J. Abbey and John H. Overton
... present Legislature will go down in history as the most incompetent body of lawmakers that ever sat in the ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs
... observation, or logic and reasoning, but as a result of an emotion, a mere feeling that this or that proposition is true. In every adverse decision of the court he sees a deep-laid conspiracy to deprive him of his rights. His lawyers are incompetent and in collusion with his persecutors; the judge is corrupt or ignorant of the law, and the legislators negligent in their duties in not writing into the statutes laws which would take care of his ...
— Studies in Forensic Psychiatry • Bernard Glueck
... fraudulent means, or at least for a ridiculously small sum of money. Still less could it prevent its unruly subjects from trespassing on the Indian country, or protect them if they were themselves threatened by the savages. It could not do justice as between its own citizens, and it was quite incompetent to preserve the peace between them and outsiders. [Footnote: Calendar of Va. State Papers, III., p. 213.] The borderers were left to work out their ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt
... experience was given in an interview some years later. "My City Editor didn't like me because on cold days I wore gloves. But he was determined to make me work, and gave me about eighteen assignments a day, and paid me $7. a week. At the end of three months he discharged me as incompetent." ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... going home. Speaking about this, some said, Well enough—he has become quite incompetent of late. Getting stale, probably. Unable to discover the obvious, losing his keenness. Ten years in the Far East about does for one. But with Lawson, the situation was different. He had become so ...
— Civilization - Tales of the Orient • Ellen Newbold La Motte
... deficient. To add to the confusion, the Kentucky militia were divided in their allegiance between a certain Colonel William Trotter and Colonel John Hardin. Hardin was fearless, but extremely rash; Trotter was wholly incompetent. In two or three days the Kentuckians were formed into three battalions, under Majors Hall, McMullen, and Ray, with Trotter at their head. Harmar, an old army officer of the revolution, who felt a contempt for all militia, was in sore dismay, for the hasty muster was totally lacking ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce
... mind. The reader will of course understand the precise amount of seasoning which must be added to it before he adopts it as one of the axioms of his life. The speaker disclaims all responsibility for its abuse in incompetent hands.] ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... walked into a tight spot in the operating room, it could be a real test of skill to get him—and his patient—out of it, even on a relatively simple procedure. But organ-transplantation, with the delicate vascular surgery and micro-surgery that it entailed, was never simple. In incompetent hands, it could turn into ...
— Star Surgeon • Alan Nourse
... as a trader was shorter and even more inglorious than that as a farmer. Within a month I was discharged as utterly incompetent. Although I resented this at the time, I am now convinced that the ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... olden sailor, the shout of gladness with which men went forth on these hazardous undertakings, knowing not how they would arrive, or what might befall them by the way, went forth in the smallest of wooden ships, with the most incompetent of crews, to face the dangers of unknown seas and unsuspected lands, to chance the angry storm and the hidden rock, to discover inhospitable shores and savage foes. Founded on bitter experience ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... chieftain, called Tayer or Thair, made an attack upon Otesiphon, took the city by storm, and captured a sister or aunt of the Persian monarch. The nobles, who, during Sapor's minority, guided the helm of the State, were quite incompetent to make head against these numerous enemies. For sixteen years the marauding bands had the advantage, and Persia found herself continually weaker, more impoverished, and less able to recover herself. The young prince is said to have shown ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson
... warned by something in the aspect of the tiny woman who had been a thorn in her side so long. Somehow, for this occasion, the most incompetent, most insignificant member of her staff had contrived to clothe herself with a certain nobility. She was undeniably the more ...
— Superseded • May Sinclair
... with their usual want of activity, did not open the campaign till the month of June. It consisted of fourteen thousand men; and never was an army so badly conducted. Without money, artillery, provisions, or discipline, it was at any moment ready to break up and abandon its incompetent general; and on the very first encounter with the enemy, and after a loss of a couple of hundred men, it became self-disbanded; and, flying in every direction, not a single man could be rallied ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... attempt at prosecution. Now there had come forth from the Casa Blanca fresh defiance and lawlessness and still Jim Galloway came and went as he pleased. Those who criticised said that Norton was losing his nerve, or else that he was merely incompetent when measured by the yardstick of swift, incisive action wedded ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory
... willing to own to a mistake and give up even his most cherished ideas if truth required them at his hands. No conception can be more wantonly inexact. I grant that if a writer was sufficiently at once incompetent and obsequious Mr. Darwin was "ever ready," &c. So the Emperors of Austria wash a few poor people's feet on some one of the festivals of the Church, but it would not be safe to generalise from ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... have as much. They were conscious, too, that the North, the sluggish North, which had been so long in putting forth its full strength, was now preparing for an effort far greater than any that had gone before. The incompetent generals, the tricksters and the sluggards were gone, and battle-tried armies led by real generals were coming in numbers that would ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... you," he said, "that it is the beginning of piano study which is the most difficult of all; this is where the teacher has such great responsibility and where so many teachers are so incompetent. Perhaps there are more poor teachers for the piano than for the voice. The organs of voice production cannot be seen, they can only be guessed at; so there may be a little more excuse for the vocal teacher; but for the piano we have the keys and the fingers. ...
— Piano Mastery - Talks with Master Pianists and Teachers • Harriette Brower
... a surprising defeat at home. It became evident to Democratic leaders in the early Fall of 1918 that they were likely to lose the Congressional elections. Democratic leadership in the House of Representatives had been so notoriously incompetent that most of the war measures had had to be carried through under the leadership of Republicans, and there was grave dissatisfaction with some of the members of the Cabinet. The appeals of Democrats in danger were heard sympathetically at the White ...
— Woodrow Wilson's Administration and Achievements • Frank B. Lord and James William Bryan
... able-bodied men, most of them accustomed to handle a gun. Yet the British force was allowed to capture Washington, to burn the public buildings, and to retire to its fleet almost without losing a man. Till James Monroe became Secretary of War the whole administration was slack and incompetent. ...
— The Mentor: The War of 1812 - Volume 4, Number 3, Serial Number 103; 15 March, 1916. • Albert Bushnell Hart
... to you; and, if it should be necessary, I will, without hesitation, avail myself of your kind offer. I feel the deficiency of my education most sensibly in respect to my daughter. I find myself incompetent to take the direction ...
— Godey's Lady's Book, Vol. 42, January, 1851 • Various
... unfortunate who will have to be put out of his berth. The Coming Hour only requires a certain number. Of course there are many newspapers in London, and many magazines, and much literary work going. You may get your share of it, but you have got to begin by shoving some incompetent fellow out. And in order to be able to begin you must learn ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... cannot kill Grouse. At least I can't. I sometimes suspect there are others of the population equally incompetent, and perhaps still less interested in battues; though the Twelfth figures in everybody's calendar like a Church festival, and the newspapers devote leaders to it, and the comic papers have pictures, and sometimes even jokes about it, and you would ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... respectable families. Sometimes indeed he felt it too much of a good thing, and the hordes of runaway monks were an especial burden to him. He complains that "they wish to marry immediately and are the most incompetent people for any kind of work." Through his bold solution of a difficult question he gave great offense. He himself had painful experiences; for among those who now returned in tumult to civil life there were, to be sure, high-minded men, but also those who were rude and worthless. ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... woodlands, and to which it always retreats if by accident it is found straggling in the hills, confiding no doubt in its wonderful fleetness. We also killed a few young geese, but as this game is small and very incompetent to the subsistence of the party, we have forbidden the men any longer to waste their ammunition on them. About four and a half miles above Gass's creek, the valley in which we have been travelling ceases, the high craggy cliffs again approach the river, which now enters ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
... moral training of children rests squarely upon those who have assumed the responsibility of bringing them into the world, and it cannot be rightly pushed off on to some one else. To the protest of parents that they are incompetent to conduct such training, the only possible reply is a blunt, "Whose fault is that?" If you have been so careless of the fundamental responsibilities of life, you are incompetent to assume a relation which ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... blessed relief. I'd a million times rather be at home; but what can I find to do? I am ashamed to think how incompetent I am! Here we are back again where we were three months ago, Dr Maclure, when I worried you and ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... went either bare-footed or on rude wooden sandals. These people, the reader must understand, were an urban population sunken back to the state of a barbaric peasantry, and so without any of the simple arts a barbaric peasantry would possess. In many ways they were curiously degenerate and incompetent. They had lost any idea of making textiles, they could hardly make up clothes when they had material, and they were forced to plunder the continually dwindling supplies of the ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... give the township good government by electing good officers. A vote cast for a bad man or a bad measure is an attack upon the rights of every person in the community. The power of suffrage is held for the public good; but it is used for the public injury when incompetent or unfaithful men are elected to office. Good government and the happiness and prosperity of the country depend upon an honest and ...
— Elements of Civil Government • Alexander L. Peterman
... have known wagon-masters who really did not know how to straighten out a six-mule team, or, indeed, put the harness on them properly. And yet the wagon-master has almost complete power over the train. It will be readily seen from this, how much valuable property may be destroyed by placing incompetent men in such places. Wagon-masters, it seems to me, should not be allowed, under any circumstances, to have or take charge of a train of animals of any kind until they are thoroughly competent to handle, harness, and ...
— The Mule - A Treatise On The Breeding, Training, - And Uses To Which He May Be Put • Harvey Riley
... to play to the judicious, not to the crowd, whose opinion is worthless. He is to observe, like the author of Aeneas' speech, the 'modesty' of nature. He must not tear a 'passion' to tatters, to split the ears of the incompetent, but in the very tempest of passion is to keep a temperance and smoothness. The million, we gather from the first passage, cares nothing for construction; and so, we learn in the second passage, the barren spectators want to laugh at ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... thus given, was not forgotten or disregarded. Soon, after his marriage, young Manly found that, lovely, accomplished, and intelligent as she was, his wife was wholly incompetent to the task of managing a household; and when, by the discharge of a worthless servant, they were for the first time left alone, her perplexity and helplessness would have been ridiculous, had not the subject ...
— The Wedding Guest • T.S. Arthur
... well-intentioned friends that everyone possesses had told of the misadventure to her husband, and the latter, cruel as a woman, had spat upon her, and now through the suburbs she wandered, distraught, incompetent to aid. Her brother occurred to her. It was on him she could rely. His devotion was surpassed only by her own. Thereupon she sought him out, instructed him in his duty, and sent him forth to ...
— Mary Magdalen • Edgar Saltus
... West. The Warden was warned by his spies, but he had only a few hundreds to meet the thousands of Scots. But, if Norfolk's invasion was an empty parade, the Scots attempt was a fearful rout. Under their incompetent leader, Oliver Sinclair, they got entangled in Solway Moss; enormous numbers were slain or taken prisoners, and among them were some of the greatest men in Scotland. James died broken-hearted at the news, leaving his kingdom to ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... one thousand doubtful voters in each of a few units on his mind, and he knew the very day when a majority of them had decided to vote for Rockland, and that his fight was won. The pay-roll of the opposition was filled with incompetent political hacks, that had been fastened upon the management by men of influence. Selwyn's force, from end to end, was composed of able men who did a full day's work under the eye of ...
— Philip Dru: Administrator • Edward Mandell House
... accidents, and the appeal to the carnal eye, that for the most part we grasp the significance of tragedies. Thus it was only now, when I found myself involved in the rout, that I began to appreciate how sharp had been the battle. We were a company of the rejected; the drunken, the incompetent, the weak, the prodigal, all who had been unable to prevail against circumstances in the one land, were now fleeing pitifully to another; and though one or two might still succeed, all had already failed. We were a shipful of failures, the ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... course, that among these busy, efficient people she was feeling quite useless; and she didn't like to appear incompetent when she knew herself to be, in her own line, a thoroughly able person. But it irked her to think that she had been forced into a position where in self-defense she must either acquire a kind of efficiency she didn't want or do without. At the same time it troubled her lest this reluctance ...
— The Camerons of Highboro • Beth B. Gilchrist
... excitement that some of the ambitious ones had to be compelled to leave the field at night, wishing to sleep at the end of their row. The inefficient were gently tolerated; severe punishment was held to be alike cruel and useless; an incompetent servant was carried as a burden from which there was no escape. Such endurance was the way of all good masters and mistresses at the South,—"and I have known very few who were not good," adds the writer. ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... who holds three important Situations under the Russian Government, and who is far advanced in years, has neither time, inclination, nor eyesight for the task, and I am apprehensive that my strength and powers unassisted are incompetent to it' (praised be the Lord, they were not!), 'therefore I should be glad to return home. Moreover, the compositors say they are unaccustomed to compose in an unknown tongue from such scribbled and illegible copy, and they will scarcely assist me to compose. Moreover, the ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... to the eyes. He was incompetent, and knew he was; thought he was already detected, and feared to expose himself again. There was nothing further from his mind than that the captain should deceive him; if the captain was pleased, why, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the administration purified and the frontiers defended. Everything that had happened in the past five years he blamed on Commodus. It was the indifference of Commodus which had ruined the administration of the army, so that incompetent, dishonest, and tyrannical under-officers drove young patriots like himself into mutiny, outlawry and their consequences. Had Commodus been a capable ruler he and his fellow malcontents would have been listened to, placated and sent off, aflame with patriotic enthusiasm and bent on redeeming ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... this royal patronage proved incompetent to protect the Jews, when their flourishing fortunes had risen to a sufficient height to excite popular envy, augmented, as it was, by that profuse ostentation of equipage and apparel, for which this singular ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... being at rest, and the British Ministers, backed by Wellington's advice, were keen to end the war. They showed their contempt for the issues at stake by sending to the peace conference at Ghent three commissioners as incompetent as ever represented a great power, Gambier, Goulburn, and Adams. To face these the United States had sent John Quincy Adams, Albert Gallatin, Henry Clay, James Bayard, and Jonathan Russell, as able ...
— The Canadian Dominion - A Chronicle of our Northern Neighbor • Oscar D. Skelton
... was, was shown by the rapid succession of finance ministers who, in the course of the next seven years, successively held the office of comptroller-general. All were equally incompetent, and under their administration, sometimes merely incapable, sometimes combining recklessness and corruption with incapacity, the treasury again became exhausted, the resources of the nation dwindled ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... my father's notes. Barbara's eyes made me lock the desk in haste and confusion. It was really and truly accident that I locked the book out instead of in. As you know, Barbara hid away the davenport, and I could not restore the book, when I had pored over it half the night, and found myself quite incompetent to understand the details, though I perceived the main drift. I durst not take the book out of the house, and the loss of my keys cut me off from access to it. Meantime I studied, and came to the perception that a woman alone could never carry ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... has the bird's need to whistle; and I, who am specially incompetent in this art, must content myself by chattering away to you on this bit of paper. All the way along I was thanking God that he had made me and the birds and everything just as they are and not otherwise; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... supper ready. Since it wasn't, he knew that he mustn't stand about and watch the preparations. By this time he had learned a good deal of the trail-man's unwritten law. On no account must you hint that the cook is incompetent, or even slow, any more than he may find fault with your moment for calling halt, or with your choice of timber. So the woodman turned wearily away from the sole spot of brightness in the waste, and went back up the hill in the dark and the cold, ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... their men, and that no self-will or ignorance in commanding officers shall neutralize the counsels of the medical men. The military authorities must not depend on the report of any doctor who may be incompetent as to the provision made for the men's health, and the doctor must be authorized to represent the dangers of a bad encampment without being liable to a recommendation to keep his opinion to himself till he is asked for it. These particular dangers ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... "The police, my dear boy, is the most incompetent thing on this earth, and government the feeblest in all matters concerning individuals. Neither the police nor the government can read hearts. What we might reasonably ask of them is to search for the causes of an act. But the ...
— Ferragus • Honore de Balzac
... we see the actions of political heelers at elections we are often astounded. We hear of Tweed, of Tammany, and it is not surprising that we have a certain contempt for American politics. If we watch very closely we see men elected to office who are entirely incompetent, and we even have suspicions ...
— A Man of Two Countries • Alice Harriman
... expense from the establishment of the proposed Constitution are much fewer than may have been imagined; that they are counterbalanced by considerable objects of saving; and that while it is questionable on which side the scale will preponderate, it is certain that a government less expensive would be incompetent to the purposes of the Union. PUBLIUS. 1. Vide Blackstone's "Commentaries,'' vol. 1., p. 136. 2. Vide Blackstone's "Commentaries,'' vol. iv., p. 438. 3. To show that there is a power in the Constitution by which the liberty of the press may be affected, ...
— The Federalist Papers
... such a reputation that he was at once appointed surgeon in ordinary to the King. When Metz was besieged by the Spanish army, under Charles V., the garrison suffered heavy loss, and the number of wounded was very great. The surgeons were few and incompetent, and probably slew more by their bad treatment than the Spaniards did by the sword. The Duke of Guise, who commanded the garrison, wrote to the King imploring him to send Pare to his help. The courageous surgeon at once set out, and, after braving many dangers (to use his own words, "d'estre ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... the match in question opposed to the pride inspired by the first ideas of her education, no persuasion can move her. She possesses to a very marked degree the confident obstinacy of feeble and timid spirits. She does not dare to dismiss an incompetent footman; and when she has once made up her mind, which is only possible in matters about which her opinions are rigidly formed, neither force nor persuasion can modify her. That is my reading of her character, and I ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... which had once been useful should be abandoned or destroyed; whereas Hilda's propensity was to throw away with an impatient gesture whatever threatened to be an encumbrance. Sighing, she began to arrange the contents of the trays in some kind of method. Incompetent and careless mother! Hilda wondered how the old thing managed to conduct her life from day to day with even a semblance of the decency of order. It did not occur to her that for twenty-five years before she was born, and for a long ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... Courted as rather agreeable companions by the convicts at first, the Negro slaves were at length treated worse by the ex-convicts than by the most intelligent and opulent slave-dealers in all the Province. And with no rights in the courts, incompetent to hold an office of any kind, the free Negroes were in almost as disagreeable a situation ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... will reciprocate the favor. Much that has been done, does not in the least affect those who are already married; and not one in ten of those who are not married, will ever be apprised of the existence of the laws by which they might be benefited. Few, if any, would marry a man so incompetent as in their opinion to render it necessary to avail themselves of such laws; neither would any spirited man knowingly marry a woman who considered him so incompetent; hence, instead of being a blessing, much labor and expense accrue to those who desire to avail themselves ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... the narrower spheres. Masses of voters will support a candidate for governor or mayor simply because he is a Republican or Democrat, although the national party issues in no way enter into the campaign. Bosses skillfully play on this blind party allegiance, and many a scoundrel or incompetent has ridden into office under the party banner. The separation of local from national elections has proved itself a necessity; in the most advanced communities they are now put in different years, that the loyalties evoked by one campaign may not carry ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... commissioned Colonel Washington as commander-in-chief to direct their operations. Then every heart was in a state of the greatest expectation and excitement. No one remembered at that hour that the little army was without organization or discipline, most of its officers incompetent to command, its troops altogether unused to obey, and in the field without enlistment. Their few pieces of cannon were old and of various sizes, and scarce any one understood their service. There was no siege-train and no ordnance stores. There was no military chest, and nothing worthy ...
— The Bow of Orange Ribbon - A Romance of New York • Amelia E. Barr
... army, regulars and provincials, were indignant with our cowardly and incompetent general, Abercrombie, or Mrs. Nabby Crombie, as the soldiers nicknamed him. We knew that the battle had been badly conducted. We wished to have the cannon brought to the front to batter down the breastworks, and were willing and eager to fight again. But Abercrombie began to entrench, ...
— Ben Comee - A Tale of Rogers's Rangers, 1758-59 • M. J. (Michael Joseph) Canavan
... period been master of us all. The effect of his personality was such that we had, every one of us, believed him invincible. The very frankness of his estimate of the world and ourselves as the most worthless and incompetent bundle of rubbish, caused us to yield completely to him. We believed that he rated himself but little higher than the rest of us. He was superior but only because he saw so clearly with eyes purged of sentiment and credulity. We, poor creatures, had still our moments of faith ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... the end of the Parliamentary wars, and Lord Holland, commanding the Royalist troops, conceived the idea of a rising near London. There was to be a horse-race on Banstead Downs, to draw the people together, and he was to lead them. Unhappily for his followers, he was a thoroughly incompetent soldier. He hoisted his standard at Kingston, and marched through Dorking to Reigate, where he held the castle and posted his vedettes on Red Hill. Sir Michael Livesey, commanding some Kentish ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... about the bust; nay, the fair author maintains that the singer has a better command of her powers, and is more capable of sustained exertion, when her waist is girt and cinched to the very limit. Of course, knowing nothing whatsoever of this thing, we are wholly incompetent to discuss the subject. It interests us to know that Miss Abbott's theory is indorsed by Worth, Madame Demorest, Dr. Hamilton, and ...
— Eugene Field, A Study In Heredity And Contradictions - Vol. I • Slason Thompson
... after their removal, was to take back to their service the incompetent Stephen whom they had been forced to discharge from Fort Lee, and who had lived a precarious life afterwards. They gave him work on the farm, paid him the usual wages, and patiently endeavored to correct his faults. ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... Because they heard of Spanish armies in the field, they idly supposed that these were armies in the accepted sense of the word and not a mere collection of peasants, undisciplined and chiefly unarmed, officered by men as ignorant of their profession as themselves and commanded by a General yet more incompetent.—And with armies so composed they actually sent a British force to co-operate! ... Sir John Moore had not been long in Spain before he discovered the mistake that had been committed and the danger of his situation; he saw at once that the course he ought to adopt ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... hereby informed through Mrs. ——, Chief Manager of the Theatre of High Tragedy, that Miss Sarah M., having been proved unworthy and incompetent to play the role of Ariadne, said part will hereafter be filled by Miss Blank, of Blank Street, who plays it with a fidelity so true to nature that she could hardly ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... was ill and proved an incompetent emperor, entirely unequal to the serious task of governing and protecting his vast territories. His weakness was especially shown in his pusillanimous treaties with the Northmen. When Paris was making an heroic defense against them under its count, ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... devotion to the cause, and talent that the Girondists required, and yet, until then, a second-rate man, and almost unknown, had no fortune to hope for but as theirs culminated. His name would not give umbrage to their genius, and if he proved incompetent, or rebelled against their projects, they would remove him without fear, or crush him without pity. Brissot, the diplomatic oracle of the Gironde, was evidently to be the minister who was one day to control our foreign relations, and who en attendant was to govern for ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... the war but 34,000. The dependence of the government, therefore, for offensive operations was upon the State militia. The general officers were old Revolutionary soldiers or men who had seen no service; the military organization was defective; and the Secretary of War, Eustis, was incompetent. In this very year, 1812, the British regular troops under Wellington were steadily beating back the French, who had been supposed to be the best ...
— Formation of the Union • Albert Bushnell Hart
... improbable, indeed impossible, except by an inefficiency of the enemy which was not to be presumed. These battles therefore are important, militarily, in a sense not at all dependent upon their consequences, which were ephemeral. They are significant as extreme illustrations of incompetent action, deriving from faulty traditions; and they have the further value of showing the starting point, the zero of the scale, from which the progress of the century is to be measured. In describing them, therefore, attention ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... Elmer was dealing, as she walked along the Strand, in her incompetent way with this very careless, indifferent, sublime manner he had of talking to railway guards or porters; or Mrs. Whitehorn, when she consulted him about her little boy who was beaten ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... intrigues of his rival. Perhaps, indeed, the greatness of Calderon's abilities made him too arrogantly despise the machinations of the duke, who, though not without some capacities as a courtier, was wholly incompetent to those duties of a minister on which he had set his ambition and ...
— Calderon The Courtier - A Tale • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... merely because a momentary resistance was offered by a party of Americans who had taken refuge in the log-barracks! The British troops reluctantly obeyed their general's order and returned to their boats, men and officers being acutely sensible to his folly, and wondering by what means so incompetent a commander had been placed over them. If Sir George Prevost had studied the history of the war of the American revolution, it could only have been with an eye to copy all the indecisions and blunders of the ...
— The Life and Correspondence of Sir Isaac Brock • Ferdinand Brock Tupper
... and that we are thankful for small favors in that way. He does not think less than we of liberty where an occasion makes that name and idea appropriate; but that the condition of his slaves should reconsecrate for us all the old battle-cries of freedom, seems to him pitiably weak. It shows him how incompetent we are to deal with the acknowledged evils of slavery; and there are those at the South who are stirred up by us to take extreme views of an opposite kind, which good people ...
— The Sable Cloud - A Southern Tale With Northern Comments (1861) • Nehemiah Adams
... nothing of friendship, "it is intolerable, this! Do you think that I do not see through these dummy waiters, these obsequious shopmen, these ladies who drop their eyes when I pass, these commissionaires, these would-be acquaintances? I tell you that they irritate me, this incompetent, futile crowd. You pit them against me! Bah! You should know better. When I choose to disappear, I shall disappear, and no one will follow me. When I strike, I shall strike, and no one will discover ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Militia. Having gained the advantage of a surprise blow, which had put the fort out of action, he soon showed them that he was master of the situation. His guns turned now upon the open space behind the mole, where the incompetent Bishop had marshalled his men, tore the militia into bloody rags, and covered the landing parties which were making the shore in their own boats and in several of those which had rashly gone out to the great ship ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... kettle of fish Tommy was pitchforked, and when I arrived he was just beginning to understand how unpleasant it was. As I said before, I did not know him very well, and I was amazed to find how bad he was at his job. A more curiously incompetent person I never met. He was a long, thin man, with a grizzled moustache and a mild sleepy eye-not an impressive figure, except on a horse; and he had an odd lisp which made even a shrewd remark sound foolish. He was the most industrious ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... He established himself in some rooms selected for him by Tom Tristram, in accordance with the latter's estimate of what he called his social position. When Newman learned that his social position was to be taken into account, he professed himself utterly incompetent, and begged Tristram to relieve him of the care. "I didn't know I had a social position," he said, "and if I have, I haven't the smallest idea what it is. Isn't a social position knowing some two or three thousand people and inviting them to dinner? I know you and your wife and little ...
— The American • Henry James
... process for constructing a denture upon vulcanized caoutchouc as a base. Several modifications followed, each the subject of patented improvements. Though the cheapness and simplicity of the vulcanite base has led to its abuse in incompetent hands, it has on the whole been productive of much benefit. It has been used with great success as a means of attaching porcelain teeth to metallic bases of gold, silver and aluminium. It is extensively used also in correcting irregular positions of the teeth, and ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... secret sour opinions Akin to his, and thereby helped to scathe As stably based a project as this age Has sunned to ripeness. Ever the French Marine Have you decried, ever contrived to bring Despair into the fleet! Why, this Villeneuve, Your man, this rank incompetent, this traitor— Of whom I asked no more than fight and lose, Provided he detain the enemy— A frigate is too great for his command! what shall be said of one who, at a breath, When a few casual sailors find them sick, When falls a broken boom or slitten sail, ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... he is not narrow, insolent, and unbalanced—he will usually contrive while pleasing himself to please the public, or a public. It is his business to do so. If he does not do so he proves himself incompetent. He is merely mumbling to himself. Just as the finite connotes the infinite, so an artist connotes a public. The artist who says he doesn't care a fig for the public is a liar. He may have many admirable ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... River Canon, his rout at the delta crossing, and his final death-blow at Kyak. His career stood out boldly in all its fraudulent colors; failure was written across every one of his undertakings. The naked facts showed him visionary, incompetent, unscrupulous. ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... ever tried, if only there was work all the year round; for she couldn't afford to sit idle through the long summer months—well, I should say not!—with eight small brothers and sisters at home, and a rather incompetent father, and sixteen dollars a month rent! The experiences of a score of shops, and the motley crew of people she had worked with in these busy years, Bessie in her careless, simple narrative had the power to invest ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... of our mechanical appliances. The process of radio-activity involves the expulsion of atoms of helium with a velocity three hundred times greater than that ever previously known for any material mass or particle, and this power we are incompetent to use. The atoms remain unchanged amid the heat and pressure of the laboratory of nature. Iron and oxygen and so forth remain the same in the sun as here ...
— The Breath of Life • John Burroughs
... hid the distant further bank. She felt somehow that she was playing for all or nothing. And though she had had immense experience of men, though it was her special business to handle men, she felt herself to be unskilled and incompetent. The common ruses, feints, devices, guiles, chicaneries were familiar to her; she could employ them as well as any and better than most; they succeeded marvellously and absurdly—in the common embarrassments and emergencies, because they had not to stand the test of time. Their purpose ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... is evident that, after the formation of the Federal Government by the adoption of the Constitution, the highest exertion of State power would be incompetent to bestow a character or status created by the Constitution, or conferred in virtue of its authority only. Upon those, therefore, who were not originally parties to the Federal compact, or who are not admitted and ...
— Report of the Decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, and the Opinions of the Judges Thereof, in the Case of Dred Scott versus John F.A. Sandford • Benjamin C. Howard
... out of my old job, I've turned to the first resort of the incompetent: I'm driving ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... error, the ignorance, or the churlishness of the country managers, Mr. Cooper was excluded from any fair opportunity to redeem the credit he had lost in Edinburgh—they considered, or affected to consider him as wholly incompetent to any character of consequence: those which were vouchsafed him were of so inferior a rank that they denied scope to the exercise of his yet latent powers; for such a genius as that of Cooper could no more dilate in a meagre character, than Eclipse or Flying Childers ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... more than three years) of the Leyden congregation, and, in spite of the wickedly unjust criticism of Robinson and others, incompetent to judge his acts, their brave, sagacious, and faithful servant—properly ...
— The Mayflower and Her Log, Complete • Azel Ames
... right to mention that for the first time in Russia, purposeless rudeness and insolence came to my notice on the part of the ticket officials of the Mercury line. They behaved like stupid children, and were absolutely incompetent to do the work which had been entrusted to them. They were somewhat surprised when I took them to task and made them "sit up." Having found that they had played the fool with the wrong man they instantly became very meek and obliging. It is nevertheless ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... broken-kneed words the bare fact of the crisis. Then the editor summons Captain Sarrasin, and Sarrasin quietly explains:—'Oh, yes, of course; I knew that was coming this long time. The man at the head of affairs was totally incompetent. I gave him my advice many a time. Yes, it's all right. I'll write a few sentences of explanation, and we shall have fuller news to-morrow.' And he would write his few sentences of explanation, and the paper he wrote for would come out next morning with the only intelligible account ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... life had Clover felt so small and incompetent and so very, very young as when the train with Car Forty-seven attached vanished from sight, and left her on the platform of the Denver station with her two companions. There they stood, Phil on one side tired and ...
— Clover • Susan Coolidge
... can look through the Clothes of a Man (the woollen, and fleshly, and official Bank-paper and State-paper Clothes) into the Man himself; and discern, it may be, in this or the other Dread Potentate, a more or less incompetent Digestive-apparatus; yet also an inscrutable venerable Mystery, in the meanest ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... geology become too sturdy for us, and then we begin to patronize them, and to confer upon them the honor of harmonizing with our creeds. A man who has adopted the creed of a materialist, is entirely incompetent to receive, entertain, and represent a spiritual fact. My creed is the window at which I sit, and look at all the world of truth outside of me. All truth is tinted by the medium through which it passes to reach my mind; and such is my imperfection ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... Nevertheless, it is surely a paradox that the English people should know so little about foreign affairs as to be absolutely incapable of any control in questions that affect their life or death. Democracy, though it is supposed to be incompetent to manage foreign relations, could hardly have made a worse mess of it than the highly-trained Chancelleries. When the new Europe arises out of the ashes of the old, it is not very hazardous to prophesy that diplomacy, with its secret methods, its ...
— Armageddon—And After • W. L. Courtney
... structures of both the highest organs of sense, as developed in the vertebrates on the one hand, and in the mollusks on the other, present us with residuary phenomena for which "Natural Selection" alone is quite incompetent to account. And that these same phenomena must therefore be considered as conclusive evidence for the action of some other natural law or laws conditioning the simultaneous and independent evolution of these harmonious ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart
... the faults and abuses which had crept into their public administration during moments of relaxed vigilance. But even this was ascribed to weakness and cowardice. Latterly our people have been represented by influential statesmen and on hundreds of platforms in England as incompetent, uncivilised, dishonourable, untrustworthy, corrupt, bloodthirsty, treacherous, etc., etc., so that not only the British public, but nearly the whole world, began to believe that we stood on the same level as the wild beasts. In the face of these taunts and this provocation our people still remained ...
— A Century of Wrong • F. W. Reitz
... flat. It is thrillingly unpleasant to find yourself an incompetent in the routine of an office when you could with ease recite Hugo's verses in French and write a long treatise on the Punic Wars. Evan inwardly shuddered. Perry stood beside him grinning and muttering ...
— A Canadian Bankclerk • J. P. Buschlen
... perhaps incompetent to test the truth of this profound aphoristic remark, delivered with the simplicity of natural conviction. The narrative had, to his thinking, quite released from him his temporary subjection to this little lady's sway. All that he felt for her personally now was pity. It speaks something ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... avalanche, that sweeps in its course all vestiges of vitality from the face of the earth; or to form an adequate conception of the occult ramifications of the electric fluid, which is at man's pleasure made to compass the globe with the quickness of thought, we would confess ourselves incompetent. Equally so are we to describe the glance of a woman. Some looks there are, however, which, though inexplicable to uninitiated spectators, to those who cherish even a corruscation of mental light, speak volumes of information; and such it was that Eleanor cast upon John Ferguson. ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro
... the people. He was stubborn and without the least conception of human rights; nor could he conceive of a magnanimous project, or appreciate the value of civil liberty. His notions of government were despotic, and around him, for advisers, he preferred those as incompetent and as illiberal as himself. Such a king could not deal with a people who had learned freedom, and had the highest conceptions of human rights. The British parliament, composed almost entirely of the ruling class, ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... form all plans and arrangements in consistency with the means at command, and the character of those around. A woman who has a heedless husband, and young children, and incompetent domestics, ought not to make such plans as one may properly form who will not, in so many directions, meet embarrassment. She must aim at just as much as she can probably attain, and no more; and thus she ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... which breathless silence made manifest that the music was enjoyed. I was then introduced as the reformed gambler, Mr. J. H. Green. When I arose, there was profound silence throughout the chapel, to hear my sad experience. I felt perfectly incompetent to give satisfaction to an audience, partly composed of the most hardened wretches that infest our land—men who are steeped to the very lips in degradation, many of whom are men of talent, well-educated, and well acquainted with ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green
... upright, temperate, but given somewhat to moodiness and passion. He was singularly shy of talking about his own troubles, of which he had more than his share at home, but often strange clouds cast shadows upon him, and the reasons he gave for the change observable in him were curiously incompetent to explain such results. David, who had watched him from the other end of the saw for twenty years, knew perfectly what these attacks of melancholy or wrath meant, and that, though their assigned cause lay in the ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford
... is not a Hebrew scholar can only stand aside and admire the marvelous flexibility of a language which admits of such diverse interpretations. But assuredly, in the face of such contradictions of authority upon matters respecting which he is incompetent to form any judgment, he will abstain, as I do, ...
— The Making of Arguments • J. H. Gardiner
... the direct result of non-violence practiced on a general scale. But we can take a more objective view of war today. What was so terrible about it? War had a profound selective value, perfectly in accord with the teachings of Darwin and Mendel and others. Without war the mass of useless, incompetent mankind, without training or intelligence, is permitted to grow and expand unchecked. War acted to reduce their numbers; like storms and earthquakes and droughts, it was nature's way of eliminating ...
— The Skull • Philip K. Dick
... Britannia, under Commodore Weekes, to attack Vingorla. They carried a company of sepoys under Stanton, one of the Company's military officers. On the way they were joined by the Revenge, and they also had with them ten or twelve gallivats. Weekes appears to have been timid and incompetent, while the force was altogether insufficient for the purpose. Several days were spent in trying to find a landing-place, without success, on the rocky, surf-beaten shore, while the fortress was bombarded from different points. A violent quarrel occurred between Weekes and Stanton, ...
— The Pirates of Malabar, and An Englishwoman in India Two Hundred Years Ago • John Biddulph
... mortality assessments on the average will be sufficiently burdensome to seriously threaten the permanence of the institution. Where disaster has been visited upon assessment companies, the cause has been easily traceable to incompetent or dishonest conduct of the business, and utter disregard of the foundation principles of all insurance. It has in no instance been fairly chargeable to defects in the system. With the record before us of our best assessment companies, faithfully and competently administered, paying their losses ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 5 • Various
... Instinctively the batter ducked and, of course, missed the ball, while the umpire dispassionately cried, "Strike two." The batter grieved loudly and bitterly. He accused the umpire of having eyes like a codfish, and of being stampeded by "some guy in the stand." He declared him to be incompetent to the verge of insanity, and wondered, in a voice that could be heard all over the field, how he had kept out of the asylum so long. His team mates supported him loyally, and incidentally demanded of the Toronto team's manager ...
— William Adolphus Turnpike • William Banks
... on the 10th of February 1763, and the king's proclamation, published in October, were duly followed by the inauguration of civil government in Canada. The incompetent Bute, anxious to get Pitt out of the way, tried to induce him to become the first British governor of the new colony. Even Bute probably never dared to hope that Pitt would actually go out to Canada. But he did hope to lower his prestige by making him the holder ...
— The Father of British Canada: A Chronicle of Carleton • William Wood
... some great thicknesses found in salt beds is that these beds, especially when soaked with water, are highly plastic and incompetent under pressure. In the deformation of the enclosing rocks, the salt beds will flow somewhat like viscous liquids, and will become thinned on the limbs of the folds and correspondingly thickened ...
— The Economic Aspect of Geology • C. K. Leith
... enthusiastic young men, in the circumstances in which he was placed, would have been elated and vain at their elevation, and would have replaced the old and well-tried servants of the father with personal favorites of their own age, inexperienced and incompetent, and as conceited as themselves. Alexander, however, made no such changes. He continued the old officers in command, endeavoring to have every thing go on just as if his father had ...
— Alexander the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... opportunity they were seeking. Guffey, the man who had taken charge of Peter, was head of the secret service of the Traction Trust, and the big fellows had put him in complete charge. They wanted action, and would take no chances with the graft-ridden and incompetent police of the city. They had Goober in jail, with his wife and three of his gang, and thru the newspapers of the city they were carrying on a propaganda to prepare the public for the hanging of ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... drawbacks to playing Ripton on its own ground was the crowd. Another was the fact that one generally got beaten. But your sportsman can put up with defeat. What he does not like is a crowd that regards him as a subtle blend of incompetent idiot and malicious scoundrel, and says so very loud and clear. It was not, of course, the school that did this. They spent their time blushing for the shouters. It was the patriotic inhabitants of Ripton town who made the school wish that they could be saved from their friends. ...
— The White Feather • P. G. Wodehouse
... that loses its temper, that teases, that is petulant and disobedient, and a nuisance to everybody, is merely a victim, poor little thing, of parents who have been too incompetent or negligent to train it to obedience. Moreover, that same child when grown will be the first to resent and blame the mother's mistaken "spoiling" and lack ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... charming woman, who, after a brief period of wedded happiness, gave her life to the birth of the single child of the union, Mary. Afterward, in his distress over this loss, Ray Turner seemed even more incompetent for the management of business affairs. As the years passed, the daughter grew toward maturity in an experience of ever-increasing penury. Nevertheless, there was no actual want of the necessities of life, though always a woful lack of its elegancies. The girl was in the high-school, ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... the current if those changes occur with a frequency of some hundreds or in some cases thousands of times per second. On the other hand, currents vibrating with such rapidity as this are utterly incompetent to affect the moving parts of telegraphic instruments, which cannot at the most be worked so as to give more than 200 to 800 separate signals ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 443, June 28, 1884 • Various
... polite society, there are books published for persons of every class in life; and although of late years one sees the same sort of writings advertised in England, they have certainly not as yet produced any apparent effect upon us—perhaps from being written by incompetent people, or perhaps from the author dwelling too exclusively upon usages which change with the fashion of the day, instead of being based upon right and kind feelings, or, at anyrate, the appearance of them. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 462 - Volume 18, New Series, November 6, 1852 • Various
... finds that the worse a thing is, the better it can be made by competent and careful study. To complete and adapt incompetent things to orderliness and beauty, to harmonise incongruous things into a perfect whole requires and exercises ability of a high order, and the consciousness of its possession is no small satisfaction. That it is constantly being done shows how much ...
— Principles of Home Decoration - With Practical Examples • Candace Wheeler
... overshoot the mark and oscillate beyond its place of equilibrium to and fro. Any medium possessing these two properties can transmit waves, and unless a medium possesses these properties in some form or other, or some equivalent for them, it may be said with moderate security to be incompetent to transmit waves. But if we make this latter statement, one must be prepared to extend to the terms elasticity and inertia their very largest and broadest signification, so as to include any possible kind of restoring force and any possible kind ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 717, September 28, 1889 • Various
... the letter of Scripture of it, and that the human intellect was no measure of the power of God. Yet the Reformers somehow believed, and Mr. Mansell by his place in the Church of England seems to agree with them, that the human intellect was not so wholly incompetent. It might be a weak guide, but it was better than none; and they declared on grounds of mere reason, that Christ being in heaven and not on earth, 'it was contrary to the truth for a natural body to be in two places at once.' The common sense of the country ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... at half the price they were now paying him. (Disturbance.) He did not appear to understand his business, nearly all the work that was done cost in the end about double what the Borough Engineer estimated it could be done for. (Liar.) He considered him to be a grossly incompetent person (uproar) and was of opinion that if they were to advertise they could get dozens of better men who would be glad to do the work for five pounds a week. He moved that Mr Oyley Sweater be asked to resign and ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... with Maggie to go or stay. If she was incompetent I wasn't bound to keep her just because she'd had a baby. At that rate I should have been completely ...
— Life and Death of Harriett Frean • May Sinclair
... age. I have smoked moderately all my life; and for the last fifty years have never, except in rare and short instances of illness, retired to bed without one tumbler of whiskey toddy. You will therefore see that I am utterly incompetent to pronounce on the respective effects, on the mind and body, of moderate indulgence, and of total abstinence, for I have never ...
— Study and Stimulants • A. Arthur Reade
... and his successor, a hard grasping man, found fault with Maurice's failing health, and dismissed him as an incompetent clerk; and this time Maurice ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... Bolingbroke's writings and correspondence; and yet candour is the last attribute usually conceded to him. But never was there a writer whom people have talked of more and read less; and I do not know a greater proof of this than the ever-repeated assertion (echoed from a most incompetent authority) of the said letter to Sir W. Windham being the finest of all Lord Bolingbroke's writings. It is an article of great value to the history of the times; but, as to all the higher graces and qualities of composition, it is one of the least striking (and on the other ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... would have had a livelier interest in the whole business; and this, with compelled liberality, would have paved the way for greater expenditure and effort. Neighborhood rivalries of suitable buildings would have followed, and, instead of incompetent teachers being the rule, they would have been the exception, and those of us whose fortune it has been to be born in New England would not now be such "jacks of all trades and masters of none" as we are. The West deserves great commendation ...
— Minnesota; Its Character and Climate • Ledyard Bill
... whose action was thought a hindrance to military success were arrested in shoals by the orders of Stanton, the new energetic War Secretary, a Jacksonian Democrat whom Lincoln had put in the place of an incompetent Republican, though he had served under Buchanan and supported Breckinridge. The constitutional justification of these acts was widely challenged, but the people in the main ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton
... ignorant of navigation; nay, he would not trust a bale of merchandise with him; and surely he will not abandon his bark of existence to the command of a charlatan, who knows nothing of the principles of the art he professes, and is altogether incompetent to steer clear of the numerous rocks and quicksands in the course of life; but a man of reflection and judgment is not a very common character; he is surrounded by hundreds who examine not for themselves; and are easily deluded, ...
— The American Quarterly Review, No. 17, March 1831 • Various
... explained to them, in a neat speech replete with Latin quotations, that their cause was a weak one, that we were more than their match, and finally proposed to them to finish the punch-bowl, to which we were really incompetent,—a motion that met immediate acceptance; and old Duncan, with his helmet in one hand and a goblet in the other, wished me many happy days and every luck in this life as I stepped from the massive archway, and took my last ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... and yet was profitable to him." Franklin and Meredith resolved to start a competing sheet; but Keimer got wind of their plan, and at once "published proposals for printing one himself." He had got ahead of them, and they had to desist. But he was ignorant, shiftless, and incompetent, and after carrying on his enterprise for "three quarters of a year, with at most only ninety subscribers," he sold out his failure to Franklin and Meredith "for a trifle." To them, or rather to Franklin, "it prov'd in a few years extremely ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... Satire leveled at Treachery and Ambition." This is written in miserable doggerel verse. That Defoe should have mistaken it for poetry, and should have prided himself upon it accordingly, is only a proof of how incompetent an author is to pass judgment upon what is good and what is bad in ...
— History of the Plague in London • Daniel Defoe
... inefficient, and Lord Cochrane, taking off his coat, himself set to work to repair them, ordering Stephen to keep the men at work baling with buckets; the captain being under arrest for disobedience to orders, and the one other lieutenant absolutely incompetent. When the pumps were got to work it was found that they and the buckets sufficed to prevent the water from rising, and preparations were at once made to get the vessel off the rock. There was danger that when this was done she might sink, but Lord Cochrane pointed out that the leak was not ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... indeed a very bad ward, for a settled gloom lay upon the faces of the occupants, who suffered because the ward-master and entire set of nurses had recently been discharged, and new, incompetent ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... for his brothers—incompetent, ungrateful, or openly his foes. But his three sisters were no less remarkable in the relations which they bore to him. They have been styled "the three crowned courtesans," and they have been condemned together as being utterly void of ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... regularity, attentive obedience, respect for others: obtained by fear, if the master be incompetent or foolish; by love and reverence, if he ...
— Lay Sermons, Addresses and Reviews • Thomas Henry Huxley
... counties, and the establishment of a line of forts and block-houses, dispersed along a considerable extent of country, and occupied by detachments of British colonial troops, or by militiamen. All these were utterly incompetent to effect security; partly from the circumstances of the case, and somewhat from the entire want of discipline, and the absence of that subordination which is absolutely necessary ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... had served with much distinction upon the Continent, landed in Donegal, accompanied by about a hundred French-Irish officers. He instantly took the command of the disorganized and fast-dissolving northern levies; superseded the incompetent Sir Phelim, who from that moment fell away into contempt and impotence; suppressed all disorders, and punished, as far as possible, those who had been foremost in the work of blood, expressing at the same time his utter detestation of the horrors ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless
... fingers' ends. In this strait John Knox was entreated to accept the charge of the congregation, but in vain. Perhaps the memory of Wishart's charge to him, "Return to your bairns," was still in his ears; perhaps the reluctance and hesitation of a man who felt himself incompetent for so great a responsibility—though it is strange to associate any idea of shrinking from responsibility with such a dauntless spirit, and he was by this time a man of forty-two, with a matured mind and some experience ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... avoid both these causes of destruction. If, for the purpose of our sacrifice, we endeavour to slay Jarasandha and rescue the kings kept by him for a cruel purpose, there is no higher act which we could employ ourselves in. If, however, we do not undertake the task, the world will always think us incompetent. We have certainly the competence, O king! Why should you, therefore, regard us as incompetent? Those that have become Munis desirous of achieving tranquillity of souls, obtain yellow robes with ease. So if we vanquish the foe, the imperial dignity will easily be ours. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Part 2 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... speeches were generally confined to the somewhat inarticulate representatives of the services, and to the dullest and smallest men in the whole assembly. It is obviously inconvenient—perhaps it is even perilous—that interests so grave and so gigantic should fall for their guardianship into hands so incompetent and so petty. It may be an inevitable accompaniment of our Parliamentary system that the naval debates should be so conducted; if so, one must put it down as one of the evils which must be taken as part of the price we pay for the excellences of ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... recent support to the policy of complaisance to France. His appointment aroused anger and consternation; and General Kalckreuth expressed to Gentz the general opinion when he said that the Duke was quite incompetent for such a command: "His character is not strong enough, his mediocrity, irresolution, and untrustworthiness would ruin the best undertaking." The Duke himself was aware of his incompetence. Why then, we ask, did he accept the command? The answer ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... such more complex arts as spinning, baking and brewing. Her expertness, perhaps, never reached a high level, but at all events she made a gallant effort. But that was long, long ago, before the new enlightenment rescued her. Today, in her average incarnation, she is not only incompetent (alack, as I have argued, rather beyond her control); she is also filled with the notion that a conscientious discharge of her few remaining duties is, in some vague way, discreditable and degrading. To call her ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... refer to this fiction to point out how absurd it is to represent the brave men who man our lifeboats of the Goodwin Sands and Downs as ever needing to be roused to action by passing and incompetent strangers, who must be as ignorant of the perils to be faced as of the work to be done. When the boatmen of Deal hang back in the storm-blast, who else ...
— Heroes of the Goodwin Sands • Thomas Stanley Treanor
... for the long extract which we are about to give, to any person who will read it with attention. It is from a lecture on Agricultural Science, by Dr. Madden, and we confess ourselves incompetent to condense or improve the language ...
— Farm drainage • Henry Flagg French
... to his employers. Yet he was everywhere discharged. Bringing no interest to his duties, he brought no attention. His day was a tissue of things neglected and things done amiss. And from place to place and from town to town he carried the character of one thoroughly incompetent." ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... have the tendency to clear the environment of the suggestion that common labor, that is the wage earning class (as distinguished from salaried people, employers and the profiteers pure and simple) are incompetent to play a responsible part in the work of wealth production. A responsible part does not mean merely doing well a detached and technical job; it means facing the risks and sharing in the experimental experience of productive enterprise as it serves the promotion ...
— Creative Impulse in Industry - A Proposition for Educators • Helen Marot
... glum and moody, his heart bursting with the resentment of the mean and the incompetent for the man of brilliant parts. But the morrow was to ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... dismay, a huge pile of formidable documents which he called Way Bills. He gave me some instructions, but I was too confused to understand them, and too shy to ask questions. I only know that I felt very miserable and hopelessly at sea. Visions of being dismissed as an incompetent rose before me; but soon, to my great relief, it was discovered that the Way Bills were too much for me and that I must begin at ...
— Fifty Years of Railway Life in England, Scotland and Ireland • Joseph Tatlow
... its present but its own and its children's future to safeguard. When it is thus made a partner in the business it becomes more earnest and reliable and effective in its work, less inclined to condone the shiftless, the incompetent, the slacker; more eager and resolute in withstanding the ill-founded, reckless or sinister suggestions or efforts of an ...
— The Higher Powers of Mind and Spirit • Ralph Waldo Trine
... better when he was crazy," agreed the seamen. It was as though the gaiety, the spring of gladness, within the little man had been dried up; there was left only the incompetent and despised Dago. He faced the routine of his toil now with no smile of preoccupation for a sweeter vision; he shuffled about decks, futile as ever, with the dreariness of ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... which have inspired them. The sun is a symbol of this creative power—by many even imagined to be its reality. But that mighty orb is unconscious of the feelings it may inspire; and the Divine Omnipotence, which it symbolizes, must be no less incompetent to earn them. For purpose is the negation of power, implying something which power has not attained; and would imply deficiency in an existence which presents itself to our intelligence as complete. Reason therefore tells us that God can have no resemblance with man; but it tells us, as plainly, ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... workmen, and they therefore had more confidence in his word than they did in that of the machinists who were under him. So that, when the machinists reported to the Superintendent that the machines were being smashed up because an incompetent foreman was overstraining them, the Superintendent accepted the word of the writer when he said that these men were deliberately breaking their machines as a part of the piece-work war which was going on, and he also allowed the writer to make the only effective answer to this Vandalism ...
— The Principles of Scientific Management • Frederick Winslow Taylor
... of love for the emperor, but because Shih Heng hoped that under the rule of the completely incompetent Ying Tsung he could best carry out a plan of his own, to set up his own dynasty. It is not so easy, however, to carry a conspiracy to success when there are several rival parties, each of which is ready to betray any of the others. Shih Heng's plan became known before ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard
... arrested by vigorous legislation, it must soon cease to be a self-sustaining institution, and either be cast on the treasury for support, or suffered to decline from year to year, till the system has become incompetent and useless. The last annual report of the Postmaster-General shows that, notwithstanding the heavy retrenchments he had made, the expenditures of the department, for the year ending June 30th, 1843, exceeded ...
— Cheap Postage • Joshua Leavitt
... from the English king for "Long Isle and also forty leagues square of the adjoining continent," including the very site of Manhattan.[20] In April, 1633, Jacob Eelkens, in command of an English vessel, forced his way past Fort Amsterdam, on Manhattan Island, and traded with the Indians, until the incompetent Van Twiller at length stripped him of his goods and drove him from the river.[21] The same year Van Twiller, as we have seen, planted a fort near the site of the present city of Hartford, which served as the seed of ...
— England in America, 1580-1652 • Lyon Gardiner Tyler
... sandals. These people, the reader must understand, were an urban population sunken back to the state of a barbaric peasantry, and so without any of the simple arts a barbaric peasantry would possess. In many ways they were curiously degenerate and incompetent. They had lost any idea of making textiles, they could hardly make up clothes when they had material, and they were forced to plunder the continually dwindling supplies of the ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... Because it will fail of its humane intention. We should heartily rejoice—who would not?—if a reasonable minimum of wages could be established and secured. But it cannot. Is the legislature equally incompetent when it steps in to prevent children and very young persons from being overworked; from being so employed that the health and vigour of ensuing generations may be seriously impaired, (which would be a grave mistake ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... presbyters appear to have continued to ordain bishops in the time of Origen. His "Commentaries on Matthew," written according to his Benedictine editor in A.D. 245 (see Delarue's "Origen," iii. Praef.), speak of bishops and presbyters "committing whole churches to unfit persons and constituting incompetent governors."—Opera, iii. p. 753. ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... drained of its wealth and its embellishments. Scarce anything is left but the walls and buildings, which are uninjured, the lives and the industry of the inhabitants. Sandarion is made Governor of the city and province, with, as it seems to me, a very incompetent force to support his authority. Yet the citizens are, as they have been since the day the contest was decided, perfectly peaceable—nay, I rather should say, stupid and lethargic. There appear to be on the part of Aurelian ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware
... of Brunai was equally incompetent to comply with, and, thereupon, the matter was settled by the transfer of the river to Raja BROOKE in consideration of the large annual payment of $4,500, two years' rental—$9,000, being paid in advance, and Sarawak thus acquired, as much by good luck as through good management, ...
— British Borneo - Sketches of Brunai, Sarawak, Labuan, and North Borneo • W. H. Treacher
... she button-holed people in the street to tell them about Mary, or to read them scraps of her letters. If they had said she was vain and idle, and selfish and incompetent, just like the half of their own daughters, Belle could have forgiven them. It was their determination to shove her into the gutter which made my wife ...
— The Making of Mary • Jean Forsyth
... Germans call the 'Winter-King'), got abrogated, put to the ban, so far as an indignant Kaiser could; and the vote and KUR of Pfalz was given to his Cousin of BAIERN (Bavaria),—so far as an indignant Kaiser could. However, at the Peace of Westphalia (1648) it was found incompetent to any Kaiser to abrogate PFULZ or the like of Pfalz, a Kurfurst of the Empire. So, after jargon inconceivable, it was settled, That PFALZ must be reinstated, though with territories much clipped, and at the bottom of the list, not the top as formerly; and that BAIERN, who could not stand ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol, II. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Of Brandenburg And The Hohenzollerns—928-1417 • Thomas Carlyle
... piping of the odorous spring winds through the resinous balsam-scented woods. Hudson and the loyal members of the crew attempted to replenish provisions by fishing. Then a brilliant thought penetrated the wooden brains of the idle and incompetent crew—a thought that still works its poison in like brains of to-day—namely, if there were half as many people there would be twice ...
— The "Adventurers of England" on Hudson Bay - A Chronicle of the Fur Trade in the North (Volume 18 of the Chronicles of Canada) • Agnes C. (Agnes Christina) Laut
... earnestly; "and of course, if it is true you will all wash your hands of the whole affair, I suppose. I was talking to Mr. Wade about it. He, however, placed both sides of the question before me in about ten words, and left me to take my choice—which I am incompetent to do." ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... finding it essentially embraceable, asked for nothing more. It might have been her bright complexion or it might have been the bold luster of her eyes (as the women considered it), that dazzled the lords of creation generally, and made them all alike incompetent to discover her faults. Still, she had compensating attractions which no severity of criticism could dispute. Her smile, beginning at her lips, flowed brightly and instantly over her whole face. A delicious atmosphere of health, freshness, and good ...
— My Lady's Money • Wilkie Collins
... the loss of life was much less than might have been expected. Visitors to the camps went home with dismal stories to relate; Northern papers came back to the soldiers with these stories exaggerated. Because I would not divulge my ultimate plans to visitors, they pronounced me idle, incompetent and unfit to command men in an emergency, and clamored for my removal. They were not to be satisfied, many of them, with my simple removal, but named who my successor should be. McClernand, Fremont, Hunter and McClellan were all mentioned in this connection. ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... fingers of an ardent apostle of peace have recently and most reluctantly parted,—has not this war been shamefully mismanaged by the Administration? have not contractors grown rich while soldiers have suffered? have not incompetent generals been unjustly advanced, and skilful commanders been summarily shelved? have we gained any advantages at all commensurate with our loss of blood and our expenditure of money? would not a cessation of hostilities on any terms ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... six months to live; and that the Government, which asked for the dissolution, was undefeated. Both the Conservatives and Liberals, and their leaders the Argus and Age, alike blame the Governor for granting the dissolution, on the grounds that the House was just as incompetent to transact business six months ago as now, and that the Government would never have applied for a dissolution but for the certain defeat which awaited them directly the House met, on account of the failure of the loan. To me, however, ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... and judgment, or perhaps it may have been that some incompetent officers gave senseless orders,—for instance, the people occupying the stores on Polk Street, between Clay and Pacific, and the apartments above, were driven out at 8 A. M. of Thursday, and not permitted to re-enter. As the fire did not ...
— San Francisco During the Eventful Days of April, 1906 • James B. Stetson
... ceased to be a farmer, having been promoted to the post of superintendent of the factory, formerly occupied by Mr. Davis. For the first twelve months the post was filled by a new man, who proved to be incompetent, and then was offered to Captain Rushton, whose excellent executive talents were well known. He soon made himself familiar with his duties, and the post is likely to be his as long as he ...
— Brave and Bold • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... that, for his part, he would sooner thole the harshest kind of severity or even cruelty in a master, so that it be allied with competence, than he would endure this evils which (in the northland more than in most places) attend all the steps of the man who is slack, shiftless, and incompetent; and, be it noted, make miserable the days of all and sundry who are forced to be in any way dependent ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... lie, first, in the fact that to give the vote to women is to give it to voters who as a class are quite incompetent to adjudicate upon political issues; secondly, in the fact that women are a class of voters who cannot effectively back up their votes by force; and, thirdly, in the fact that it may ...
— The Unexpurgated Case Against Woman Suffrage • Almroth E. Wright
... The theorist is incompetent when he deals with socialism just because he assumes that men are determined by logic and that a false conclusion will stop a moving, creative force. Occasionally he recognizes the wilful character of politics: then ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann
... the galleys or imprisonment for life, according to sex; confiscation of property. The sick who shall refuse the sacraments, if they recover, to banishment for life; if they die, to be dragged on a hurdle. Desert-marriages are illegal; the children born of them are incompetent to inherit. Minors whose parents are expatriated may marry without their authority; but parents whose children are on foreign soil shall not consent to their marriage, on pain of the galleys for the men and banishment for the women. Finally, of all fines and confiscations, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... men choose a representative, not because he represents them but because he does not." And if it be answered that the worst form of cruelty to a nation or to an individual is that abuse of the principle of equality which is for ever putting incompetent people into false positions, he has his reply ready: "The one specially and peculiarly un-Christian idea is the idea of Carlyle—the idea that the man should rule who feels that he can rule. Whatever else ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... look through the Clothes of a Man (the woollen, and fleshly, and official Bank-paper and State-paper Clothes) into the Man himself; and discern, it may be, in this or the other Dread Potentate, a more or less incompetent Digestive-apparatus; yet also an inscrutable venerable Mystery, in the meanest Tinker ...
— Sartor Resartus - The Life and Opinions of Herr Teufelsdrockh • Thomas Carlyle
... his own expenses, relying on his commissions on land sales, and that as I had declined to serve on this basis they had felt compelled to accept his services. As I was obliged to have a regular income for the support of my family, I acquiesced in the directors' decision, and soon, under the new incompetent management, the company failed; so another of my business enterprises, on the very verge of a grand success, became a defeat, and again the innocent were blamed for the acts of the guilty. I converted my stock in the M.L.&I. Co., into lands of the company at a great loss to me, as ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... humiliation. Commercial people and professional people in a small way were odious to her. She ran after painters and novelists; but she did not charm them; and her bold attempts to pick up and practise artistic and literary talk irritated them. She was, in short, an utter failure, an ignorant, incompetent, pretentious, unwelcome, penniless, useless little snob; and though she did not admit these disqualifications (for nobody ever faces unpleasant truths of this kind until the possibility of a way out dawns ...
— Pygmalion • George Bernard Shaw
... nations, as to whether liberty or servitude will conduce to their happiness and general welfare. We have no doubt, that the condition of the Mexican Republic would be greatly bettered at this time, by placing over them, a humane and politic king. Whoever is incompetent to take care of himself, is fortunate indeed, when he finds a competent individual, who, will perform that office for him. Show me a nation who are so debased by vice and ignorance, that they are incapable of self-government, and you show me a nation who ought to be ruled by a king or ...
— A Review of Uncle Tom's Cabin - or, An Essay on Slavery • A. Woodward
... the Negro's deep and delicate sense of beauty in form, color, and sound. Soyaux says of African industry, "Whoever denies to them independent invention and individual taste in their work either shuts his eyes intentionally before perfectly evident facts, or lack of knowledge renders him an incompetent judge."[62] M. Rutot had lately told us how the Negro race brought art and sculpture to pre-historic Europe. The bones of the European Negroids are almost without exception found in company with drawings and sculpture ...
— The Negro • W.E.B. Du Bois
... were of the same temperament. For one thing, we were equally incompetent at golf. Perhaps I foozled my drive rather worse than Henry, but then he never took fewer than five strokes on the green, whereas I have occasionally done it in four. Then we mutually detested gramophones. But when we discovered that we could both play 'Caller Herrin'' on the piano ...
— Our Elizabeth - A Humour Novel • Florence A. Kilpatrick
... Gloucester, Mr. A. Barbarie, of Restigouche, and Mr. Francis McPhelim, of Kent, having deserted their Liberal allies. Had they proved faithful, the government would have been defeated, and the province would have been spared another three years of an incompetent administration. ...
— Wilmot and Tilley • James Hannay
... as many strapping indoor men—some of them much better fitted for manual labor—as he liked, and find it a social glory; while a family of moderate means were obliged to pay high wages to crude incompetent women from the darkest backwaters of European life, just because they ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... would have been firmly established, the Empire solidified, the administration purified and the frontiers defended. Everything that had happened in the past five years he blamed on Commodus. It was the indifference of Commodus which had ruined the administration of the army, so that incompetent, dishonest, and tyrannical under-officers drove young patriots like himself into mutiny, outlawry and their consequences. Had Commodus been a capable ruler he and his fellow malcontents would have been listened to, placated and sent ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... all, the difficulties in shattering the protecting wall which the law erects around every accused man or woman, are frequently insuperable. Evidence which convinces the police or the prosecuting attorney of the defendant's culpability is as likely as not to be found incompetent in court and barred from the record. The result is a verdict of acquittal and all the work of ...
— The Substitute Prisoner • Max Marcin
... desire to learn the Christian religion, appoint a time, and hear me." The proconsul said: "Persuade the people." The martyr replied: "I addressed my discourse to you; for we are taught to give due honor to princes as far as is consistent with religion. But the populace is an incompetent judge to justify myself before." Indeed, rage rendered ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... powers of the emperor had come into the hands of one man simply because the republic had been found incompetent to handle its empire, whether from a military or a financial point of view. It managed neither so consistently nor so honestly as did ...
— Life in the Roman World of Nero and St. Paul • T. G. Tucker
... called Tayer or Thair, made an attack upon Otesiphon, took the city by storm, and captured a sister or aunt of the Persian monarch. The nobles, who, during Sapor's minority, guided the helm of the State, were quite incompetent to make head against these numerous enemies. For sixteen years the marauding bands had the advantage, and Persia found herself continually weaker, more impoverished, and less able to recover herself. The young prince is said to have shown extraordinary discretion and ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson
... object rises full in vision. The poet flings forth his melody, and to the gross ear it seems a mere tinkle of inanity. That is simply because the crowd who worship at the shrine of the Sminthean Apollo have been accustomed by an old-fashioned and ridiculously incompetent priesthood to look for an instant and mechanical relation between sound and sense. I would not exaggerate, sire; but the kind of poetry lately cultivated, not only at Delphi, but in Delos ...
— Hypolympia - Or, The Gods in the Island, an Ironic Fantasy • Edmund Gosse
... after time he saw incompetent men advanced to positions of importance, his anger was unrestrainable, "Why," he asked bitterly, "are the Egyptian donkey-boys so favourable to the English?" Answer, "Because we hire more asses than ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... pleasures so accessible and so delightful to a young man. He did not fail to protest, on all occasions, his unfitness for sea-service, going so far, it is said, that he even caused himself to be rejected by the examining board of the navy as incompetent, though he could easily have prepared himself to answer the few questions asked. However, the will of the First Consul must be obeyed, and Jerome was compelled to embark. On the day of which I have spoken, after some moments of conversation and scolding, still on the ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... other arguments against persecution, arguments which are of so much weight, that they are decisive not only against persecution but against his whole theory. "The Government," he says, "is incompetent to exercise minute and constant supervision over religious opinion." And hence he infers, that "a Government exceeds its province when it comes to adapt a scale of punishments to variations in religious opinion, according to their respective degrees of variation from the established creed. To ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... that among these busy, efficient people she was feeling quite useless; and she didn't like to appear incompetent when she knew herself to be, in her own line, a thoroughly able person. But it irked her to think that she had been forced into a position where in self-defense she must either acquire a kind of efficiency she didn't want or do without. At the same time ...
— The Camerons of Highboro • Beth B. Gilchrist
... done in the Indian lawsuits, the Spanish procedure being entirely unsuitable for these cases; and the innocent suffer the penalties, while the guilty escape. Dignities and offices are given to the unworthy and incompetent, and to relatives of the auditors. Criminals connected with the auditors go unpunished. The auditors engage openly in trade, by which they have gained enormous wealth. The royal intention that they should advise the king regarding the governor's ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVII, 1609-1616 • Various
... horse and cast his 'eye over his acres.' The progress of decline, in his case, was not of that humiliating kind, by which the faculties of the intellect are clouded, and the muscles of the body made feeble and incompetent. He spoke thoughtfully of the great concerns of life, of death, and of the future; declared himself a Christian, a humble believer in all the vital truths of religion. As of the future he entertained no doubt, so of ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... begun in form, though the English engineers were so incompetent that the trenches, as first laid out, were scoured by the fire of the place, and had to be made anew.[740] At last the batteries opened fire. A shell from a coehorn burst prematurely, just as it left the mouth of the piece, and a fragment striking ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... called, which is 33 leagues from Maima, where we were. As the distance between the islands is about 90 leagues, and nothing in the way but one little island or rock, 8 leagues from Hispaniola, it was necessary to wait for calm weather in order to cross so great a sea in such incompetent vessels. This it pleased God soon to give; and every Indian having taken on board his calabash of water and a supply of carrabi as their provision, and the Christians armed with swords and targets and provided with the necessary sustenance, they put to sea. The lieutenant ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. III. • Robert Kerr
... property, even life, is in danger. The primary possession, food, is violated in hundreds of places, and is everywhere menaced and precarious. The local officials everywhere call for aid, declare the constabulary incompetent, and demand regular troops. And mark how public authority, everywhere inadequate, disorganized, and tottering, finds stirred up against it not only the blind madness of hunger, but, in addition, the evil instincts which profit by every disorder ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... of responsibility, and left the responsibility nowhere in particular. In making appointments the mayor and council would come to some sort of compromise with each other and exchange favours. Perhaps for private reasons incompetent or dishonest officers would get appointed, and if the citizens ventured to complain the mayor would say that he appointed as good men as the council could be induced to confirm, and the council would declare their willingness to confirm good appointments if the mayor could only ...
— Civil Government in the United States Considered with - Some Reference to Its Origins • John Fiske
... his calmness and steadfastness to overcome his discouragement and disgust at the manner in which the cooperating armies had been handled. In the Shenandoah Valley Sigel had proved utterly incompetent and the Confederates, instead of having been driven from that important storehouse, had tightened their hold upon it. Moreover, Butler, who was supposed to threaten Richmond while Grant fought Lee, had made a sorry mess of that part of the program. In fact he had maneuvered in such a ridiculous ...
— On the Trail of Grant and Lee • Frederick Trevor Hill
... willing to accept the position of nurse, for he welcomed her with leaps and squeals of joy, and wept loudly and bitterly whenever she dared leave him. His mother was relieved greatly by her sister's help. For Mrs. John Coulson was suffering from the chronic housekeeping malady, an incompetent maid. A faithful servant of two years' standing had gone off in a temper the week before because her mistress had announced that henceforth they should have dinner at six o'clock in the evening. Everyone on Sunset ...
— 'Lizbeth of the Dale • Marian Keith
... remove the real cause of the trouble. You say he has produced larger results than ever before, and if the market were normal there would be larger returns. Then, it seems to me, Colonel, that if Ranald suffers he is suffering, not because he has been unfaithful or incompetent, but because the market is bad, and that I am certain you ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... old when he began business with Meredith. They had no capital, and in fact were in debt for part of their appurtenances. Meredith proved not only incompetent, but a hard drinker as well; so that Franklin, accepting the kindness of two friends who lent him the money, soon bought his partner out and conducted the shop alone. He prospered steadily, and in twenty years was able to retire ...
— Benjamin Franklin • Paul Elmer More
... tried to lead them to the consideration of more humanising truths, for the purpose of preparing the way for the inculcation of the great mysteries of our holy religion; but the greater portion of my hearers were incompetent to understand what I seemed so desirous of teaching, and my making them comprehend the principles of Christianity, appeared to ...
— The Little Savage • Captain Frederick Marryat
... place, let us make the reflection, that the art of weaving clothes, which an incompetent person might fancy to have been sufficiently described, has been separated off from several others which are of the same family, but not ...
— Statesman • Plato
... that, being a layman, I ought not to have concerned myself with speculations which belong to the profession of divinity; I could answer, that perhaps laymen, with equal advantages of parts and knowledge, are not the most incompetent judges of sacred things; but in the due sense of my own weakness and want of learning, I plead not this: I pretend not to make myself a judge of faith in others, but only to make a confession of my own. I lay no unhallowed hand upon the ark, ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... appointing or nominating officer shall object to an eligible named in the certificate, stating that because of some physical defect, mental unsoundness, or moral disqualification, particularly specified, said eligible would be incompetent or unfit for the performance of the duties of the vacant position, and if said officer shall sustain such objection with evidence satisfactory to the Commission, the Commission may certify the eligible on the register who is in average percentage next below those already certified in place of the ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland
... companies into hopeless confusion had the junior officers not boldly substituted the right ones for the colonel's blunders. This, however, passed unnoted, for the crowds, and even the men, were not the sharp critics they afterward became when mistakes by an incompetent officer were saluted by shouts of ridicule, and the men contemptuously disregarded them. When Colonel Oswald ordered them to "present arms" from a "place rest" there was more perplexity than merriment, and the ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... the cavalry against the Apaches. Crook's understanding of the Indian was perfect; and not only was he able to beat the natives at their own game of ambuscade but he thoroughly sympathized with their cause. He knew how Washington and incompetent officers had blundered ...
— When the West Was Young • Frederick R. Bechdolt
... far toward lessening burdens. We cannot abolish the factory, but hours can be shortened; the labor of married women with young children forbidden, as well as that of children below a fixed age. Industrial education will prevent the possibility of another generation owning so many incompetent and untrained workers, and technical schools in general are already raising the standard and helping to secure the ...
— Women Wage-Earners - Their Past, Their Present, and Their Future • Helen Campbell
... editor of the reviewing journal to complain of what has been said of him, he frequently—even more often than not—complains of 'your reviewer.' He sometimes presumes that 'you' have, 'through inadvertence' in this instance, 'allowed some incompetent person to lower the character of your usually accurate pages.' Sometimes he talks of 'your scribe,' and, in extreme cases, even of 'your hack.' All this shows perfect ignorance of the journal system, except where it is done ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume I (of II) • Augustus De Morgan
... Notice the careless and incompetent workman. If chipping or cutting is required, he will grasp the first chisel at hand. It may have a curved end, or be a key-way chisel, or entirely unsuited as to ...
— Practical Mechanics for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... Fairfax had Master Justus on his lap when his father unexpectedly walked into his garden. There was a lady in blue amongst the flowers who vanished; and the incompetent Sally, with something in her arms, who also hastily retired, but not unseen, either her or her burden. Master Justus held his ground with baby audacity, and the old squire recognized a strong young shoot of the Fairfax stock. One or two sharp exclamations and astounded ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... Charleses. The family became, soon, as contemptible as the ox-drawn, long-haired "do-nothings" whom it had expelled; but it is not our task to describe the fortunes of the Emperor's ignoble descendants. The realm was divided, sub-divided, at times partially reunited, like a family farm, among monarchs incompetent alike to hold, to delegate, or—to resign the inheritance of the great warrior and lawgiver. The meek, bald, fat, stammering, simple Charles, or Louis, who successively sat upon his throne—princes, whose only ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... who was troubled with his stomach and spent his days gazing at the reflection of his tongue in the mirror, would jump up in fury when one of these jokes was perpetrated, and ask the proprietress to discharge an incompetent booby ...
— The Quest • Pio Baroja
... humble our part may be, no matter how childish and incompetent we feel, by doing the best we know, with the ability we have, in all joy and earnestness, we shall be serving the Master and weaving ...
— The Right Knock - A Story • Helen Van-Anderson
... could ever have the function of guiding conduct better than instinct can, in the beginning it would be most incompetent for that office. Only the routine and equilibrium which healthy instinct involves keep thought and will at all within the limits of sanity. The predetermined interests we have as animals fortunately focus our attention ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... Israelitish monarchy was unaware of its own resources, because it did not condescend to reckon what was spiritual. Frequently in civil history you find governments brought face to face with matters for which they are, with all their resources, incompetent. In modern Europe, and as much in our own country as in others, everything gives place to politics. Nothing stirs so much excitement. Differences in religion do not sever men as differences in politics do. We should, therefore, ...
— How to become like Christ • Marcus Dods
... of the Administration the number is said to have reached two thousand. The Post-Office Department and the Customs Service were purged with special severity. The sole principle on which the new appointees were selected was loyalty to Jackson. Practically all were inexperienced, most were incompetent, and several ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg
... national security to be a natural gift rather than a product of the will. Such communities further fail from the lack of civic aptitude, as was said above, which means that they deliberately elect to leave the mass of citizens incompetent and irresponsible for generations, so that, when any more strain is upon them, they look at once for some men other than themselves to relieve them, and are incapable of corporate action ...
— First and Last • H. Belloc
... point of view. If we were considering the life of some commercial or industrial community and trying to forecast its future development, one of the first things we should note would be its general business methods. No manufacturing concern with a defective office administration and incompetent travellers could survive, even if it had an Archimedes or an Edison in supreme control. I cannot see any reason why an agricultural community should expect to prosper while the industry by which its members live retains its present business organisation. ...
— The Rural Life Problem of the United States - Notes of an Irish Observer • Horace Curzon Plunkett
... unreasonableness of any artificial State regulation interfering with the determination of prices by "natural forces,"[185] the majority was content to note that the "due process clause makes no mention of prices" and that "the courts are both incompetent and unauthorized to deal with the wisdom of the policy adopted or the practicability of the law ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... of North America, had insinuated herself into the West India Islands, and she was mistress of Gibraltar. So it was with no little satisfaction that they saw her involved in a serious quarrel with her American colonies, at a time when a stubborn and incompetent Hanoverian King was doing his best to destroy her. The hour seemed auspicious for recovering Gibraltar, and also to drive England out of the West Indies. The alliance with France had become a permanent one, and was known as a family compact between the Bourbon cousins Louis ...
— A Short History of Spain • Mary Platt Parmele
... hours they were ready to start. Pierre had charged Duc the incompetent upon matters for the old man's comfort, and had himself, with a curious sort of kindness, steeped the boneset and camomile in whisky, and set a cup of it near his chair. Then he had gone up to Throng's bedroom ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Louis had been in preparation, he now seemed to be as careless or incompetent in execution. Not only he neglected the advice of his best general, and wasted time, but he did his best to drive his adversaries to despair and the resistance which comes of despair. They were told by proclamation that "the towns which should ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... was truly said of Decatur: "He was one of the most chivalric men of any age or country." He was one of the little band of naval commanders who by heroic exploits at sea did so much to redeem the American name from the humiliation and disgrace caused by incompetent generalship upon land, in our second war with Great Britain. His encounters with the enemy were of frequent occurrence, and in each instance added new laurels to our little navy. If Commodore Decatur had rendered no other service to his country, ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... witnessing operations and being taught the art of dressing wounds. The omission of fainting on the part of the new pupils rather disappointed general expectation; and though the knowledge gained in a few weeks was superficial, yet for practical purposes the nurses were not deemed totally incompetent. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... the juvenescent, a blessing to the book-writer, yet never an inconvenience. But it is a practical reality, and it has great effects. Why, I have seen good, healthy people, quite nice-tempered people, brought to a shadow by it and churned into so many pounds of incompetent irritability; so exacting about trifles, so fidgetty about catching the mail, and so careless of the health of the uninteresting majority. There was one man I knew down in a village, and he fell ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various
... religious atmosphere it was perhaps the best. Meanwhile the work of cramming the children for the yearly diocesan examination must have fallen into arrears; for the school, which under my friend's incompetent predecessor had always been classed as "Excellent," sank to the level of "Good" in the year after he left, and in the following year to the level of "Fair." Any one who has any acquaintance with the reports of the Diocesan Inspector knows that the summary mark "Fair," when employed ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... thinking people among us. We have learned to distrust the responses of their timeserving oracles, and to laugh at the ignorant pretensions of their literary artisans. These "outsiders" have shown, to our entire satisfaction, that they are thoroughly incompetent to judge our character as a community, and that they have no true estimate of its spirit and its resources. The view they have taken of the strife in which we have been and are engaged is not only devoid of any high moral sympathy, but utterly shallow, and flagrantly falsified by the whole ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... turmoil about them, pursue those noble quests which give to humanity its highest training! What these men lose we know: to them are neither great houses nor the hoards of successful commerce. Their lives are often vexed by the trouble and worry of wretchedly incompetent incomes, and what trials they endure those they love must also share. Their incomes, in fact, are usually such as a well-paid bank-clerk or dry-goods salesman would despise. Officers of the navy or army are, as a rule, as well paid as men of science who hold the chairs ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... Villeneuve, But you have nourished secret sour opinions Akin to his, and thereby helped to scathe As stably based a project as this age Has sunned to ripeness. Ever the French Marine Have you decried, ever contrived to bring Despair into the fleet! Why, this Villeneuve, Your man, this rank incompetent, this traitor— Of whom I asked no more than fight and lose, Provided he detain the enemy— A frigate is too great for his command! what shall be said of one who, at a breath, When a few casual sailors find them sick, When falls a broken boom ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... is intended to supply; any one who throws it over as a mere theoretical subtlety or crotchet, tending to no valuable purpose, and unworthy of the attention of practical men, may be pronounced an incompetent statesman, unequal to the politics of the future. I mean, unless he is a minister or aspires to become one: for we are quite accustomed to a minister continuing to profess unqualified hostility to an improvement almost ...
— Autobiography • John Stuart Mill
... other respects, were singularly ignorant and incompetent concerning any property except the few dollars and cents in their ...
— Pembroke - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... judge, guardian, prime minister, and old family doctor in turn. Mabel, rouged and befrilled, still made an attractive foil for Wallace as the hero. Martie liked them all; their chatter of the fairyland of the stage, their trunks plastered with labels, their fine voices, their general air of being incompetent children adrift in a puzzling world. Deep laughter stirred within her when they spoke ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris
... pleasure, and of which alone they are aware. The cleverness of a man who can paint fruit that tempts urchins impresses them; but the artist who feels, and tries to express, the soul of fruit and flowers they take for an incompetent dunce or ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell
... there must have been many who were ruined completely by this fearful calamity. Hundreds of merchants, and retailers, having lost their all must have been unable to face the stress and anxiety of making this fresh start. The men advanced in life; the men of anxious and timid mind; the incompetent and feeble: were crushed. They became bankrupt: they went under: in the great crowd no one heeded them: their sons and daughters took a lower place: perhaps they are still among the ranks into which it is easy to sink; out ...
— The History of London • Walter Besant
... clearer and more perfect way than to any other standpoint; or the name is used to attest that the world alone {180} exists, and that monism knows of but one existence,—namely, that of the world; while the contrary view of the world—that of theism, which in a manner wholly incompetent, and historically wholly unjustified, is called dualism—supposes two existences, God and the world. But then this name does not correctly represent either itself or theism. It does not correctly represent itself: for the so-called monism does not, indeed, suppose that that which appears in ...
— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid
... and these principles rebut all the sophistry of the presumptuous sciolist. Is it true, that this notion prevails universally among the human race? Let him answer to this. He must admit it;—let him then explain it, if he can. Reason, he will say, is incompetent to the task.—Admitted. But so is it to many other tasks—it cannot, for instance, solve the question, why we believe the sun will rise to-morrow and dispel the darkness now cloaking over the horizon? The hope ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... Tommy was pitchforked, and when I arrived he was just beginning to understand how unpleasant it was. As I said before, I did not know him very well, and I was amazed to find how bad he was at his job. A more curiously incompetent person I never met. He was a long, thin man, with a grizzled moustache and a mild sleepy eye-not an impressive figure, except on a horse; and he had an odd lisp which made even a shrewd remark sound foolish. He was the most ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... By adroit manipulation, intimidation, superior knavery, and the corrupt domination of law, it was always easy for those who understood the science of rigging the stock market, and that of strategic undermining, to wrest the control away from weak, or (treating the word in a commercial sense) incompetent, holders. This has been long shown by ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... alike unfit to reign over Rome. Galba was very old and very incompetent, Otho was a declared profligate, and Vitellius was a glutton of such extraordinary powers that his name has become a synonyme for voracity. He had by his arts and his skill as a courtier made himself a favorite with four ...
— Historic Tales, Volume 11 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... thin-blooded persons—is doing its work with constant difficulty. As a result, fatigue comes early, is extreme, and lasts long. The demand for nutritive aid is ahead of the supply, or else the supply is incompetent as to quality, and before the tissues are rebuilded a new demand is made, so that the materials of disintegration accumulate, and do this the more easily because the eliminative organs share in the general defects. And these are some of the reasons why ...
— Fat and Blood - An Essay on the Treatment of Certain Forms of Neurasthenia and Hysteria • S. Weir Mitchell
... a thousand American teachers are scattered over the Philippine Islands, and for ten years these men and women have been training the young of both sexes. Some have proved incompetent, a few have set a very bad example, but the great majority have done work of which any nation might be proud. They have not only been teachers of the young, but they have been counselors and friends of the parents of ...
— The Critic in the Orient • George Hamlin Fitch
... Never do men talk together of their experiences of bodily suffering, as sometimes even the least morbid of us will, but some one is found to recall afflictions at the hands of the physician of little wit. The "incompetent" is everywhere and if, sometimes, he finds his way into the pulpit, those who jeer at the Church on his account have ...
— The Message and the Man: - Some Essentials of Effective Preaching • J. Dodd Jackson
... Hesiod considered one other appendage to the homestead indispensable, to which Mr. Stephens does not allude, perhaps from feeling himself incompetent ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... disaster. They were spared comment; that blow came later, when the warriors of Fleet Street set about explaining why the defeat was sustained and why it should never have happened. In due course these carpet tacticians proved to their own satisfaction that Colonel Stevenor was incompetent for the service on which he had been dispatched. But the reek of printing-ink never was good for ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... business? Could she hope to regenerate these poor wretches by her example? No! She could not teach them to be good, and they excelled in teaching others harm. She must leave this gilded vice, taking with her those she loved, and leave the idle and incompetent to ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... marrying rather well. These two children, by a useful whim of the eccentric old man, had received their portions of the patrimony on their respective wedding-days. They were both dead. Shadrach, amiable but incompetent, had died poor, leaving a daughter, Susan, who had repeated, even more reprehensibly, her father's sin of marrying beneath her. She had married a working potter, and thus reduced her branch of the family to the status from which old Ebenezer had originally raised ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... the Hungarian (1580-2), and Memi the Albanian (1583-6), followed one another, and (with the exception of the Venetian) proved to be wise, just, and clement rulers. Then the too usual practice was adopted of allotting the province to the highest bidder, and rich but incompetent or rascally Turks bought the reversion of the Pashalik. The reign of the renegades was over; the Turks kept the government in their own hands, and the role of the ex-Christian adventurers was confined ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... and down, at different times from nine o'clock until midnight. The streets of Montreal at that time made brave pretense of lighting by virtue of the new gas works; at certain intervals flickering and wholly incompetent lights serving to make the gloom more visible. None the less, as I passed for the last time, I plainly saw a shaft of light fall upon the half darkness from a little side door. There emerged upon the street the figure of a woman. I do not know what led me to cast ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough
... see, in some sort, what profit there is in grammar. Is the common language of two of the largest and most enlightened nations on earth so little understood, and its true grammar so little known or appreciated, that one of the most unscholarly and incompetent of all pretenders to grammar can have found means to outrival all the grammarians who have preceded him? Have plagiarism and quackery become the only means of success in philology? Are there now instances to which an intelligent critic may point, and say, "This man, or that, though he can ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... American colonies, war was declared against England, France undertaking not to conclude peace until the colonies were free. The success of the revolted colonies made the Revolution in France a certainty. The fall of Neckar and the setting up of the reckless and incompetent Calonne over the destinies of France brought the shout of the Democracy to the gardens of the king. Vigee Le Brun's picture of the dandified man certainly does not show him a leader of great enterprises. His reckless extravagance satisfied the nobles; it brought ...
— Vigee Le Brun • Haldane MacFall
... the strength of what has happened in the past. We are not a people which has accomplished much, but one on the way to accomplishment. The achievements of which we can boast are relatively like those of a child of five who boasts that he can count. Our whole world-condition shows us to be racially incompetent, and able to produce no more than incompetent leaders. That is our present high-water mark, and with our high-water mark we ...
— The Conquest of Fear • Basil King
... publication of this work,) a brief but most important statute (6 and 7 Vict. c. 85) was enacted, "for improving the Law of Evidence"—the chief object of which was, to remove all such difficulties as that which formed the subject of Mr. Parkinson's inquiries. Witnesses are now no longer "incompetent" to give evidence by reason of crime or of any interest which they may have in, or in respect of, ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... paltry in appearance is very great. The Papists estimate it a slight thing to govern the State, to be a spouse, to train children. But experience teaches that these are very important matters, for which the wisdom of men is incompetent. We see that at times the most spiritual men have here shamefully fallen. When we, therefore, remember him who gives the command, that which is paltry and common becomes a responsibility too great to discharge ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... "Some incompetent," continued Calvert, "is trying to make you uncomfortable. You asked us for a chance; we gave you the chance. You proved valuable to us, and we gave you Marlitt's job. You need not worry: Marlitt was useless, and had to go anyway. Warrington left ...
— A Young Man in a Hurry - and Other Short Stories • Robert W. Chambers
... if she were permitted to proceed next day, Lady Bellingham sat trembling in her carriage, in which were her waiting-gentlewoman, chaplain, and gentleman-usher, all highly useful to her in their separate departments and joint occupations of submissive flatterers, but all incompetent to advise what was to be done, and incapable of ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... get rid of so incompetent an officer, and at the same time punish the insubordination of the men, it was resolved to disband the company. Thus was afforded to Frank the opportunity, which seemed to him almost providential, of joining Captain Edney's company, and to John Winch ...
— The Drummer Boy • John Trowbridge
... and journal: Our pilot proved incompetent, and we narrowly escaped shipwreck in consequence at Martin Garcia Bar, a bad spot in the River Plate. A small schooner captain, observing that we needlessly followed in his track, and being anything but a sailor in principle, wantonly meditated ...
— Voyage of the Liberdade • Captain Joshua Slocum
... not instituted a Committee of Public Safety for fun. It will enquire into Custine's conduct. Incompetent or traitor, he will be superseded by a General resolved to ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... ordered the Seventeenth Ohio with three pieces of artillery and another company of cavalry, all under the command of Colonel Connell, to support the cavalry under Dillon. The latter proved wholly incompetent, and failed to comply with his orders in any particular. He went into camp two miles in the rear from where he was ordered, and neglected even to post his men to guard the ford, whereby Zollicoffer was enabled to occupy the north bank of the Cumberland without opposition and without Dillon's ...
— The Army of the Cumberland • Henry M. Cist
... both the highest organs of sense, as developed in the vertebrates on the one hand, and in the mollusks on the other, present us with residuary phenomena for which "Natural Selection" alone is quite incompetent to account. And that these same phenomena must therefore be considered as conclusive evidence for the action of some other natural law or laws conditioning the simultaneous and independent evolution of these harmonious ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart
... 1728 the Master of his college assured him that he was the best qualified applicant whom he had ever known. Johnson, on his side, was not nearly so well pleased with the University; he found the teachers incompetent, and his pride suffered intensely from his poverty, so that he remained at Oxford little more than a year. The death of his father in 1731 plunged him into a distressingly painful struggle for existence which lasted for thirty years. After failing as a subordinate teacher in ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... capable of feeling interest in the comparison of slighter with sublimer things, and the detection in minor works of the same style, here revealed by fitful hints in casual phrases, as that which animates and distinguishes even a work so insufficient and incompetent as Webster's "tragecomoedy" of "The Devil's Law-case." The noble and impressive extracts from this most incoherent and chaotic of all plays which must be familiar to all students of Charles Lamb are but patches of imperial purple sewn on with the roughest of needles ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
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