"Unsatisfactory" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... supplying for itself whatever is wanting in the rudest suggestions of art, and will either, on the one hand, purify what is coarse into inoffensiveness, or, on the other, raise what is feeble into impressiveness. Probably all art, as such, is unsatisfactory to it; and the effort which it makes to supply the void will be induced rather by association and accident than by the real merit of the work submitted to it. The likeness to a beloved friend, the correspondence with a habitual conception, the freedom from ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin
... glance at the clock, either stammered, "O mother, I forgot!" or else rattled off an unsatisfactory excuse. ...
— Apples, Ripe and Rosy, Sir • Mary Catherine Crowley
... form of natural science, nor for gardening, nor for any kind of sport nor games. Nor did he willingly ride.[61] He was always restless away from his books. There can be no doubt that want of sufficient air and exercise, reacting on an impaired liver, had much to do with Yule's unsatisfactory state of health and frequent extreme depression. There was no lack of agreeable and intelligent society at Palermo (society that the present writer recalls with cordial regard), to which every winter brought ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... has taken place in some parts of our country; but that recently there has been a settling down to real, earnest life on the part of a large proportion of the race. After calling attention to certain weak and unsatisfactory phases in the life of the ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... of the Maryland Legislature, a body whom it was important to conciliate, visited Harper's Ferry during his tenure of command. They were received with the utmost politeness, and in return plied the general with many questions. His answers were unsatisfactory, and at length one more bold than the rest asked him frankly how many men he had at his disposal. "Sir," was the reply, "I should be glad if President Lincoln thought I had fifty thousand." Nor was this reticence observed only towards ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... his hotel gloomily. The day had passed in a most unsatisfactory manner, according to his way of looking at it. Yet he had come more clearly to an understanding of the girl; her cheerfulness, her unselfishness, and, above all, the sweet, beautiful philosophy of life that must lie back, to render her so uncomplainingly the slave of the self-willed ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... shown as the man of the fields. With the present equipment of railroads, trolley lines, automobile busses, and highways, little excursions are easily made in a day. The railways, trolleys, and automobile busses are unsatisfactory means of locomotion for sight-seeing. The passenger is rushed past the very sights that would be of the greatest interest. To most of us, a private hired automobile is open to the very serious objection of its expensiveness, an item that may sometimes ...
— Cuba, Old and New • Albert Gardner Robinson
... same, it is the truth. And now though in Russia and in many other States there is no constitution, nor the slightest sign of one, it is your own unsatisfactory life that worries you, not the absence of a constitution. And if you say it isn't, then you're telling a lie. What is more," added Sanine, with a merry twinkle in his eyes, "you are worried not about your life but because ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... 'Le Nozze di Figaro,' so unsatisfactory at Vienna, was unexampled at Prague, where it amounted to absolute intoxication and frenzy. Having run through the whole previous winter without interruption, and rescued the treasury of the theatre from ruinous embarrassments, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... a variety of food, placing this upon a wide shelf near at hand. Occasionally our eyes met, and I knew he was slowly making up his mind regarding me. This silent scrutiny could not have been altogether unsatisfactory, for, when he finally drew up an empty box and sat down, he was prepared ...
— My Lady of Doubt • Randall Parrish
... British works produced in the United States, on an undertaking to collect a Customs duty thereon of 12-1/2 per cent., which was to be paid over to the British Government for the benefit of the authors interested. The results of this legislation were unsatisfactory to the British authors, few of whom received any benefit under the provisions of the Act. The sums collected were ridiculously small. In 1894, they amounted to $1,433.66, and in 1895, to $2,211.33. Whilst the arrangement was in existence, ...
— The Copyright Question - A Letter to the Toronto Board of Trade • George N. Morang
... but they were from Jim's mother and his Uncle Denny for the most part, and they were very silent about Penelope. Jim wrote Pen from time to time, but he was not an easy writer and Pen wrote him only gay little notes that were very unsatisfactory. But Jim was absorbed in his work and did ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow
... the national finances were in a terribly unsatisfactory state. The measures for raising funds adopted by the minister Mazarin were the more unpopular because he was himself an Italian. The Paris Parlement set itself in opposition to the minister; the populace supported it; the resistance was organised ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee
... or origin of the several expressions, and of judging whether any theoretical explanation is trustworthy. Besides, judging as well as we can by our reason, without the aid of any rules, which of two or more explanations is the most satisfactory, or are quite unsatisfactory, I see only one way of testing our conclusions. This is to observe whether the same principle by which one expression can, as it appears, be explained, is applicable in other allied cases; and especially, whether the same general principles can be applied with satisfactory results, both to man ...
— The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals • Charles Darwin
... acreage, product, and exports since the closing years of the nineteenth century, until now the industry is regarded as practically at a stand-still and likely so to remain as long as rubber shall continue to hold the commercially high position to which it has attained. Unsatisfactory prices realized for the crop, poor growth of the trees in some localities, and the gradual weakening of the trees under rubber as they mature, are offered as the principal explanations of this decrease in acreage. Nearly all the Malay crop in recent years has been grown in Selangor, though Negri ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... evasive, and therefore unsatisfactory, filled the Independents with joy, the Presbyterians with sorrow. The former disguised no longer their wish to dethrone the king, and either to set up in his place his son the duke of York, whom ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... I now saw nothing; but I accidentally heard that he was on a visit to Gerald, and that the latter had already made the old walls ring with premature hospitality. As for Aubrey, I was in perfect ignorance of his movements; and the unsatisfactory shortness of his last letter, and the wild expressions so breathing of fanaticism in the postscript, had given me much anxiety and alarm on his account. I longed above all to see him, to talk with him over old times and our future plans, and to learn whether no new bias could be given to a ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Montezuma and a famous prehistoric centre until its capture by Cortes, and every Mexican traveller marks it as one of his objective points. The finances of the Mexican Central Railway have been in recent years often in an unsatisfactory state, and the consolidation of the line with the National Railway, under Government auspices, is expected to bring about a more ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... himself to the food placed on the table in the dining-room at the Hive, or those at the table helped each other. In this way more or less confusion was produced, and the results were unsatisfactory. Accordingly, Charles Dana organized a group, including Curtis and other young men of character and good breeding, to act as waiters. Dana took his place at the head of this group of voluntary servants, who performed their duties with grace and alacrity. "It is hardly necessary to ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke
... whenever possible, instruct the class. Announce that any man may be called upon to take charge, and the uncertainty will keep everyone studying. This plan will also give the men valuable practice in teaching others. Their periods of instruction, of course, must be limited, and unsatisfactory parts of their work reviewed before the ...
— Military Instructors Manual • James P. Cole and Oliver Schoonmaker
... Madeleine Tonbridge could imagine nothing more unsatisfactory than the conversations between them which had begun in the drawing-room, and lingered on till, now, at nearly midnight, sheer weariness on both sides had brought them to an end. When Madeleine had at last thrown up argument as hopeless, Delia with a face ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... think I agree with you," she said, giving a shove to her soft elastic hair which did not improve the indefiniteness of the parting. "Of course it's unsatisfactory in one way to feel one will never live to finish things, but in another way I think it's a great comfort to feel one can never use them up or outlive them if one lasts on to be a hundred. And though one gets very cross and miserable with failing so over things one works at, I don't know ...
— Six to Sixteen - A Story for Girls • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... Conners, a confidential servant, that something mysterious was passing amongst the above-named, which led me to call on them for an explanation, they answered in a very unsatisfactory manner. I afterward learned that the name of the young woman was Maria Monk, that her mother lived in town, that she was not married to Mr. Hoyte, and they came to Montreal with the view, as Mr. Hoyte said, to disclose ...
— Awful Disclosures - Containing, Also, Many Incidents Never before Published • Maria Monk
... father came in again, leading his wife and children with an old-world gallantry that was apparent even in these unsatisfactory circumstances. He had a slow impressive way of speaking that made even his unimportant words appear important. In the present case, as soon as he began to speak most of the people in the ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall
... bedchamber itself was the one where he slept in his later lifetime, and in which he died at last. Altogether, it is an exceedingly unsuitable place for a pastoral and rural poet to live or die in,—even more unsatisfactory than Shakespeare's house, which has a certain homely picturesqueness that contrasts favorably with the suburban sordidness of the ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey
... almost any thing respecting such a creature as man, but by reasons of an eternal nature, and referring to the laws of an invisible world. Every system of an inferior kind, will be found inadequate in its application, and unsatisfactory in its sanctions—calculated, it may be, to amuse the philosopher in his closet, and attract the admiration of young and inexperienced minds, but too weak to sustain the shock of human passions, and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... could not define it, not really knowing what had excited the curious apprehensions within me. Nevertheless, I had that night told my secret to Ambler Jevons, who was often my visitor of an evening, and over our whiskies had asked his advice, with the unsatisfactory result which I ...
— The Seven Secrets • William Le Queux
... aspirations of his boyhood." At Oxford, where he completed his education after leaving Eton, he showed that unselfish spirit and consideration for the feelings of others which were the recognized traits of his character in after life. Conscious of the unsatisfactory state of the family's fortunes, he laboured strenuously even in college to relieve his father as much as possible of the expenses of his education. While living very much to himself, he never failed to win the confidence and respect even at ...
— Lord Elgin • John George Bourinot
... his post, because his advice as to matters not strictly within his own department was not taken by his master; to leave the Board of Admiralty, for example, because the finances were in disorder, or the Board of Treasury because the foreign relations of the kingdom were in an unsatisfactory state. It was, therefore, by no means unusual to see in high office, at the same time, men who avowedly differed from one another as widely as ever Pulteney differed from Walpole, or Fox ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the notice which two of your correspondents have taken of my query on this subject. At the same time I must say that the explanations which they offer appear to me to be quite unsatisfactory. I shall be happy to give my reasons for this, if you think it worth while; but, perhaps, if we wait a little, some other solution may ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 6. Saturday, December 8, 1849 • Various
... by way of being a patron of Wren's, and he disliked Billy Silver, partly for his own sake and partly because he hated his brother, with whom he had come into contact once or twice during his career at Eckleton, always with unsatisfactory results. ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse
... without being a liberal, was as quick-sighted, as courageous, and as alive to great thoughts and new hopes as himself. Very different in many ways, they were in this alike, that the commonplace notions of religion and the Church were utterly unsatisfactory to them, and that each had the capacity for affectionate and whole-hearted friendship. The friendship began and lasted on, growing stronger and deeper to the end. And this was not all. Froude's friendship with Mr. Newman overcame Mr. Keble's hesitations about Mr. Newman's supposed liberalism. Mr. ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... lady, taking from her finger a ring of pure gold, prayed the old man to accept of it, as a mark of her esteem and her husband's. "With one other condition," said the philosopher, "which I trust you will not find altogether unsatisfactory. I have, on the way to the city by the most pleasant road, a small kiosk, or hermitage, where I sometimes receive my friends, who, I venture to say, are among the most respectable personages of this empire. Two or three ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... employed by this board were varied. All laws passed by American legislatures came before it for review as a matter of routine. If it found an act unsatisfactory, it recommended to the king the exercise of his veto power, known as the royal disallowance. Any person who believed his personal or property rights injured by a colonial law could be heard by the board in person ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... and much conversation with Cameron. Read Bible. Some divinity of a character approaching to cram. Looked over my shorter abstract of Butler. Tea with Harrison. Walk with Gaskell. Wine with Hamilton, more of a party than I quite liked or expected. Altogether my mind was in an unsatisfactory state, though I heard a most admirable sermon from Tyler on Bethesda, which could not have been more opportune if written on purpose for those who are going into the schools. But I am cold, timid, and worldly, and not in a healthy state of mind for the great ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... a dark, disagreeable, bad-smelling liquid; and before it can be of much use, it must be refined. For several years it was carried in barrels from the oil fields to Pittsburgh by wagon and boat, a slow, expensive process, and generally unsatisfactory to all but the teamsters. Then came the railroads. They provided iron tanks in the shape of a cylinder fastened to freight cars, much like those employed to-day. There was only one difficulty about sending oil by rail, and that was that it still had to be hauled by team to the railroad, ...
— Diggers in the Earth • Eva March Tappan
... captain dismissed these painful reflections from his mind, and turned his attention to matters nearer home. He had already searchingly scrutinised the aspect of the weather with most unsatisfactory results. As far as his experience went there was every prospect of a continuance—nay more, an increase—of the gale. The sky to windward looked wilder and more threatening than ever; while that the sea was still rising was a fact about which there could be no mistake. He dived into the little ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... With which unsatisfactory remark this particular conversation ended. I went to my room to dress for dinner. I had no appetite and dinner was not appealing; but I did not want to discuss Little Frank any longer. I mentally cursed Jim Campbell a good ...
— Kent Knowles: Quahaug • Joseph C. Lincoln
... which he had just received from Owyn himself. Not from this correspondence only, but from other undisputed documents, and from the loud complaints of French writers,[115] we are compelled to infer something extremely unsatisfactory in the conduct of Henry IV. with regard to the valuable paraphernalia of Isabella, the maiden-widow of Richard. To avoid restoring these treasures, which fell into his hands on the capture of that unfortunate monarch, Henry proposed, ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... exactly a patent of discretion and rectitude in these days, unfortunately. Still Helen found his care of her reputation—as far as association of her name with his went—somewhat exaggerated. She could hardly believe him to be indifferent to her, and yet—— Oh! the whole matter was unsatisfactory, abominably unsatisfactory—of a piece with the disquieting influences of this grim and fateful city, with the detestable weather ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... wife of Henry VIII., consoled herself in her unsatisfactory life by needlework: it is related that she and her ladies "occupied themselves working with their own hands something wrought in needlework, costly and artificially, which she intended to the honour of God to bestow upon some churches." Katherine of Aragon was such a devoted needlewoman, in fact, ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... ruffled to some extent by the sense of having no adequate protection from the rudeness of this class of men. For a lady, there seems to be no chance of escape but by the alternative of some enormous overcharge. Altogether, this department of public economy in London is in a most unsatisfactory state. Most people avoid using these street vehicles whenever they can, and this is especially true of strangers. We can state as a fact, that a provincial gentleman of our acquaintance is accustomed to take ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 432 - Volume 17, New Series, April 10, 1852 • Various
... Brodie hastily, answering the look, and recognising that her high place in Rob's regard was in peril, "the whole thing was a mystery—was impossible to solve—I mean," she continued, stumbling along, "his own attitude was so very uncertain and so unsatisfactory—if he had only been able to say clearly 'I am not guilty' it would have been different—I mean—of course, I don't believe him guilty. Don't look at me like that, Rob! I won't have it! But was it not ...
— Corporal Cameron • Ralph Connor
... because he wanted to be waited upon once more by her with the playful, gracious manner, just tinged with affectionate mockery, which he knew so well; and then he talked to her and Fraeulein Mozer, with a heavy sense of the unsatisfactory nature of this triangular conversation for a ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... after, little Toe, with probably less logic but more loving, became possessed of a dollar to buy a steamboat like Craig's. But Mr. K., who had furnished the additional capital, looked in vain for the improved service. The new rolling stock was not in evidence, and explanations were vague and unsatisfactory, as is often the case in the railroad game at which men play. It took a stern court of inquiry to develop the fact that the railroad and steamship had simply changed hands—and at a mutual profit of one hundred per cent. And Mr. K., ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... have been offered in explanation of the religious phenomena of the world are widely divergent, and most of them are, in our judgment, eminently inadequate and unsatisfactory. The following enumeration may be regarded as embracing all that ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... police are, however, kept very busy, for the regulation as to carrying papers is being rigorously enforced, and the belated pedestrian is invariably challenged by a cavalry patrol or by the ordinary police. If his answers are unsatisfactory, he undergoes a more searching examination ...
— Paris War Days - Diary of an American • Charles Inman Barnard
... European crisis? And, if it were needed, herein lies another indictment against the telephone. I was engaged in an argument, which, if not in itself serious, was at least concerned with a serious enough subject, the unsatisfactory nature of human riches; and from that highly moral discussion have I been lured, by the accidental sight of the word "telephone," into the writing of matter which can have the effect only of exciting to frenzy all critics of the New Humour ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... its inhabitants, and using the records and lists in the archives of your ancient government-offices, of which your father has told me; you must have special regard to the financial condition of each district. That the old mode of levying taxes is unsatisfactory we find every day; you will have ample room for improvements in every respect. Overthrow the existing arrangements, if you consider it necessary. Other men have attempted to redistribute the divisions ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... some of his old adherents, determined to leave a country where his loyalty had received such unsatisfactory recognition, and to begin life again in some other part of the American continent. Not long after the war he sailed out upon the Gulf of Mexico,—for what destination it is not known, but probably for some Central American port,—and as nothing was ever heard of him or his party, ...
— Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coasts • Frank Richard Stockton
... turning back, even though it has not been quite a Sunday school picnic all along. It is a great disappointment not to see a dip of 90 deg., but the time is too short with this 'climate.' It was higher than we expected to get, after the unsatisfactory dips obtained near the two-hundred-mile depot. The rate of increase since that spot has been fairly uniform and indicates that 90 degrees might be reached in another fifty to sixty miles, if the same rate held, and that means at least another week. It's no good thinking about ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... anything if you give them time, and he being young had plenty of it. He lived it down as one lives down every sorrow and every joy; and when in the fulness of time, after a series of years in which he went about listlessly in a soft felt hat and an unsatisfactory collar, he married, it was to Priscilla's capital that he went for his honeymoon. She, hearing he was there, sent for them both and ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... taken of the appreciation of this unsatisfactory state of things by the Government of the time, and by the Press; and, as with a knowledge of our deficiency, came the desire and the energy to bring about its remedy, we shall see that, with the Exhibition of 1851, and the intercourse ...
— Illustrated History of Furniture - From the Earliest to the Present Time • Frederick Litchfield
... glad to talk and she soon gained an insight into the peculiar, aimless, unsatisfactory, and yet effective method of warfare practised by the Insurrecto armies; they told her of the endless marches and counter-marches, the occasional skirmishes, the feints, the inconclusive engagements which were all a part of the general strategy—operations which served to keep the ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... 13th he writes: "Things here are very unsatisfactory; no one sees his way out of the mess—and there is no way but my way—representation by population. There is great talk to-day of coalition—and what do you think? Why, that in order to make the coalition successful, the imperial government ...
— George Brown • John Lewis
... from 400 to 600 feet long, and was formed the first year of brush; the second and third years of stake-nets, weighted down at the bottom with chains; and the fourth year of wooden racks, 4 feet wide and long enough to reach the bottom, which were pushed down side by side. The brush was unsatisfactory. There were holes in it by which the fish escaped. A single net would not retain its strength through a whole season, the bottom rotting away and letting the fish out, unless before the autumn was far advanced its position were ...
— New England Salmon Hatcheries and Salmon Fisheries in the Late 19th Century • Various
... that, whereas the alcaldes-in-ordinary of this city, notaries, commissioners, attorneys, and other officials, both of this royal Audiencia and of the ordinary court, whenever they see fit, leave the city without license—whence results much harm to the litigants, on account of the delay and unsatisfactory conduct of their business, beside many other inconveniences resulting therefrom: therefore, to remedy this evil, they decreed and ordered that, now and henceforth, no alcalde-in-ordinary, commissioner, attorney, notary-public, or other official of ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume XI, 1599-1602 • Various
... conversation, and others at intervals followed, and, before his death, which occurred several months after, his mother's heart was gladdened by the account of his change, and the knowledge that, in farthest lands, his thoughts were back with her. The deeper he went in sin, the more unsatisfactory and abhorrent it became, and he would have turned, long before, to the Lord, had he believed there was the least hope for him. When he closed his eyes to earth, a few friends enabled his mother to give him respectable burial, in the same ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various
... hard time of it. No particular place to meet and exchange information, no wharf-boat reports, none but chance and unsatisfactory ways of getting news. The consequence was that a man sometimes had to run five hundred miles of river on information that was a week or ten days old. At a fair stage of the river that might have answered; but when the dead low ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... principal Hindu traders in the Far East, visited the Malay Archipelago in the first or at any rate the second century after Christ,[4] and introduced their writing[5] and chronology. But their early histories are meagre and unsatisfactory in the extreme. The Arab culture of the Malays, which took root in Sumatra in the twelfth century, is of course of no assistance in regard to events of earlier date, and does not give trustworthy and detailed accounts until the fifteenth century. The Chinese, on the other ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... correspondent will find that his Query had been anticipated in Vol. i., p. 336. Its appearance then brought it a mass of Replies, mostly of a very unsatisfactory kind. We delayed repeating the Query until we could find leisure to condense those replies, so as to prevent our correspondents furnishing us with information already in our possession. We hope to do ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 78, April 26, 1851 • Various
... the Secretary of the Navy devotes some space to a change in the disciplinary system in vogue in that branch of the service. I think there is nothing quite so unsatisfactory to either the Army or the Navy as the severe punishments necessarily inflicted by court-martial for desertions and purely military offenses, and I am glad to hear that the British have solved this important and difficult matter in a satisfactory way. I commend ...
— State of the Union Addresses of William H. Taft • William H. Taft
... most revered object in Venice, and has received more charitable offerings in money than Titian and Giorgione together ever gained in the whole course of their life." This too great popularity of the work as a wonder-working picture is perhaps the cause that it is to-day in a state as unsatisfactory as is the Man of Sorrows in the adjacent Scuola. The picture which presents "Christ dragged along by the executioner, with two spectators in the background," resembles most among Giorgione's authentic creations the Christ bearing ...
— The Earlier Work of Titian • Claude Phillips
... class? The "masses" is at best an unsatisfactory and indefinite term. It is very far from embracing even the southern Negro, and we need not forget that seven years ago there were 900,000 members of the race living outside of the South. What of the class, mainly urban and large in number, who have lost ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... same time as he surprised Sbastiani, Koutousoff ordered an attack on Murat's lines, in which the Prince was slightly wounded. Having learned of this unsatisfactory affair, and on the same day been told of the arrival in the enemy camp of a reinforcement of ten thousand cavalry from the Russian army in Wallachia (The Russian border with the Turks, in southern Romania. Ed.) which the Austrians, our ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... and the reason was, that he had had the lawn to mow that morning, and there had been no dew, and the consequence was, the grass, instead of being easy to cut from its crispness and dampness, was very limp and wiry, so that poor Sam had a very hard and unsatisfactory job, and the effect of it all was that he was as limp and wiry as the grass had been. It was of no use to say, "Do, Sam," or "Do, please, Sam," or "That's a good old chap, now," or anything of that kind; for Sam ...
— Hollowdell Grange - Holiday Hours in a Country Home • George Manville Fenn
... is done for the love of helping those who need help, it is a success, for in spite of their worry every one of these women feel what privileges they enjoy and value them highly," said Dr. Alec as they went home after one of these unsatisfactory calls. ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... experiment through one if its own internal regulations, when the new postage system went into operation on the first of July, 1845, and that it was continued until the thirtieth of September, 1847. But this experiment, for reasons hereafter stated, proved unsatisfactory, and it was discontinued by order of the Postmaster-General. As far as the committee can at present ascertain, the following seem to have been the principal grounds of ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... reasonably diligent meditation, remain mere abracadabra, incomprehensible and worthless. For much of this in Emerson, the influence of Plato is mainly responsible, and it may be noted in passing that his account of Plato (Representative Men) is one of his most unsatisfactory performances. 'The title of Platonist,' says Mill, 'belongs by far better right to those who have been nourished in, and have endeavoured to practise Plato's mode of investigation, than to those who are distinguished only by the ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 1, Essay 5, Emerson • John Morley
... know any thing; or at least has given me an indifference, that makes me less ready in answering questions than I may have been formerly; and as my papers are in the country, whither at present I am not able to go, I fear I can give but unsatisfactory replies to your ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... precipitated a moral catastrophe which should have been more overwhelming than the first. "For God's sake, Mrs. Carstairs, don't become obsessed by that idea. The morphia habit is one degrading slavery of mind and body, and only the miserable victims know how delusive are its promises, how unsatisfactory its rewards. What can you expect from a cult whose highest reward—the only thing, indeed, it ...
— Afterwards • Kathlyn Rhodes
... victory was one tempered with grave misgivings on the part of careful observers of machine trickery. The fact that the bill as it had passed the Senate contained several serious clerical and typographical errors, and that its title was unsatisfactory if not defective, worried the genuine supporters of the bill not a little. The bill had been loosely drawn to begin with, and as originally introduced contained most unfortunate clerical errors, which bobbed up at most ...
— Story of the Session of the California Legislature of 1909 • Franklin Hichborn
... In such suggestions, unsatisfactory even to those who originated them, and doubly so to her whom they were intended to comfort, more than two hours passed; and Lady D—— was beginning to hope that the fated term might elapse without the occurrence of any tragical event, ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... unsatisfactory reply Leyre and his companion were fain to content themselves; and having, as they were desired to do, delivered into the hands of the Duke the detailed despatch of M. de Barrault with which they had been entrusted, they saw him calmly resume his way ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... and while they traveled along with us, probably for protection, they always camped by themselves. Some said they were Mormons, while others asserted they were merely a selfish pair. One day one of the men was missing. The other on being questioned gave evasive and very unsatisfactory replies. His actions excited the suspicions of our men. He appeared anxious to get ahead and left us, making a long night drive. It was then determined to make an investigation. Two of our party mounted good horses and started back ...
— Reminiscences of a Pioneer • Colonel William Thompson
... them here. Suffice it to say that the mission of home demands family religion. Its interests cannot be secured without it. Let our homes be divorced from piety, and they will become selfish, sensual, unsatisfactory, and unhappy. Piety should always reign in our homes,—not only on the Sabbath, but during the week; not only in sickness and adversity, but in health and prosperity. It must, if genuine, inspire and consecrate the minutest interests and ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... Gregory.—"E.M.B." (No. 26. p. 415.) inquires who was "Pope Felix," whom AElfric called the "fifth father" of S. Gregory the Great? This is a much disputed question, and a great deal depends upon the meaning to be attached to the unsatisfactory expression "atavus," used by Pope Gregory himself, in Evangel. Hom. xxxviii. Sec. 15., and found also in the dialogues commonly attributed to him. (Lib. iv. cap. xvi.) Your correspondent may consult Beda, Hist. Eccl. Gen. Anglor., lib. ii. cap. 1., with the ...
— Notes & Queries No. 29, Saturday, May 18, 1850 • Various
... List itself, it will be noticed that I have been somewhat sparing in the books given under the "Pre-Christian" heading. Novels dealing with these very far-off times are apt to be unsatisfactory; the mist in which events and personages are enveloped, takes away from that appearance of reality which is the great charm of the historical novel. We are hardly concerned, in reading "Sarchedon" and similar books, to get away from the purely imaginary pictures ...
— A Guide to the Best Historical Novels and Tales • Jonathan Nield
... proven" is undoubtedly unsatisfactory and essentially provisional, so far forth as the subject of the trial is capable of being dealt with by ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... Scroope. This she did not do till Fred had been induced, with some difficulty, to pass a night at Castle Quin. Lady Mary had not scrupled to ask a question about Miss O'Hara, and had thought the answer very unsatisfactory. "I don't know what makes them live there, I'm sure. I should have thought you would have known that," replied Neville, in ...
— An Eye for an Eye • Anthony Trollope
... Gerald's being able to be with them that autumn at Merriston, added to the sense of inevitability. Althea had been for this time so absorbed in Franklin, his effect on others and on herself, that she had not felt, as she would otherwise have done, Helen's unsatisfactory attitude. Helen was at last coming, and she was fluttered at the thought of her coming, but she was far more able to cope with Helen; there was more self to do it with; she was stronger, more independent of Helen's opinion and of Helen's affection. But dimly she felt also—hardly ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... of disease. A painful and racking fever afflicted all ranks, and at one time as many as 270 of the 400 regular soldiers were prostrated. The recurring night alarms added to the fatigues of the troops and the anxieties of the seven officers. The situation was indeed so unsatisfactory that Colonel Parsons was compelled ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... be made per saltum. If knowledge were given in this way the usual course would be completely changed; and not only so, but the knowledge communicated would be altogether out of proportion to that possessed on other points, and would place those who had it in a false and unsatisfactory state with regard to the world in which they lived. To see this we have only to picture to ourselves the condition of a man living in a savage, or only partially civilized state of society, with his mind preternaturally expanded ...
— Thoughts on a Revelation • Samuel John Jerram
... plate-glass, these supplies having been drawn, down to that time, almost exclusively from Alicante in Spain; and the chemist Leblanc hit upon a process for extracting soda on a great scale from sea-salt. Of this invention the managers of St.-Gobain promptly availed themselves; and, after a brief and unsatisfactory experiment at a place called Charlesfontaine, they established at Chauny some soda-works, which have since been developed into the most extensive ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... afflicted with an impediment in his speech. Occasionally he addressed me in Patagonian, but since the only words I could remember were schloss, ausgang and bahnhof, my replies, judging from their reception, were unsatisfactory and sometimes, I grieve to think, ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates
... he had received this very unsatisfactory epistle, the Master of Ravenswood, while walking up the High Street of Edinburgh, was jostled by a person, in whom, as the man pulled off his hat to make an apology, he recognized Lockhard, the confidential domestic of Sir William Ashton. The man bowed, slipt a letter ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... have gone wrong. Yesterday I got unsatisfactory in history, and in arithmetic to-day I couldn't get a single sum right. I'm frightfully worried about missing that gymnastic lesson. It will be all right if Mother gives me the money to-morrow, for if she goes herself she will certainly find ...
— A Young Girl's Diary • An Anonymous Young Girl
... the said dinner-table wife and children had retired, and Oliver sat sipping his half-pint of bad port, and looking over unsatisfactory accounts, a thin terrier, lying on the threadbare rug by the niggard fire, sprang up and barked fiercely. Oliver lifted his dull blue eyes, and saw opposite to him, at the window, a human face. The face was pressed close to the panes, and ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... it may at last be battered out of all form and service. On Lucy's shield there had been much of such batterings, and the blows which had come from him in whom she most trusted had not been the lightest. She had not seen him for months, and his letters were short, unsatisfactory, and rare. She had declared to herself and to her friend Lady Fawn, that no concurrence of circumstances, no absence, however long, no rumours that might reach her ears, would make her doubt the man she loved. She was still steadfast in the same resolution; ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... Representatives heard of what their Government had done. The feeling was akin to that which would have prevailed in America had the President offered his help to the Spanish Government to suppress the insurrection in Cuba. The answers to questions were unsatisfactory, and on February 26th Heinrich von Sybel rose to move that the interests of Prussia required absolute neutrality. It was indeed evident that Bismarck's action had completely isolated Prussia; except the Czar, she had now not a single friend in Europe and scarcely a friend in Germany. ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam
... 16th century. About that time hollow balls of stone or cast iron were fired from mortars. The balls were nearly filled with gunpowder and the remaining space with a slow-burning composition. This plan was unsatisfactory, as the composition was not always ignited by the flash from the discharge of the gun, and moreover the amount of composition to burn a stipulated time could not easily be gauged. The shell was, therefore, fitted with a hollow ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... with the whole: if your tell-tale soundboard be defectively wrought, cheeks too much hollowed, or the thicknesses carelessly seen to, there will be beats in your tone, strings irregular, weak notes and strong ones, and a general unsatisfactory result which could easily have ...
— Violin Making - 'The Strad' Library, No. IX. • Walter H. Mayson
... is a mistake. I know that he, and other youngsters of his kidney, will have fits of fighting or desiring to fight with their poorer brethren, just as children have the measles. But the shorter the fit the better for the patient, for like the measles it is a great mistake, and a most unsatisfactory complaint. If they can escape it altogether so much the better. But instead of treating the fit as a disease, "musclemen" professors are wont to represent it as a state of health, and to let their disciples run about in middle ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... to which this animal belongs, disappeared from the earth long before the dawn of the Age of Mammals, and their nearest relatives, the living lizards, crocodiles, etc., are so remote from them in either proportions or habits that they are unsatisfactory guides in determining how the bones were articulated and are of but little use in posing the limbs and other parts of the body in positions that they must have taken during life. Nor among the higher animals of modern times ...
— Dinosaurs - With Special Reference to the American Museum Collections • William Diller Matthew
... the origin of evil? The questions are written on slips of paper and laid on the table. She answers them before giving the regular lesson. When she read this slip there was not a little stir among the fifty eager questioners. 'What is the origin of evil?' she repeated. 'It has no origin,' was the unsatisfactory answer, after a momentary silence. Oh! the blankness of those faces! 'But,' she resumed presently, 'if you ask how seeming evil originated, I may give you the ideas that came to me as a solution of that ...
— The Right Knock - A Story • Helen Van-Anderson
... conjectures, more or less probable. The story may derive from Fray Basilio Ponce de Leon or it may not. It is the kind of story that any unscrupulous person might easily invent and repeat to a too credulous visitor. As it stands, the evidence in its support is, on the face of it, unsatisfactory. The case for the story is perhaps not quite so weak as has been supposed;[200] ingenuity has shown that the case against it may, to some extent, be frittered away.[201] Still, there is no getting over the fact that this charming anecdote is first ...
— Fray Luis de Leon - A Biographical Fragment • James Fitzmaurice-Kelly
... constant trouble along the frontier served any useful purpose, since Villa apparently could not be captured and Carranza refused to yield to diplomatic persuasion. Carranza then proposed that a joint commission be appointed to settle these vexed questions. Even this device proved wholly unsatisfactory. The Mexicans would not concede the right of the United States to send an armed expedition into their country at any time, and the Americans refused to accept limitations on the kind of troops that they might employ or on the zone of their operations. In January, 1917, the joint commission was ...
— The Hispanic Nations of the New World - Volume 50 in The Chronicles Of America Series • William R. Shepherd
... of individuals, the progress made by the Saint John's River Society in the settling of their townships was unsatisfactory, and about this time Hazen & Jarvis expressed their conviction that half of the proprietors would not settle their lands at all; they therefore desired Simonds & White to take such measures as would secure their own Rights in Sunbury and New-Town as well as those of Moses Hazen and ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... last night a hospitable house, was, in my mind, changed to-day into a prison. After dinner I read some of Dr. Macpherson's Dissertations on the Ancient Caledonians[477]. I was disgusted by the unsatisfactory conjectures as to antiquity, before the days of record. I was happy when tea came. Such, I take it, is the state of those who live in the country. Meals are wished for from the cravings of vacuity of mind, as well as from the desire of eating. I was hurt to find even such a temporary ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... The unsatisfactory condition of the law relating to the transmission through the mails of lottery advertisements and remittances is clearly stated by the Postmaster-General, and his suggestion as to amendments should ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... tried to be as calm as a judge; he recalled all that had seemed so clear not half-an-hour before, as it came out of Mr. Thornton's lips; and then he made an unsatisfactory compromise. His wife and daughter had not only done quite right in this instance, but he did not see for a moment how they could have done otherwise. Nevertheless, as a general rule, it was very true what Mr. Thornton said, that as the strike, ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... represented as a handsome youth, recognizable only by the claws on his feet. The picture is dark and spoiled, but I am pretty sure there are no demons or spectres in it. This is quite in accordance with the master's caprice, but it considerably diminishes the interest of a work in other ways unsatisfactory. There may once have been something impressive in the shooting in of the rays at the top of the cavern, as well as in the strange grass that grows in the bottom, whose infernal character is indicated by its all being knotted together; ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... "Gerald isn't satisfied to paint the thing that's before him. All he cares to paint is the soul of things, and what you finally see expressed on the canvas is his pity for everything that has the misfortune to be born into an unsatisfactory world. Gerald can't see a thing as being common: the moment he narrows his eyes to look for purposes of art, it becomes to him exceptional, unique. I asked him once, as a joke, to paint me a simple, large, bright orange squash, in a field. ...
— Aurora the Magnificent • Gertrude Hall
... sinecures and pensions were bestowed with a lavish hand; and every appointment, ecclesiastical or civil, was treated as a reward for political services. But history affords many instances of how assemblies constituted in what seems to be the most unsatisfactory way possible, have been remarkable for the ability and patriotism they have shown; and certainly this was the case with that unrepresentative collection of Protestant landlords, Dublin barristers, and paid officials, who composed the Irish Parliament. A "National" party arose (I shall presently ...
— Is Ulster Right? • Anonymous
... distance he had little, if any doubt. It is true that in a similar experiment on a neighbouring line the train came to a dead halt in the first tunnel, and the passengers had to descend in the dark and grope their way out to the nearest station as well as they could, but this unsatisfactory experience would in no way deter them from making the experiment on their own behalf. (Jeers.) He was sorry to see that the ordinary stock of the Company, which, a twelvemonth since, had touched 128-3/8,—could not now find purchasers ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 24, 1891. • Various
... replied, with a laugh, "You must blame your son's indiscretion, and not applaud me!" Thus saved from a formal and unsatisfactory conversation, the knight remounted his horse and led the way to ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles
... and afterwards a bishop, but not of the same family as the novelist. "Cousin Dryden Leach" reminds us that Swift was also a cousin of Dryden the poet. "Oroonoko" refers to Afra Behn's introduction of the "noble savage" to English interest. "Patrick" was Swift's very unsatisfactory man-servant. "Bernage" a French Huguenot refugee. "George Granville," of the family of the hero of the Revenge, was a great Tory, a peer a little later with the title of Lansdowne, and a rather better poet than Johnson thought him. ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... could not command. He was free from the caste prejudices which caused many even good patriots of that date to hold the masses in horror. If he had prejudices they were against the men of his own order. Once, in summing up the results of an unsatisfactory general election, he wrote: "A dozen marquises, two dozen counts, without reckoning barons and cavalieri—it was enough to drive one mad!" When he had to do with men born of the people, he instinctively treated them on a perfect equality, not a common trait, if the truth were told. In ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... standpoint the novel is entirely unsatisfactory, not to say anything more out of respect for the talent of Turgenev, for his former merits, and for his numerous admirers. There is no common thread, no common action which would have tied together all the parts ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... chief obstacles in the way of rapid communication in our own country was the very unsatisfactory state of the roads. Down to the time of the introduction of mail-coaches, just about a hundred years ago, the roads were in a deplorable state, and travellers have left upon record some rather strong language on the subject. It was only about that time that road-making came to be ...
— A Hundred Years by Post - A Jubilee Retrospect • J. Wilson Hyde
... treachery, in Jane's mind. What proper business could an American naval officer have in the home of two German agents? The excuse that Frederic Hoff was a delightful and entertaining friend was entirely too flimsy and unsatisfactory. ...
— The Apartment Next Door • William Andrew Johnston
... confused in the darkness. Acting on orders previously issued "A" Company withdrew to the cross-roads; a patrol was then sent out but nothing was discovered. The Turks were remaining in their trenches and the other company had gone home, so "A" Company also returned after a most unsatisfactory night's work and fifteen casualties, of which two were killed and four missing. Three of the missing were accounted for in this way. Two stretcher bearers with one stretcher case set off for our line, but unfortunately got confused at the cross-roads and wandered ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... at our prompting [he said], or in accordance with our advice, that Austria took the action that you know of towards the Belgrade Cabinet. The answer was unsatisfactory, and to-day Austria is mobilizing. She can no longer draw back without risking a collapse at home as well as a loss of influence abroad. It is now a question of life and death to her. She must put a stop to the unscrupulous propaganda which, by raising revolt among the Slav provinces ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... are not raw material, but a manufactured product—compilations from the original sources. And the pity of it is that very many of them, often the best of them from a purely literary point of view, are so unsatisfactory, viewed from the point of view of accomplishment. They do not do what they set out to do; they are full of misunderstandings, misinterpretations, interpolations and omissions. It is the old story; those who know won't tell and the task is assumed by those who are ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick
... to have been unsatisfactory to the delegation, and no treaty or arrangement was made. The French governor denied that they had furnished the Indians with arms, or instigated them to attack the English, although Vaudreuil's letters to his government in France bear ...
— The Abenaki Indians - Their Treaties of 1713 & 1717, and a Vocabulary • Frederic Kidder
... be entered by the light of tapers; and these smoke-grimed passages allow us from time to time to obtain a momentary glimpse of the angle of a house, the colonnade of some temple, the steps of a theatre. Everything is fragmentary, mutilated, dingy, uncertain, confused, and therefore unsatisfactory. Well, at the end of an hour spent in wandering amongst these abysmal recesses, the most hardened archaeologist, the most dry-as-dust antiquary, the most inquisitive of tourists begins to experience only one feeling—an intense desire to ascend to the light of day and to breathe once more ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... of 1824 was unsatisfactory to the woolen interests. In the course of the decade there had been an astonishing increase of woolen factories in New England, [Footnote: See chap. ii., above.] and the strength of the protective movement grew correspondingly ...
— Rise of the New West, 1819-1829 - Volume 14 in the series American Nation: A History • Frederick Jackson Turner
... nothing but carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen, while animal fibers contain in addition to these elements some compounds of nitrogen. The presence of these nitrogen compounds influences the action of the chlorine and produces unsatisfactory results. For animal fibers it is therefore necessary to discard chlorine as a bleaching agent, and to substitute a substance which will have a less disastrous action upon the fibers. Such a substance is to be had ...
— General Science • Bertha M. Clark
... destroy their houses, and make a desert of the land. However, my father did not shoot much himself; he generally let the forest out by the season to those who did. He purchased a wife of gentle blood too, with the unsatisfactory result now before you. That is how Jesse Trefusis, a poor Manchester bagman, contrived to be come a plutocrat and gentleman of landed estate. And also how I, who never did a stroke of work in my life, am overburdened with wealth; whilst the children of the ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... of Mr. O'Callaghan nothing had ever been heard after the first half-year, when he sent the amount of the bill in a draft, which, when due, proved to be dishonoured. The worst part of this communication, however unsatisfactory in its nature, was, that it was final. All inquiries, whether in Dublin or elsewhere, proved unavailing; Mr. O'Callaghan had disappeared; and our unlucky gouvernante found herself saddled with ...
— Honor O'callaghan • Mary Russell Mitford
... "disposition of the subject," there is a somewhat unsatisfactory sentence. "It contributes to the 'goodness' of the picture," "if it avoid uniformity and positions that are too symmetrical; if it distribute the light well; if by means of it the groups pyramid and unite well; and if it give value to all ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... me for this, and my ire was so inflamed by his action that when we next met I attacked him, and a fisticuff engagement in front of barracks followed, which was stopped by an officer appearing on the scene. Each of us handed in an explanation, but mine was unsatisfactory to the authorities, for I had to admit that I was the assaulting party, and the result was that I was suspended by the Secretary of War, Mr. Conrad, till August 28, 1852—the Superintendent of the Academy, Captain Brewerton, being induced ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... life unsatisfactory," he started afresh. "It seemed to me meaningless." He paused again, but felt that this, at any rate, was true, and that on these lines ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... world must not suppose that she disapproved of his wife, and she was grateful to the unmeaning words amiable and ladylike, especially when she had to speak to Mr. Wingfield. He observed on the lady's beauty, and hoped that the affair was as little unsatisfactory as possible under the circumstances, to which she fully agreed. They proceeded to parish matters, on which they had so much to say to each other, that Violet thus reflected—'Ah! it is just as Mr. Martindale used to sit with me in the window at home! She is going to give up ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Practice of our day is, at the best, a most uncertain and unsatisfactory system: it has neither philosophy nor common sense ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann
... intrigues of his father-in-law, Ferdinand. With a view of securing the support of England, which had been somewhat estranged owing to the new policy followed by Philip, the latter concluded in 1506 a new treaty of commerce, very unsatisfactory from the Belgian point of view, and which was therefore called by the people the "Intercursus Malus." The new King of Spain died the same year, in Burgos, having lost a great deal of the popularity which he had so largely enjoyed ...
— Belgium - From the Roman Invasion to the Present Day • Emile Cammaerts
... inhuman? He, not unprovoked by scant gratitude on Coleridge's part for very solid services, and by a doubtless sincere but rather unctuous protest of his brother in opium-eating against the Confessions, told some home truths against that magnificent genius but most unsatisfactory man. A sort of foolish folk has recently arisen which tells us that because Coleridge wrote "The Ancient Mariner" and "Kubla Khan," he was quite entitled to leave his wife and children to be looked after by anybody who chose, to take stipends from casual ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... being, we may ascribe to it the 'origin of those simple ideas which are not excited in the mind by the operation of the senses, but which arise in consequence of the operation of the intellectual powers among the various objects.'[190] Hutcheson, he says, made his 'moral sense' unsatisfactory by taking his illustrations from the 'secondary' instead of the 'primary qualities,'[191] and thus with the help of intuitive first principles, Stewart succeeds in believing that it would be as hard for a man to believe that he ought to sacrifice ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... say something about the rhinoceros while we are on the colossal tribes, but it is a very unsatisfactory subject. The animal has no canines, sometimes no incisors even; sometimes it has as many as thirty-six teeth, according to the species, as naturalists aver; and this is all I have to say about this great lump of flesh, so misshapen ...
— The History of a Mouthful of Bread - And its effect on the organization of men and animals • Jean Mace
... mounting fish have proven so unsatisfactory that they have been almost entirely abandoned, and, until the method to be described was devised, it was necessary to place specimens in alcohol or other preserving liquids or to make plaster casts of them. ...
— Home Taxidermy for Pleasure and Profit • Albert B. Farnham
... is an injured tool, and unsatisfactory results. The rule holds good in this respect as with every other tool in the kit. Use a tool for the purpose it was made for, and for ...
— Practical Mechanics for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... it that they won't be honest?" he muttered to himself as he went upstairs. Why was it that relations between different people were so unsatisfactory, so fragmentary, so hazardous, and words so dangerous that the instinct to sympathise with another human being was an instinct to be examined carefully and probably crushed? What had Evelyn really wished to say to him? What was she feeling left alone in the ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... form. There are manuscript copies of this tractate at Cambridge, at Dublin, at Lambeth, and in the British Museum. It is partly antiquarian, partly descriptive, partly political. It exhibits a profound sense of the unsatisfactory state of the country—a sense which was presently to be justified in a frightful manner. Spenser had not been deaf to the ever-growing murmurs of discontent by which he and his countrymen had been surrounded. He was not in advance of his time in the policy he advocates ...
— A Biography of Edmund Spenser • John W. Hales
... have also had some experience in rug-weaving, and even little Switzerland at one time attempted its introduction, but with unsatisfactory results. Belgium, however, was more successful, for Brussels still produces a large number ...
— Rugs: Oriental and Occidental, Antique & Modern - A Handbook for Ready Reference • Rosa Belle Holt
... his protests by nipping it and quietly put him out of the room. When he awoke next morning he found that Grant was capable at least of speech, for Cheyne was asking him questions, and receiving very unsatisfactory answers. ...
— The Cattle-Baron's Daughter • Harold Bindloss
... aid to keep down the excess of population.'[449] In fact, he doubts whether population increases at all. Malthus's whole theory, he says, rests upon the case of America; and with the help of Mr. Booth and some very unsatisfactory statistics, he tries to prove that the increase shown in the American census has been entirely due to immigration. Malthus safely declined to take any notice of a production which in fact shows that Godwin had lost his early vigour. The sound Utilitarian, ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... perhaps fifty miles its greatest length, and thirty its greatest breadth; two elevated rocky barriers, meeting at an angle; three prominent mountains, commanding the plain,—Parnes, Pentelicus, and Hymettus; an unsatisfactory soil; some streams, not always full;—such is about the report which the agent of a London company would have made of Attica. He would report that the climate was mild; the hills were limestone; there was plenty of good marble; more pasture land than at first survey might ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... good boat with the correct water-lines requires genius, and cannot be learned theoretically; for it is a matter of special skill on the part of the builder of each boat. Ill-constructed boats are sometimes put together but they are, of course, unsatisfactory and sail only moderately well. The Nordland boat-builders have long since discovered the high fore and aft, sharp-keeled boat, to be the most practical, with one mast and a broad, prettily cut square sail admirably suited to what ...
— The Visionary - Pictures From Nordland • Jonas Lie
... proper end is usually the distinctive quality which denotes a workman of a very much lower school than the school of Shakespeare. In short and in fact, the whole elaborate machinery by which the complete and completely unsatisfactory result of the whole plot is attained is so thoroughly worthy of such a contriver as "the old fantastical duke of dark corners" as to be in a moral sense, if I dare say what I think, very far from thoroughly worthy of the wisest and mightiest ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... famous students of Roman remains sat together in Kennedy's comfortable room overlooking the Corso. The night was cold, and they had both pulled up their chairs to the unsatisfactory Italian stove which threw out a zone of stuffiness rather than of warmth. Outside under the bright winter stars lay the modern Rome, the long, double chain of the electric lamps, the brilliantly lighted cafes, the rushing carriages, and the dense throng upon the footpaths. But inside, in the ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... speech of Lord Aberdeen, to which the Queen here refers, had created a very unsatisfactory impression. On the 19th of June the venerable Lord Lyndhurst had denounced the aggressive policy and the perfidy of Russia; in the debate which followed, Lord Aberdeen spoke coldly, in a strain of semi-apology for Russia, ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... music, and books. The Stamford bookseller was somewhat surprised on missing his young friend and his fiddle on several subsequent Sundays, and on inquiring the cause, was met by replies more or less unsatisfactory. Taking a real interest in John's welfare, Mr. Drury thereupon determined to get at the bottom of the affair, and succeeded in discovering the secret one evening, after a merry supper. Having taken an unusual quantity of drink, John Clare became confidential, and his ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... on it that the interests of commerce and industry can be helped only when both sides, the vocational demands and the personal function, are examined with equal scientific thoroughness. One aspect alone is unsatisfactory. It would of course be possible to confine the examination to the individual mental traits, and then theoretically to determine for which economic tasks the presence of these qualities would be useful and for which tasks their absence or their deficiency would be fatal. Common sense ...
— Psychology and Industrial Efficiency • Hugo Muensterberg
... foreign register during the Civil War. At the outbreak of that war 72 per cent of American exports were carried in American bottoms; only 9 per cent in 1913. Thus the United States had reached the unsatisfactory condition of a nation with a large and rapidly growing foreign commerce and an ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... April, 1875, from the Honorable the Minister of the Interior, bringing under consideration the very unsatisfactory state of affairs arising out of the so called "outside promises" in connection with the Indian Treaties Numbers One and Two—Manitoba and North-West Territories—concluded, the former on the 3rd August, 1871, and the latter on 21st ...
— The Treaties of Canada with The Indians of Manitoba - and the North-West Territories • Alexander Morris |
