"Lack" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... gratifying persistency) we permitted ourselves a seven-room apartment with a full-sized kitchen and a maid—whom we had brought on from West Salem. We even went so far as to give dinner parties to such of our friends as could be trusted to overlook our lack of plate, and to remain kindly unobservant of the fact that Dora, the baby's nurse, doubled as waitress ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... is just this lack of self-deception. You may think his morals devilish, but you cannot accuse him of quoting scripture. I certainly do not admire the end he serves: the extension of an autocrat's power is a frivolous perversion of government. His ideal ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann
... with similar intentions, and Renee was no more amenable than before. While her mother filled the young man's ears with praise of her accomplishments, the wayward girl, with her charming ingenuous talk, did her best to demonstrate her lack of those negative conventional virtues that were expected from a well-educated French girl in those days. She made Madame Mauperin turn first crimson, then pale, when she finally proceeded to cut Denoisel's hair in the drawing-room ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... statements regarding the message, but at the same time cleared Mr. Blaisdell from all connection therewith; the message having been sent by Rivers in Blaisdell's absence, whether with his knowledge and consent, they were unable to ascertain. The charge against Blaisdell was therefore dismissed through lack of evidence, while in Rivers' case, a verdict was returned for manslaughter, and he was given the extreme limit of the law, imprisonment ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... engagement between the two when Schreiderling appeared and told Mrs. Gaurey that he wished to marry her daughter. Then the other engagement was broken off—washed away by Mrs. Gaurey's tears, for that lady governed her house by weeping over disobedience to her authority and the lack of reverence she received in her old age. The daughter did not take after her mother. She never cried. Not ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... manufacturing a musket at the Government works is estimated at about nine dollars; but the contract-price to the private arms-companies is twenty dollars for those which equal the Government standard in every respect, nineteen dollars and ninety cents for those which lack a little in finish, nineteen dollars for the next grade, eighteen for the next, and sixteen for the lowest ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... cry of alarm every threatened people rose as if by magic. No surprise was effective, no lack of preparation deterred, no peril brought hesitation. One by one, all jealousies were dissipated, all past differences were forgotten, the common danger was recognized, and they united, as humanity had never done before, in that resistance to German ambitions which the world now sees as its one ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... sweet at times that Osmonde turned his gaze away that he might not see them, and when his Lordship, as was natural, would have talked of her dearness and beauties, he used all his powers to gently draw him from the subject without seeming to lack sympathy. But when a man is the idolatrous slave of happy love and, being of mature years, has few, nay, but one friend young enough to tell his joy to with the feeling that he is within reach of the comprehension of it, 'tis ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... where I was, notwithstanding that I said my sharpest things in hopes to get rid of him. He left me at last to dance with Katy, who makes up in grace and airiness what she lacks in knowledge. Once upon the floor, she did not lack for partners, but, I verily believe, danced every set, growing prettier and fairer as she danced, for hers is a complexion which does not get red ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... coast! It's an awful thing for the innocent victims, to be drowned. But their deaths have done us a greater service than 100 times as many lives lost in battle. If anybody lacked earnestness about the war, I venture to guess that he doesn't lack it any longer. If the fools would now only shell some innocent town on the coast, the journey to Berlin ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... with your curious canine name, You shall never lack for plaudits in the golden hall of fame, For you fought as well with galleys as you did with burly men, And your deeds of daring seamanship are writ by many a pen. From sodden, gray Chioggia the singing Gondoliers, Repeat in silvery cadence the story of your years, ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... Beck did really want and was resolved to have me—as she had long been dissatisfied with the English master, with his shortcomings in punctuality, and his careless method of tuition—as, too, she did not lack resolution and practical activity, whether I lacked them or not—she, without more ado, made me relinquish thimble and needle; my hand was taken into hers, and I was conducted down-stairs. When we reached the carre, a large square hall between the dwelling-house ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... be no more but so, ye shall not tarry at a stand for that; we'll not have our play marred for lack of a little good council: till your fellow come, I'll give him the best council that I can.—Pardon me, my Lord Mayor; ...
— Sir Thomas More • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... that we are but actors in a play of such a part as it may please the Director to assign us. It does not, however, console me to have been cast for a part so contemptible, to find myself excelling ever in the art of running away. But if I am not brave, at least I am prudent; so that where I lack one virtue I may lay claim to possessing another almost to excess. On a previous occasion they wanted to hang me for sedition. Should I have stayed to be hanged? This time they may want to hang me for several things, ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... carried off, and calling on all good citizens to bring him back. He believed that too much time had been lost; but nothing less than this, which was a warrant for arrest, would have appeased the rage of the people at his lack of vigilance. He despatched his officers, chiefly towards Lille. One of them, Romeuf, whom he directed to follow the road to Valenciennes, was stopped by the mob, and brought before the Assembly. There he received ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... memory; he could recite in his classroom pages of Scott's novels, which he had not read since early youth. He had no intention of allowing my memory to grow flabby from lack of use. I often repeat a verse he asked me ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... hands were clasped over her knee. They had still the lack of confidence or repose, the almost hysterical look. He winced as he saw them. Then he laughed mirthlessly. She put her fingers between her lips. His slim, black, tortured body lay quite still in the chair. She suddenly took ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... If it was dancing in the season, Jack Meredith danced, and no man rivalled him. If it was grouse shooting, Jack Meredith held his gun as straight as any man. All the polite accomplishments in their season seemed to come to him without effort; but there was in all the same lack of heart—that utter want of enthusiasm which imparted to his presence a subtle suggestion of boredom. The truth was that he was over-educated. Sir John had taught him how to live and move and have his being with so minute a care, so keen an insight, that existence seemed ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... tied together across the path, she could no longer deny that the child in fault was not little Susie. As she slowly wended her way back to the cottage, she felt not only angry with naughty, idle Tom, but grieved at her own lack of justice to the ...
— Golden Moments - Bright Stories for Young Folks • Anonymous
... flinching, performed his task well. Had he but known it, Rutter's explanation of the lack of danger was true; but in that moment, with his chum's life at stake, Harry didn't care a fig whether the explanation were true or not. All he thought of was ...
— The Young Engineers in Colorado • H. Irving Hancock
... the Sorters and the Postmen, and them that were of the tribes of Rag and of Tag, hardened their hearts, and were silent at the tenth hour; for they said among themselves, 'Shall the poor man shout in his poverty, and the hungry celebrate his lack of bread?' ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... recited in its opening chapter. I was urged to the undertaking by valued friends. At every step in its progress I have been helped by those friends, and others. For much of that which is valuable in it, they deserve credit. For its imperfections and lack, I alone am ...
— A Lie Never Justifiable • H. Clay Trumbull
... apprenticed; that was all he knew of his childhood. In his simple way he had been greatly impressed by the strange value placed by his companions upon the family influence, and he had received their extravagance with perfect credulity. In his absolute ignorance and his lack of humor he had detected no false quality in their sentiment. And a vague sense of his responsibility, as one who had been the luckiest, and who was building the first "house" in the camp, troubled him. He lay staringly wide awake, hearing the mountain wind, and feeling ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... roared at them. "A snail shell!" he boomed; "of course it's a snail shell! But did you ever see such a snail shell in your lives before? Look at the colour! Look at the shape! Put it against your ears and hear it singing!" He was furious with their lack of appreciation. ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... resulted in an economic slowdown that continued in 1998. The trade deficit has been growing, mostly as a result of low export prices for sugar and bananas. The new government faces important challenges to economic stability. Rapid action to improve tax collection has been promised, but a lack of progress in reigning in spending could bring ...
— The 1999 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... thronged cathedrals; we went into the loft. A blind old man sat at the bellows; his whole soul was ear; and as he sat in the attitude of attentive listening, a bright glow of pleasure was diffused over his countenance; for, though his lack-lustre eye could not reflect the beam, yet his parted lips, and every line of his face and venerable brow spoke delight. A young woman sat at the keys, perhaps twenty years of age. Her auburn hair hung on ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... merely accentuated her lack of youthful prettiness. With unerring instinct as a child, she had chosen her riding clothes to show off in. Now these same clothes formed the basis of her system. By day she was always in tailored frocks of the strictest simplicity. ...
— The Cricket • Marjorie Cooke
... presents itself—not so inherent in the nature of the case as those just mentioned—and that is the lack of teachers of music whose educational equipment corresponds in all particulars to the standard which the colleges have always maintained as a condition of election to their corps of instructors. That one ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... the "second son of the Prince of Teck." For a plain "John Smith" he seemed exceedingly chummy with the young nobleman. Velo was a natural-born toady. True worth, real nobility of mind and soul meant nothing to him. But he did not lack assurance. After a moment he braced up and joined the group where Zaidos and Lord Craycourt, who answered willingly to the nickname "Sister Anne" were swapping school yarns and the others were in ...
— Shelled by an Unseen Foe • James Fiske
... floor, discords and battles because of lack of things to dress up in, were not possible among the boys. They had only to sink their hands into any one of the great old chests, pulsing with the dull gnawing of the wood-borers, whose iron fretwork, pierced like lace, was dropping away from ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... THE SEA. One difficulty about sailing was the lack of any means in cloudy weather, and especially at night, of telling the direction in which they were going. The sailors did not like to venture far from shore, although the open sea is safer during a storm than a wind-swept and rocky ...
— Introductory American History • Henry Eldridge Bourne and Elbert Jay Benton
... perpetually fell back into the heresy that if anything universal was unreal, it was himself and not the appearances; it was the poet and not the banker; it was his own thought, not the thing that moved it. He did not lack the wish to be transcendental. Concord seemed to him, at one time, more real than Quincy; yet in truth Russell Lowell was as little transcendental as Beacon Street. From him the boy got no revolutionary thought ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... cabin table, where sat Wolf Larsen, Johansen, and the six hunters. The cabin was small, to begin with, and to move around, as I was compelled to, was not made easier by the schooner's violent pitching and wallowing. But what struck me most forcibly was the total lack of sympathy on the part of the men whom I served. I could feel my knee through my clothes, swelling, and swelling, and I was sick and faint from the pain of it. I could catch glimpses of my face, ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... seeking a row of fine caskets standing against the wall,—"I reckon he'll soon be goin' de way er all de earth. 'Man dat is bawn er 'oman hath but a sho't time ter lib, an' is full er mis'ry. He cometh up an' is cut down lack as a flower.' 'De days er his life is three-sco' an' ten'—an' de ole jedge is libbed mo' d'n dat, suh, by five ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt
... this is my staye, I seeke no more than maye suffyse, I presse to beare no haughty swaye; Look what I lack, my mynde supplies; Lo, thus I triumph like a kynge, Content with that my ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 22., Saturday, March 30, 1850 • Various
... western New York, people were willing to listen to Susan, for they were troubled by the defeats northern armies had suffered and by the appalling lack of unity and patriotism in the North. They were beginning to see that the problem of slavery had to be faced and were discussing among themselves whether Negroes were contraband, whether army officers should return fugitive ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... direction he was looking. She was still too lethargic for curiosity; and she found a kind of dreamy content in lying with her eyes upon the Etheling's handsome face. Though its prevailing characteristic was the easy amiability of one who has known little of opposition or dislike, there was no lack of steel in the blue eyes or of iron in the square chin; now and then a spark betrayed them, thrilling pleasantly through ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... the crosses on Monte Vulture and other peaks throughout the country—a counterblast to the rationalistic congress at Rome in 1904, when Giordano Bruno became, for a while, the hero of the country. This statue does not lack dignity. The Saviour's regard turns towards Reggio, the capital of the province; and one hand is upraised in ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... this epoch the poetry of the Fatherland gave no separate descriptions of Nature—descriptions, that is, whose only object was to paint the impression of the landscape in glowing colours upon the mind. The old German masters certainly did not lack feeling for Nature, but they have left us no other expression of it than such as its ...
— The Development of the Feeling for Nature in the Middle Ages and - Modern Times • Alfred Biese
... the flight going elsewhere, or possibly the flock were diminished by failure to rear the young broods in so drenching a season as 1879, which would explain the difference observed next spring. There was no scarcity, but there was a lack of the bustle and excitement and flood of song that accompanied their advent ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... the soul might be supposed to suffer through the lack of all material well-being, do not believe in it. We lead the life of rabbits on the first day of the season's shooting, and, notwithstanding that, we can enrich our souls in ...
— Letters of a Soldier - 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... there were little ripples about it which gave it, even in its schoolgirl form, a look of distinction. Sibyl, on the contrary, was an undersized girl, with the fair, colorless face, pale-blue eyes, the lack of eyebrows and eyelashes, the hair thin and small in quantity, which make the most hopeless type of all ...
— Betty Vivian - A Story of Haddo Court School • L. T. Meade
... personal friends, whatever may remain of her property is given to the cause for which she wished to live, in the same spirit that her venerated husband so consistently exemplified. She was solicitous that the children left in her guardianship should lack no good that a Christian parent could desire beyond this, and the fulfillment of filial duty, her single aim was the furtherance of His kingdom to whom her heart was supremely loyal and her life ...
— Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons • Arabella W. Stuart
... healthy, who had come there in his yacht and had his horses sent by sea. A well-appointed man, in short; provided amply with the conveniences of fashionable life. A man of good family, good fortune, good health, good sense, good nature, whom it were hypercritical to charge with lack of soul. "The first duty of a gentleman is to be a good animal," and Miles Breeze performed it thoroughly. Pinckney liked him, and he could have been his companion for years and still have liked him, except as ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... and its power over Destiny is very captivating, but it is doubtful if he was fortunate in his choice of Hamlet as an example of ignorance and blindness, and of failure to conquer fate, through lack ...
— Cobwebs of Thought • Arachne
... not through lack of craft, but because one can no more drive in tackets properly than take cities unless he gives his whole mind to it; and half of mine was at the Auld Licht manse. Since our meeting six months earlier on the hill I had not seen Gavin, but I had heard much of ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... But I lack courage to say what becomes of this man. The air grows thick around him: he breathes less and less freely. He seems to be under a spell: he cannot move: he is as one paralysed. His very beasts grow thin, as if a charm had been thrown over them. His servants die of hunger. His land ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... kept up; the people came from them brutishly exhausted with debauchery, and the chiefs heavy with their beastly food. There are certain sentiments which we call emphatically human—denying the honour of that name to those who lack them. In such feasts—particularly where the victim had been slain at home, and men banqueting on the poor clay of a comrade with whom they played in infancy, or a woman whose favours they had shared—the whole body ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... presenting rather a gloomy aspect when we consider that according to Joule's mechanical equivalent of heat, which is 772 foot pounds, or the power required to raise one pound of water one degree—and for lack of anything better, we are obliged to accept that at this moment—the whole force contained in one pound of coal would maintain a light equal to 13,000 candles for one hour! That is the ultimate force, and what we are now able to accomplish is but a small fraction ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 315, January 14, 1882 • Various
... complete in their finish as buildings erected by the experienced hands of outside workmen, but that in the teaching of civilization, self-help, and self-reliance, the erection of buildings by the students themselves would more than compensate for any lack ...
— Up From Slavery: An Autobiography • Booker T. Washington
... besetting sins was—nay, still is—the lack of repose. Mrs. Wigan at once detected the fault, and at rehearsals would work to make me remedy it. "Stand still!" she would shout from the stalls. "Now you're of value!" "Motionless! Just ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... transformed into a parliamentary democracy. Long isolated and impoverished, mountainous Andorra achieved considerable prosperity since World War II through its tourist industry. Many immigrants (legal and illegal) are attracted to the thriving economy with its lack of income taxes. ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... sixteen to one, or for fiat paper at infinity to nothing, the fact remains that, whereas kings formerly used signets for the want of knowledge to write their names, licked their greasy fingers for lack of knives and forks, and starved in Ireland with plenty in France, the poorest to-day can, if they will, indite readable words on well-sized paper, do things in higher mathematics, and avoid the thankless task of dividing eight into seven and ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... have been, probably was, better than our American historians have made him appear. His besetting weakness, which, as a matter of course, he regarded as the highest flower of efficiency, was an uncontrollable temper, a lack of fine human sympathy and an inability to forgive. In his calmest moments, when prudence appealed to him, he would resolve to use diplomatic means; but no sooner was his opinion questioned or his purpose opposed ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... weather, yet Micheline's health did not improve. She did not suffer, but a sort of languor had come over her. For days she never quitted her reclining-chair. She was very affectionate toward her mother, and seemed to be making up for the lack of affection shown during the first months ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet
... criticised the book as if it were a formal and historical narrative showed a lack of humour, which is a sense of proportion. Macaulay might almost as well be judged by his Fragment of a Roman Tale. Froude himself calls his Caesar a sketch, and it is scarcely more authoritative than the pamphlet of Louis Napoleon on the same subject. On the other hand, ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... was, both modest in respect to affection, and enriching thy house, so that thou both going within and without thy doors wast blessed. And 'tis a rare prize for a man to obtain such a wife, but there is no lack of getting a bad spouse. And I bear thee this son, besides three virgins, of one of whom thou art cruelly going to deprive me. And if any one ask thee on what account thou wilt slay her, say, what will you answer? ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... appealed to him not at all. In Henry's bosom there was respect for his red foes from whom he had learned so many useful lessons, and his heart beat faster with the thrill of strenuous conflict, but Paul was anxious for the end of it all. The sight of dead faces near him, not the lack of courage, more than once ...
— The Young Trailers - A Story of Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... from which to make sulphuric acid; also, through the reduction in the production of the iron furnaces of the country, from the slag of which over 2,000,000 tons of so-called Thomas phosphate flour was produced, will involve a big reduction in the make of that valuable fertilizer. Thus, there is a lack of horses, of fertilizers, and of the guiding hand of man. This last, however, can be partly supplied by utilizing for farm work such of the prisoners of war as come from the farm. As Germany now holds considerably more than 600,000 prisoners, it can draw ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... worlds Answered and answers still: "This universe Exists, and by that one impossible fact Declares itself a miracle; postulates An infinite Power within itself, a Whole Greater than any part, a Unity Sustaining all, binding all worlds in one. This is the mystery, palpable here and now. 'Tis not the lack of links within the chain From cause to cause, but that the chain exists. That's the unfathomable mystery, The one unquestioned miracle that we know, Implying every attribute of God, The ultimate, absolute, omnipresent Power, In its own being, ...
— Watchers of the Sky • Alfred Noyes
... places suited to their rank; and these Barons are continually moving to and fro in the hall, looking to the wants of the guests at table, and causing the servants to supply them promptly with wine, milk, meat, or whatever they lack. At every door of the hall (or, indeed, wherever the Emperor may be) there stand a couple of big men like giants, one on each side, armed with staves. Their business is to see that no one steps upon the threshold in entering, and if this does ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... He left Cesena about the middle of December, and went to Fano, and with the utmost cunning and cleverness he persuaded the Vitelli and Orsini to wait for him at Sinigalia, pointing out to them that any lack of compliance would cast a doubt upon the sincerity and permanency of the reconciliation, and that he was a man who wished to make use of the arms and councils of his friends. But Vitellozzo remained ...
— The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... himself, but he won't. He has acquired the habit of sending for the physician of the town, whose physic but aggravates the disease. Dropping metaphor, the farmer does not think for himself. In rural communities, there is as great a lack of collective thought as of cooperative action. All progress is conditional on public opinion, and this, even in the country, is a ...
— The Rural Life Problem of the United States - Notes of an Irish Observer • Horace Curzon Plunkett
... there was a fuel famine, due largely to the breakdown of the transportation system. People warmed themselves after a fashion by burning furniture and rubbish in improvised stoves. Of course this put an additional strain on firedepartments, themselves suffering from the same lack of new equipment, tires, and gasoline, afflicting the general public and great conflagrations swept through Akron, Buffalo and Hartford. Garbage collection systems broke down and no attempt was made to clear the streets of snow. Broken watermains, gaspipes ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... he heaped the stockings high, Said "Good-by." Now, of toys he had no lack: They were carried on his ...
— The Nursery, January 1873, Vol. XIII. - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest People • Various
... and his book, and came down to the road. Then first the clergyman saw that he was barefooted. In his childhood he had himself often gone without shoes and stockings, yet the youth's lack of them prejudiced ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... an angel would be a desirable mountain-top companion. He gave me information about the surrounding country such as I was very glad to get; and in the case of the hawks my advantage over him, if any, was mainly in this,—that my lack of knowledge partook somewhat more fully than his of the nature of Lord Bacon's ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... or not largely depends upon its seasoning. Good, rich material may be stale and unprofitable because of its lack, while with it simple, inexpensive foods become delicious and take on the appearance of luxuries. A garden of herbs with its varying flavors is a full storehouse for the housekeeper, it gives great variety to a few materials and without much expense of money, time or space as any little waste ...
— Vaughan's Vegetable Cook Book (4th edition) - How to Cook and Use Rarer Vegetables and Herbs • Anonymous
... we have prayed to God for him daily for sixteen years. I can never forget him; but you see, Popinot, men buried in the depths of science do forget everything,—wives, friends, and those they have benefited. As for us plain people, our lack of mind keeps our hearts warm at any rate. That's the consolation for not being a great man. Look at those gentlemen of the Institute,—all brain; you will never meet one of them in a church. Monsieur Vauquelin is tied to his study or his laboratory; but I like to believe he thinks of God in analyzing ...
— Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau • Honore de Balzac
... strongly affective in nature, such as a threatening or beginning prolonged imprisonment; third, the more or less sudden disappearance of the entire symptom-complex upon a change of environment; and lastly, the lack of secondary dementia. This absence of dementia cannot be explained by mere assertions that these cases have perhaps not been followed out long enough. Bonhoeffer kept account of some of these cases for as long as ten years, and in none of them could ...
— Studies in Forensic Psychiatry • Bernard Glueck
... the exchequer, Charles Montague, afterwards Earl of Halifax, and he, with the assistance of Sir Isaac Newton, successfully accomplished the very arduous task. It cost the nation about L2,200,000, and a considerable inconvenience owing to lack ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... delightful, within a few minutes' walk of the sea, which we have in full view from one of our windows. And we have no lack of society, for the Bancrofts, Miss Aspinwall and her sister, as well as the Skinners, are very friendly. But I am so careworn and out of sorts, that this beautiful ocean gives me little comfort. I seem ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... their sorry pickle should demand commiseration far more loudly than our blame. In short, I find humanity to be both a weaker and a better-meaning race than I had suspected. And so, I make what you call 'sugar-candy dolls,' because I very potently believe that all of us are sweet at heart. Oh no! men lack an innate aptitude for sinning; and at worst, we frenziedly attempt our misdemeanors just as a sheep retaliates on its pursuers. This much, at least, ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... across, because this land and its history have a queer fascination for me, that perhaps has its roots in occurrences or dreams of which this is not the place to speak. Lastly now and again I read one of the Latin or Greek authors in a translation, since I regret to say that my lack of education does not enable me to do so in the original. But for modern fiction I have no taste, although from time to time I sample it in a railway train and occasionally am amused by such excursions ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... the temporal destruction of a few thousands to the eternal damnation of hundreds of millions! Was it the duty of the wealthy Irish to feed their starving neighbors? And since the providence of God has made the remotest of earth's dwellers who are perishing for lack of vision our neighbors, should we not supply them with the bread of heaven, and thus prevent untold agonies? I ask every candid reader, is not the present a special occasion for benevolence? and if the church is to be the instrument by which God has determined ...
— The Faithful Steward - Or, Systematic Beneficence an Essential of Christian Character • Sereno D. Clark
... only when the startling head-lines in his favorite morning paper call his attention to some frightful crime committed, that he learns either of its character, or location, or the causes which produced it. To this lack of knowledge on the part of the respectable portion of the community of the location of questionable places and the haunts of felons, is to be attributed many of the robberies which, from time to time, ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe
... like a glimpse of a century that had passed. But though visiting was good, X. was soon wanting to improve his position and show that he was capable of taking a more active part in the conversation than he had hitherto done, and so reckless of his host's disgust at a sudden lack of attention, he rose and went to the side table to sniff at the beautiful flowers and peep at the sample sacks of coffee which lay piled in the corner of the room. But such little wiles to obtain speech with the modest maiden were of small use, when one party spoke English and the other ...
— From Jungle to Java - The Trivial Impressions of a Short Excursion to Netherlands India • Arthur Keyser
... which a man can commit which justifies his wife in leaving him or applying for that monstrous thing, divorce. It is her duty to subject herself to him always, and no crime that he can commit can justify her lack of obedience. If he be a bad or wicked man she may gently remonstrate with him, but refuse him never. Let divorce be anathema; curse it; curse this accursed thing, divorce; curse it, curse it! Think of the blessedness of having children. I am the father of ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... raising his lack-lustre eye, came over and replied, "Aw—ay—'Am the author o' Betty's Menstrel;" and having uttered this piece of intelligence, he shuffled across the room, dragging one foot after the other, at about a quarter of a minute per step. Never was ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... thought does not 'make' this reality means pragmatically that if our own particular thought were annihilated the reality would still be there in some shape, though possibly it might be a shape that would lack something that our thought supplies. That reality is 'independent' means that there is something in every experience that escapes our arbitrary control. If it be a sensible experience it coerces our attention; ...
— The Meaning of Truth • William James
... station, somewhat mystified. He had handled many curious cases in the past, many that had been notable for their intricacy, their complexity of motive and detail. But here, he felt, was a case of a very different sort, the peculiarity of which lay in its astonishing lack of clues of any sort. Usually in the past there had been motives, evidence, traces of some kind or other, upon which to build a case. Here there was nothing, except the three mysterious letters, ...
— The Film of Fear • Arnold Fredericks
... Donatello had made nothing but standing figures. The St. John sits; he is almost inert, and does not seem to await the divine message. But how superb it is, this majestic calm and solemnity; how Donatello triumphs over the lack of giving tension to what is quiescent! The Penseroso also sits and meditates, but every muscle of the reposing limbs is alert. So, too, in the Moses, with all its exaggeration and melodrama, with ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford
... location. The decree of the mir had fixed its limits in the days of Peter the Great, and its boundaries could not be extended, no matter how rapidly the population might increase, no matter how great a lack of room, of air, of light there might be for future generations. The houses were, therefore, built as closely together as possible, without regard to comfort or sanitary needs. To each was added new rooms, as the necessities of the inhabiting family demanded, and these additions ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... the worst enemy. That was wealth, comfort, quiet business, lack of big disturbances and of great sufferings. The English Church still succeeded in preventing all the misuses and abuses of life under such circumstances. This success can be appreciated only if ...
— The Religious Spirit of the Slavs (1916) - Sermons On Subjects Suggested By The War, Third Series • Nikolaj Velimirovic
... countess did not care to come. She much preferred staying in Milan with Triulzi, who did not let her lack for anything. ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... approach, some slight reference to it; a reference so slight that if, as he sometimes fancied, her illness had destroyed her memory of the conversation which she had overheard in the study, he need not betray himself. But there was no trace of lack of memory in Nan's face, when he brought out the words which he hoped would lead to some fuller understanding between them. She turned scarlet and then white as snow. Turning her face aside, she said, in a ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... for placing him on the same plane with Claude Debussy, who, after all, has added a novel nuance to art. But they are all makers of anxious mosaics; never do they carve the block; exquisite miniaturists, yet lack the big brush work and epical sweep of the preceding generation. Above all, the entire school is minus virility; its music is of the distaff, and has not the masculine ring ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... the paltry painted pillars on either side—the women's gallery with its great heavy curtain—the men's with its unpainted benches and dingy front—the tottering little table at the altar, with the commandments on the wall above it, scarcely legible through lack of paint, and dust and damp—so unlike the velvet and gilding, the marble and wood, of a modern church—are strange and striking. There is one object, too, which rivets the attention and fascinates the gaze, and from which we may turn horror-stricken in vain, for the ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... too fond of combat, too much at the mercy of my own emotions, too sensitive to praise and blame. I needed to sound yet more deeply the depths of human misery, to hear yet more loudly the moaning of "the great Orphan," Humanity, to feel yet more keenly the lack of wider knowledge and of clearer light if I were to give effective help to man, ere I could bow my pride to crave admittance as pupil to the School of Occultism, ere I could put aside my prejudices and study ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... shiftless modern methods so conspicuous as in the stone steps of the upper terraces of Tusayan. Here are seen many awkward makeshifts by means of which the builders have tried to compensate for their lack of foresight in planning. The absence of a definite plan for a house cluster of many rooms, already noted in the discussion of dwelling-house construction, is rendered conspicuous by the manner in which the stone ...
— Eighth Annual Report • Various
... It hurts so staying here, Where fond hearts must be wept out tear by tear, And where to wear wet lashes means, at best, When most our lack, the least our hope of rest— When most our need of joy, the more our pain— We must get home—we must get ...
— Riley Songs of Home • James Whitcomb Riley
... this consummation are apparent: (a) The lack of unity, want of harmony, absence of a self-sacrificing spirit, and no well-defined line of policy seeking definite aims; and (b) The persistent, relentless, at times covert opposition employed to thwart the Negro at every step of his upward ...
— The Conservation of Races - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 2 • W. E. Burghardt Du Bois
... figures 5 and 6 of plate II. In the latter of these figures he is shown stretching his mouth, apparently yawning but actually preparing for an attack on another monkey behind the wire screen. Figure 7 of this plate indicates Skirrl in an interesting attitude of attention and with an obvious lack of self-consciousness. The same monkey is represented again in figures 8 and 9 of plate II, this time in the act of ...
— The Mental Life of Monkeys and Apes - A Study of Ideational Behavior • Robert M. Yerkes
... His momentary lack of vigilance proved well-nigh his own undoing, also. Crack! spat the Luger again from the window. His hat whirled from his head, but he kept his presence of mind. It was not the first time by many that Yorke had been under fire. Ducking down on the instant, he moved swiftly three paces to his ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... question has begun of late to attract a considerable measure of attention in the Presbyterian Churches of this country. It needs a wise treatment, and, alas! we lack wisdom. For convenience and order, all the members of a worshipping assembly ought evidently to adopt the same method; but this is not a matter for arbitrary ecclesiastical enactment. The Pharisee and the publican both ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... Sentiment is the most powerful. It is incredible the number of evil practices he has put down: it is to be feared he will soon lack subjects, and that when he has made the working classes comfortable, and got bitter beer put into proper-sized pint bottles, there will be nothing further for him left to do. Mr Sentiment is certainly a very powerful ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... semaphores. Yet in the four days during which the campaign of Waterloo was fought, the whole scheme of military operations on both sides was again and again imperilled, and finally in the case of the French brought to utter ruin by lack of that intelligence which could so easily have been conveyed. June 18th was at intervals a sunshiny day—a four-inch glass mirror would have put Napoleon in communication with Gruchy, and the whole history of Europe might have been altered. Wellington himself ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Cervera had shown no lack of energy, but now he was strangely devoid of enterprise. He allowed an American armed liner to capture, off the port, a steamer that was bringing him 3000 tons of much-needed coal, though he might have saved her by sending one of his cruisers outside the headlands. He allowed an inferior force to ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... life of disease, distress and dirt, of official, social, and moral degradation as they lived when the Westerner remained still in the primeval forest stage. But despite the scepticism and the cynicism of certain writers, whose pessimism is due to a lack of foresight, and despite the fact that she is being constantly accused of having in the past ignominiously failed at the crucial moment in endeavors towards minor reforms, I am one of those who believe ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... could not be broken; to conquer and subdue the passions of my nature, and by the help of God to try and bring them in subjection to the will of the Spirit, and not of the flesh, which is carnal, sensual, and devilish. I determined that there should be no lack on my part. ...
— The Mormon Menace - The Confessions of John Doyle Lee, Danite • John Doyle Lee
... (which their present biographer is far from admitting), that fault may doubtless be found in the fact that their scenery as a rule tends to be just a trifle monotonous. Though fine in themselves, they lack variety. To be sure, very few of the deserts of real life possess that absolute flatness, sandiness and sameness, which characterises the familiar desert of the poet and of the annual exhibitions—a desert all level yellow expanse, most bilious in its ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... gravity befitting so many cabinet councils; but without their mystery, for doors and windows are thrown open, and both ladies and gentlemen may pass in and out, and look on at the game, if they please. The heaps of ounces look temptingly, and make it appear a true El Dorado. Nor is there any lack of creature-comforts to refresh the flagging spirits. There are supper-spread tables, covered with savoury meats to appease their hunger, and with generous wines to gladden their hearts; and the gentlemen who surrounded that board seemed to be playing, instead of ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... "authorizes the issuing of seven per cent. bonds, payable in thirty-one years, to be sold ($250,000,000 of it) or exchanged for the currency of the banks of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. This suggestion seems to lack every element of wise legislation. Make a loan payable in irredeemable currency, and pay that in its depreciated condition to our contractors, soldiers, and creditors generally! The banks would issue ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... into the habit of drawing up and calling out "good morning" whenever he and his mare passed her gate. Mrs. Richie's lack of common sense seemed to delight the sensible William. When he was with her, he was in the frame of mind that finds everything a joke. It was a demand for the eternal child in her, to which, involuntarily, she responded. She laughed at ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... terrible than those privations was the fever which supervened. Apart from the lack of food, a great cause of mortality lay in the change of diet. Potatoes form a bulky article of food, and stirabout, unless very carefully made, used to swell after it was consumed. Many, too, ate raw turnips from sheer destitution, and these also ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... Delegates; to which high court appeals do lie from any of the former courts. This is the highest court for civil causes. It was established by an Act in the 25th Henry VIII., cap. 19, wherein it was enacted, 'That it should be lawful, for lack of justice at or in any of the Archbishop's courts, for the parties grieved to appeal to the King's Majesty in his Court of Chancery; and that, upon any such appeal, a commission under the Great Seal should be directed to such persons as should be named by the king's ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... further and reined into a clump of bushes which despite their lack of leaves were dense enough to shelter them from observation. As the bushes grew on a hillock they had a downward and good look into the road, which was fairly packed with men in the gray of the Confederate army, some ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler
... authority of the said court, as far forth as other counties, cities, and boroughs have been, that have had their knights and burgesses within your said court of Parliament, and yet have had neither knight no burgess there for the said County Palatine; the said inhabitants, for lack thereof, have been oftentimes touched and grieved with acts and statutes made within the said court, as well derogatory unto the most ancient jurisdictions, liberties, and privileges of your said County Palatine, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... also, for this quibble: no doubt Urban VIII, one of the haughtiest of pontiffs, was induced by Galileo's enemies to think that he had been treated with some lack of proper etiquette: first, by Galileo's adhesion to his own doctrines after his condemnation in 1616; and, next, by his supposed reference in the Dialogue of 1632 to the arguments which the Pope had ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... Marius had found in the audacity of Sulpicius[119] a most suitable instrument to effect the public ruin; for Sulpicius admired and emulated Saturninus in everything, except that he charged him with timidity and want of promptitude in his measures. But there was no lack of promptitude on the part of Sulpicius, who kept six hundred of the Equestrian class about him as a kind of body-guard and called them an Opposition Senate. He also attacked with a body of armed men the consuls while they were holding a public meeting; one of the consuls ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... Queensland; and yet how trivial and prosaic are the honours bestowed upon it. That which makes women beautiful for ever; which renews the strength of man; which is a sweet and excellent food, and which provides medicine for various ills, cannot be said to lack many of the attributes of the elixir of life, and is surely entitled to a special paean in ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... Bobbie was two weeks old. The Pretty Lady waited until breakfast was over, and as I did not appear, came up and jumped on the bed, where she manifested some curiosity as to my lack of active interest ...
— Concerning Cats - My Own and Some Others • Helen M. Winslow
... legs thoughtfully. "Papa Marigny is a man of his word—and you lack five of your ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various
... woman has something of the large mother, the giving quality, when a man's arms hold her. She reads the man's need and would supply it. She would comfort the inner sore, supply the lack. And for this moment, Conny was not selfish: she was thinking of her lover's needs, and how she ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... which prohibited the admission of compassion into their hearts; because if they had any they must cease to be thieves,—a thing which was not to be thought of on any account. Seeing this, Andrew said he would go thieving by himself; for he was nimble enough to run from danger, and did not lack courage to encounter it; so that the prize or the penalty of his thieving would be ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra |
