"Unfit" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Though she owns she proposed it first; for she does not scruple to own all which she does not scruple to act. The holy mission was his, to dole out salutary documents of reproof, and apothegms of Epictetus; and to try whether he could not release the bird-limed owl. I was overlooked! I am unfit for the office! I am but little wiser than the booby brother! Whereas Solomon himself, and the seven sages to boot, are but so many men of Gotham, when he is present. The quintessence of all the knowledge, wit, wisdom, and ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... considering himself unfit to undertake the management of such an enterprise, he proposed that it should be put into the hands of the Jesuits or ...
— Life of St. Vincent de Paul • F.A. [Frances Alice] Forbes
... Kuru race, equal unto Indra himself, is now waked from the bare ground towards the small hours of the night by a multitude of birds! How doth Vrikodara, reduced by exposure to wind and sun and filled with wrath, sleep, in the presence of the princess of Panchala, on the bare ground, unfit as he is to suffer such lot! Perhaps also, the intelligent Arjuna, who is incapable of bearing pain, and who, though obedient to the will of Yudhishthira, yet feeleth himself to be pierced over all by the remembrance ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... supported by her father's Bible and stuffed owls. She had kept him waiting while she changed her gown, for like many people who are sometimes very splendid she could also on occasion be extremely disreputable, and her jam-making costume was quite unfit for the masculine eye, even though negligible. Mr. Pratt had grown rather nervous waiting for her—he had always been afraid of her, because of her big, breathless ways, and because he felt sure that she was one of ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... written in foreign languages, or even written in Hebrew, when treating of secular subjects, brought upon the culprit untold hardships. The scholastic education resulted in producing men entirely unfit for the battle of life, so that in many families energetic women took charge of the business and became the wage earners, [2] while their husbands were losing themselves in the mazes of speculation, somewhere ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... his head. "No wood here for fuel, and the blast will have scared away all the game. We'd better go upstream; if we go down, we'll find the water roiled with mud and unfit to drink. And if the game on this planet behave like the game-herds on the wastelands of Doorsha, they'll run for high ground ...
— Genesis • H. Beam Piper
... an interest of ambition in its subversion. As matters stood in the spring of 1834, the patron of each benefice, acting under the severest restraints—restraints which (if the church courts did their duty) left no room or possibility for an unfit man to creep in—nominated the incumbent. In a spiritual sense, the church had all power: by refusing, first of all, to 'license' unqualified persons; secondly, by refusing to 'admit' out of these licensed persons such as might have become warped from the proper standard ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... fleet which we beat off, though they left us sorely battered, and encountered a fearful storm which well-nigh sent the Good Hope to the bottom, we at length reached Plymouth in a sinking state. There the shipwrights pronounced the Good Hope unfit ...
— The Boy who sailed with Blake • W.H.G. Kingston
... porter went to them from time to time and put on coal—but the very walls reflected a chill, blue glare. The roof was lofty and vaulted, and added to the hollow coldness of the hall. The whole apartment was clean to sanctity, and in its straitness and blank dreariness no unfit emblem of ...
— On the Church Steps • Sarah C. Hallowell
... as tuning up the A string by a semi-tone, left hand pizzicato, or his double thirds, were executed with such stupendous technique that they held connoisseurs and amateurs spellbound. His individuality, in fact, was so abnormal that it rendered him unfit to play with others in quartets or other chamber music. As a man he had all the worst faults of a genius. The vast sums of money which he accumulated were gambled away. His whole life was disgraced ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... officers, were killed, and our men retired into the town, bringing the captain, two lieutenants, and about fifty men with them prisoners into the town; but having no horse, we could not bring off the cannon, but they spiked them, and made them unfit for service. ...
— Tour through the Eastern Counties of England, 1722 • Daniel Defoe
... communication not being completed, and roads rendered unfit by heavy rains, delayed the passage of canteen stores, and the rations had perforce to consist chiefly of mutton caught, killed and eaten the same day. Shall we ever forget the taste of it? Of course, we did get goat sometimes as a variation. Xmas Day was on the horizon ...
— Through Palestine with the 20th Machine Gun Squadron • Unknown
... flamed up again as he thought of Santa Anna. It was he who had done this. Away from Santa Anna and free from his magnetism he had a heart full of hatred for him. Yet it depressed him to see Mr. Austin who, good man, was obviously unfit for the leadership of an army, about to enter upon a desperate war against ...
— The Texan Star - The Story of a Great Fight for Liberty • Joseph A. Altsheler
... know the world very well—too well—and I feel I can ask you to trust me when I give you a piece of advice, however unpleasant it may seem at the moment. You were dining to-night alone with a man who is totally unfit to be your companion, or the companion of any decent woman. I cannot explain to you how I know this, nor can I tell you why he is unfit to be in any reputable company. But I solemnly assure you—I give you my ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... he had made at the time of separation were too firmly secured to be withheld. To remove his daughter was the next idea which presented itself; but that could not be effected. Emily was of a resolute disposition, and would not consent to leave her mother; and an appeal to Chancery would show how unfit a person he was to have the responsible charge of a young woman. The night was passed in anxious meditation, and before the morning his plans were arranged. Nothing could be accomplished by force; ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... for some haunt where spirits are to be had, to pay for which he has most probably robbed his master; there he spends the day in riot and ribaldry, and reels home about midnight in a state that renders him very unfit for resuming his work on Monday morning. The convict-servant soon finds out what sort of a master he has to deal with, and, to use their own slang, after trying it on for a bit, in nine cases out of ten, he yields to circumstances. Two of ...
— Trade and Travel in the Far East - or Recollections of twenty-one years passed in Java, - Singapore, Australia and China. • G. F. Davidson
... along on seeing his dear faithful Wilhelmina, as he passed: therefore, as the Papa's Orders, dangerous penalty lying in them, cannot be literally disobeyed, the question rises, How see Wilhelmina and not Baireuth? Wilhelmina, weak as she is and unfit for travelling, will have to meet him in some neutral place, suitablest for both. After various shiftings, it has been settled between them that Berneck, a little town twelve miles from Baireuth on the Hof road, will do; and that Friday, probably early, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... his eyes settling uncertainly upon her hands as though he expected to find upon them signs of some work she might have been engaged upon—some work that left her, as she had said, unfit to touch. His comprehension was never quick. His imagination ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... and doubtless make her an excellent husband, and value the connection with the house of Trevlyn; but if he could succeed in winning the love of our saucy Kate, he would sooner have her than the more staid sister, only he fears his gray hairs and his wrinkles will unfit him as a suitor for the child. But we, who suspect her heart of turning towards him, have little fear of this. Kate's sharp eyes have looked beneath the surface. She has shown that she has a wise head upon her shoulders. So ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... Beauclerc, united the claims of conquerors and conquered in his person. He had obtained from the king a promise of free pardon to all the refugees yet in the Dismal Swamp, where it will be remembered the poor English had fled, who were unfit to accompany Wilfred to the Camp of Refuge, and had thereupon invited them all to rebuild their old homes and ...
— The Rival Heirs being the Third and Last Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... bound to come, declaring that all the thinking men of the country had foreseen it. The intolerance of the Boers, their arrogance, their ignorance, on which they prided themselves, all proclaimed them as unfit to rule over white or black people. Of late years had crept in an element of treachery and disloyalty, emanating from their jealousy of the English, which by degrees was bound to permeate the whole country, spreading southward to Cape Colony itself, till ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... that morality is a matter of convention which every society and every nation has a right to invert if it judges such inversion in the line of its interests. The spirit of anarchy in art proclaims that all the works of nature are equally beautiful or equally ugly, that nothing which exists is unfit to be represented in our galleries and public places, that so long as a picture or a statue arouses a sentiment it does not matter whether the sentiment be one of delight and aspiration or one of horror. If once ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... have no right to wish anything of the sort. They are quite unfit for anybody but a married woman. That's just the difficulty. What will ...
— How He Lied to Her Husband • George Bernard Shaw
... floating in the breeze. The countenance of this simple-minded veteran was a little anxious, for, had he feared the enemy a tenth part as much as he stood in awe of his commanding officer, he would have been totally unfit for his station. Now he glanced upward at his sails, to see that all was right; then, as he drew nearer, fathom by fathom as it might be, he anxiously endeavoured to read the expression ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... part of the bow, and the explosion blew up the pilot's deck, which rendered the vessel totally unfit for service. I remained three days at Memphis, and visited the neighbouring farms and plantations. Several parties of Chickesaw Indians were here, trading their deer and other skins with the townspeople. ...
— A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America • S. A. Ferrall
... had killed several men during his first fit of insanity. He was for the rest of his life wholly unfit to govern. He declared Henry V of England, the conqueror of Agincourt, his successor, thus disinheriting the ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... admired; there was nothing undecided about Dolly, and yet there was nothing done by rule. That again was a combination he did not know elsewhere. Her dress—he considered that too. It was the simplest of travelling dresses, with nothing to mark it, or draw attention, or make it unfit for its special use—in perfectly good taste. How did she know? thought Lawrence; for he knew as well as I do that she had not learned it of her mother. There was nothing marked about Mrs. Copley's appearance; nevertheless she lacked that harmony of simple ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... of fear or depression. Once committed to the undertaking, he spends anxious days and sleepless nights in mental agony, much as a criminal is said to do just prior to his execution. When at last he attempts his "maiden effort," he is almost wholly unfit for his task because of the needless waste of thought ...
— Successful Methods of Public Speaking • Grenville Kleiser
... manner then was) which during that feast she might not refuse: which was that hee might have the atchievement of any adventure, which during that feast should happen; that being granted, he rested him selfe on the fioore, unfit through his rusticitie for a better place. Soone after entred a faire Ladie in mourning weedes, riding on a white Asse, with a dwarfe behind her leading a warlike steed, that bore the Armes of a knight, and his speare ...
— Spenser's The Faerie Queene, Book I • Edmund Spenser
... spirit of justice and peacefulness which has suggested the foundation of such a league. Nevertheless, I beg to be excused from attendance, as I am convinced that this time of international excitement and prejudice is unfit for the crystallization of new forms for the common ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... don't realize how unfit my sister is for rough and tumble. She's not one of this new sort of woman. She's always been looked after, and had things done for her. Pluck she's got, but that's all, and she's bound to ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... torture. Hence the common assertion of public functionaries, that torture is absolutely necessary to secure the administration of justice; and of course people who require torture to persuade them to speak the truth, are unfit for self-government and constitutional liberty. Thus falsehood and oppression are perpetuated, and truth kept ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... and please your ladyship, said I, it should be either!—I beg, said I, to withdraw; for the sense I have of my unworthiness renders me unfit for such a presence. ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... prayers on his behalf, on the part of the good Fathers of the convent associated with the memory of the great Prophet who had raised the dead child to life. She herself, however, was at the time unfit for a mountain ride; and Prince Edward, who was a lay brother of the Carmelite order, and had fully intended himself to go and offer his devotions for his child, was so unwell on that day, from the feverish heat of the summer, that ...
— The Prince and the Page • Charlotte M. Yonge
... witch, 'if instead of that which shall arrest the heart, I give that which shall sear and blast the brain—which shall make him who quaffs it unfit for the uses and career of life—an abject, raving, benighted thing—smiting sense to drivelling youth to dotage—will not thy vengeance be equally ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... for the rest of the Expedition, Wild set all hands to collect as many seals and penguins as possible, in case their stay was longer than was at first anticipated. A sudden rise in temperature caused a whole lot to go bad and become unfit for food, so while a fair reserve was kept in hand too much ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... without a light, charged a navvy ten shillings and costs for use of indelicate language (total, seventeen and sixpence), and threatened, but did not punish, a farmer with imprisonment for working a horse 'when,' as the charge put it ambiguously, 'in an unfit state.' He wound up by transferring an alehouse licence, still in his stride, beamed around and observed 'That concludes our ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... whether entire abstinence from fermented liquors be a duty, and this is a question of fact. Says one party, "Alcohol, in every form, and in the least quantity, is a virulent poison, and therefore unfit for body and mind." Says the other party, "Wine, moderately used, is healthful, salutary, restorative, and therefore fitted to body and mind." Change the opinion of the latter party, their consciences would at once take the other side; ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody
... thought is accompanied by a consumption of material in the body, which thus becomes unfit for further use. These waste substances, composed chiefly of carbon and hydrogen, unite with oxygen breathed in from the air, forming carbonic acid gas and water, which are breathed out of the system. The action is a process of slow combustion, and it ...
— Outlines of Lessons in Botany, Part I; From Seed to Leaf • Jane H. Newell
... fitted into present evidence obtained. Deeper and deeper went the investigation into Aoyama's house affairs. Here was great disorder—harshness, lust, ill discipline. On this latter charge—lack of discipline—official displeasure gladly fell. The tale of the monster, obviously unfit for any service to the suzerain, came out. The kaieki of the House—deprivation of rank and income—followed. As far as posthumous action could disgrace, so ...
— Bakemono Yashiki (The Haunted House) - Tales of the Tokugawa, Volume 2 (of 2) • James S. De Benneville
... freedom, that is, when and how to resist, in the faith that resistance to tyrants is obedience to truth; that the irrepressible kicker against tyranny, as Dr. Wilson observes, is the only true freeman. In her conservative, almost abject submission, Japan was yet unfit for free government. The Japanese people were willing to do almost anything suggested by their Emperor, but they had first to learn what was meant by representative government, "to understand its processes and requirements." The ...
— The Constitutional Development of Japan 1863-1881 • Toyokichi Iyenaga
... of the little boys and pleasant words at the heads of the big ones, that hit softly and did gentle execution; giving sly handfuls to Reuben, and then hammering out for some little fellow the burrs that her hands were yet more unfit to deal with than his; and doing it all with a will that the very spirit of enjoyment seemed to have moved. She in any danger of rude treatment from those boys! Nothing further from the truth. And so her happy face informed Mr. Linden, when ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner
... important place among educational influences now that the old superstition of making every child play the piano is passing away. It was an injustice both to the right reason of a child and to the honour of music when it was forced upon those who were unwilling and unfit to attain any degree of excellence in it. We are renouncing these superstitions and turning to something more widely possible—to cultivate the audience and teach them to listen with intelligence to that which without instruction is scarcely more than pleasant noise, or at best the expression ...
— The Education of Catholic Girls • Janet Erskine Stuart
... improper to make a friend of?" "There is no doubt of it," said Critobulus. "And if we found another," continued Socrates, "who was saving of what he had, but who, on the other hand, was so covetous that it would be quite unfit to have anything to do with him, because he would always be very ready to receive and never to give again?" "In my opinion," said Critobulus, "this would be a worse friend than the former. And if we should find a man who was so carried ...
— The Memorable Thoughts of Socrates • Xenophon
... African War, and in his day was regarded as the most brilliant cavalry subaltern in the British Army. A severe accident in the hunting-field compelled him to leave the Army. When war broke out in 1914 he offered his services to the War Office, but was rejected because physically unfit. He then enlisted as a private soldier, and by repeated acts of gallantry in ...
— War Letters of a Public-School Boy • Henry Paul Mainwaring Jones
... speaker of the House of Commons, "These are, therefore, to command you to make known in our name unto the House that none therein shall presume henceforth to meddle with anything concerning our government or deep matters of state." He insisted that "these are unfit things to be handled in Parliament except your king requires it of you. "As to the privileges of Parliament James wrote, "We cannot allow of the style calling it your ancient and undoubted right and inheritance, ...
— European Background Of American History - (Vol. I of The American Nation: A History) • Edward Potts Cheyney
... don't know! And I have not altogether got to shut down," the young man said, "only the show is growing rather rotten over here. We have let the rabble—the most unfit and ignorant—have the casting vote, and the machine now will crush any man. I have kept out of politics as much as I can and ...
— The Reason Why • Elinor Glyn
... dainty the dimpling white flesh of her arms, the soft limbs crouching there! So pure, the man never came near her without a dull loathing of himself, a sudden remembrance of places where he had been tainted, made unfit to touch her,—rows in Bowery dance-houses, waltzes with musk-scented fine ladies: when this girl put her cool little hand in his sometimes, he felt tears coming to his eyes, as if the far-off God or the dead mother had blessed him. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... the words mean, though the world may regard them as pleasures, and engage in them as amusements, are evil before God. But not to dwell on this, which is evident, amusements are evil (b) when they unfit for work. "The end of labor," said the Greek philosopher Aristotle, "is to rest." It is equally true that "the end of rest is to labor." Pleasures that tempt us from daily duty, that leave us listless and weary, are pernicious. Outdoor games, for instance, ought to ...
— Life and Conduct • J. Cameron Lees
... increases until the novel-reader longs to have a romance of her own. Her sense of duty is so blunted and her better judgment so blinded that she often agrees to a secret marriage with some one who is wholly unfit to be her life companion. It is in this way that many a girl has been deceived and led into sin. Many times, too, habits have been formed, from which nothing but the grace of God could deliver. In looking back over a wasted life, ...
— The value of a praying mother • Isabel C. Byrum
... in the way of obtaining provisions, were considered. In this state of anxiety, doubt, and expectation, Alexander ordered Nearchus to attend him, and consulted him on the choice of a commander. "One," said he, "excuses himself, because he thinks the danger insuperable; others are unfit for the service from timidity; others think of nothing but how to get home; and many I cannot approve for a variety of other reasons." "Upon hearing this," says Nearchus, "I offered myself for the command: and promised the king, that under the protection of God, I would conduct the fleet ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... and paint till sunset. Then I retrace my steps and meet the boat. I am in every way much encouraged. The horizon of my work grows perceptibly wider. And then I am inexpressibly happy in the conviction that I am not wholly unfit for a life of (moderate) labor and (comparative) privation. I am quite in love with my poverty, if I may call it so. As why should I not? At this rate I don't spend eight ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... body of mechanics in our large cities can not, even by emigrating to the West, take advantage of the provisions of this bill without entering upon a new occupation for which their habits of life have rendered them unfit. ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 5: James Buchanan • James D. Richardson
... that even if the physician has given you a clean bill of health, you are still unfit for marriage unless you are willing to go more than halfway in adjusting your life to "his" or "hers." Lovers generally feel sure that they can do this, but have you proved it in your treatment of parents, brothers, sisters, and friends? If you are free ...
— The Good Housekeeping Marriage Book • Various
... nothing-at-all. Moreover, they were dead. So he came to your great country to make his living. When our enemies invaded my country and the call went out to all sons of Belgium, the little Garin was ashamed because he knew that he was physically unfit for military service. But he tried. He tried everywhere. In the mornings they must sweep him away from our Consul-General's doorsteps here because otherwise ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... difficulty, than M. de Francueil took a little journey, during which I remained intrusted with the cash, which, at that time, did not amount to more than twenty-five to thirty thousand livres. The anxiety of mind this sum of money occasioned me, made me perceive I was very unfit to be a cash-keeper, and I have no doubt but my uneasy situation, during his absence, contributed to the illness with which I was seized ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... me at Mayne Junction, the Railway Department obtained water at a reasonable depth, but the water on being analysed was found to be unfit for locomotives, or for washing the carriages, ...
— Reminiscences of Queensland - 1862-1869 • William Henry Corfield
... development given to the latter as an export and a local manufacture since the Crimean War. An account of the oil-seeds and the faulty mode of expressing the oil, which made Indian linseed oil unfit for painting, is followed by remarks on the cultivation of wheat, to which subsequent events have given great importance. Though many parts, even of Dinapoor, were fit for the growth of wheat and barley, ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... Catholic church itself ought to follow in order to be saved—for prophets are constitutionally without a sense of humour. These philosophers maintain that intelligence is merely a convenient method of picking one's way through the world of matter, that it is a falsification of life, and wholly unfit to grasp the roots of it. We may well be of another opinion, if we think the roots of life are not in consciousness but in nature, which intelligence alone can reveal; but we must agree that in life itself intelligence is a superficial growth, and easily blighted, and that the ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... of the people from absolute spiritual despotism. The power might be used to repel a too faithful pastor, but if there was sometimes a temptation to this, the occasion was far more frequent for putting the people's reprobation upon the unfaithful and unfit. The colony, growing in wealth and population, soon became infested with a rabble of worthless and scandalous priests. In a report which has been often quoted, Governor Berkeley, after giving account of the material prosperity of the colony, sums up, under ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... three acres of barley were in a very thriving state, and ground was prepared to receive rice and Indian corn. In the wheat there had been a disappointment, the grain that was sown having been so much injured by the weevil, as to be unfit for vegetation. But the people were all at that time in commodious houses; and, according to the declarations of Mr. King himself, in his letters to Governor Phillip, there was not a doubt that this ...
— The Voyage Of Governor Phillip To Botany Bay • Arthur Phillip
... Ingleborough recovered from their wounds only gradually, to suffer with the rest, returning to duty when really unfit, while the deadly work went on, the men braving the shell and shot with more spirit when they knew that the women and children were ...
— A Dash from Diamond City • George Manville Fenn
... had no experience generally suppose. The Cunard steamers have been running more than a quarter of a century, with the loss of only one ship, and no lives in that one—a triumphant result achieved by strong ships, with competent men to manage them. Poorly built ships, short manned, with officers unfit for their positions, constitute the harvest of destruction on ...
— Outward Bound - Or, Young America Afloat • Oliver Optic
... life recommenced; but with a difference, and a new sin. To his other iniquities Black Sheep had now added a phenomenal clumsiness—was as unfit to trust in action as he was in word. He himself could not account for spilling everything he touched, upsetting glasses as he put his hand out, and bumping his head against doors that were manifestly shut. There was ...
— Kipling Stories and Poems Every Child Should Know, Book II • Rudyard Kipling
... with his family, and going away knowing that he left his wife with more fear than hope in her heart with regard to him. How could she hope that he would resist temptation,—he who had yielded to it so many times? Physically and morally he felt himself unfit for the battle that lay before him; and there was no one to help him—no one who cared to help him—he said bitterly to himself, as one after another passed by him without word ...
— Stephen Grattan's Faith - A Canadian Story • Margaret M. Robertson
... military sense, comprehends all men who die, are wounded, desert, or are discharged as unfit for service. ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... old scoundrel! I will give you now just half an hour," sternly said Major Hardwicke, "to consider the propriety of resigning instantly your executorship of your brother's estate in favor of your son, Douglas Fraser. He is honest! You are unfit to control your ward! You can also first file your written consent to the immediate marriage of your ward, Nadine Fraser Johnstone, to myself, and apply to have your accounts passed and approved upon your discharge as guardian upon her marriage. ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... sir! He is ready to eat and drink for you," said the Bohemian. "Such service he would be too glad to render, but if a pack of wolves should happen to attack us in the forests near Przasnysz then I shall feed the wolves with him, for he is unfit ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... year to year, and to a remarkable extent, the faculties that are necessary; others lose them rapidly. The late Mr. S. F. Cody was flying constantly, and with a very conspicuous skill, at an age when he might have been thought unfit. But then he was a man of a rare vitality and a great enthusiasm—a man who, though he flew so often, declared that each of his flights was an "adventure." Taking men in the average one may say this: the younger ...
— Learning to Fly - A Practical Manual for Beginners • Claude Grahame-White
... confidence by a lawyer, you would say he had studied special pleading rather than the British constitution.—If you heard this doctrine swallowed implicitly by an assembly of legislators, you would say they were still unfit to govern themselves. What is it, you would ask, that forms the general and pervading principle of the British constitution, if not the representative one? Every petty corporation, you would observe, elects representatives to act for them in their Common Council—the council ...
— The Causes of the Rebellion in Ireland Disclosed • Anonymous
... extremely unhappy. I knew not what to determine upon: my reputation now, no doubt, utterly ruined: destitute of clothes: unfit to be seen by any body: my very indigence, as I might call it, proclaiming my folly to every one who saw me; who would suppose that I had been taken at advantage, or had given an undue one; and had no power over either my will or my actions: that I could not but think I ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... very sensitive. I remember taking a walk one afternoon during the haymaking season to the field where Terry was at work. Mr. —— had driven to the village with the farm horses, leaving Terry to draw in hay with a rheumatic old animal that was well nigh unfit for use. But as the hay was in good condition for getting in, and the sky betokened rain, he told Terry, upon leaving home, to accomplish as much as possible during his absence, and he would, if the rain kept off, draw in the remainder upon his return. As I drew nigh I spied Terry ...
— The Path of Duty, and Other Stories • H. S. Caswell
... have been quite unfit for the service demanded of her. Having already been thirty years in service, the sheathing was very much worn, and her keel was not studded with nails, which might have served instead of sheathing to protect her from parasites. Again the provisions and marketable ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... with her, sir; nothing whatever," I replied. "It is only an idea of Lord Hood's that she is unfit to cross the Bay. She, no doubt, appears to him a mere boat, compared with the 'Victory,' but I should have no hesitation whatever about taking her across the Bay, or across the Atlantic itself, for ...
— Under the Meteor Flag - Log of a Midshipman during the French Revolutionary War • Harry Collingwood
... nor did she derive any special pleasure from the masterpieces in the National Gallery; the Royal Academy was far more to her taste; and to mine, I frankly admit; and, I fear, to Barty's taste also, in those days. Enough of the Guardsman still remained in him to quite unfit his brain and ear and eye for what was best in literature and art. He was mildly fond of the "Bacchus and Ariadne," and Rembrandt's portrait of himself, and a few others; as he was of the works of Shakespeare and Milton. But Mantegna and Botticelli and Signorelli made him sad, ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... the black bear, hybernates in winter, and makes his appearance in the spring with his claws grown out long and very soft and tender; he is then poor, and unfit for food. ...
— The Prairie Traveler - A Hand-book for Overland Expeditions • Randolph Marcy
... "But now, look here, Miss Rose—tell me straight and true—am I to understand that my position in life makes me unfit to associate with you?" ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... continued, "to get the nurse who left you before Nell Beecroft came, saying that she knew enough about you both to 'send you over the road.' It is not too difficult to bring to light the examples of your incredible incompetency which prove you unfit to sign a death certificate, nor is your record in Nebraska ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... mountains," asked Claude, "so ugly and ill-made, that they are an unfit pulpit for a sermon? No; tell me what you mean. After all, I ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... source of infinite happiness or the seal of a living death. "Love is blind" is an old saying, verified by thousands of ill-assorted unions. Many unhappy marriages are traceable to one or both of two sources, Physical Weaknesses and Masquerading. Many are the candidates for marriage who are rendered unfit therefor from weaknesses of their sexual systems, induced by the ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... say, because their delicacy renders them unfit for practice and experience in the great businesses of life and the hardy enterprises of war, as well as the arduous cares of state. Besides, their attention is so much engaged with the necessary nurture of their children, that nature has made them fittest for domestic ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... have one to rule them, as government is hardly to be avoided amongst men that live together; who so likely to be the man as he that was their common father; unless negligence, cruelty, or any other defect of mind or body made him unfit for it? But when either the father died, and left his next heir, for want of age, wisdom, courage, or any other qualities, less fit for rule; or where several families met, and consented to continue together; there, it is not to be doubted, but they used their natural freedom, to ...
— Two Treatises of Government • John Locke
... Which they were told would be their lot When Cromwell came. So from each cot They bore away what pleased them best, And to the flames consigned the rest. But now Dunbar is reached; yet he Finds himself in extremity; Midst swamps and bogs unfit to tent, By Lammermoor from hillside rent, Leslie in front defiant stands A noble army he commands Of thousands two score seven, or more, Ready on Cromwell shot to pour. Behind the sea cut off retreat; With such great odds can he compete? The mountain sheep may safely tread The Lammermoor, but ...
— Gleams of Sunshine - Optimistic Poems • Joseph Horatio Chant
... hamlet of Numa, down whose sloping street a swollen stream was running, which the people were banking out of their houses. I was wet and tired, and the woman at the one wretched yadoya met me, saying, "I'm sorry it's very dirty and quite unfit for so honourable a guest;" and she was right, for the one room was up a ladder, the windows were in tatters, there was no charcoal for a hibachi, no eggs, and the rice was so dirty and so full of a small black seed as to be unfit to eat. Worse than all, there ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... Toby's groin, which he received at the siege of Namur, rendering him unfit for the service, it was thought expedient he should return to England, in order, if possible, to be set ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... think it a religious duty to amend." A competent master-workman with good materials would not have turned out a world so "bunglingly" made, with great patches of poisonous morass and arid desert unfit for human habitation, with coal and other requisites for man's comfort stored away out of sight, with the rivers all unbridged, and mountains and other impediments thrown in the way of free locomotion. So far, then, from its being man's duty to imitate Nature, as some have thought it was, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... on, Mr. King," she interposed gently, "you will soon be mentally unfit to drive at all. And I must be back before the darkness has quite fallen. And—don't you think we have ...
— Red Pepper's Patients - With an Account of Anne Linton's Case in Particular • Grace S. Richmond
... women are supposed to be unfit to vote because they are hysterical and emotional and of course men would not like to have emotion enter into a political campaign. They want to cut out all emotion and so they would like to cut ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... meeting-house; wealth had accumulated around them, and they had everywhere the reputation of a shrewd and thriving community. They were the first in New England to cultivate the potato, which their neighbors for a long time regarded as a pernicious root, altogether unfit for a Christian stomach. Every lover of that invaluable esculent has reason to remember with gratitude the settlers ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... and was fast becoming a very pretty girl, while Mary and Harry could not boast of much beauty, but were stout sturdy pictures of health; Harry's locks in masses of small tight yellow curls, much given to tangling and matting, unfit to be seen all the week, till nurse put him to torture every Saturday, by combing them out so as, at least, to make him for once like, she said, a gentleman, instead of ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... difficulties in refilling the storage tanks, started a thirst which was not appeased for many days. During the night, however, we heard enough to assure us that things were going well, and early on the 5th we received orders to leave the redoubts to a garrison of the unfit and to rendezvous in the old ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... were for imperial rule unfit: A king of royal lineage and worth The state required, and none could he remember Save Tahmasp's son, descended from ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... thought about that," she cried, restlessly. "All I know is that he—loves me—that I honour him—that he would take me"—"out of this misery," she was about to say, but stopped, feeling that both the thought and the expression were unworthy Nathanael's future wife, and unfit to be heard by ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... already made the tour of Europe, was hired for the care of Peregrine's own person. Pipes being ignorant of the French language, as well as otherwise unfit for the office of a fashionable attendant, it was resolved that he should remain in garrison; and his place was immediately supplied by a Parisian lacquey engaged at London for that purpose. Pipes did not seem to relish this disposition of things; ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... with which the time passed was terrifying. Although my leave had produced so much disillusionment, I yet dreaded its termination. Just as my life at the front had made me unfit for life at home, so my short spell of life at home had rendered me unfit for further life at the front. Moreover, I knew that my concrete experiences had done a little towards strengthening and confirming the attitude of my ...
— Combed Out • Fritz August Voigt
... slop chest was under water, and the tobacco utterly useless. I did not use it at the time, but I fished some out for the others. It did not do; it would not dry out to smoke, and the salt in it made it unfit to chew. But the bos'n had an upper bunk in the forward house, in which was a couple of pounds of navy plug, and he and the sailor talked this over until their craving for a smoke overcame ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... you—I know you, now!" screamed the widow, at the tope of her voice; "and you can no longer deceive me, unworthy son of Neptune as you are! You are unfit to be a lubber, and would be log-booked for an or'nary by every gentleman on board ship. You, a full-jiggered sea-man! No, you are not even half-jiggered, sir; and I tell you so ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... what it means to play an important match when feeling really ill. Honestly it is not worth it. It is no enjoyment to yourself, and it is no pleasure to your opponent to beat you when she knows you are unfit. Besides, it is very injurious to your own health. On the other hand, if you are in good condition, and leading a healthy outdoor life, a well-contested match cannot harm you; it is most beneficial in every ...
— Lawn Tennis for Ladies • Mrs. Lambert Chambers
... and no others. Some of these insects live upon the leaves, others eat the sapwood under the bark, while a few attack the roots. Certain insects burrow in and eat the heartwood. Although this does not always kill the tree, it weakens it and makes the wood unfit for use. The cedar and the hickory are among the trees injured ...
— Conservation Reader • Harold W. Fairbanks
... and all the world your unfaithfulness and criminal intrigues. Oh, I tell you I see through this generalissimo, I know all his plans and secret designs. He would gladly be able to convict you of infidelity to him—then, with the help of the army he commands, declare his criminal wife unfit for the regency, and then make himself regent! He has a cunningly devised plan, but which my superior cunning shall bring to naught! I will play him a trick!—But no, I will tell you no more now! At the right time you shall know ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... from the Marchesa di Mola. The reason why Ruggiero did not take Sebastiano as one of his own crew was a simple one. There lived and still lives at Sorrento, a certain old man known as the Greek. The Greek is old and infirm and has a vicious predilection for wine and cards, so that he is quite unfit for the sea. But he owns a couple of smart sailing boats and gets a living by letting them to strangers. It is necessary, however, to have at least one perfectly reliable man in charge of each, and so soon as ...
— The Children of the King • F. Marion Crawford
... think it safe to remain long in the neighborhood, and so they hurried on towards Boston. It appeared, from Edward's story, that he and Alfred knocked a few hard peaches from a tree, while in the garden, but they proved unfit to eat. They also found some ripe currants, and were leisurely helping themselves, when they heard somebody ask them what they were about. They turned, and saw a man approaching; whereupon, without stopping to answer ...
— Oscar - The Boy Who Had His Own Way • Walter Aimwell
... the way with a few men, finding out the spots at which an ascent was practicable, and scouting on either side to discover if Boers were hidden; behind him followed Woodgate leading his men. He was in bad health and quite unfit for such a climb, but in spite of remonstrances he had insisted upon going, although he was obliged to be assisted at the more difficult places. The distance was not more than six miles, but it was not until nearly ten hours after starting that the summit was ...
— With Buller in Natal - A Born Leader • G. A. Henty
... Churchmen were naturally opposed to the whole government, both executive and legislative. They were constantly sending home to England all sorts of reports and information calculated to show that the Quakers were unfit to rule a province, that Penn should be deprived of his charter, and that Pennsylvania should be put under the direct rule ...
— The Quaker Colonies - A Chronicle of the Proprietors of the Delaware, Volume 8 - in The Chronicles Of America Series • Sydney G. Fisher
... animals that are fittest to live and thrive in it. And yet how, on this hypothesis, are we to account for the absence of cattle in the Pampas of South America, when those parts of the New World were discovered? It is not that they were unfit for cattle, for millions of cattle now run wild there; and the like holds good of Australia and New Zealand. It is a curious circumstance, in fact, that the animals and plants of the Northern Hemisphere are not only as well adapted to live in the ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... imperfection upon Nature's spicy crab. Every cultivated apple is a crab, not improved, BUT COOKED, variously softened and swelled out in the process, mellowed, sweetened, spiced, and rendered pulpy and foodful, but as utterly unfit for the uses of nature as a meadowlark killed and plucked and roasted. Give to Nature every cultured apple—codling, pippin, russet—and every sheep so laboriously compounded—muffled Southdowns, hairy Cotswolds, wrinkled Merinos—and she would throw ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... daylight before they awoke. The sergeant got on to his feet, but it was evident to Edgar that he was altogether unfit ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... answered Mr. Baker, "that is a very serious thing for the poor gentleman. He seemed quite unfit to travel alone, and I feared he was not long for this world, but he was ...
— Erewhon Revisited • Samuel Butler
... which had held the Atlantic route had come back represented only by a few crippled ships almost unfit for any further service. True, they and those which never returned had rendered a splendid account of themselves before the enemy, but the fact remained—they were not defeated, but they were no longer able to perform the Titanic task which had been ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... what I used to wear in Montana. The leggings were good; the shoes were very good; the undershirts not very good, and the drawers bad—being of heavy, thick canton flannel, difficult to wash, and entirely unfit for a tropical climate. The trousers were poor, wearing badly. We did not get any other clothing until we were just about to leave Cuba, by which time most of the men were in tatters; some being actually barefooted, ...
— Rough Riders • Theodore Roosevelt
... Lieutenant in the Seventh Regiment of Infantry. During the war, he served under General Harrison in his North-Western campaign against the Indians; and, having been promoted to a Captaincy, was entrusted with the defense of Fort Harrison, with fifty men, half of them unfit for duty. A strong party of Indians, under the Prophet, brother of Tecumseh, made a midnight attack upon the Fort; but Taylor, though weak in his force, and without preparation, was resolute and on the alert; and after a battle, which lasted till after daylight, ...
— The Life and Public Service of General Zachary Taylor: An Address • Abraham Lincoln
... mission that night heard a loud chanting in the plaza, as of the heathens singing psalms through their noses; that for many days after an odor of salt codfish prevailed in the settlement; that a dozen hard nutmegs, which were unfit for spice or seed, were found in the possession of the wife of the baker, and that several bushels of shoe-pegs, which bore a pleasing resemblance to oats, but were quite inadequate to the purposes of provender, were discovered in the ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... "Because she is unfit to rest there," cried the man. He pulled out a knife, and with the blade pried up the rim, and shook free the protective glass and slip of ivory. "Now 't is purged of all wrong," he said, touching the setting to his lips. "I would it were for me to keep, for 't has lain near your ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... could not embrace the truth—that is, the whole truth—and might, very probably, by implication, convey error. Hence that exhaustive, cyclical mode of discoursing in which he frequently indulged; unfit, indeed, for a dinner- table, and too long-breathed for the patience of a chance visiter,—but which, to those who knew for what they came, was the object of their profoundest admiration, as it was the source of their most valuable instruction. Mr. ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge |
