"Unfit" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... invocation, as occasionally happens in March, a loud peal of thunder was heard. This coincidence threw the prophet almost into a frenzy, and the poor people were all of a tremble. Face-the-Wind believed that the prayer was directly answered, and though weakened by fasting and unfit for the task before him, he was encouraged ...
— Old Indian Days • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... in the days of James the First, having oriel windows, twisted chimneys, long galleries, gable ends, a quadrangle of which the house surrounds three sides, terraces, sun-dials, and fish-ponds. But it is so sadly out of repair as to be altogether unfit for the residence of a gentleman and his family. It stands not in a park, for the land about it is divided into paddocks by low stone walls, but in the midst of lovely scenery, the ground rising all round it in low irregular hills or fells, and close to it, a quarter ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... well as human beings breathe air. Air is contained in all water. After the shrimps had breathed or used the air contained in the water several times over, it became unfit to sustain animal life any longer, and so they smothered: just the same as if a number of people were placed in a room, and all the doors and windows and ventilators were sealed up tight, so that no new air could enter. They, too, would suffocate in a short time and die. All plants living in water ...
— Harper's Young People, August 17, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... a desire to introduce both their portraits into one picture and represent them engaged in some appropriate action. This plan would have delighted the lovers, but was necessarily rejected because so large a space of canvas would have been unfit for the room which it was intended to decorate. Two half-length portraits were therefore fixed upon. After they had taken leave, Walter Ludlow asked Elinor, with a smile, whether she knew what an influence over their fates the painter was about ...
— Twice Told Tales • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... that is received here is new and serviceable, but thousands of pieces are so badly worn that, to use the words of General Axline, of Ohio, who is doing noble service here with the thousands of other self-sacrificing men, "it is unfit to be worn by tramps." Many old shoes with the soles half torn off have been received. Shoes are badly needed at once or all Johnstown will ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... others. Without war the mass of useless, incompetent mankind, without training or intelligence, is permitted to grow and expand unchecked. War acted to reduce their numbers; like storms and earthquakes and droughts, it was nature's way of eliminating the unfit. ...
— The Skull • Philip K. Dick
... not to be playing. Personally I know 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 way. Therefore I think the best training for an ...
— Lawn Tennis for Ladies • Mrs. Lambert Chambers
... military organisation is everywhere of the same general description, especially as regards length of service, character of the drill, and organisation in corps and regiments. Every German, unless physically unfit, is subject to military duty and cannot shift the burden on a substitute. He must serve for seven years in the standing army: that is, three years in the field army and four in the reserve; thereafter he takes his place in ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... had become his prime minister long before the queen's eyes were closed. The hard-featured, rickety, fidgety, shambling, learned, most preposterous Scotchman hastened to take possession of the throne. Never—could there have been a more unfit place or unfit hour for ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... coal. When sufficiently cooked they beat them up and made the material into small cakes which were dried in the sun. The dried cakes were as black as coal and intended for winter use. These roots before roasting were unfit for food, as they contained a sort of acrid juice that would make the tongue smart and very sore but there was a very good rich taste when cooked. The woman pointed to our horses and said "Walker", ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... original promise to the conspirators; but William the Great did not commonly act after the fashion of Scroggs and Jeffreys. To deprive Waltheof of his earldom might doubtless be prudent; a man who had even listened to traitors might be deemed unfit for such a trust. It might be wise to keep him safe under the King's eye, like Edwin, Morkere, and Edgar. But why should he be picked out for death, when the far more guilty Roger was allowed to live? Why should he be chosen as the one victim of a prince who never before ...
— William the Conqueror • E. A. Freeman
... Him behind his back; and since I have even at the beginning, laid the consideration of the cross before you, it is because you should not be surprised and overtaken by it unawares, and because you should know that to draw back from Me after you have laid your hand to My plough, will make you unfit for the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... was very fond of caribou liver and saw no reason why that of the polar bear should not prove just as palatable. He fried some of it for supper, but when he placed it on the table both Aluktook and Netseksoak refused to touch it, declaring it unfit to eat, and warned ...
— Ungava Bob - A Winter's Tale • Dillon Wallace
... told him that the wreck was somewhere about a reef a few leagues north of Puerto de la Plata. Phips immediately went to the spot. But his search for the wreck was long and unavailing, the season was changing, and the "Rose Algier," now but half manned and in unseaworthy condition, was unfit to prowl around a dangerous reef in the hurricane season. So, without having accomplished the object of so much exertion and anxiety, Phips was obliged to return to England, a baffled but not a ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 4, February 1878 • Various
... was seven months in hospital at Messina before he was discharged. He came out with his left hand permanently disabled; he had lost the use of it, as Mercury told him in the "Viaje del Parnaso" for the greater glory of the right. This, however, did not absolutely unfit him for service, and in April 1572 he joined Manuel Ponce de Leon's company of Lope de Figueroa's regiment, in which, it seems probable, his brother Rodrigo was serving, and shared in the operations of the next ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... should be glad to abandon it. Love has been a hidden chapter in the book of life to me up till now, and now, reading it, it quite overwhelms me. Do you know I've always despised people who've put true love before all other considerations? I thought them weak imbeciles, and quite unfit. Now I am realizing how much I had to learn all the ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... clouded became. For the sake of the mast'ry Strove a contemptible crew, unfit to accomplish good actions. Then they murder'd each other, and took to oppressing their new-found Neighbours and brothers, and sent on missions whole herds of selfseekers And the superiors took to carousing ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... sacred bones, or we will shake out our frills and tumble them in the dust. Domestic cats may mioul in the garden at night to a certain extent, but a line must be drawn; after that they must be chased up trees and barked at, if necessary, all night. Opossums and native cats are unfit to cumber the earth, and must be hunted into holes, wherever possible. Cows and other horned animals must not come into the yard, or even look over the garden fence, under penalties. Black fellows ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... thoughts I may have had of attempting the life of an ancient ewe, of a superannuated hen, and such "small deer," are locked up in the secrets of my own breast; but for the higher departments of the art, I confess myself to be utterly unfit. My ambition does not rise so high. No, gentlemen, ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... and denies this. There is a distempered and ambitious morality which says civil prudence is no virtue. There is a philanthropy,—so it calls itself,—pedantry, arrogance, folly, cruelty, impiousness, I call it, fit enough for a pulpit, totally unfit for a people,—fit enough for a preacher, totally unfit ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... his worst, by unscrupulous manipulation, to keep the French Canadians from gaining their fair quota of the members in the Union Assembly. Those who were elected he ignored. "They have forgotten nothing and learnt nothing by the Rebellion," he declared, "and are more unfit for representative government than they were in 1791." This was far from a true reading of the situation. The French stood aloof, it is true, a compact and sullen group, angered by the undisguised policy of Anglicization that faced them and by Sydenham's ...
— The Canadian Dominion - A Chronicle of our Northern Neighbor • Oscar D. Skelton
... That the Filipinos are unfit to face the world alone there can be little doubt. As to whether it is our business in that {172} case to manage for them is another question. The Filipinos are, like our negroes, a child-race in habits of thought, whatever they ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... included in the Netherlands was once a mere swamp, a wild and useless morass, unfit for the habitation of man. Three great rivers, you perceive on the map, have their course, in whole or in part, through Holland and Belgium—the Rhine, the Maas, or Meuse, ...
— Dikes and Ditches - Young America in Holland and Belguim • Oliver Optic
... business. Making yourself unfit for business, I should say. Call it what you like. I suppose he is your humble servant, and just gives you ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... pace of the oxen is a great advantage, and I was often surprised to see how well men bore transport in these wagons, who seemed utterly unfit to be moved had it not been an absolute necessity. A very large number of the wounded from Paardeberg Drift were transported ...
— Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 • George Henry Makins
... would be with you, for I am dying by inches." Lord Chesterfield was very short.' CROKER. Southey, writing of Rokeby Hall, which belonged to Robinson, says that 'Long Sir Thomas found a portrait of Richardson in the house; thinking Mr. Richardson a very unfit personage to be suspended in effigy among lords, ladies, and baronets, he ordered the painter to put him on the star and blue riband, and then christened the picture Sir Robert Walpole.' Southey's Life, iii. 346. See also ante, p. 259 note 2, and post, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... Algy, as some knight of old arrayed, Was the leading figure at the "fawncy ball," We loathed him for the silly part he played, He was set down as a monkey—that was all! Oh, we looked upon him then As unfit to class with men, As one whose heart was putty, and whose brains were made of glue; But he's thrown his cane away, And he grasps a gun to-day, While the world beholds him, knowing that ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... selection of parents were practiced, the regression would disappear and the "pull" would be upward. Selection of parents possessing superior elements of character and the prevention of the unfit and the criminal from propagating their kind, seem the surest hope we have of producing a ...
— Parent and Child Vol. III., Child Study and Training • Mosiah Hall
... choice in the selection of associates than the vaunted "400." With the Bohemian but one thing counts: Fitness. Money, position, personal appearance and even brains are of no avail if there be the bar sinister—unfit. ...
— Bohemian San Francisco - Its restaurants and their most famous recipes—The elegant art of dining. • Clarence E. Edwords
... with Johnson; and the acquaintance ripened fast into friendship. They were astonished and delighted by the brilliancy of his conversation. They were flattered by finding that a man so widely celebrated, preferred their house to any other in London. Even the peculiarities which seemed to unfit him for civilised society, his gesticulations, his rollings, his puffings, his mutterings, the strange way in which he put on his clothes, the ravenous eagerness with which he devoured his dinner, his fits of melancholy, his fits of anger, his frequent rudeness, his occasional ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 3. (of 4) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... they told you, and Cariboo Meadows can't tell anything about me that isn't bad," he said quietly. "My record there makes me entirely unfit to associate with—that would have been your conclusion. And I wanted to be with you, to talk to you, to take you by storm and make you like me as I felt I could care for you. You can't have grown up, little person, without realizing that you do attract men very ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... no good at present; my business is to write an opera for Paris; for anything else I am unfit. This object cannot be attained by storm; in the most favourable case I shall achieve the poem in half a year, and the performance in a year and a half. In Paris without a home, or—which is the same—peace of heart, I can do no work; I must find a new place where I am ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... you would term instincts. It would be extremely interesting to determine whether such instincts have prevented them from drinking water unfit ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... by another person equally unknown. These controversialists cover the very widest field, and their attacks upon Scripture are varied to the point of wildness. They range from the proposition that the unexpurgated Bible is almost as unfit for an American girls' school as is an unexpurgated Shakespeare; they descend to the proposition that kissing the Book is almost as hygienically dangerous as kissing the babies of the poor. A superficial critic might well imagine that there was not ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton
... old Sikh fort there were about fifty European Artillerymen, in charge of a small magazine. The station was nominally commanded by an officer who had been thirty-four years in the army, and had great experience amongst Natives; but he had fallen into such a bad state of health, that he was quite unfit to deal with the crisis which had now arrived. The command, therefore, was practically exercised by Chamberlain. Next to Delhi and Lahore, Multan was the most important place in Upper India, as our communication with the sea and southern India depended ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... would have been devised by some of his bolder and more vigorous ancestors. And now once more the sceptre has passed into the hands of a child who will grow up, like the late Emperor, amid the intrigues of a Court composed of women and eunuchs, utterly unfit ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles
... holy Feast I pass unknown And unsaluted? 'twas not wont to be Thus frozen with the younger companie Of jolly Shepherds; 'twas not then held good, For lusty Grooms to mix their quicker blood With that dull humour, most unfit to be The friend of man, cold and dull Chastitie. Sure I am held not fair, or am too old, Or else not free enough, or from my fold Drive not a flock sufficient great, to gain The greedy eyes of wealth-alluring Swain: Yet if I may believe what others say, My face has ...
— The Faithful Shepherdess - The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher (Vol. 2 of 10). • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... municipal officers, customhouse clerks and other persons employed by the United States in certain classes of work, pilots and mariners, and, within prescribed limitations, registrants in a status with respect to persons dependent upon them for support, and persons found physically or morally unfit. Exemption from combatant service only was authorized in the case of persons found to be members of any well-recognized religious sect or organization whose existing creed or principles forbid its members to participate in war in any form, and whose religious ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various
... and Rome herself agrees There's none but Marius shall be general. Therefore, Sylla, these daring terms unfit Beseem not thee ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... at the foot of the stairs, deftly drawing on her black silk gloves,—gloves still good in Prudence's eyes, though Fairy had long since discarded them as unfit for service. There was open anxiety in Prudence's expression, and puckers of worry perpendicularly ...
— Prudence Says So • Ethel Hueston
... imperfect sybarite to be met with even in Paris itself, that intellectual metropolis? Unfit to endure the fatigues of pleasure, this sort of person, after a drinking bout, is very much like those worthy bourgeois who fall foul of music after hearing a new opera by Rossini. Does he not renounce these courses in the same frame of mind that ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... God and their Master; doing fully all that their Master orders, without answering. The upper servants must be honest and diligent, and engage no untrusty or unfit man. iv. Dishonest, quarrelsome, and drunken servants must be turned out. v. All must be of one accord, vi. obedient to those above them, vii. dress in livery, and not wear old shoes. viii. Order your Alms to be given ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... with these gentle words of the goddess? But these clowns persisted in their rudeness; they even added jeers and threats of violence if she did not leave the place. Nor was this all. They waded into the pond and stirred up the mud with their feet, so as to make the water unfit to drink. Latona was so angry that she ceased to mind her thirst. She no longer supplicated the clowns, but lifting her hands to heaven exclaimed, 'May they never quit that pool, but pass their lives there!' And it came to pass accordingly. ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... free. If 'twas wan iv th' customs iv th' great raypublic iv ours, Jawn, f'r to appoint th' most competent men f'r th' places, he'd have a mighty small lot f'r to pick fr'm. But, seein' that on'y thim is iligible that are unfit, he has th' divvle's own time selectin'. F'r Sicrety iv State, if he follows all iv what Casey calls recent precidints, he's limited to ayether a jack-leg counthry lawyer, that has set around Washington f'r twinty years, pickin' up a dollar or two be ...
— Mr. Dooley: In the Hearts of His Countrymen • Finley Peter Dunne
... know that you're an utterly immoral person?" He nodded. "You're my protector, Bernie; you're all I have. I'm a poor motherless girl and I lean upon you. But you must appreciate now that you're quite unfit to act ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... value to the public.[371] With a similar object in view; namely, to protect the reputation of one of its major industries, Florida was held to possess constitutional authority to penalize the delivery for shipment in interstate commerce of citrus fruits so immature as to be unfit for consumption.[372] ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... life occasion in the animal portion of all that lives a constant loss of substance, and the human body, that most complicated machine, would soon be unfit for use, did not Providence provide it with a mark to inform it of the very moment when its power is no longer in equilibrium with ...
— The Physiology of Taste • Brillat Savarin
... Court, contemplated by Article 8 of the Amendment of the Grondwet of 1877, declaring the State President, or the Supreme Court, contemplated by Article 115 of the Grondwet, declaring the Commandant-General or other members of the Executive unfit to occupy his or their office, the Chairman of the Volksraad, upon the receipt of the decision of such Court, shall convene the members of the Volksraad, who shall be bound to attend, in order to dismiss the official or officials found guilty; ...
— Selected Official Documents of the South African Republic and Great Britain • Various
... spiritual origin. Mr. Howitt treats the philosophers either as ignorant babies, or as conscious spirit-fearers: and seems much inclined to accuse the world at large of dreading, lest by the actual presence of the other world their Christianity should imbibe a spiritual element which would unfit it for the purposes of ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... father is an unfit person to have the custody of the children, pending a proceeding for divorce, the court has power to provide for their custody and maintenance as may be for the best interest ...
— Legal Status Of Women In Iowa • Jennie Lansley Wilson
... to me that it was sometimes necessary to feign to overlook an insult; I replied, that dissimulation was an art I knew nothing of, nor did I wish ever to acquire it. "Really, my dear countess," cried she, "you should not live at court, you are absolutely unfit for it." "It may be so," replied I; "but I would rather quit Versailles altogether than be surrounded by false and perfidious friends." All the remonstrances of the good-natured marechale were fruitless, I could not bring myself to pardon a man who had so openly outraged my friendship. ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... news, I was startled at another, by the same channel of communication; which was, that Mr. Marmozet, before he advised me to this application, had informed the earl that he had read my play, and found it altogether unfit for the stage. Though I could not doubt the certainty of this intelligence, I believed there was some inapprehension in the case; and, without taking any notice of it, told Mr. Marmozet the answer I had been ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... reduced them to a state of vassalage. They held the lands of their lord at his will, and paid their rent by military service. When retainers were put down, and rent or knights' service was no longer paid with armed men, their occupation was gone. They were unfit for the mere routine of husbandry, and unprovided with funds for working their farms. The policy of the nobles was changed. It was no longer their object to maintain small farmsteads, each supplying its quota of armed men to the retinue of the lord; and it was their interest ...
— Landholding In England • Joseph Fisher
... was treating them like so many kings; and, with a discreet abundance of grog, beer, and tobacco, there was perhaps little more to be accomplished in behalf of men whose whole previous lives have tended to unfit them for old age. Their chief discomfort is probably for lack of something to do or think about. But, judging by the few whom I saw, a listless habit seems to have crept over them, a dim dreaminess of mood, in which they sit between asleep and awake, and find ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... is precious. Also in his present state of mind he is certainly unfit company for—well, for Dave, here, a man who loves the pure white dove of peace." The station owner grinned. Van turned once more to the car owner, ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... idea is that cosmic truth is so unimportant that it cannot matter what any one says. The former freed inquiry as men loose a noble hound; the latter frees inquiry as men fling back into the sea a fish unfit for eating. Never has there been so little discussion about the nature of men as now, when, for the first time, any one can discuss it. The old restriction meant that only the orthodox were allowed to discuss religion. Modern liberty means that ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... Toller, must be drawn somewhere. Helen will have the gratuity usual at this season—she is a well-regulated person and will see the impropriety of intrusion into a sphere for which she is unfit.' ...
— More Pages from a Journal • Mark Rutherford
... increased around, she concluded that the greater part of the ruffians by whom she had been seized had betaken themselves to their horses. This she knew was consonant to the practice of the Welsh marauders, who, although the small size and slightness of their nags made them totally unfit for service in battle, availed themselves of their activity and sureness of foot to transport them with the necessary celerity to and from the scenes of their rapine; ensuring thus a rapid and unperceived approach, and a secure and speedy retreat. These animals traversed without difficulty, and ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... Lancashire continue to struggle through the present trying pass of their lives with the brave patience which they have shown hitherto, they will have done more to defeat the arguments of those who hold them to be unfit for political power than the finest eloquence of their best friends could have done in the ...
— Home-Life of the Lancashire Factory Folk during the Cotton Famine • Edwin Waugh
... loss of life was much less than might have been expected. Visitors to the camps went home with dismal stories to relate; Northern papers came back to the soldiers with these stories exaggerated. Because I would not divulge my ultimate plans to visitors, they pronounced me idle, incompetent and unfit to command men in an emergency, and clamored for my removal. They were not to be satisfied, many of them, with my simple removal, but named who my successor should be. McClernand, Fremont, Hunter and McClellan were all mentioned in ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... evil hearts were struck with dread of judgment. But even so, to scare them long in their contemptuous, godless vein was beyond the power of Heaven itself; and when one of my long tresses fell, to my great vexation, down my breast, a shocking sneer arose, and words unfit for ...
— Slain By The Doones • R. D. Blackmore
... in a state of combination with other substances, loses, in almost every instance, its respirable properties, and the salubrious effects which it has on the animal economy when in its unconfined state. Carbonic acid is not only unfit for respiration, but extremely deleterious if ...
— Conversations on Chemistry, V. 1-2 • Jane Marcet
... shaking his head sadly. "You do not understand, madam. It is not that my clothes are unpresentable,—it is I, myself, who am unfit to stand in your presence, much less to enter your house. I thank you, but ...
— The Re-Creation of Brian Kent • Harold Bell Wright
... way, and thus the forces under his command were constantly increased. At length, in his progress across the country, he came with his troop of followers to a place where there was a stream of salt or bitter water which was unfit to drink. Temujin encamped on the shores of this stream, and performed a grand ceremony, in which he himself and his allies banded themselves together in the most solemn manner. In the course of the ceremony a horse was sacrificed on ...
— Genghis Khan, Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott
... window over my head. Then came a shout of—"Uncle Harry!" in a voice I recognized as that of Budge. I made no reply: there are moments when the soul is full of utterances unfit to be heard by childish ears. "Uncle Har-RAY!" repeated Budge. Then I heard a window-blind open, and ...
— Helen's Babies • John Habberton
... Lola Brandt always have husbands unfit for publication; and as the latter seem to make it a point of honour never to die, widowed Lolas are as ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... this farce to continue. Do what you like, and let us make no further pretence of collaborating. I cannot act as a drag upon such a wheel as yours. I will not any longer be a dead-weight upon you. Our temperaments evidently unfit us to be fellow-workers; and I feel that your strength and power are so undeniable that you may, perhaps, be able to carry this weary tragedy through, and by sheer force make it palatable to the public. I will protest no more; I will only cease any longer to pretend to have a finger ...
— The Collaborators - 1896 • Robert S. Hichens
... by those 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 Southern ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... fitted a collar of copper, on which is screwed a metal globe with a glass front. In this globe the diver places his head, which he can move about at his ease. To the globe are attached two pipes; one used for carrying off the air ejected from the lungs, and which is unfit for respiration, and the other in communication with a pump worked on the raft, and bringing in the fresh air. When the diver is at work the raft remains immovable above him; when the diver moves about on the bottom of the river the raft follows his movements, ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne
... undoubtedly had the right to use it; because he believed the right inherent and inalienable with any race or people having the capacity. He considered that it was only the lack of co-ordinate capacity that made the Africans unfit to exercise co-ordinate power with individuals of the ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... but for the safety of the National troops. He said the enemy had come out of his lines in full force and attacked and scattered McClernand's division, which was in full retreat. The roads, as I have said, were unfit for making fast time, but I got to my command as soon as possible. The attack had been made on the National right. I was some four or five miles north of our left. The line was about three miles long. In reaching the point where the disaster had ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... right-hand man; and these were high times for Anton Ulrich, Generalissimo and Czar's-Father; who indeed was modest, and did not often interfere in words, though grieved at the foolish ways his Wife had. An indolent flabby kind of creature, she, unfit for an Autocrat; sat in her private apartments, all in a huddle of undress; had foolish notions,—especially had soubrettes who led her about by the ear. And then there was a 'Princess Elizabeth,' Cousin-german of Regent Anne,—daughter, that is to say, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... is often assumed that this is the cause, and the augur never fails to point out the transgressing female, who must provide a propitiatory offering. The Malers use poisoned arrows, and when they kill game the flesh round the wound is cut off and thrown away as unfit for food. Cats are under the protection of the game laws, and a person found guilty of killing one is made to give a small quantity of salt to every child ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... again, and that now he is about to be cured, and if he has rest and change and an easy mind every day will see him a little stronger and happier. He has worked hard and long, and often, probably, when he has been feeling quite unfit; but now he is going to have a real rest, and to enjoy himself. It is good to think of, ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... hinder. imperar to rule. imperio empire, authority. imperioso imperious. imperterrito intrepid. impio impious. imponente imposing. imponer to impose. importancia importance. importar to import, matter. impropio improper, unfit. improvisar to extemporize. impulsar to impel, push. impunidad f. impunity. inaccion f. inaction. incendiar to kindle, set on fire. incentivo incentive, incitement. incesantemente continually. inclinar to incline, lean. incluso inclosed, included. incoar ...
— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon
... rapidly decay; especially during the south-west monsoon, when the atmosphere is saturated with moisture. Unless great precautions are taken, the binding fades and yields, the leaves grow mouldy and stained, and letter-paper, in an incredibly short time, becomes so spotted and spongy as to be unfit for use. After a very few seasons of neglect, a book falls to pieces, and its decomposition attracts hordes of minute insects, that swarm to assist in the work of destruction. The concealment of these tiny creatures ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... warrants one of two inferences: either the writer would have men convicted whose guilt is involved in "reasonable doubt," or he fears that the learning and experience of the bar and the bench tend to unfit the mind to weigh the evidence of guilt or innocence. It is curious that in a former number of the same Review, another learned writer expressed exactly the contrary opinion.[A] Mr. Edward A. Thomas thinks ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 2, Issue 3, December, 1884 • Various
... dead Brugg still duller and more dead; unfit utterly for a man of such sublime accomplishments. Plenty of Counts Stadion, Kings of Poland even, offered him engagements; eager to possess such a man, and deliver him from dull dead Brugg; but he had hypochondria, and always feared their ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... withdrew his look of suspicion from the five cadets. No cadet may ever lie; not even to a comrade in the corps. Any cadet who utters a lie, and is detected in it, is ostracized as being unfit for the company of gentlemen. So, when Dick's prompt denial came, Anstey believed, as he ...
— Dick Prescott's Second Year at West Point - Finding the Glory of the Soldier's Life • H. Irving Hancock
... cent were either totally unfit for any kind of service, or were capable only of the less strenuous activities connected with warfare. Most of the defects found could have been remedied, or prevented altogether, if proper care had been ...
— Community Civics and Rural Life • Arthur W. Dunn
... half, and third, and quarter parishes in which no such materials exist. Further, the householders of some country hamlet or degraded town-suburb, populous enough to require its school, might be yet very unfit of themselves to choose for it a schoolmaster. And hence the necessity for maintaining a local breadth of representation sufficient to do justice to the principle of the scheme, and to prevent it, if we may so speak, from sinking in the less solid parts of the kingdom. A parochial breadth ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... not unfit for one, who might have been (as many think), the greatest poet of his people, had not something deeper and wider been opened to him, with which Anathoth was also in touch. The village is not more than an hour's walk from Jerusalem. Social ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... where all are always freemen, From where colleges and schools Free the mind from Old-World trammels, Unfit men for tyrants' tools, From where firesides and altars Govern hearts ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No. 6, December 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... some other woman. And it may well be doubted whether in a well-ordered and civilised State any one woman could adequately bear, bring up, and superintend the education of more than four young citizens. Hence we may conclude that while no woman save the unfit would voluntarily shirk the duties and privileges of maternity, few (if any) women would make themselves mothers of more than four children. Four would doubtless grow to be regarded in such a community as the ...
— Post-Prandial Philosophy • Grant Allen
... Lord Aylesbury, who had prevailed upon him, much against his own inclination and better judgment, to turn us out of the troop; though he had no other complaint to make against me but that I was too good a shot at his father's pheasants, and consequently a very unfit person to oppose the French in case of an invasion. His lordship saw and felt the difficulty of his situation, and for a long time he held out against the entreaties of his father; but the old earl was inexorable, and I am told ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... at Harvard, two more in postgraduate courses, two more in Europe to perfect himself in electrical engineering, and a year at home attempting to invent a wireless apparatus for intercepting and transmitting psychical waves had left him pitifully unfit ...
— The Green Mouse • Robert W. Chambers
... was another person included in the application, and one who was not looked on as a trifling character? his name I will mention to any one who will apply to me; however, my brother said, the man who was sent with the application was a poor peasant, and the most unfit person in the world to send for intelligence; this argument was what had weight with Count Donop, and which saved his life.[I] These circumstances being mentioned by a brother, and which he declared to be true, naturally produced an alteration in my sentiments ...
— Nuts for Future Historians to Crack • Various
... coming here to get away from nerves! I was so satisfied. I really meant to thank you, John, until I discovered—it. Oh yes, I know—Elizabeth is looking over your shoulder, and you two are saying something that is unfit for publication about old maids! My children, then thank the Lord you aren't either of you old maids. Make the most ...
— The Very Small Person • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... by birth, education, and character, a Spaniard, and that so exclusively, that the circumstance would alone have made him unfit to govern a country so totally different in habits and national sentiments from his native land. He was more a foreigner in Brussels, even, than in England. The gay, babbling, energetic, noisy life of Flanders and Brabant was detestable to him. The loquacity of ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... exchange for empire, for safety, for glory! We set out in our dealing with a miserable cheat upon ourselves. I know it may be said, that we may prevail on this proud, philosophical, military Republic, which looks down with contempt on trade, to declare it unfit for the sovereign of nations to be eundem negotiatorem et dominum: that, in virtue of this maxim of her state, the English in France may be permitted, as the Jews are in Poland and in Turkey, to execute ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... Mr Macmichael. She made some new clothes for it now, and Tibby made a cloak and bonnet for her to wear when she went out of doors. But it struck Willie that her shoes, which were only of cloth, were very unfit for walking, and he thought that in a doctor's family it was something quite amazing that, while head and shoulders were properly looked after, the feet should remain utterly neglected. It was clear that must be ...
— Gutta-Percha Willie • George MacDonald
... corn-factor's mien was half admiring, and yet it was not without a dash of pity for the tastes of any one who could care to give his mind to such finnikin details. Henchard himself was mentally and physically unfit for grubbing subtleties from soiled paper; he had in a modern sense received the education of Achilles, and found penmanship a ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... shall find a more convenient place to treat in the second part of these commentaries. But when a clerk is presented, the bishop may refuse him upon many accounts. As, 1. If the patron is excommunicated, and remains in contempt forty days[a]. Or, 2. If the clerk be unfit[b]: which unfitness is of several kinds. First, with regard to his person; as if he be a bastard, an outlaw, an excommunicate, an alien, under age, or the like[c]. Next, with regard to his faith or morals; as for any particular heresy, or vice ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... ears. This last address had disconcerted the young mother sadly, and cost her some tears; for she was as innocent as Geoff, and the idea that there were in the village things to tell her that were unfit for the child's ears threw her into daily terror, not only for him, but for herself. This was one of the things that made it apparent that a new rule was necessary. Her business grew day by day, as she began to understand it ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... sent to parliament? Hardly a dozen out of 670, and these only under the persuasion of conspicuous personal qualifications and popular eloquence. The multitude thus pronounces judgment on its own units: it admits itself unfit to govern, and will vote only for a man morphologically and generically transfigured by palatial residence and equipage, by transcendent tailoring, by the glamor of aristocratic kinship. Well, we two know these transfigured persons, these college ...
— Man And Superman • George Bernard Shaw
... condensed air will be used to resist the outer heat. This will certainly make it so hot it will be unfit ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass
... in the province of Yuen-nan is here situated at the east end of a one-span suspension bridge, about one hundred and fifty feet in length. No ponies carrying loads are allowed to cross the bridge, the roads east of this being unfit for beasts of burden. There is then a fearful climb to a place called Teo-sha-kwan, a stage of only sixty li. The reader should not mentally reduce this to English miles, for the march was more like fifty miles than thirty, if we consider the physical exertion required to scale the treacherous ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle
... Woolwich, and desired me to meet him. Which fearing might have lain in Sir J. Minnes' pocket a while, he sending it me, did give my Lord Bruncker, his mistress, and I occasion to talk of him as the most unfit man for business in the world. Though at last afterwards I found that he was not in this faulty, but hereby I have got a clear evidence of my Lord Bruncker's opinion of him. My Lord Bruncker presently ordered his coach to be ready and we to Woolwich, and my Lord Sandwich not ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... horse and rode to the rear, but it was some time before he turned over the command to Couch, who was second in rank. After this stroke he suffered a great deal from paroxysms of pain, and was manifestly unfit to give orders, although he soon resumed ...
— Chancellorsville and Gettysburg - Campaigns of the Civil War - VI • Abner Doubleday
... 'twould seem, How high I stand in, Claudius, your esteem: For when he begs and prays me, day by day, Before you his good qualities to lay, As not unfit the heart and home to share Of Nero, who selects his friends with care; When he supposes you to me extend The rights and place of a familiar friend, Far better than myself he sees and knows, How far with you my commendation goes. Pleas without number I protest I've used, ...
— Horace • Theodore Martin
... a calm courtliness about him which I think very imposing. He is the only man I ever saw who, without being very young, was not an unfit companion for youth. And there is no affectation of juvenility about him. He involuntarily reminds you of youth, as an ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... a century ago for the convenience of exportation. The lower part of the mass is the hardest and most compact, and is therefore preferred by the quarrymen; as it rises, the upper part becomes loose and sandy, and unfit for use. You must not suppose the stream to be clear like the Aar, for it is as thick as pea-soup, and about the same colour, being in fact a river of trass in solution. The banks, however, are picturesque and well wooded, particularly at Schweppenbourg, an old castle of ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 326, August 9, 1828 • Various
... the case, and having come to the conclusion that he lacked vocation for the priesthood, sent him home. Timothy was accustomed to say that his violence might have been passed over, but that his failure to appreciate the devotion to duty which inspired the tale-bearer marked him decisively as unfit for ordination. He never regretted his expulsion, although he complained bitterly that he had been nearly choked before they cast him out. He meant, it is to be supposed, that the effort to instil a proper reverence for dogma had almost destroyed his capacity ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... indulgences, may smile at the infantile simplicity of such resources and modes of enjoyment. They were childish, but perhaps not the less wise for that. Infancy lies very near to heaven. Childhood is a not unfit study for angels; and happy were it for us could we maintain the hearts and the hopes of that innocent period for a longer day within our bosoms. In our world we grow too fast, too presumptuously. We live on too rich food, moral and intellectual. The artifices ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... Morton, however, I shall give both of you an opportunity to reflect upon the folly of your present course. Within a few days I shall send for you again. If then you still continue to defy me I will take measures to have you, Miss Harlowe, removed from your charge of Harlowe House as being unfit for the responsibility, while you, Miss Brent, will be expelled from Overton College for disobedience and insubordination. That will do for this morning." Miss Wharton dismissed them with ...
— Grace Harlowe's Problem • Jessie Graham Flower
... or State Attorney, as he is called in the Transvaal, is the responsible head of the Law Department, and until lately was the departmental head of the police. The gentleman then occupying the position of State Attorney was peculiarly unfit—in the midst of that world of unfitness—for the duties which he was supposed to perform. He was removed from office, and after considerable negotiation Mr. Esselen was prevailed upon at a great monetary sacrifice to accept the position of State Attorney, he stipulating ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... nothing! If they were branded for desperate wretches that caused their children to pass through the fire to Moloch, surely thou much more that gives thy soul to devouring flames, to be fuel for the everlasting fire, upon so unfit terms; what meanest thou, O man, to truck with the devils? Is there no better merchandise to trade in than what comes from hell, or out of the bowels of the earth? and to be had upon no lower rates than thy immortal soul? Yes, surely the merchandise of ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... 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 Life and Public Service of General Zachary Taylor: An Address • Abraham Lincoln
... inception and their present stage of development there is scarcely the beat of a pendulum; and already, by corruption and lawlessness, the people of both continents, with all their diversities of race and character, have shown themselves about equally unfit. To become a nation of scoundrels all that any people needs is opportunity, and what we are pleased to call by the impossible name of "self-government" ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... by means of which, a style can ever appear beautiful or exalted, and is adapted to the purposes of poetry, by having been long consecrated to its use. The language of the vulgar, on the other hand, has all the opposite associations to contend with; and must seem unfit for poetry (if there were no other reason), merely because it has scarcely ever been employed in it. A great genius may indeed overcome these disadvantages; but we can scarcely conceive that he should court them. We may excuse a certain homeliness of language in the productions of ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... of one size, and directed with one hand: a letter to most of the Members of the House. The House was acquainted with it, and voted they should be brought in, and one opened by the Speaker; wherein if he found any thing unfit to communicate, to propose a Committee to be chosen for it. The Speaker opening one, found it only a case with a libell in it, printed: a satire most sober and bitter as ever I read; and every letter was the same. So the House fell a-scrambling for them like boys: ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... service's 20,146 Negroes (269 officers and 19,877 airmen), approximately 5 percent of its strength, for the purpose of reassigning those eligible to former all-white units and training schools and dropping the unfit from the service.[16-2] As Secretary of the Air Force Symington made clear, his integration plan would be limited in scope. Some black service units would be retained; the rest would be eliminated, "thereby relieving ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... differing from most human creatures Not so much in speech, inward structure or features, As in having a certain excrescence, T. said, Which in form of a coronet grew from its head, And devolved to its heirs, when the creature was dead; Nor mattered it, while this heirloom was transmitted, How unfit were the heads, so ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... and unfit for much now, I confess," he said in a tone of relief. He saw she was not seriously alarmed, and it was a comfort to confide so ...
— How It All Came Round • L. T. Meade
... gasp; he did not gasp, however; he only gazed—gazed with a gaze no longer inward and unseeing. He was, at last, seeing everything. He fell back on the one most evident thing he saw, and had from the beginning seen. 'But Helen—she could never have loved him. Such a marriage would be unfit for Helen. I'm not excusing myself. I see I've been an ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... it. I'm very unfit for all this. I like the dyeing and the chemical part of the business; but what all these men said was Chinese to me. I wish you'd just tell me what some of these words mean,' he said, as he sat down to the table and ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin
... 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, but could rather have wished ...
— European Background Of American History - (Vol. I of The American Nation: A History) • Edward Potts Cheyney
... Hussars. Of the Gallant Brigade, which half an hour before had numbered 600 horseman, not 200 now remained fit for duty. 113 officers and men had been killed, and 134 wounded, while upwards of 400 horses were killed or rendered unfit for service. Although the Russian batteries still kept up their fire, many of the troopers who had themselves escaped dashed back to search for their wounded officers or comrades, and several were thus saved ...
— Our Soldiers - Gallant Deeds of the British Army during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... harmony of nature's perfumes, a rosy dawn veiled in slight mists, the winning notes of some divinest music, or indeed any unexpected motion within the soul or within the body. To this lonely girl, buried in that old house, brought up by simple, half rustic parents, who had never heard an unfit word, whose pure unsullied mind had never known the slightest evil thought,—to the angelic pupil of Soeur Marthe and the vicar of Saint-Etienne the revelation of love, the life of womanhood, came from ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... suggest is concerted effort towards a measured purification of the electorate through the penalizing of law-breakers by temporary disfranchisement. It is hardly too much to assume that a man who deliberately breaks the law is constructively unfit to vote or to hold office, at all events, conviction for any crime or misdemeanour gives a reasonable ground for depriving the offender of these privileges, at least for a time. The law-breaking element, whether it is millionaire or proletarian, ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram
... breath. He had heard tales of Barclay Fetters which, if true, made him unfit to touch a decent woman. He left the hall, walked a short distance down a street and around the corner to the bar in the rear of the hotel, where he ordered a glass of whiskey. He had never been drunk in his ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... language became the more peremptory, and their contempt for other groups the more bitter. One of the most respectable of the group, J. S. Cartwright, frankly confessed that he thought his fellow-colonists unfit for any extension of self-government "in a country where almost universal suffrage prevails, where the great mass of the people are uneducated, and where there is but little of that salutary influence which hereditary rank and great wealth exercise in Great ...
— British Supremacy & Canadian Self-Government - 1839-1854 • J. L. Morison
... "Then of course, unfit for service and field man[oe]uvres. Send him to the Etat Major. The Republic will find a fitting mount for you; you ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... tale of Susanna and the Elders. Being young, my first notion was that I had chanced on a capital subject for an opera; and I actually thought for ten minutes of commencing at once on a libretto. Later I remembered the censor, and realised for the first time that in England, when a subject is unfit for a drama, it is treated as an oratorio. As soon as possible I bought Handel's "Susanna" instead, and found that Handel curiously—or perhaps not curiously—had also been before me in thinking of treating the subject ...
— Old Scores and New Readings • John F. Runciman
... which drew him to dwell upon it; yet her face and form possessed him with their mere perfection. He had to set himself sometimes to get rid of what seemed all but her very presence, for it threatened to unfit him for the right discharge of his duties. He was haunted with the form to which he had given a renewal of life, as a murderer is haunted with the form of the man he has killed. In those marvelous intervals betwixt sleep and waking, when the soul is like a camera obscura, into which throng ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... at work for which he is unfit, therefore, finds it not a means of self-expression, but a slow form of self-destruction. All this wretchedness of spirit reacts directly upon the efficiency of the worker. "A successful day is likely to be a restful one," says Professor ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... establishing himself again at Urbino. But he could not hold his own against the Borgias, and in December, by a treaty, he resigned his claims and retired to Venice, where he lived upon the bounty of S. Mark. It must be said, in justice to the Duke, that his constitutional debility rendered him unfit for active operations in the field. Perhaps he could not have done better than thus to bend beneath ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... the highest perfection in this! Pride, coldness, or fastidiousness of nature, worldly cares, an anxious or ambitious disposition, a passion for display, a sullen temper,—one or the other—too often proves 'the dead fly in the compost of spices', and any one is enough to unfit it for the precious balm of unction. For some mighty good sort of people, too, there is not seldom a sort of solemn saturnine, or, if you will, ursine vanity, that keeps itself alive by sucking the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... been possessed of steadiness, prudence, and principle, was he very unfit for such a post at such a time. For he was very fertile in resources, and well-endowed with both physical and moral courage; but these faculties were combined with, were indeed the parents of, a mischievous defect. He ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... himself partly by concert playing and partly by teaching. As early as 1838 the symptoms of pulmonary weakness began to appear, and from that time to the end of his life he was more or less an invalid, always in delicate health and sometimes unfit for any exertion. From the brilliancy of his position in Paris, the death of Chopin was a great shock to the artistic world, and he was buried with most impressive ceremonies. His grave is not far from those of Bellini and Cherubini. He was a man of fine wit, aristocratic presence, ...
— The Masters and their Music - A series of illustrative programs with biographical, - esthetical, and critical annotations • W. S. B. Mathews
... you are numerous, and all the English governors along your seashore can raise men enough; but don't let those that come from over the great seas be concerned any more. They are unfit to fight in the woods. Let us go ourselves, we that came ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... 12th, enabled us to finish picking, airing, and baking our biscuit; four thousand two hundred and ninety-two pounds of which we found totally unfit to eat; and about three thousand pounds more could only be eaten by ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... three and four years old, gave out from sheer exhaustion; while the older ones kept up, and had to draw the wagons along. Now, there are many purposes to which a young mule may be put with advantage; but they are altogether unfit for army purposes, and the sooner the Government stops using ...
— The Mule - A Treatise On The Breeding, Training, - And Uses To Which He May Be Put • Harvey Riley
... and arrogant, he has kept the people at a distance; and their voice has no longer instructed and guided him. Ignorant, yet flattered, neglecting all instruction, all study, he has fallen into imbecility; unfit for business, he has thrown its burdens on hirelings, and they have deceived him. To satisfy their own passions, they have stimulated and nourished his; they have multiplied his wants, and his enormous ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... lover, I welcome the openings that are being given to women to earn their own livelihood. I can conceive of no more degrading profession for a woman—no profession more calculated to unfit her for being that wife and mother we talk so much about than the profession that up to a few years ago was the only one open to her—the profession ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome
... Whitburn across the Earl and the Countess, "what for but to make them as feckless as the priests, unfit ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge
... "I am ill and unfit for hardship, but there is a man among my servants whom I will send with thee when thou goest, to bring ...
— The Story of the Other Wise Man • Henry Van Dyke
... exceedingly difficult, as in the case of all secret societies, to discover anything with certainty concerning these sacred rites. The most plausible supposition is that the doctrines taught by the priests to the favoured few whom they initiated, were religious truths which were deemed unfit for the uninstructed mind of the multitude. For instance, it is supposed that the myth of Demeter and Persephone was explained by the teachers of the Mysteries to signify the temporary loss which mother earth sustains every year when the icy breath of winter ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... average condition is worse. The increase of disease and mortality is a result not so much of poverty as of condition. "The pith and burden of the whole matter is, that the great mass of the poor are compelled to live in tenements that are unfit for human beings, and under circumstances in which it is impossible to preserve ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... want of proper general officers to command the troops and enforce order and discipline, and especially to protect public property from robbery and plunder. Some of the brigadier-generals assigned to this department are entirely ignorant of their duties and unfit for any command. I assure you, Mr. President, it is very difficult to accomplish much with such means. I am in the condition of a carpenter who is required to build a bridge with a dull axe, a broken saw, and rotten timber. It is true ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... he never swerved from that aim. It was his meat to do the Father's will, and to finish his work. In this particular case, accordingly, the object which he kept in view was not to convey to men in the body the absolute knowledge of a state, for knowing which their faculties are unfit, but to convey to them in time such shadows or signals of danger and safety as the actual state of matters in the unseen world truly suggested, and in such forms as that living men, from their view-point, and with their mixed ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... fatigued, it was resolved to leave here most of our batteaus, which had already been reduced from 10 to 6 to each company—but 6 I think were carried from this place. We overhauled our ammunition and found most of our powder damaged and unfit for use; all of this description we destroyed on ...
— An interesting journal of Abner Stocking of Chatham, Connecticut • Abner Stocking |
