"Fall short" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... cars and an engine at Woodburn, on the Louisville and Nashville railroad, at 6 o'clock, P.M., February 26th. The whole amount of Federal property destroyed on the 21st, 25th and 26th, inclusive, can not fall short of half a million of dollars. In conclusion, Colonel, we have been twenty-one days, one hundred and fifty miles within the enemy's lines, traveled in thirty-six hours one hundred miles, injured the Federal Government half a million dollars, caused him to collect troops at points ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... misfortune to be wounded in almost every battle he fights. Nevertheless, he has gained a glorious victory. Our loss in killed and wounded will not exceed 5000; while the enemy's killed, wounded, and prisoners will not fall short of 13,000. They lost, besides, many guns, tents, and stores—all wrung from them at the point of the bayonet, and in spite of their formidable abattis. Prisoners taken on the field say: "The Southern soldiers would charge into hell if there was a battery before them—and ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... against the line which he had taken as Secretary of State with regard to the Roman Catholic Bishops in Ireland, and particularly the Bequest Act, and considering that after Lord John's letter the Bill would fall short of the high expectations formed in the ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... cultivation that it shall be a perfect mirror of past times, and of the present, so far as the incompleteness of the present will permit, 'in true outline and proportion.' Mommsen, Grote, Droysen, fall short of the ideal, because they drugged ancient history with modern politics. The Jesuit learning of the sixteenth century was sham learning, because it was tainted with the interested motives of Church patriotism. To search antiquity ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 5: On Pattison's Memoirs • John Morley
... is not only to wish him well, but also to do him all the good that it is in our power to do. If we fall short of this, we deserve the reproach of St. James, addressed to those who, though they have ample means for giving material aid to the poor, content themselves with ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... against England, even though too craven to make itself audible, constitutes the essence of their mental vitality. Some there are, too, so selfish as to sell their own and their families' honour for gold; but as they count their sordid gains, if they fall short by a scruple, whether in fact or in anticipation, the deficiency becomes a heap of hoarded spite against England. One man of that class, whom I had known, will furnish a conclusive example. Trusted and paid by the Whigs, he was a supreme West Briton, who saw ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... another? But when he says that there is something greater and yet not exceeding, it were worth the while to ask, whether these things quadrate with one another. For if they quadrate, how is either the greater? And if they do not quadrate, how can it be but the one must exceed and the other fall short? For if neither of these are true, the other both will and will not quadrate with the greater. For those who keep not the common conceptions must of ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... elsewhere, they performed such feats of valour that their name is still used by Turkish mothers as a bugbear to frighten their children. But the stories have always seemed to me incredible; now I perceive they were true, and that the present members of the Order in no way fall short of the valour of ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... marriage might do,—and great men were prepared to welcome, and fine ladies to invite and bring out, the heir to the statesman's grave repute,—yet wonder and curiosity soon died away; the repute soon passed out of date, and its heir was soon forgotten. Politicians who fall short of the highest renown are like actors; no applause is so vivid while they are on the stage, no oblivion so complete when the curtain ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... attained of the difficult art, and how intuitively correct was his grasp of military situations, has been attested since in the enthusiastic admiration of brilliant technical students, amply fitted by training and intellect to express an opinion, whose comment does not fall short of declaring Mr. Lincoln "the ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... not much we do understand, any of us. That's where I think books fall short—they explain things just as far as the writer understands. And whiles he doesna understand very far, but he's got a trick of putting things nicely. Most things you know without understanding: you do them blindly and someday you see they've been right. That's what I mean about God making us ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... school, among acquaintances, she had been used to have her conscious superiority admitted; and she had moved in a society where everything, from low arithmetic to high art, is of the amateur kind, politely supposed to fall short of perfection only because gentlemen and ladies are not obliged to do more than they like—otherwise they would probably give forth abler writings, and show themselves more commanding artists than any the world is at present obliged to put up with. The ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... temperance by the penalty of satiety. Were there an age of delight or any pleasure durable, who would not honour Volupia? but the race of delight is short, and pleasures have mutable faces. The pleasures of one age are not pleasures in another, and their lives fall short of our own. Even in our sensual days the strength of delight is in its seldomness or rarity, and sting in its satiety; mediocrity is its life, and immoderacy its confusion. The luxurious emperors of ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... of eggs that a queen will deposit is often another point of guess-work. When the estimate does not exceed 200 per diem, I have no reason to dispute it; the number will probably fall short in some cases, and exceed it in others. Some writers suppose that this number "would never produce a swarm, as the bees that are lost daily amount to, or even exceed that number," and give us instead from eight hundred to four thousand eggs in a day, from one queen. The only way to test the ...
— Mysteries of Bee-keeping Explained • M. Quinby
... fair to blame the trousers or the tailor," he had said when he had tried them on. "My legs are so long that the imagination of the tailor is sure to fall short if the cloth don't. Next time I'll have 'em made to measure with a ten-foot pole instead of a yardstick. If they're too long I can roll 'em up and let out a link or two when they shrink. Ever since I was a boy I have been troubled ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller
... keep a promise down to the last dot of the last letter, far be it from me to fall short," she remarked. "Oh, Betty, do you see any office that looks like Sherwood and David on ...
— Betty Gordon in Washington • Alice B. Emerson
... the pure air of the country or to daily manual toil is not known, but the fact remains that bowlers in village matches, whatever their other shortcomings, seldom fall short in the matter of speed. The present trundler, having swung his arm round like a flail, bounded to the crease and sent down a ball which hummed in the air. It pitched halfway between the wickets in a slight hollow caused by the foot of a cow and shot. Dick reached blindly forward, ...
— A Wodehouse Miscellany - Articles & Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... particulars, I conceive, England may touch about one million sterling a-year. — I don't pretend to make an exact calculation; perhaps, it may be something less, and perhaps, a great deal more. The annual revenue arising from all the private estates of Scotland cannot fall short of a million sterling; and, I should imagine, their trade will amount to as much more. — I know the linen manufacture alone returns near half a million, exclusive of the home-consumption of that article. — If, therefore, North-Britain pays a ballance ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... of offensive and forward measures, and when Nanking was equipped for defence a large part of the Taeping army was ordered to march against Peking. At this time it was computed that the total number of the Taepings did not fall short of 80,000 trustworthy fighting men, while there were perhaps more than 100,000 Chinese pressed into their service as hewers of wood and drawers of water. The lines of Nanking and the batteries along the Yangtsekiang were the creation of the forced labour of the population ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... by their song and plumage, and by being the pioneers in migrating, seem to be slightly in excess lest the supply fall short, and hence it sometimes happens that a few are bachelors perforce; there are not females enough to go around, but before the season is over there are sure to be some vacancies in the marital ranks, which they are ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... things measured and ruled the mean consists in the measure or rule being attained; if we go beyond the rule, there is excess, if we fall short of the rule, there is deficiency. But in the rule or measure itself there is no such thing as a mean or extremes. Now a moral virtue is concerned with things ruled by reason, and these things are its proper object; wherefore ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... therefore, could Art have, than to represent that which in Nature actually is? Or how should it undertake to excel so-called actual Nature, since it must always fall short ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... then as the staff fall short in this vital matter of toleration, they must themselves go to school and learn; and he is probably a poor teacher who is not himself ever learning something more. Here perhaps the head master might find one ...
— The School and the World • Victor Gollancz and David Somervell
... officers, more miserly than himself, and, fearful that they might fall short in their salaries and pensions, began to urge upon the monarch the folly of keeping this rash vow, and the danger of thus involving himself ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... the enjoyment of his full confidence, who would proceed to apply fitting tests to the respective candidates. Should one fail and the other succeed, the victor would of course be instituted; should both undergo the probation successfully, new criterions of merit would be devised; should both fall short, both would be set aside, and the disputed mitre would be conferred elsewhere. He would first summon Nonnus, long their fellow-citizen, and now their fellow-Christian, to submit himself ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... one has ever heard of sweetness in language and delicacy in pronunciation, fall short of Siennese converse. The girls who wait on us at the inn here, would be treasures in England, could one get them thither; and they need move nothing but their tongues to make their fortunes. I told Rosetta so, and said I would steal from them a poor girl of eight ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... Christian life is the only life that will ever be completed. Apart from Christ the life of man is a broken pillar, the race of men an unfinished pyramid. One by one in sight of Eternity all human Ideals fall short, one by one before the open grave all human hopes ...
— Beautiful Thoughts • Henry Drummond
... I, nor any other creature could find adequate terms in which to describe her marvellous charms. You must therefore picture to yourself the most perfect features, joined to a brilliant and delicate complexion, and an enchanting expression, and even then imagination will fall short of ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Andrew Lang.
... improper sources; that it gives to the wrong objects, and is usually accompanied with intemperance. Illiberality is incurable: it is confirmed by age, and is more congenial to men generally than prodigality. Some of the illiberal fall short in giving—those called stingy, close-fisted, and so on; but do not desire what belongs to other people. Others are excessive in receiving from all sources; such are they that ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... supplied by irrigation will fall short presently, when the owners carry the water on to thousands of adjoining acres; therefore, a full and permanent supply of water is ...
— A start in life • C. F. Dowsett
... casting all manner of weapons, stones, etc., at him, certain that no matter how cleverly they tried, and how accurately they aimed, the objects, having sworn not to injure him, would either glance aside or fall short. This new amusement proved to be so fascinating that soon all the gods gathered around Balder, greeting each new failure to hurt him with prolonged ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... construct ideals that can not possibly be realized in ordinary life. But he is more than ready to blame those who fall short of them, while making no effort to ...
— Poise: How to Attain It • D. Starke
... of speed. Orville was staring straight ahead, so only he saw Michael's hand make a quick movement toward the controller, and another movement, at the same time, as if his foot were trying to press on the brake; but both movements seemed to fall short and Michael's head dropped on his breast. Alarmed, Orville looked up. He had a swift glimpse of a flashing red light. A chain snapped like a pistol shot. He heard an oath from Thornton, and a scream from Marion. Then, in an instant, he felt the great weight falling, and a flood of cold water ...
— The City and the World and Other Stories • Francis Clement Kelley
... on a distant and inaccessible world the farthest flight of imagination might fall short of the reality, but I have preferred to treat these matters somewhat restrainedly. Whilst no one can say positively that the intelligent inhabitants of Mars do not possess bodies resembling our own, ...
— To Mars via The Moon - An Astronomical Story • Mark Wicks
... real use to you in the House of Commons, in negotiations, in conversation; with that, you may justly hope to please, to persuade, to seduce, to impose; and you will fail in those articles, in proportion as you fall short of it. Upon the whole, lay aside, during your year's residence at Paris, all thoughts of all that dull fellows call solid, and exert your utmost care to acquire what people of fashion call shining. 'Prenez l'eclat et ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... evidence with such an apparent wealth of material is held by many persons to throw doubt on the theory of evolution itself. They urge, with much appearance of reason, that all the arguments we have hitherto adduced fall short of demonstration, and that the crucial test consists in being able to show, in a great number of cases, those connecting links which we say must have existed. Many of the gaps that still remain are so vast that it seems incredible to these writers ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... a wretched little child as our instrument in the exemplary punishment of its parent is another. At present that is our hideous practice. So long as the parents are not convicted criminals, so long as they do not practise indictable cruelty upon their offspring, so long as the children themselves fall short of criminality, we insist upon the parent "keeping" the child. It may be manifest the child is ill-fed, harshly treated, insufficiently clothed, dirty and living among surroundings harmful to body and soul alike, but we merely take the quivering damaged ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... formidable champion of the new opinions. Though he did little but translate other men's work he did that with genius. His version of Erasmus's Manual of a Christian Knight was exquisitely done, and his version of Luther's Tesseradecas did not fall short of it. Tried and condemned in 1523, he was saved by the king at the behest of Margaret. [Sidenote: 1526] The access of rigor during the king's captivity gave place to a momentary tolerance. Berquin, who had been arrested, was liberated, and Lefevre recalled from exile. But the ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... reliefs need not on the whole shrink from a comparison with those of the Achaemenian Persians. If they are ruder and more grotesque, they are also more spirited and more varied; and thus, though they fall short in some respects, still they must be pronounced superior to the Achaemenian in some of the most important artistic qualities. Nor do they fall greatly behind the earlier, and in many respects admirable, art of the Assyrians. ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 7. (of 7): The Sassanian or New Persian Empire • George Rawlinson
... time and industry produce them here. In a word, we yet enjoy little to be envied, but endure much to be pitied in the sickness and mortality of our people. And I do the more willingly use this open and plain dealing, lest other men should fall short of their expectations when they come hither, as we to our great prejudice did, by means of letters sent us from hence into England, wherein honest men, out of a desire to draw over others to them, wrote something hyperbolically of many things here. If any godly men, out of religious ends, will come ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... presume to declare myself competent to effect so much, and I am more conscious than my critics how far I fall short of my high aim; but the modest attempt, made with the resolution to accept all criticism offered with courtesy and good faith, does not imply culpable presumption nor ...
— Myth and Science - An Essay • Tito Vignoli
... journey again?' JOHNSON. 'Why no, Sir; not the same: it is a tale told. Gravina, an Italian critick, observes, that every man desires to see that of which he has read; but no man desires to read an account of what he has seen: so much does description fall short of reality. Description only excites curiosity: seeing satisfies it. Other people may go and see the Hebrides.' BOSWELL. 'I should wish to go and see some country totally different from what I have been used ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... of the Christian character reigns throughout the whole of that excellent piece. The occasion called for it. It was to compose the dissensions of the church of Corinth. And the venerable hearer of the apostles does not fall short, in the display of this principle, of the finest passages of their writings. He calls to the remembrance of the Corinthian church its former character in which "ye were all of you," he tells them, "humble-minded, ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... jasper.[797] They are scratched rather than deeply cut, and cannot be said ever to attain to any considerable artistic beauty. Those which have been here given are among the best; and they certainly fall short, both in design and workmanship, of many Assyrian, Babylonian, and ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... in the world,—Confucius, Buddha, Zoroaster, Socrates, Plato, . . there is no end to them, and their teachings have been valuable so far as they went, but even Plato's majestic arguments in favor of the Immortality of the Soul fall short of anything sure and graspable. There were so many prefigurements of what WAS to come, . . just as the sign of the Cross was used in the Temple of Serapis, and was held in singular mystic veneration by various tribes of Egyptians, Arabians, and Indians, ages before Christ came. And now that these ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... His thoughts are flowing in a quick current— too quick for cool deliberation. He knows he can trust his own aim, as well as that of his comrade. But the distance is doubtful, and the shots might fall short. Then it would be certain death to them; for the situation is such that there could be no chance to escape, with fifty horsemen to pursue, themselves mounted upon mules, and therewith be reached without difficulty. They might defend themselves on the mound, ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... massive. A short-cut beard concealed his chin, but his mouth was of iron and his eyes were hard and keen. He was of no more than the average stature by reason of his breadth and girth; he seemed even to fall short of it, which was not however the case. A man not easily led or controlled, a man of passions and prejudices, emphatically not a man to be trifled with ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... herewith communicated contains a detailed statement of the operations of his Department during the past year. It will be seen that the income from postages will fall short of the expenditures for the year between $1,000,000 and $2,000,000. This deficiency has been caused by the reduction of the rates of postage, which was made by the act of the 3d of March last. No principle has been more generally acquiesced in by the people than that this Department should sustain ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... materials were beginning to fall short and the lofty wall remained inaccessible to the marksmen in ...
— The Frontier • Maurice LeBlanc
... made. "Ye shall therefore be perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect." Our Lord is not, in these words, enunciating a rule of perfection for a few saintly souls. He is laying down the law, the standard of all human lives. To fall short of this, is to fall short of what it means to ...
— Gloria Crucis - addresses delivered in Lichfield Cathedral Holy Week and Good Friday, 1907 • J. H. Beibitz
... before me, and am struck to a degree that I cannot express with the force and accuracy of his descriptions and the beauty of their reality. Meillerie, Clarens, and Vevay, and the Chateau de Chillon, are places of which I shall say little, because all I could say must fall short of the impressions ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... special charge, and most jealous was she that it should in no respect fall short of that outfit of Lucy's for which she had cared so little. A hard task it was to make Genevieve accept what Lucy had exacted, but Sophy held the purse-strings, wrote the orders, and had ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... there's no telling; thee mustna lose heart. She's made out o' stuff with a finer grain than most o' the women; I can see that clear enough. But if she's better than they are in other things, I canna think she'll fall short ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... Sower is given to each of us in this world, and we fall short of our duty when we let those with whom we are brought in contact leave us without having given them a kind thought or ...
— Gold Dust - A Collection of Golden Counsels for the Sanctification of Daily Life • E. L. E. B.
... takings fall short of her equally high standard? She threatens to pull mine: for I, cavalier, am the treasurer. . . . But at what rate am I overrunning my impulses to ask news from you! How does your father, sir—that modern Bayard? And Captain Pomery? And ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... is not only difficult and laborious, but is extremely perilous. Food cannot always be obtained—supplies fall short, or become exhausted—game is scarce, or cannot be found at all, as at that season many of the quadrupeds and most of the birds have forsaken the country, and migrated to the South—and whole parties of travellers—even Indians, who can eat anything living or ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... how Kentuckians can maintain the breed of their horses through many generations, but so frequently fall short in the standard of their sons. Kentuckians are only an instance. The same might ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... in its place again. I was struck with Ernest's asking in the very first prayer he offered in my presence, after our marriage, that God would help us love each other. I felt that love was the very foundation on which I was built, and that there was no danger that I should ever fall short in giving to my husband all he wanted, in full measure. But as he went on day after day repeating this prayer, and I naturally made it with him, I came to see that this most precious of earthly blessings had been and must be God's gift, and that while we both looked at it in that light, and felt ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss
... to teach you a little lesson," continued Lord Hastings. "In the future, perhaps you will neither fall short nor go beyond your orders. I ordered you to Gravesend. You should ...
— The Boy Allies Under the Sea • Robert L. Drake
... Smith's volume on the Ruminantia, which treat of the Genus Bos, and I here subjoin (verbatim) the generic and subgeneric characters there given of that Genus, by which it will be seen how far they fall short of the clearness and precision which are indispensable to a ...
— Delineations of the Ox Tribe • George Vasey
... own powers had been tested many a time; this was not more than double the strain she had withstood before, and she was aware of strength in reserve, to say nothing of conviction that what Yasmini's maids could do she herself would rather perish than fall short of. There is an element of sheer, pugnacious, unchristian human pride that is said to damn, while it saves the best of ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... "The time we have lost," says Richard Baxter, "can not be recalled; should we not then redeem and improve the little that remains? If a traveler sleep or trifle most of the day, he must travel so much the faster in the evening, or fall short of his journey's end." ...
— The Mind of Jesus • John R. Macduff
... [19] workfolk, [20] whether a man takes any pains at all to see that his labourers are devoted to the work on hand during the appointed time, [21] or whether he neglects that duty. Since one man will fairly distance ten [22] simply by working at the time, and another may as easily fall short by leaving off before the hour. [23] In fact, to let the fellows take things easily the whole day through will make a difference easily of half in ...
— The Economist • Xenophon
... cast fearful spells on those whom she hated, and that she had been seen in the likeness of a cat seated on the cloth of state by the side of the Lord High Commissioner. The man, however, over whose roof so many curses appeared to hang did not, as far as we can now judge, fall short of that very low standard of morality which was generally attained by politicians of his age and nation. In force of mind and extent of knowledge he was superior to them all. In his youth he had borne arms: he had then been a professor of philosophy: ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... organs—what can he do with them? If the privilege of being a pupil in the standard college were conditioned strictly upon the second of these questions—the condition of his organs—as well as upon the first, fifty out of a hundred pupils, as prepared at present, would fall short of admission. If the same test were applied for admission to the faculty, ninety out of a hundred teachers would fall short of admission. Having had analytic, self-destructive, learned habits for ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... admit, both of you, that the best of our American girls fall short of being all that is required over here. In other words, they can't hold a ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... so ungrateful as to forget to offer Mademoiselle de Gramont the only return in our power, however far it may fall short of what she merits," said he; "the 'Don' here, does not sing; he is not a poet even, except in soul, and all his inspirations flow through his brush; but he interprets poets with an art which I think is hardly less valuable than ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... be played by aircraft in war, commerce, and pleasure. Suppose we are not aware that some craft are made to float and others to be driven by propellers. Suppose such terms as Zeppelin, blimp, monoplane, biplane, hydroplane, dirigible have no definite import for us. Does not our knowledge fall short of that expected of well-informed men in ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... equality. It would perhaps be unkind to inquire whether the level of the modern man of letters, as compared with Scott, is due to the absence of valleys or the absence of mountains. But in any case, we have learnt in our day to arrange our literary effects carefully, and the only point in which we fall short of Scott is in the incidental misfortune that we have nothing particular ...
— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton
... ideas of great and small are terms almost entirely relative to the species of the objects, which are infinite. It is true, that having once fixed the species of any object, and the dimensions common in the individuals of that species, we may observe some that exceed, and some that fall short of, the ordinary standard: those which greatly exceed are, by that excess, provided the species itself be not very small, rather great and terrible than beautiful; but as in the animal world, and in a good measure in the vegetable world likewise, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... with real regret that I accept your resignation, for I speak what is merely a self-evident truth when I say that we shall have to look with some apprehension to what your successor does, whoever that successor may be, lest he fall short of the ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White Volume II • Andrew Dickson White
... of heaven and earth came crowding, contending, incessant upon his ear? One sees at a glance how the serious thought and poetry of Greece cling to a few master facts, not being compelled to fight always with the many-headed monster of detail; and this suggests to me that our literature may fall short of Grecian amplitude, depth, and simplicity, not wholly from inferiority of power, but from complications ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... must go through more engagements and more battles, and come victorious out of all before he betters himself; but miracles of that sort are seldom seen. For tell me, sirs, if you have ever reflected upon it, by how much do those who have gained by war fall short of the number of those who have perished in it? No doubt you will reply that there can be no comparison, that the dead cannot be numbered, while the living who have been rewarded may be summed up with three figures. All which is the reverse in the case of men of letters; for by skirts, to say ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... no right, and so cannot figure in the Class-list, even though, in 10 of the 13 cases, the answer is right. Of the remaining 28, no less than 26 have sent in accidental solutions, and therefore fall short of ...
— A Tangled Tale • Lewis Carroll
... rapidity beyond even sanguine expectations, Government will have to lay before the Indian Legislature next winter a budget scarcely less unpleasant than the last one. Even if expenditure does not outrun the estimates, revenue can hardly fail to fall short of them. Mr. Hailey, with perhaps forced optimism, seems to have reckoned upon taxation old and new continuing to yield at much the same rate during a year which began and is likely to end in great depression as during the preceding year, a great part of which had been a "boom" year. ...
— India, Old and New • Sir Valentine Chirol
... to this?" he continued. "Are we affected in any such way with regard to logs and the equal things we have just now spoken of? And do they appear to us to be equal in the same manner as abstract equality itself is, or do they fall short in some degree, or not at all, of being such as ...
— Apology, Crito, and Phaedo of Socrates • Plato
... sighing, he went up to him, and, bowing twice, inquired the reason of his grief. 'Is it,' said he, 'because you think that your descendants, through not cultivating themselves, will be unworthy of you? Or is it that, in your admiration of the ways of Yao and Shun, you are vexed that you fall short of them?' 'Child,' replied Confucius, 'how is it that you know my thoughts?' 'I have often,' said Tsze-sze, 'heard from you the lesson, that when the father has gathered and prepared the firewood, if the son cannot ...
— THE CHINESE CLASSICS (PROLEGOMENA) Unicode Version • James Legge
... remark, that the bird usually commences his song with the second syllable of his name, or the second note in the bar. Some birds fall short of these intervals; but there seems to be an endeavor, on the part of each individual, to reach the notes as they are written on the scale. A few sliding notes are occasionally introduced, and an occasional preluding cluck is heard when we ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... Wise succeeded, by his prudence, in curing him of his delusion by accosting him thus:—"It is nowise wonderful, king, that thou grievest over so beautiful and noble a wife, and bestowest costly coverlets and beds of down on her corpse, as she desired; but these honours fall short of what is due, as she still lies in the same clothes. It would be more suitable to raise her, and change her dress." As soon as the body was raised in the bed all sorts of corruption and foul smells came from it, and it was necessary in ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... immersion. It was a bath meant to solemnize the reception of the child into the guild of mankind, drawn from the prior custom of ablution at any solemn occasion. In both the object is greater purity, bodily and spiritual. As certainly as there is a law of conscience, as certainly as our actions fall short of our volitions, so certainly is man painfully aware of various imperfections and shortcomings. What he feels he attributes to the infant. Avowedly to free themselves from this sense of guilt the Delawares ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton
... be parted through the arrow catching in the weed; then he came over to me, and proposed that we should set-to at once to make a heavier arrow, suggesting that it had been lack of weight in the missile which had caused it to fall short. At that, I felt once more hopeful, and turned-to at once to prepare a new arrow; the bo'sun doing likewise; though in his case he intended to make a lighter one than that which had failed; for, as he put it, though the heavier ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson
... do. Between the purpose hinted at here, and the execution of that purpose contained in the succeeding pages, lies the broad line of separation which distinguishes between the will and the deed. How far I may fall short of another man's standard, remains to be discovered. How far I have fallen short of my own, I know ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... for fresh parliamentary grants to build churches in Scotland. The leaders did not seem much to like it, but had to follow. I remember dining at Sir R. Peel's with the Scotch deputation. It included Collins, a church bookseller of note, who told me that no sermon ought ever to fall short of an hour, for in less time than that it was not possible to explain any text of ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... the University Club, to the mind of Mr. Arnold Bennett, the finest of all the fine buildings that line the Avenue. "The residential blocks to the north of Fifty-ninth Street," he wrote in the book that on this side of the North Atlantic was known as "Your United States," "fall short of their pretensions in beauty and interest. But except for the miserly splitting, here and there, in the older edifices, of an inadequate ground floor into a mezzanine and a narrow box, there is ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice
... give us the true measure of the intellectual and moral culture of the times, the extent to which just ideas prevailed therein upon all the duties and functions of private and public life. Tried by the standard of absolute truth and right, grievously would they all fall short,—and we, too, with them. Judged by the human standard of progressive development and gradual growth,—the only standard to which the man of the beam can venture, unrebuked, to bring the man with the mote,—we shall find much in them all to sadden us, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... though her spirit was willing. There was an unspoken sentiment among the men that "The Sweet By and By" was not quite the best tune in the world for a quadrille. A Sunday-school hymn, no matter how rapidly it was rendered, seemed to fall short of the necessary vivacity for a polka. Besides, the wheezy little organ positively refused to go faster than a certain gait. Hose Ransom expressed the popular opinion of the instrument, after a figure in which he and his partner had been half a bar ahead of the music from start ...
— The Ruling Passion • Henry van Dyke
... Rusticus, Maximus; that I received clear and frequent impressions about living according to nature, and what kind of a life that is, so that, so far as depended on the gods, and their gifts, and help, and inspirations, nothing hindered me from forthwith living according to nature, though I still fall short of it through my own fault, and through not observing the admonitions of the gods, and, I may almost say, their direct instructions; that my body has held out so long in such a kind of life; that I never touched either Benedicta or Theodotus, and that, after having fallen into amatory ...
— Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
... that the two words "Heaped verdure" should be written; and others upheld that the device should be "Embroidered Hill." Others again suggested: "Vying with the Hsiang Lu;" and others recommended "the small Chung Nan." And various kinds of names were proposed, which did not fall short ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... all his army into Picardy in pursuit of the English army, which was in a hurry to reach and cross the Somme, and so continue its march northward. It was more than once forced to fight on its march with the people of the towns and country through which it was passing; provisions were beginning to fall short; and Edward sent his two marshals, the Earl of Warwick and Godfrey d'Harcourt, to discover where it was practicable to cross the river, which, at this season of the year and so near its mouth, was both broad and deep. They returned without having any satisfactory ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume II. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... Some of the shot flew over our heads, others on one side or the other, but hitherto none had struck us. I had a hope that, after all, there would be no bloodshed. We meantime had commenced firing, but either the Frenchmen's powder was better or their guns longer, for our shot mostly appeared to fall short, greatly to the vexation of our crew. The enemy also having had the last of the wind, while we were becalmed, were able to take up a better position than we had, and continued warmly engaging us, we often being scarcely able ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... in the face of all these difficulties, financial and constructive, a line should be completed along this wandering coast at all. Only in one respect, indeed, did the original project fall short of attainment. The great objective of which the shareholders heard so much in earlier days—Porth Dinlleyn—was never reached. The line still terminates at Pwllheli, where, up to 1901, the station lay at arm's length from the town close to the harbour, which, in hot ...
— The Story of the Cambrian - A Biography of a Railway • C. P. Gasquoine
... proportion to the gloom surrounding the audience. It cannot be doubted by men of penetration, that spiritualism, in its birth and maturity, is associated with sordidness and wickedness. At best, the spiritual operations are childish, or at least they fall short of the tricks of ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... sufferer by the fraud or wrong, but when it becomes frequent, *is a public injury* and calamity. In one way or another it alienates from the use of every honest man a very large proportion of his earnings or income. In this country, at the present time, we probably fall short of the truth in saying that at least a third part of every citizen's income is paid in the form of either direct or indirect taxation, and of this amount a percentage much larger than would be readily believed is pillaged on its way into the treasury or in ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody
... added to their possessions there is no need for me to speak, since ye know well: and as for me, from the day when I received by inheritance this throne upon which I sit 6 I carefully considered always how in this honourable place I might not fall short of those who have been before me, nor add less power to the dominion of the Persians: and thus carefully considering I find a way by which not only glory may be won by us, together with a land not less in extent nor worse than that which ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus
... council, how shall I keep my wits? And if I think thereof, when at the chase, it may be that I babble it forth, and the meat hear and escape. And ere it be time to eat, I do give my mind solely to the care of my hunting-gear. And if one sing when eating, he may fall short of his just portion. And when, one hath eaten, doth not he go straightway to sleep? So where shall men find a space for singing? But do ye as ye will: as for me, I will have none of these songs ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London
... of Venus replies, "Let thy bow shoot all things, Phoebus; my bow {shall shoot} thee; and as much as all animals fall short of thee, so much is thy glory less than mine." He {thus} said; and cleaving the air with his beating wings, with activity he stood upon the shady heights of Parnassus, and drew two weapons out of his arrow-bearing ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Vol. I, Books I-VII • Publius Ovidius Naso
... insufficiency of his resources in men and money. If Ramses III. did not succeed in becoming one of the most powerful of the Theban Pharaohs, it was not for lack of energy or ability; the depressed condition of Egypt at the time limited the success of his endeavours and caused them to fall short of his intentions. The work accomplished by him was not on this account less glorious. At his accession Egypt was in a wretched state, invaded on the west, threatened by a flood of barbarians on the east, without an army or a fleet, and with no resources in the treasury. In fifteen ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 5 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... our play that you and I had polished the last line of yesterday, and all these people wept and laughed because of what we had done. And I was proud——" The lady shrugged impatiently. "Proud, did I say? and glad? That attests how woefully I fall short of you, my poet. You would have found some magic phrase to make that ancient glory articulate, I know. Yet,—did I ever love you? I do not know that. I only know I sometimes fear you robbed me of the power of loving ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... possession of the grave Senators of the City, Wardens of Trades, Deputies, Aldermen. It was much easier and much more lucrative to put forth a lying prospectus announcing a new stock, to persuade ignorant people that the dividends could not fall short of twenty per cent., and to part with five thousand pounds of this imaginary wealth for ten thousand solid guineas, than to load a ship with a well chosen cargo for Virginia or the Levant. Every day some new bubble was ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... canals, it is the more surprizing what the motives could have been that, till this moment, have restrained them from facilitating an intercourse by means of good roads, in such parts of the country as have no inland navigations. In this respect they fall short of most civilized nations. Except near the capital, and in some few places where the junction of the grand canal with navigable rivers is interrupted by mountainous ground, there is scarcely a road in the whole country that can be ranked beyond a foot-path. Hence it ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... we are arriv'd to a Maturity of Judgment, it is impossible to say what Improvement might be made to Wit in general, and the Art of Poetry in particular: And certainly our Passions are describ'd in them so naturally, in such lively, tho' simple, Colours, that how far they may fall short of the Artfulness and Embellishments of the Romans in their Way of Writing, yet cannot fail to please all such Readers as are not unqualify'd for the Entertainment ...
— Parodies of Ballad Criticism (1711-1787) • William Wagstaffe
... words, who speaks from that life, must sound vain to those who do not dwell in the same thought on their own part. I dare not speak for it. My words do not carry its august sense; they fall short and cold. Only itself can inspire whom it will, and behold! their speech shall be lyrical and sweet, and universal as the rising of the wind. Yet I desire, even by profane words, if I may not use sacred, to indicate the heaven of this deity, and to report what hints ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... therefore that he that hath gifts had need be let into a sight of the nature of them, to wit, that they come short of making of him to be in a truly saved condition, lest he rest in them, and so fall short of the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... side of the Tweed with yourselves, begs, for a few moments, your serious attention. A regard for your happiness, and the security of your posterity, are the only motives that could have induced me to occupy your time by an epistolary exhortation. How far I may fall short of the object I have thus in view, becomes me not to surmise. The same claim, however, has he to praise (though, perhaps, never equally rewarded) who endeavors to do good, as he who has the happiness to effect his purpose. I hope, therefore, no views of acquiring ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... large one: such as the steps, curved cross-aisles, their parapets, the passages, stairways, stages, tribunals, and any other things which occur that make it necessary to give up symmetry so as not to interfere with utility. Again, if in the course of the work any of the material fall short, such as marble, timber, or anything else that is provided, it will not be amiss to make a slight reduction or addition, provided that it is done without going too far, but with intelligence. This will be possible, if the architect is a man of practical ...
— Ten Books on Architecture • Vitruvius
... in the least fall short of Mr. Booth in expressions of tenderness. Her eyes, the most eloquent orators on such occasions, exerted their utmost force; and at the conclusion of his speech she cast a look as languishingly sweet as ever Cleopatra ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... no doubt, "industry must be our oracle, and reason our Apollo," as Sir T. Browne says; but surely it is no unreasonable estimate; yet how far do we fall short of it? General culture is often deprecated because it is said that smatterings are useless. But there is all the difference in the world between having a smattering of, or being well grounded in, a subject. It is the latter which we advocate—to try ...
— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock
... small event!" Why "small"? Costs it more pain that this, ye call A "great event," should come to pass, Than that? Untwine me from the mass Of deeds which make up life, one deed Power shall fall short in, ...
— How to Add Ten Years to your Life and to Double Its Satisfactions • S. S. Curry
... even contented with his children, who, all three of irreproachable conduct and character, and excellent needlewomen, did their utmost to ameliorate his position. They made dresses for the ladies in the town, worked by the day, and sometimes, when they found their earnings during the summer months fall short of what they thought sufficient to meet the expenses of the coming winter, they hired themselves to some proprietor during the period ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... scenery and of human activities necessarily fall short of the reality, especially when an attempt is made to record a series of events or a point of view outside the ...
— The Planet Mars and its Inhabitants - A Psychic Revelation • Eros Urides and J. L. Kennon
... said "that about twelve o'clock at noon, as he was looking through his glass, he spied it at a distance, and thought it was a sail, which he had a mind to make, being not much out of his course, in hopes of buying some biscuit, his own beginning to fall short. That upon coming nearer, and finding his error, he sent out his long-boat to discover what it was; that his men came back in a fright, swearing they had seen a swimming house. That he laughed at their folly, and went himself in the boat, ordering his men to take ...
— Gulliver's Travels - into several remote nations of the world • Jonathan Swift
... their life, by no means embodies or monopolises the whole interest of the country, and the mere tourist who, having paid a flying visit thereto, thinks thereby to gain much idea of the nation as a whole, will naturally fall short in his observations. We must depart thence, and visit the other handsome and interesting centres of Mexico's life and population, and sojourn for a season among her people, and observe something of the "short and simple annals" of her labouring classes. ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... that the ships should be ready by the 30th of May, it was upon the supposition of the money for 90 ships proposed by the King and voted by you, their sizes and rates, and I doubt not by that time to have 90 ships, and if they fall short it will be only from the failing of the Streights ships coming home and ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... ample and delightful instances. I will not plead my defects, to excuse my obedience. I only fear that the awe which will be always upon me, when I write to your ladyship, will lay me under so great a restraint, that I shall fall short even of the merit my papers have already made for me, through your kind indulgence.—Yet, sheltering myself under your goodness, I will cheerfully comply with every thing your ladyship expects from me, that it is ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... of Paris is considerably more than a million. The number of births in a year is a little more than thirty thousand, and of these, ten thousand are illegitimate. This fact speaks volumes in reference to the morals of Paris. The deaths usually fall short of the births by about four thousand. The increase of population in France is great, though it is now a very ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett
... great one—had preceded him to Rome, but it was found to fall short of his merits. He has consummate oratorical power, fluency and choice of expression, and though he always speaks extempore his speeches might have been carefully written out long beforehand. He speaks in Greek, ...
— The Letters of the Younger Pliny - Title: The Letters of Pliny the Younger - - Series 1, Volume 1 • Pliny the Younger
... see it setting in the west, notice some bright star near it, then 12 months later we should see the two together again; but with this difference, that the moon and star would be seen together, not on the first, but on the second evening of the month. For since 12 lunar months fall short of a solar year by 11 days, the moon on the first evening would be about 11 degrees short of her former position. But as she moves about 13 degrees in 24 hours, the next evening she would practically be back in her old place. ...
— The Astronomy of the Bible - An Elementary Commentary on the Astronomical References - of Holy Scripture • E. Walter Maunder
... I think of it, still makes me shudder, as it did on the day I beheld it; and I would wish it were possible for me to forget it, rather than be compelled to describe it. All the horrors imagination can conceive, relative to that day of blood, would fall short ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... command: he frankly confessed that as yet he was insufficiently acquainted with the Psalms; a comparison of his notes and lectures shows further, how continually he was engaged in prosecuting these studies. His explanations indeed fall short of what is required at present, and even of what he himself required later on. He still follows wholly the mediaeval practice of thinking it necessary to find, throughout the words of the Psalmist, pictorial allegories relating to Christ, His work of salvation, and His people. But he was ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... there shall be no unwarranted manipulation of the nation's food-supply by those who handle it on its way to the consumer. This is our opportunity to demonstrate the efficiency of a great democracy, and we shall not fall short ...
— Why We are at War • Woodrow Wilson
... intention or mode of travelling without first satisfying the fermiers for two posts further than the place you repent at; and 'tis founded,' continued he, 'upon this, that the revenues are not to fall short through ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... capital. The vast crop of our neutrality is all seed-wheat, and is sown again, to swell, almost beyond calculation, the future harvest of prosperity. In this progress what seems to be fiction is found to fall short of experience.... When I come to the moment of deciding the vote, I start back with dread from the edge of the pit into which we are plunging. In my view, even the minutes I have spent in expostulation, have their value, because they protract ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... that in no ill way was what Colville was—felt himself on trial for his honour and his manhood by this simple girl, this child. He could not endure to fall short of her ideal of him at that moment, no matter what error or calamity the fulfilment involved. "If you feel sure that you love me, Imogene, it will make no difference to me what your mother says. I would be glad of her consent; ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... and be assured you shall never have cause to repent of any confidence you may think proper to place in me, and that it will always be my endeavour to deserve the good opinion which you have formed, although human weakness may in some instances cause me to fall short. In giving you these assurances I do not depend upon my own strength, but I look to Him who has been my unerring guide through life, and in whose continued protection and assistance ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... correctly. Plato's view of actual language, as far as it can be made out from the critical and negative rather than didactic and positive dialogue of "Kratylos," seems to have been very much the same as his view of actual government. Both fall short of the ideal, and both are to be tolerated only in so far as they participate in the perfections of an ideal state and an ideal language.[2] Plato's "Kratylos" is full of suggestive wisdom. It is one of those books which, ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... were pressing a button liberating a perfect flood of these perfectly good but stereotyped formulae of expression. The result is very ingenious, but just because it is such a skillful mosaic of Georgian 'rubber-stamp' phrases, it must ever fall short of true art." Mr. Moe is correct. We have, in fact, heard this very criticism reiterated by various authorities ever since those prehistoric days when we began to lisp in numbers. Yet somehow we perversely continue ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... equality the Americans of the Middle West are far in advance of the English of the twentieth century. It is not their fault if they are still some centuries behind the English of the twelfth century. But the defect by which they fall short of being a true peasantry is that they do not produce their own spiritual food, in the same sense as their own material food. They do not, like some peasantries, create other kinds of culture besides the kind called agriculture. Their culture comes ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... more determinate way. For example, I cogitate the existence of a being corresponding to a pure transcendental idea. But I cannot admit that this being exists absolutely and in itself, because all of the conceptions by which I can cogitate an object in a determinate manner fall short of assuring me of its existence; nay, the conditions of the objective validity of my conceptions are excluded by the idea—by the very fact of its being an idea. The conceptions of reality, substance, causality, nay, even that of necessity in existence, have no significance out of the sphere ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant
... house cannot but make me most anxious not to fall short of the expectation which the house may have formed as to the execution of what may have been committed to me on this great occasion; but the most anxious consideration which I have given to the nature of that duty has convinced ...
— Maxims And Opinions Of Field-Marshal His Grace The Duke Of Wellington, Selected From His Writings And Speeches During A Public Life Of More Than Half A Century • Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington
... are both of you at a great loss about nothing. Is there any reason to be alarmed? Are you not ashamed, you, Silvestre, to fall short in such a small matter? Deuce take it all! You, big and stout as father and mother put together, you can't find any expedient in your noddle? you can't plan any stratagem, invent any gallant intrigue to ...
— The Impostures of Scapin • Moliere |
