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Lacking   /lˈækɪŋ/   Listen
Lacking

adjective
1.
Inadequate in amount or degree.  Synonyms: deficient, wanting.  "Deficient in common sense" , "Lacking in stamina" , "Tested and found wanting"
2.
Nonexistent.  Synonyms: absent, missing, wanting.  "Her appetite was lacking"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Lacking" Quotes from Famous Books



... there is something lacking in this discussion—something that I would call the ethical aspect of the question. Is it not a fact that in the hearts of all who sit here there is a clear, definite sense of the revolting nature of the crime ...
— Norse Tales and Sketches • Alexander Lange Kielland

... bottom, it is a conflict of civilisations, a conflict which is largely due to ignorance and misunderstanding, and which should never be allowed to develop into avowed antagonism. For with time, patience, and sympathy it will disappear of itself. The patience and sympathy, I think, are not lacking on the side of the Japanese, but they are sadly lacking among the Californians, and indeed among all white men in Western America. The truth is that the Western pioneer knows nothing of Japan and wants to know nothing. And he would ...
— Appearances - Being Notes of Travel • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson

... and he became the first bearer of the spiritualist message in this country. With his stories he had a humanizing influence on his times, especially in the education of children, and in the field of culture he remained actively interested right up to a ripe old age. If somewhat lacking in creative fervour and colourful raciness of style, he made up for it by the abundance of his intelligence, ...
— Seven Icelandic Short Stories • Various

... "No, caro, not to me, not to me!" But the sick man did not hear; he put his arm round Benedetto's neck, drawing him to him, and continued his sorrowful confession, Benedetto repeating over and over again "My God, my God!" and making a mighty effort not to hear, but lacking the courage to tear himself away from the dying man's embrace. And, in fact, he did not hear, nor would it have been easy to do so, for the words came so slowly, so brokenly, so confusedly. Still the parish priest did not appear, and ...
— The Saint • Antonio Fogazzaro

... will find expressions capable of making him feel all that he owes to your Forty Hours' Prayer, and to that Christian and charitable emotion cast in the midst of a capital and a public. To all that only your mandate of accusation and allegorical sermons are lacking. Cardinals' hats, they say, are made to the measure of strong heads; we will go seek, in the robing-rooms of Rome, if there be one to meet the proportions of your ability. If ladies had as much honourable influence over the Vicar of Jesus Christ as simple bishops allow ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... experience, a day spent in the country, or a walk beside the sea. Only quite recently have boys and girls been encouraged to write poems and stories out of their own imaginations; and even now there are plenty of educational critics who would consider such exercises as dilettante things lacking in practical solidity. ...
— Cambridge Essays on Education • Various

... the sound of the water, Jerry had first to endure an embracing and hugging from the boy, who, squatted on his hams, rocked back and forth and mumbled a strange little crooning song. And Jerry, lacking articulate speech, had no way of telling him of the thirst of which ...
— Jerry of the Islands • Jack London

... are actually necessary it is highly expedient that other and fresh religious should go thither, that they may be rendering themselves capable in the languages and ministries, so that ready and intelligent laborers may never be lacking for the instruction and teaching of the natives, and for the new conversions, which our sovereigns the Catholic kings of Espana have so earnestly striven to maintain and increase, sending religious every four or six years, and ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898—Volume 39 of 55 • Various

... when he heard the poor man's story. He took the bag of money and handed it to the merchant. "Take the bag and count the money that is in it," he said. "If anything is lacking, I will pay ...
— Fifty Famous People • James Baldwin

... confusing amount of good, bad, and indifferent literature on both sides of the controversy which is extant;—considering these things, I do not think that the result of our inquiry can be justly complained of on the score of its lacking precision. At a time like the present, when traditional beliefs respecting Theism are so generally accepted and so commonly concluded, as a matter of course, to have a large and valid basis of induction whereon to rest, I cannot but feel that a perusal of this short ...
— A Candid Examination of Theism • George John Romanes

... eat, does not arouse the eating movements while the stimulus of present food is lacking; but, for all that, hunger does arouse immediate action. It typically arouses the preparatory reactions of seeking food. Any such reaction is at the same time a response to some actually present stimulus. Just as the dog coming at your whistle was responding ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth

... derived from friendships that could not have survived a week had they been accompanied by gossip, mocking, or any personal pettiness. Most of us had a depth of feeling and moral and religious ambition which are entirely lacking in the clever young men and women of to-day. Our after-dinner games were healthier and more inspiring than theirs. "Breaking the news," for instance, was an entertainment that had a certain vogue among the younger generation before the war. It consisted of two people acting ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith

... had penetrated a smallpox cordon, and must stop in it until forty days after the last traces of the disease had vanished. This, in a wild part of Mexico, where at that time vaccination was but little practised and medical assistance almost entirely lacking, would not be until half or more of the unprotected population was dead and many of the remainder ...
— Doctor Therne • H. Rider Haggard

... outward in a straight line (or along parallel lines) to a conclusion more or less distant from the starting-point,—from the melodic members which constitute the actual germ, or the "text" of the entire musical discourse. A very desirable, not to say vital, condition is therefore {90} lacking, in the Two-Part forms; namely, the corroboration of this melodic germ by an emphatic return to the beginning and an unmistakable re-announcement of the first (leading) phrase or ...
— Lessons in Music Form - A Manual of Analysis of All the Structural Factors and - Designs Employed in Musical Composition • Percy Goetschius

... glass, and not to arrest or distract the attention of the spectator with puzzles. Given the great themes adequately expressed, the little fancies may then cluster round them and will be carried lightly, as the victor wears his wreath; while, on the other hand, if these be lacking no amount of symbolism or attribute will supply their place. "Cucullus non facit monachum," as the old proverb says—"It is not the hood that makes the monk," but the ascetic face you depict within it. Indeed, rather beware of ...
— Stained Glass Work - A text-book for students and workers in glass • C. W. Whall

... lemons, raisins, olives, boxes of citron, casks of chains; specie from Vera Cruz; cries of drivers, cracking of whips, rumble of wheels, tremble of earth, frequent gorge and stoppage. It seemed an idle tale to say that any one could be lacking bread and raiment. "We are a great city," said the patient foot-passengers, waiting long on street corners for opportunity to cross ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable

... Lacking any sort of device or doodad that would conceal my mind from prying telepaths, about the only thing I could do was to lay here in my soft bed and daydream of making ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith

... up: Instinct and desire are lacking in proper adjustment to the needs of life. Society seeks to control them by the pressure of law and custom. These powerful forces, however, are external, and, savoring more or less of tyranny, tend at times to awaken ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake

... Nor will there be lacking seasons of exhortation, the general haranguing his troops and the husbandman his labourers; nor because they are slaves do they less than free men need the lure of hope and happy expectation, [21] that they may willingly stand to ...
— The Economist • Xenophon

... himself with it, whilst Sabbah struck at him, saying at each stroke, "This is the finishing blow!" But it fell harmless enow, for Kanmakan took all on his buckler and it was waste work, though he did not reply lacking the wherewithal to strike and Sabbah ceased not to smite at him with his sabre, till his arm was weary. When his opponent saw this, he rushed upon him and, hugging him in his arms, shook him and threw him to the ground. Then he turned him over on his face and pinioned his ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

... of which he traces back to the fall of the angels, and those since Christ to the intermixture of Jewish elements. He seeks to solve his problem by a detailed critique of Israelitish history, which is lacking in sympathy but not in spirit, and in which, introducing modern relations into the earliest times, he explains the Old Testament miracles in part as myths, in part as natural phenomena, and deprives the heroes of the Jews of their moral renown. The Jewish historians are ranked among the poets; ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg

... sometimes been accused of lacking sentiment; and yet, the very first thing he did when starting for his walk the next morning was to order a large bunch of violets to be sent to number sixty-four Boulevard Saint-Germain. Then, at a somewhat faster pace than usual, he ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett

... the other. It contained very many kinds of fishes. In the midst of it rose a very lofty island, always covered with a mantle of mist. The King caused to be planted there every sort of flowering and fruit-bearing tree to be found in the world. None was lacking, and to this island the King would repair ...
— Malayan Literature • Various Authors

... my journey into the north. I was already provided with horses well calculated to support the fatigues of the road and the burdens which I might deem necessary to impose upon them. One thing, however, was still lacking, indispensable to a person about to engage on an expedition of this description; I mean a servant to attend me. Perhaps there is no place in the world where servants more abound than at Madrid, or at least fellows eager to proffer their services ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow

... our Corporation—shocking To think we buy gowns lined with ermine For dolts that can't or won't determine What's best to rid us of our vermin! You hope, because you're old and obese, To find in the furry civic robe ease? Rouse up, sirs! Give your brains a racking To find the remedy we're lacking, Or, sure as fate, we'll send you packing!" At this the Mayor and Corporation Quaked with a ...
— The Pied Piper of Hamelin • Robert Browning

... consider the essay entitled A Bachelor's Complaint of the Behaviour of Married People improper. But, as a rule, Lamb's essays are neither unsound nor improper; none the less they are, in the judgment of some, things of naught—not only lacking, as Southey complained they did, 'sound religious feeling,' but everything ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell

... is endeared with all hearts, Which I by lacking have supposed dead; And there reigns love, and all love's loving parts, And all those friends which I thought buried. How many a holy and obsequious tear Hath dear, religious love stol'n from mine ...
— Testimony of the Sonnets as to the Authorship of the Shakespearean Plays and Poems • Jesse Johnson

... the elements. Many persons, having perfect eyes, are blind in their perceptions. Many persons, having perfect ears, are emotionally deaf. Yet these are the very ones who dare to set limits to the vision of those who, lacking a sense or two, have will, soul, passion, imagination. Faith is a mockery if it teaches us not that we may construct a world unspeakably more complete and beautiful than the material world. And I, too, may construct my better world, for I am a child of God, an inheritor of a fragment ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller

... is in part a blundering effort by the local manager to supply the human-magnetic element which he feels lacking in the pictures on which the producer has not left his autograph. But there is a much more economic and magnetic accompaniment, the before-mentioned buzzing commentary of the audience. There will be some people who disturb the neighbors in front, but the average crowd ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay

... the ebony and copper-coloured luggage carriers who seemed eager to take one another's lives, but in reality desired no more than to snatch each other's jobs, under the eyes of the uniformed hotel-porters. To me, the busy place was a desert, lacking one face. ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson

... looked as if he ate a lot; was stout and strong as a beast. But there was something unhealthy-looking, something of the idiot about him; his acceptance of his fate was too unreasonable. To be hopeful in that way implies a certain foolishness, I thought to myself; a man must be lacking in sense to some degree if he can go ahead feeling always content with life, and even reckoning to get something new, some good out of ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun

... choose. I will say, however, that, long as my evening was, I made it go through its whole length without having recourse to such copy-making subterfuges as the description of doorknobs and chairs; and except for its unholy length, it was not at all lacking in realism. Miss Andrews fascinated me and seemed to find me rather good company, and I found myself suggesting that as the next day was Sunday she take me for a walk. From what I knew of Harley's experience with ...
— A Rebellious Heroine • John Kendrick Bangs

... that spoiled all for the owner. His palace was full of treasures, but an enemy looked on all the wealth and suggested a previously unnoticed defect by saying, 'You have not a roc's egg.' He had never thought about getting a roc's egg, and did not know what it was. But the consciousness of something lacking had been roused, and it marred his enjoyment of what he had and drove him to set out on his travels to secure the missing thing. There is always something lacking, for our desires grow far faster than their satisfactions, and the more we have, the wider our longing reaches ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... you, my fair Reader, sometimes thought to yourself what a delightful husband Tom this, plus Harry that, plus Dick the other, would make? Tom is always so cheerful and good-tempered, yet you feel that in the serious moments of life he would be lacking. A delightful hubby when you felt merry, yes; but you would not go to him for comfort and strength in your troubles, now would you? No, in your hour of sorrow, how good it would be to have near you grave, earnest Harry. He is a "good sort," Harry. Perhaps, after ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome

... exhausting of any kind of property. There is every reason to believe that it will continue to intensify these characteristics. By doing so it may presently bring about a state of affairs that will supply just the lacking elements that are needed for the development of ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells

... the child's acquisition of language—an acquisition which is obtained in the earlier years entirely through the organ of hearing. This principal avenue to the mind is closed to the deaf mute. It is evident, therefore, that, lacking these two fundamental sources of all knowledge, his mental growth is incredibly slower than that of the hearing child. All that can be learned by means of the other senses is, however, learned rapidly, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various

... public at home was told that it was necessary to fight President Kruger because Englishmen in the Transvaal were being ill-treated and denied their legitimate rights. In reality, this was one of those conventional reasons, lacking common sense and veracity, upon which nations are so often fed. If we enter closely into the details of existence in the Transvaal, and examine who were those who shouted so loudly for the franchise, we find ...
— Cecil Rhodes - Man and Empire-Maker • Princess Catherine Radziwill

... battery they were seen dragging some of their largest ordnance. As it commanded Davies Fort, which was the key of our defences, the Colonel ordered a large body of men to strengthen that fort as rapidly as possible. Volunteers were not lacking, and Lancelot and I were allowed to help. We called for Dick Harvey on the way, and when the men saw three young gentlemen, the sons of the three principal persons in the place, labouring away as hard ...
— The Boy who sailed with Blake • W.H.G. Kingston

... The throat should be sprayed hourly with a solution of hydrogen peroxide (full strength) and the nose with the same, diluted with an equal amount of water, three times a day. The outside of the throat it is wise to surround with an ice bag, or lacking this, a cold cloth frequently wet and covered with a piece of oil ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume I (of VI) • Various

... comparatively in paradise, and slept sound till daybreak, when he awoke, and was terribly afraid on observing that his nocturnal operations had altogether uncovered the dhuiniewassell's neck and shoulders, which, lacking the plaid which should have protected them, were covered with cranreuch (i.e. hoar frost). The lad rose in great dread of a beating, at least, when it should be found how luxuriously he had been accommodated at the expense of a principal person of ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... martyr. I have sometimes misjudged thee, thinking thee somewhat unstable, though a man of parts and one to be much beloved. I ask thy pardon now for having so misjudged thee. Thou hast all the stuff in thee which I have sometimes thought was lacking." ...
— For the Faith • Evelyn Everett-Green

... lacking eloquence; Forth little letter, of enditing lame! I have besought my lady's sapience On thy behalfe, to accept in game Thine inability; do thou the same. Abide! have more yet! *Je serve Joyesse!* *I serve Joy* ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer

... of nothing else, and the depth of his passion seemed to dull his speech. A little more eloquence, a little more gentleness, a little more of that charm which Alexander possessed in such abundance, might have been enough to turn the scale. But they were lacking. The very intensity of what he felt made him for the time a man of one idea only, and even the freedom with which he could speak to Hermione about his love for her was a disadvantage to him. It had grown to be too plain a fact, and there was too little left to the imagination. ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford

... Flemish bride; in its castle he first received his renowned English guest.[21] The church of William's day has given way to a superb fabric of the thirteenth century, which needs only towers, which are strangely lacking, to rank among the finest minsters in Normandy. The castle where William and Harold met has given way to that well-known building of the House of Guise which lived to become the last home of lawful royalty in France. But the site still reminds one of the days ...
— Sketches of Travel in Normandy and Maine • Edward A. Freeman

... replied. 'An angel is not above being taught even by a creature of earth. And in Fan there is one thing lacking, angel though she be, and this I shall point out to her. I can find no mysticism in her: what she knows she knows, and with the unknowable, which may yet be known, she concerns herself not. Who shall say of ...
— Fan • Henry Harford

... or time and the remembrance of causes of sorrow, is denoted by the term 'dejection'; the contrary of this is 'freedom from dejection.' The relevant scriptural passage is 'This Self cannot be obtained by one lacking in strength' (Mu. Up. III, 2, 4).—'Exultation' is that satisfaction of mind which springs from circumstances opposite to those just mentioned; the contrary is 'absence of exultation.' Overgreat satisfaction also stands in the way (of meditation). ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut

... worry about that, general; seconds are never lacking. There are and always will be enough men who are curious to see how one ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas

... any prying eyes among the starboard watch—at first produced within me a feeling of the keenest uneasiness and anxiety. For Joe's revelation as to the discovery by the late steward of my secret relating to the concealed treasure furnished me with what had previously been lacking, namely, a motive for that secret plotting of the existence of which Joe was so firmly convinced. The story to which I had that night listened left no room for doubt in my mind that my own want of caution and the late ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood

... play outside of the tepee with other children; they were kinder to her now that she lived in the chief's home. She had plenty to eat, and Sweet Grass and her mother treated her well, but she longed for something that was lacking here but was freely given in the old ...
— Timid Hare • Mary Hazelton Wade

... did begin, Bidders, alack! were lacking; Back numbers hove in sight in shoals, Yet ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, March 19, 1892 • Various

... stock gradually dwindled away to nothing. Finally, my father's bank broke—or, as we say in the West, "went scat!"—and we were left all but penniless, with the prospect of having to sell Lantrig, being without stock and lacking means to replenish it. It was at this time, I have since learnt from my mother, that Amos Trenoweth's Will was first thought about. She, poor soul! had never heard of the parchment before, and her heart misgave ...
— Dead Man's Rock • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... Just you two share the twenty francs lacking between you, and let us talk no more on ...
— Tartarin of Tarascon • Alphonse Daudet

... personal side of the late war we have, in a measure, been introduced by various war correspondents. But there has always been something actually lacking, and that something is the touch and the atmosphere which can only be introduced by those who have been through the baptism ...
— The 23rd (Service) Battalion Royal Fusiliers (First Sportsman's) - A Record of its Services in the Great War, 1914-1919 • Fred W. Ward

... trained with the new armies can be lacking in respect for the indefatigable N.C.O., upon whom the brunt of the work has fallen. With picturesque scorn and sarcasm he has formed huge armies out of the rawest of raw material, and all in a space of less than half a year. His methods are ...
— The Amateur Army • Patrick MacGill

... just two months lacking a day; and in all the detail and drudgery of its business, as the journal indicates, Patrick Henry bore a very large part. In the course of the session, he seems to have served on perhaps a majority of all its committees. On the 6th of May, he was made a member of the committee ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler

... never felt that he understood them. What seemed important to them, all the drives of ordinary day-to-day existence, had never seemed very important to him. He had felt that there must be something wrong with him, something lacking, for it seemed to him that people everywhere committed the most outlandish follies, believed in the most incredible things, were swayed by pure herd-instinct into the most harmful courses of behavior. They could not all be wrong, he thought, so he must be ...
— The Stars, My Brothers • Edmond Hamilton

... It may soon be too late. We are lacking in arms and ammunition, and the superiority of numbers will crush ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume I (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere

... you have a water meadow you will not want forage, but if not then sow an upland meadow, so that hay may not be lacking. ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato

... for the Bourbon monarchy that at this great crisis a king and a minister should have come together, both lacking initiative, both lacking courage, and yet not even sympathetic, but, on the contrary, lacking mutual confidence and refusing one another mutual support. And while Louis lacked executive vigour, so Necker tended always to lose himself in figures, in details, in words, in fine sentiments, ...
— The French Revolution - A Short History • R. M. Johnston

... amount of quiet spontaneous giving which is known to no one? Do we prefer to be anonymous? Such tests soon reveal what we are like. One who never gives spontaneously, without being asked, we may be sure is lacking in sympathy. ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry

... plunder going about to warn laborers away from their work. But in the principal avenues and in the public squares there were the same dense crowds of idlers, some listless and some excited, ready to believe the wildest rumors and to applaud the craziest oratory. Speakers were not lacking; besides the agitators of the town, several had come in from neighboring places, and they were preaching, with fervor and perspiration, from street corners and from barrel-heads in the beer-houses, the dignity of manhood and the overthrow ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay

... had been educated at home; and Minny, with her quick mind, and an occasional lesson from her young mistress, together with her earnest desire to learn, had acquired more real knowledge than Della herself, though lacking some of the light accomplishments in which her mistress excelled. Thus had they grown up together, and they were ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa

... decorations in spite of their many excellences look dull and grey and weary - the painters have not been able to play up to and dominate the brilliant blue of the sky. In the Court of the Four Seasons one finds color notes that are fitting, though lacking in imaginative interest. ...
— The Sculpture and Mural Decorations of the Exposition • Stella G. S. Perry

... that it were! I had to spend half a day packing, and another half undoing the work. I had to secure another temporary home, where certain conveniences to which we human beings are slaves should not be lacking, and with a family one could endure under the same roof. All this must needs be settled before I could call on my new neighbors. Time and patience accomplished everything, although the mercury was soaring aloft among the nineties all the time; and at ...
— Upon The Tree-Tops • Olive Thorne Miller

... Lacking the newspaper screen, Mr. Pendleton's rebellious tendencies instantly evaporated beneath his wife's ...
— The Moon Rock • Arthur J. Rees

... and full and clear, though lacking in cultivation. It was that of a girl, who was sitting under the shadow of a large boulder on the beach. She seemed about eighteen, though, in the uncertain wavering light of the sunset, it was impossible to distinguish ...
— Marie Gourdon - A Romance of the Lower St. Lawrence • Maud Ogilvy

... convincingly, Carton presented the facts. Now and then Kahn would rise to object to something as incompetent, irrelevant, and immaterial. But there was lacking something in his method. It was not the old Kahn. In fact, one almost felt that Carton was disappointed in his adversary, that he would have preferred a stiff, straight from ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve

... efforts stalled, and some of the liberalization measures were rescinded. Despite Burma's increasing oil and gas revenue, socio-economic conditions have deteriorated due to the regime's mismanagement of the economy. Lacking monetary or fiscal stability, the economy suffers from serious macroeconomic imbalances - including rising inflation, fiscal deficits, multiple official exchange rates that overvalue the Burmese kyat, a distorted ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... it is old regardless of any new purpose to which it is put. It is no invention to put a machine to a new use. If an inventor contrives a meritorious machine for the production of coins or medals, his invention is lacking in novelty if it should appear that such a machine had before been designed as a soap press, and this fact is not altered by any merely structural or formal difference, such as difference in power or strength, due to the difference in duty. The invention resides in the machine and ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1178, June 25, 1898 • Various

... and sang. Yes, sure enough, it was the voice, the voice that had so long been persecuting me! I recognized at once that delicate, voluptuous quality, strange, exquisite, sweet beyond words, but lacking all youth and clearness. That passion veiled in tears which had troubled my brain that night on the lagoon, and again on the Grand Canal singing the Biondina, and yet again, only two days since, in the deserted cathedral of Padua. But I recognized now what ...
— Hauntings • Vernon Lee

... not lacking in religious insight and imagination, as he certainly was not without profound influence on the future history of religion. His complete rejection of mythology and of anthropomorphism; his resolute attempt to combine religion and science, not by ...
— Five Stages of Greek Religion • Gilbert Murray

... in the midst of the forest. He loved the forest, growing new timber on the one hand and on the other allowing it to be cut down and loaded up on the Volga for sale. The several thousand dessiatins of surrounding forest were exceedingly well managed, and nothing was lacking; there was even a steam saw. He attended to everything himself, and in his spare time hunted and fished and amused himself with his bachelor neighbours. From time to time he sought a change of scene, and then arranged with his friends to drive in a three-horse carriage, drawn by ...
— The Precipice • Ivan Goncharov

... successfully smoothed over a difficulty which, if I am to believe Mr. WALTER BESANT, too often troubles the young author. This, however, is neither here nor there. I merely mention the incident to show that I am not altogether lacking in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, August 16, 1890 • Various

... three great elements which go to make up a perfectly rounded Christian life. It is not enough to have the "root of the matter" in us, but that we must be whole and entire, lacking nothing. The Angelus may bring to us suggestions as to what constitutes ...
— Addresses • Henry Drummond

... for the benefits which the public enjoys as a result of their energy and the risks they have taken. They have opened up new sections of the country, provided transportation facilities which were previously lacking, or have increased those which already existed; they have multiplied industries which promoted increase in population and trade, and have thus largely contributed to the prosperity enjoyed by the communities themselves and by the country ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt

... closely related to the truth. The visit of the revenue officer was detailed by Bayne, and considered significant, the more since it began to be evident that Briscoe was murdered, and in his case a motive for so perilous a deed was wholly lacking. The stone lily in the child's pocket made it evident that he himself had been in the moonshiners' cavern, the only one known to the vicinity, or that the stone had been given to him by some frequenter of that den—hardly to be supposed previous to the catastrophe. ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock

... causation. The "intelligence" demanded of the workman, as well as of the director of an industrial process, is little else than a degree of facility in the apprehension of and adaptation to a quantitatively determined causal sequence. This facility of apprehension and adaptation is what is lacking in stupid workmen, and the growth of this facility is the end sought in their education—so far as their education aims to enhance ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen

... he who goes before Your son in battle, and who rules the earth, Whose bow makes Indra's weapon seem no more Than a fine plaything, lacking sterner worth. ...
— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa

... "We are lacking her through and through every shot," said he. "Leave the small ordnance alone yet awhile, and we shall sink her ...
— The Junior Classics • Various

... left Boston and took up his business abode at Franklin Square. The rumble of the elevated road was somewhat distracting after the four quiet years in Park Street, but the new daily routine was not lacking in interest. The Harper experiment, however, did not end as Mr. Morgan had hoped. After a few months Messrs. Doubleday, Page and McClure withdrew, and left the work of rescue to be performed by Mr. George Harvey, who, curiously enough, succeeded Page, ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume I • Burton J. Hendrick

... opulently endowed can hardly have been lacking in purely physical ardours. His pantheistic belief that the Spirit of God was in all things, was not inconsistent with, might encourage, a keen and restless eye for the dramatic details of life and character for humanity in all its visible attractiveness, since there, too, in [238] truth, ...
— Giordano Bruno • Walter Horatio Pater

... a hearty English welcome make up for anything lacking," said the doctor's lady. "He knows that we are ...
— The Rajah of Dah • George Manville Fenn

... later, he discovered, as so many others have done in a like extremity, that time accustoms the mind to anything: he was now resigned to his misfortune. His sufferings had endowed him with a great tolerance and a vast instinct of sympathy for all living things, qualities which are nearly always lacking in young men of his present age, which was twenty-nine. The rest of the family stood in some awe of Harold; realising his superiority of mind, they feared to be judged at the bar of his opinion; also, he had some hundreds a year left him, in his own right, by ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte

... ambitions for Himself and all His impulses and inclinations were for the life of an occult ascetic. But the idea of a redeemed and regenerated Israel was one calculated to fire the blood of any Jew, even though the element of personal ambition might be lacking in him. ...
— Mystic Christianity • Yogi Ramacharaka

... time that has passed since he flourished, yet his character can be very clearly deduced from the many literary fragments he has left, and that is found to be the character of a pusillanimous and ill-bred usurer, wholly lacking in foresight, in generous enterprise, and chivalrous enthusiasm—in matters of the Faith a prig or a doubter, in matters of adventure a poltroon, in matters of Science an ignorant Parrot, and in Letters a wretchedly bad rhymester, with a vice for alliteration; a wilful liar (as, ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc

... show us the man at his best. His piano works and early operas show the effect of the "virtuoso" style, with all its empty concessions to technical display and commonplace, ear-catching melody ... He possessed a certain simple charm of expression which, in its directness, has an element of pathos lacking in the comparatively jolly ...
— Edward MacDowell • John F. Porte

... well. He was riding across from the Bluegrass to meet this man at the railroad in Virginia, nearly two hundred miles away; he had stopped to examine some titles at the county seat and he meant to go on that day by way of Lonesome Cove. Opposite was the brick Court House—every window lacking at least one pane, the steps yellow with dirt and tobacco juice, the doorway and the bricks about the upper windows bullet-dented and eloquent with memories of the feud which had long embroiled the whole county. Not that everybody took part in it but, on the matter, everybody, as an old ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.

... their sixth day out from the lively camp of Mucluc on the Yukon. In two days, with the loaded sled, they had covered the fifty miles of packed trail up Moose Creek. Then had come the struggle with the four feet of untouched snow that was really not snow, but frost-crystals, so lacking in cohesion that when kicked it flew with the thin hissing of granulated sugar. In three days they had wallowed thirty miles up Minnow Creek and across the series of low divides that separate the several creeks flowing south into Siwash River; and now they were breasting the big divide, ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London

... in spite of his utter want of moral balance, was not lacking in noble and lovable qualities. He was honest in purpose, generous to a fault, tender-hearted and modest. His talent for popular poetry was very considerable, and his ballads are among the finest in the German language. Besides Lenore, Das Lied ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various

... improbable," the officer smiled, pleased with his wit. "Sorry to discommode you, my dear. But perhaps, lacking a passport, you can yet oblige me with the countersign, which does as well. Just one little word, now, ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle

... means of the individual ideas from which it results, as e. g., the forest exists only when the trees exist. The subordinate "I's," that preside over the separate sense-departments, are in the little child not yet blended together, because in him the organic connections are still lacking; which, being translated into the language of psychology, means that he lacks the necessary power of abstraction. The co-excitations of the sensory centers, that are as yet impressed with too few memory-images, can not yet take place on occasion of ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer

... in its ideal and the intention of its managers, representative of the best possible training for a noble manhood. And I may venture to say, here and now, that if there be anything known to be yet lacking to the full attainment of that conception, if anything needs to be added to make this, in the fullest sense, the peer of the best college in the land, it will be the endeavor of the Trustees and the ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith

... forefathers became dissatisfied, they pushed farther into the wilderness, but that now, if anything goes wrong, we run howling to Washington, asking special legislation for our troubles. Symptoms are not lacking of a healthy reaction from this undemocratic attitude of mind. In so far as our charitable work affects it, let us see to it that we do our part in restoring a tone of sturdy self-reliance ...
— Friendly Visiting among the Poor - A Handbook for Charity Workers • Mary Ellen Richmond

... happens either because the pupils of the eyes which have rested on this brilliantly lighted white object have contracted so much that, given at first a certain extent of surface, they will have lost more than 3/4 of their size; and, lacking in size, they are also deficient in [seeing] power. Though you might say to me: A little bird (then) coming down would see comparatively little, and from the smallness of his pupils the white might seem black! To this I should reply ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci

... then," said Robin, "will again honour with your presence one of Robin Hood's places of rendezvous, the venison shall not be lacking; and a stoup of ale, and it may be a cup of reasonably good ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott

... began to make plans immediately. It was decided on the spot that the Chateau de Monfiquet should shelter the King during the first few days after he landed. Eight months were to elapse before the beginning of the campaign, and as money was not lacking this time was sufficient for d'Ache to ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre

... life. It wouldn't have been good form to take another man into his confidence for betting purposes, seeing that the lady was "Mrs. Colquhoun"; but a wager laid upon the chances of change in her "views" was the only zest lacking to the pleasure he took in the study of this new specimen of her sex. He used to dance a good deal himself, and danced well too, but after Evadne joined him he gave it up to a great extent, and might often have been seen leaning against a pillar in a ball room gravely ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... was 10,000 strong. The number of guns possessed by the garrison was about five hundred; and the place was so strongly fortified by nature and art, that the Chinese fancied the place to be impregnable. Amoy, however, wanted a brave and skilful garrison; and lacking this, the place was soon captured. The mandarins and soldiers fled, leaving the city occupied by only a few coolies. This success was attained without the loss of a man on the part of the British; and the number of Chinese killed is supposed not to have exceeded one hundred and ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... spectators a staging one hundred feet in length and twelve feet in depth, the front being elevated six feet and the rear eight feet from the ground. From this structure about six hundred people commanded an excellent view of the gibbet, while some three thousand others, lacking this advantage, jostled each other, craning their necks, and standing on tiptoe, to ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall

... revenue. The two taxes were dependent upon each other. Each increase in the latter had forced an increase in the former, lest special burdens should be laid upon American manufacture. The ideal of protection had never been lacking, nor had special interests failed to look out for themselves, but the dominant spirit in the ...
— The New Nation • Frederic L. Paxson

... puts her mug aside and takes up her unfinished pair of trousers. But the wine has entered her fingers, and strength to push the needle through is lacking.] ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... Pot an idealist. If he were, he might have been tempted to mistake the Pipkin for a statelier, more pretentious Vessel—a Vase, say, all graceful curves and embossed sides, but shallow, perhaps, possibly lacking breadth. No, the Pipkin is a pipkin, made of common clay—even though it has the uncommon sweetness and strength to overcome the tendencies of clay—and fashioned for those common uses of life, deprivation of which to anything that comes ...
— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson

... or some pickles will often give just the right taste to things that otherwise seem to be lacking ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller

... prevents passive enjoyments from being entered upon with zest. In brief, life becomes a burden. The irritability resulting now from ailments, now from failures caused from feebleness, his family has daily to bear. Lacking adequate energy for joining in them, he has at best but a tepid interest in the amusements of his children; and he is called a wet ...
— Practical Ethics • William DeWitt Hyde

... the remotest degree upon Sedgwick, either for tardiness or anything else. Hooker was wont to speak his mind plainly. Indeed, his bluntness in criticism was one of his pet failings. And had he then felt that Sedgwick had been lacking in good-will, ability, or conduct, it is strange that there should not be some apparent expression of it. It was only when he was driven to extremity in explaining the causes of his defeat, that his after-wit suggested ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge

... lacking, Mr. Arnot had a profound respect for his wife. First and chiefly, she was wealthy, and he, having control of her property, made it subservient to his business. He had chafed at first against what he termed her "sentimental ways of doing good" and her "ridiculous theories," but in these ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe

... swell and perhaps inflame. They seemed happy-hearted little beings and Secunda was bright. But Prima was very dull and less intelligent than her younger sister. We concluded that she was, while not anything like an idiot, certainly a very backward child, lacking the wit of a normal ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White

... so far as anyone can discover, has never read a book in his life nor wanted to. He was educated at Harrow. Lacking the Daily Mail, he is miserable just now, poor boy! I almost forgave the Code upon discovering that his initials, S.B., spell, for a distress signal, 'Can you lend (or give) ...
— Foe-Farrell • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... the peasant's humble cot; she passes no one without leaving a trace of her presence. She brings her gift with her, whether it is a world or a bauble. To this child she must come. You think that to wait for this time would be long and useless. Well, then, let us go for this pearl—the only one lacking amidst ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen

... or another just as things happened to influence them at the moment. Finally, there were some bad men indeed. He found that the bad men were not always the poor, the uneducated, the men who had been brought up in rough homes, lacking in refinement. On the contrary, he found some extremely honest and useful men who had had exactly ...
— Theodore Roosevelt • Edmund Lester Pearson

... carefully planned "Rules." She felt there lay ahead of them much possibility for divergence of opinion about these "Rules." She foresaw a certain narrowness and hardness. She herself had made her fight against the characteristics of Sir Isaac and—perhaps she was lacking in that aristocratic feeling which comes so naturally to most successful middle-class people in England—she could not believe that what she had found bad and suffocating for herself could be agreeable and ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells

... taking her hand raised it to his lips. At that moment he had no thought for Pauline. Yet he felt there was something lacking in Jeanne's greeting. He would ...
— The Light That Lures • Percy Brebner

... reception, etc. Often the chair or settee is of the most uncomfortable design, conspiring with the narrow quarters to make the visitor's impression of the house and its inmates a very disagreeable one. If space is lacking to make the hall a comfortable and pleasing room, it should be abolished, and the visitor, if a social one, taken at once to the parlor, and if a business ...
— Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife • Marion Mills Miller

... softly and peeped into the sitting-room. Mrs. Comstock sat in her chair holding a book and every few seconds a soft chuckle broke into a real laugh. Mark Twain was doing his work; while Mrs. Comstock was not lacking in a sense of humour. Elnora entered the room before her mother saw her. Mrs. Comstock ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter

... that there were several transports moored in Alexandria, was absolutely positive proof that the N.Z.M.R. were about to land in Asia Minor or to be at Constantinople in a week or two. Other proofs were not lacking—a super-abundance of staff officers in the vicinity, or confidences from the orderly room clerk. Then came the definite fact, and the wireless was ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie

... against whom he had such evident proof. Lord! what wonder grew in her that he should correct them with benefits and simply banished them to those they loved. She more than smiled to read their childish, foolish, witless excuses, turning their treasons' bills to artificers' reckonings, one billet lacking only, item, so much for the cord they ...
— Andrew Melville - Famous Scots Series • William Morison

... it is a sentiment of chivalry in some good men which hinders them from giving us the ballot. They think we might not be what they admire so much; they think we should be lacking in womanliness of character. I ask you to notice if the women who have been in this International Council, if the women who are school teachers all over this nation, if these hundreds of thousands are not a womanly set of women, and yet they have gone outside of the old sphere. We believe ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various

... happy task ever since David had worn a shirt, and she hoped to hold the position of shirt-maker to David until she left this mortal clay. Therefore Aunt Hortense was not pleased, even though David's wife was not lacking, and, too, even though she foreheard herself telling her neighbors next day how many ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz

... won't determine What's best to rid us of our vermin! You hope, because you're old and obese, To find in the furry civic robe ease? Rouse up, Sirs! Give your brains a racking To find the remedy we're lacking, Or, sure as fate, we'll send you packing!" At this the Mayor and Corporation Quaked with ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various

... She knew her father disliked the idea of getting fat, while lacking the initiative of keeping thin. "What you need, Dad, is a cold plunge and a ten-mile ...
— I Spy • Natalie Sumner Lincoln

... Marquis of A——, the man whom," he swore, "he honoured most upon the face of the earth, brougth to so severe a pass. For his ain puir peculiar," as he said, "and to contribute something to the rehabilitation of sae auld ane house," the said Turntippet sent in three family pictures lacking the frames, and six high-backed chairs, with worked Turkey cushions, having the crest of Ravenswood broidered thereon, without charging a penny either of the principal or interest they had cost him, when he bought them, sixteen ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott

... stupendous issue involved, the question how we are to put ourselves practically in touch with the sub-conscious mind is a very important one. Now the clue which gives us the right direction is to be found in the impersonal quality of sub-conscious mind of which I have spoken. Not impersonal as lacking the elements of personality; nor even, in the case of individual subjective mind, as lacking the sense of individuality; but impersonal in the sense of not recognizing the particular external relations which appear to the objective ...
— The Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science • Thomas Troward

... scientific terms; the theologian, the meaning of religious phraseology. To present these definitions accurately, and to be sure of the author's meaning, one should take the quotations directly from the author's work itself. If, however, this source is not at hand, or if time for research is lacking, one may often find in legal and economic dictionaries and in encyclopaedias the very quotations that he wishes to use in defining a term. It is always well, in quoting a definition, to tell who the authority is, and in what book, in what volume, and on ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee



Words linked to "Lacking" :   nonexistent, unequal, inadequate, missing, deficient, absent, wanting



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