"Incompetency" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... at large; that which you have been heard now is concerning the competency or incompetency of the witness: the incompetency against him is this, that when you came thither none more violent for the parliament than himself, and that he was a great spy, and you say it was usual with him to take such courses; these are but words; if you have ...
— State Trials, Political and Social - Volume 1 (of 2) • Various
... account of the beetleheadedness of a domestic, or Baboo JALPANYBHOY'S incompetency in the art of equivocation, I am not to say—but the sequel of her inquiries was the unshakable conviction that I had not struck root in the habitation from which my ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... and Colonel Arthur Wellesley's first foreign service was in 1794, when his regiment was sent to the support of the Duke of York, who was near the end of his ignominious campaign in the Low Countries. In March, 1795, he was back in England, disgusted with the incompetency of his superiors. Of the value of this experience he afterward said, "Why, I learned what one ought not to do, and that is always something." At the time, however, he was less philosophical, and after consulting with his wise elder brother as to the future possibilities of distinction in military ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... of the shrug in argument is beyond human capacity; it is the point of speech beyond our treasury of language. He attacked the shrug, as he thought, very temperately; but in controlling his native vehemence he grew, perforce of repression, and of incompetency to deliver himself copiously in French, sarcastic. In fine, his contrast of the pretence of their noble country to head civilization, and its encouragement of a custom so barbarous, offended M. d'Orbec and irritated ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... method. The same confusion is apparent in his recent utterance in which he observes that Fleischmann's whole aim is to accumulate observational data, meanwhile avoiding speculation as far as possible. His criticism is replete with bitter personal epithets, e.g., "reactionary," "mental incompetency," "dishonest mask of hypercritical exactness," which manifest the writer's inability to enter upon an ...
— At the Deathbed of Darwinism - A Series of Papers • Eberhard Dennert
... ready-wittedness. There is no such inefficiency as self-sufficiency; and this is the very quality instilled by the whole system. Ask the veterans of the Admiralty, the War Office, the Board of Trade, and the Customs, and you will get but the same report, that for thorough incompetency and inordinate conceit there is nothing like the prize candidate of a Civil Service examination. Take my word for it, you could not find a worse pointer than the poodle which would pick you out all ...
— Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General - Originally Published In Blackwood's Magazine - 1864 • Charles Lever
... and lovely mother of five little ones procured a divorce from her husband, whose incompetency and unkindness was the result solely of intemperance, and that intemperance the consequence of his strong social bias and inability to resist the temptations of a period, when every man put the bottle to his neighbor's month as proof of his generosity, his friendship, and his good-breeding. His ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... at Sairmeuse, but he was the most stupid of men—a former surgeon in the army, who had been dismissed for incompetency. The peasants shunned him as they would the plague; and in case of sickness always sent for the cure. M. d'Escorval followed their example, knowing that the physician from Montaignac could not ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... of rent was an irresistible proof of what he had put forth—that it was the farmers themselves who were to blame. This cry was a confession of their own incompetency. If you analysed it—if you traced the general cry home to particular people—you always found that those people were incapables. The fact was, farming, as a rule, was conducted on the hand-to-mouth principle, and the least ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... marble slabs which bore the names of the streets, illustrious historical names, Gracchus, Scipio, Pliny, Pompey, Julius Caesar, blazing forth on those unfinished, crumbling walls like a buffet dealt by the Past to modern incompetency. ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... accountant tried to take it upon himself to dismiss a clerk without any agreement with his associates, or the consent of the government. In fact, he abolished the position. I was informed that it was not for incompetency, or for any failure of which the clerk had been guilty in his office, but only for the accountant's own private reasons. He was ordered to return the man to his place, and to have him serve as before. The accountant alleged with too unmeasured language that he and his associates had the authority ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIII, 1629-30 • Various
... attainments, and at the same time doubt whether they would pass with those of others; it made him despise all flesh, as if he were of a superior race, and yet have an idle and weak fear of coming in contact with them, from a dread of his incompetency to cope with them; so he at once depreciated and exalted, to an absurd degree, both ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... motto. All history is strewn with its brilliant victims, the wrecks of half-finished plans and unexecuted resolutions. It is the favorite refuge of sloth and incompetency. ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... story of a Roman general, who after a most terrific defeat, a defeat due largely to his own incompetency, not only escaped censure but was officially thanked by the senate, because he declared publicly that he did not despair of the republic. Of that ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... administrators who had emigrated were confiscated, in the names of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, and the confiscators sent sundry 'patriots' to sit on the administrative council of the company. Their incompetency was so ludicrous and mischievous that Robespierre, representing the State which had thus stolen an interest in the enterprise, could not stand it. He actually 'requisitioned' two noblemen—two 'aristocrats'—among the as yet undisturbed ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... Simeon now attacked the Grecian Empire again, captured Adrianople, and laid siege to Constantinople. There were two emperors in the city then, in succession to Leo the Philosopher—Romanus Lecapenus and Constantine Porphyrogenitus. For all the grandeur of their names they rivalled one another in incompetency and timidity. Simeon was able to force upon the Grecian Empire a humiliating peace, which made Bulgaria now the paramount Power in the Balkans, since Servia had been already subdued by her arms. From the Roman Pope, Simeon received authority to be called "Czar of the Bulgarians and Autocrat ...
— Bulgaria • Frank Fox
... sketch (says the publisher of that account) has heard Cooper himself describe with great pleasantry his first interview with the Scotch manager; he was at that time a raw country youth of seventeen. On his arrival in Edinburgh, little conscious of his appearance and incompetency, he waited on Mr. Kemble, made up in the extreme of rustic foppery, proud of his talents, and little doubting his success. When he mentioned his name and errand, Mr. Kemble's countenance changed from a polite smile to a stare of disappointment: Cooper had been ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... those who remain are among the senior officers in our volunteer army, in their respective grades. They command posts, brigades, divisions. They preside at court-martials. Beneath the shadow of their notorious incompetency all minor evils may lurk undetected. To crown all, they are, in many cases, sincere and well-meaning men, utterly obtuse as to their own deficiencies, and manifesting (to employ a witticism coeval with themselves) all the Christian virtues ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... problem, then, with which we are to deal,—the wages of men and women; and we must look at it in its largest, most universal aspects. We must dismiss at once any prejudice born of the ignorance, incompetency, or untrustworthiness of many workers. Character is a plant of slow growth; and given the same conditions of birth, education, and general environment it is quite possible we should have made no better showing. We have to-day three questions ...
— Women Wage-Earners - Their Past, Their Present, and Their Future • Helen Campbell
... of supreme importance in Europe itself. "We have a mission to fulfill. It is to show, by our example to the people of England in particular, and to all nations in general, the value of republican institutions." There was still a general belief in the incompetency of those institutions. "The greatest triumph of all would be to prove these calculations vain. In comparison with this, what would be the gain to be derived from any collision with the powers ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... England had defeated and put an end to the king; it remained for Cromwell to put an end to the Parliament. "The Rump," the remnant of the old Parliament was derisively called. What was left of that great body contained little of its honesty and integrity, much of its pride and incompetency. The members remaining had become infected with the wild notion that they were the governing power in England, and instead of preparing to disband themselves they introduced a bill for the disbanding ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... Dalles October 30, under conditions that were not conducive to success. The season was late for operations; and worse still, the command was not in accord with the commanding officer, because of general belief in his incompetency, and on account of the fictitious rank he assumed. On the second day out I struck a small body of Indians with my detachment of dragoons, but was unable to do them any particular injury beyond getting possession of a large quantity of their winter food, which their hurried departure compelled ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 1 • Philip H. Sheridan
... in 1898 was a joke, a pitiful exhibition of incompetency and unreadiness in every department. We only won because Spain was more unprepared than we were. And as to our great naval victory, the truth is that the Spanish ...
— The Conquest of America - A Romance of Disaster and Victory • Cleveland Moffett
... your machinery to rust in the rain, and your workmen to rot with sickness. You have not only done nothing, but you haven't a blue print to show me what you meant to do. I have never in my life come across laziness and mismanagement and incompetency upon such a magnificent and reckless scale. You have not built the pier, you have not opened the freight road, you have not taken out an ounce of ore. You know more of Valencia than you know of these mines; you know it from the Alameda to the Canal. ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... a varicose vein as a result of a wound or of ulceration of its wall. Increased intra-venous pressure produced by severe muscular strain may determine rupture of a vein exposed in the floor of an ulcer. If the limb is dependent, the incompetency of the valves permits of rapid and copious bleeding, which may prove fatal, particularly if the patient is intoxicated when the rupture takes place and no means are taken to arrest the haemorrhage. The bleeding may be arrested at once by elevating the limb, or by applying pressure ...
— Manual of Surgery - Volume First: General Surgery. Sixth Edition. • Alexis Thomson and Alexander Miles
... country write you a letter, calling your attention to partisan speeches of this character, emphasizing the parts I have mentioned, and ask your opinion with reference to the plan of the Republican party to regain power. In other words, we ought to accept these speeches charging incompetency and inefficiency as a challenge, and call the attention of the country to the fact that the leadership of the Republican party is still reactionary and standpat, laying particular emphasis on what the effect in Europe would be of a divided leadership at this time. I think a letter along the lines ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... character which might enable me to stand against the spirit of the times. The call on all sides now is for young men, and I have not the nerve to put myself in opposition to the demand. Were 'The Jupiter,' when it hears of my appointment, to write article after article setting forth my incompetency, I am sure it would cost me my reason. I ought to be able to bear with such things, you will say. Well, my dear, I own that I ought. But I feel my weakness, and I know that I can't. And to tell you the truth, I know no more than a child what ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... of his utter incompetency to fill the place of a trained man. And he never gets half so complete a view of his uselessness as do those around him. Such proof-readers rarely work two nights. They are corporals in captains' places. Or, perhaps, they are captains of artillery ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... this incompetency, that now, when really called upon for advice in an emergency, he should recommend a continuance of the interim. Certainly nothing worse could be devised. Granvelle recommended a reappointment of the Duchess Margaret. Others suggested Duke Eric of Brunswick, or an Archduke of the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... is the sweetest comfort he can give,—the clearest counsel he can offer. Consider him again, I say, my brethren, in all his nobility, in all his elevation, in all his bitter disappointment and incompetency. ...
— Old Groans and New Songs - Being Meditations on the Book of Ecclesiastes • F. C. Jennings
... "Advising General." Of the temper of the Army Board, composed as it was entirely of the satellites of Stanton, a confession in Hitchcock's diary speaks volumes. On the evening of the first day of their new relation, Stanton poured out to him such a quantity of oral evidence of McClellan's "incompetency" as to make this new recruit for anti-McClellanism "feel ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... that the English writer in Longman's Magazine, had got to the point when after trying to get out of the expedition by pleading poverty, incompetency, and anything else I could think of, I was forced to go on my way to England with apparent satisfaction. We had putrid pork and mouldy biscuit, but still I informed the King that we were "content and cheerful." Had I given ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 3rd, 1891 • Various
... can be no doubt of the justice of what he said. McClellan retained upon the left bank of the Antietam, a body of men whose participation in the battle at the opportune moment would have changed a qualified victory into a rout of the enemy. Lee was saved at Antietam and at Gettysburg by the incompetency of ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 • George Boutwell
... Rosemary Gray; for I engaged her this morning, and posted a full and explicit account of her to Dr. Mackenzie, which he will read, to our patient. I never take a case from one nurse and give it to another, excepting for incompetency. And Nurse Rosemary Gray could more easily fly, than prove incompetent. She will not be required to eat in the kitchen. She is a gentlewoman, and will be treated as such. I wish indeed you could be in her shoes, though I doubt whether you could have carried it ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... process we now know as the survival of the fittest, the mere's capacity had snuffed out her weaker spouse's incompetency; she had taken her place at the helm, because she belonged there by virtue of natural fitness. There were no tender illusions which would suffer, in seeing the husband allotted to her, probably by her parents and the dot system, relegated to the ignominy of passing his days ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... to-morrow, the leader, who had hitherto been invincible, must acknowledge a victor. This morning was to place it beyond a doubt, whether the victories of Gustavus at Leipzig and on the Lech, were owing to his own military genius, or to the incompetency of his opponent; whether the services of Wallenstein were to vindicate the Emperor's choice, and justify the high price at which they had been purchased. The victory was as yet doubtful, but certain were the labour and the bloodshed by which it must be earned. ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.
... Women nurses, while on duty in General Hospitals, are under the exclusive control of the senior medical officer, who will direct their several duties, and may be discharged by him when considered supernumerary, or for incompetency, insubordination, or violation of his orders. Such discharge, with the reasons therefor, being endorsed upon the certificate, will be at once returned ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... perfectly honest and trustworthy boy for it. I believe I have found him. I discharged the last boy because he lied to me about some trifling offence for which I would have forgiven him if he had told the truth. I can bear with incompetency, but falsehood and deceit I cannot and will not tolerate," he said, so sternly that Dan's face paled. "I am convinced that you are incapable of either. Will you take ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... believed what she said. She had never been an ardent admirer of Miriam, and had at first stubbornly refused to repudiate Grace. But Miriam had little by little instilled into her the idea of Grace's incompetency, until Marian, who thought only of the good of the team, became convinced that a change of captains was advisable. Miriam's brilliant playing in the recent game was the final touch needed, and now Marian was prepared to do what she ...
— Grace Harlowe's Sophomore Year at High School • Jessie Graham Flower
... and entitled "Miscellaneous Objections to the Theory of Natural Selection." It was partly derived from modified portions of chapter iv. of former editions, but the latter and larger part was new, and relates chiefly to the supposed incompetency of natural selection to account for the very early stages of useful structures. Numerous cases, such as the development of the giraffe's neck, the baleen of the whale, the mammary glands, &c., are admirably discussed. ...
— Life of Charles Darwin • G. T. (George Thomas) Bettany
... the administration of the Government and the application of business principles to public affairs. As a means to this end, civil-service reform should be in good faith enforced. Our citizens have the right to protection from the incompetency of public employees who hold their places solely as the reward of partisan service, and from the corrupting influence of those who promise and the vicious methods of those who expect such rewards; and ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... the defeat of the Irish and Spanish confederacy at Kinsale, O'Neill comforted himself with the assurance that Philip III. would send another expedition to Ireland to retrieve the honour of his flag, and avenge the humiliation it had sustained, owing to the incompetency or treachery of Don Juan d'Aquila. That the king was inclined to aid the Irish there can be no question; 'for Clement VIII., then reigning in the Vatican, pressed it upon him as a sacred duty, which he owed to his co-religionists in Ireland, whose efforts to free ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... the time of the passage of this law, resolved to resist it, and to continue the old police in power. His conduct came near creating a terrible riot, but he was at length induced to submit to the law. The new system worked badly for some years, owing to the incompetency of the persons appointed as superintendent; but in 1860 a change was made. Mr. John A. Kennedy was appointed Superintendent of the Metropolitan Police, and the number of the commissioners was cut down to three. The law was remodeled, and besides other important changes, the duties ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... the title of a German story by Hermann Hesse, in which he severely criticizes the incompetency of the present school system to fully develop the youth. The characterization of the teachers' profession as Hesse puts it, does not only serve for Germany, but for all modern states in which governments strive to train the young for the purpose of making patient subjects and ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 1, March 1906 • Various
... prelates, barons, knights, and lawyers waited on the captive in the Tower, and reminded him that in the castle of Conway, while he was perfectly his own master, he had promised to resign the crown on account of his own incompetency to govern. On his reply that he was ready to perform his promise, a paper was given him to read, in which he was made to absolve all his subjects from their fealty and allegiance, to renounce of his own accord all kingly authority, to acknowledge himself incapable of reigning, and worthy for ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... instructive reminiscence, a pleasant and instructing one, I trust, if I may ever be permitted to execute this design; instructive if it shall point while in embryo, and serve to teach me the folly of presumptuous schemes conceived during the buoyancy of youth, and only relinquished on a discovery of incompetency in later years. Meanwhile I am only contemplating the gradual ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... to inspect a province. Such persons were frequently of royal rank, brothers or sons of the king. They were accompanied by an armed force, and were empowered to correct whatever was amiss in the province, and in case of necessity to report to the crown the insubordination or incompetency of its officers. If this system had been properly maintained, it is evident that it would have acted as a most powerful check upon misgovernment, and would have rendered revolt ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson
... in her eyes, as with a sudden rush of joy, that her mind, was engaged on some other topic, and this at a moment when some appeal or interrogatory to herself rendered such abstracted enjoyment more obvious. Sensible, therefore, of her incompetency as yet to regulate her imagination so as to escape notice, she withdrew in about an hour to her own room, there once more to give ...
— Jane Sinclair; Or, The Fawn Of Springvale - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... see to paint (so he said). In truth, he was not well, and his slender store of strength did not permit him to do as he would. To cover the real seriousness of his case he loudly admitted his laziness and incompetency. ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... at times accused of incompetency, and traitors slandered him, but Congress stood by him and the country had confidence in him; as well it might, since, while he had not gained great victories, and even perhaps had made military mistakes, he had delivered Boston, had rescued the remnant of his army from the clutches of ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord
... inferiority in numbers by speed, activity, and dash. Here, on the contrary, we have a force hampered to an unheard-of degree by baggage and camp followers; with an invalid at its head, controlled by two civilians; and moving at a rate which, in itself, testifies to divided councils and utter incompetency on the part of its commander. It is almost impossible even to hope for success, ...
— At the Point of the Bayonet - A Tale of the Mahratta War • G. A. Henty
... conduct towards Mr. Galloway, who has much to answer for, has been chiefly directed by his representations." "Galloway is the evil genius that pursues us everywhere," wrote the same correspondents on the 25th of September; "his presumption is only equalled by his incompetency. Whatever he has to do with is miserably deficient. We do not think his misconduct has been intentional; but it has proved most fatal to the interests of Greece, and of those engaged in her behalf. On your lordship it has pressed peculiarly hard; and ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... to get a competent girl for general housework these days, and viewed in the light of past experiences with the able but unwilling, the willing but unable, the stupid, the dishonest, the ignorant servant within our gates, with the very occasional good genius of the kitchen to leaven the lump of incompetency, we are sorely tempted to give up the struggle and do our own work, feeling that the time and strength so consumed are more than compensated for by the peace of mind which comes with the cessation of hostilities. But after a breathing spell we are generally ready for another joust, and the struggle ...
— The Complete Home • Various
... gives George III. himself the credit of being the first person who resolutely desired to see a change of the system, and to "try the experiment whether Ireland might not be managed by open rectitude and real integrity."[128] But his first efforts were baffled by the carelessness or incompetency of the Viceroys, since it was difficult to find any man of ability who would undertake the office. And for some years things went on with very little change, great lords of different ranks having equally ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... his second Vice substituted for the first, with the more justification, as "Andy" Johnson was impeached for his incompetency. Detective Baker put it this way: "As to the crazy folks, I must take my chances. The most crazy people being, I fear, some of my ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... overwhelmed Hirozumi's army, killed the lord-warden himself, and pushed on to Taga Castle, which they burned, destroying vast stores of arms and provisions. It was precisely at this time that the State council, as related above, memorialized the Throne, denouncing the incompetency of the provincial conscripts and complaining that the provincial authorities, instead of training the soldiers, used them for forced labour. The overthrow of the army in Mutsu and the destruction of Taga Castle ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... triumph. Those violent acts, those stormy oscillations between insolence and repentance, which had marked the inauguration of the Assembly, had painfully undeceived him. His astonished ministry already trembled before so much audacity, and in the council avowed their incompetency. The king was desirous of retaining men who had given him such proofs of devotion to his person. Some of them, confidants or accomplices, served the king and queen, either by keeping up communications with the emigrants or by their intrigues in ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... would be able to rule. Any one who understood the nature of the political factions in Russia well knew that an uprising among the nobles might occur upon any pretext, and no pretext could be so powerful as the suspicion of incompetency in the sovereign. The seat of a ruler who did not rule ...
— The Vizier of the Two-Horned Alexander • Frank R. Stockton
... than five thousand women to the office of postmaster; and although many women have been appointed in the Departments and to pension agencies and like important employments and trusts, so far as your committee are aware no charge of incompetency or of malfeasance in office has ever yet ...
— Debate On Woman Suffrage In The Senate Of The United States, - 2d Session, 49th Congress, December 8, 1886, And January 25, 1887 • Henry W. Blair, J.E. Brown, J.N. Dolph, G.G. Vest, Geo. F. Hoar.
... story of the southwestern miner's indolence and incompetency,—utterly distasteful to his northern habits of thought and education. Here was their old fatuous endurance of Nature's wild caprices, without that struggle against them which brought others strength and success; here was the old philosophy which accepted the prairie fire ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... "Such incompetency!" says he husky. "You remember that yesterday Mr. Ellins called for a special report on outside holdings? And when it is submitted it is merely a jumble of figures. Why, the young man who prepared it couldn't have known the difference between ...
— Torchy As A Pa • Sewell Ford
... much of the care of her rulers and patriots to admit of the consideration of lesser objects. With the best of hearts and affections devoted to the welfare of her niece, Miss Emmerson had early discovered her own incompetency to the labour of fitting Julia for the world in which she was to live, and shrunk with timid modesty from the arduous task of preparing herself, by application and study, for this sacred duty. The fashions of the day were rapidly ...
— Tales for Fifteen: or, Imagination and Heart • James Fenimore Cooper
... and ninety-nine out of one hundred men of average ability would not have descended from his balloon-like elevation with any better grace. It is in the last degree unjust to brand with disloyalty, conduct that seems to be a result natural enough to incompetency. That upon certain occasions he may have been used for disloyal purposes by designing men, may be the consequence of lack of discrimination ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... improved. The ground floor was the worst, but as the elevator ascended you met with more courtesy and consideration. By the time you passed the fourth floor the man behind the desk had time to answer a relevant question, as he was not riled by his own incompetency. ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt
... tempting offer to take full charge of the shop. I told him I would not be a participant in exploiting his 'hands,' who were getting only $7 to $8 a week. Furthermore, I said I would not stand for the discharge of any man for incompetency. I had never in the shop met any man I could not teach and learn something from in return; I had never discharged a man, and never would. The millionaire boss nevertheless continued to urge me to take the ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood
... Caruthers's company to-day Burns found the heaviness of his spirit lifting slightly very slightly. Tenderness toward the little lost patient who had loved and trusted him so well began gradually to usurp the place of the black hatred of what he felt to be his own incompetency. Passing a florist's shop he suddenly felt like giving that which, as it had occurred to him before, had seemed to him would be only a mockery from his hands. He went in and selected flowers—dozens and dozens of white rosebuds, fresh and sweet—and ...
— Red Pepper Burns • Grace S. Richmond
... remind you, that the Volatile salt of Harts-horn, Amber, Blood, &c. are exceeding strongly scented, notwithstanding that most Chymists deduce Odours from Sulphur, and from them argue the Predominancy of that Principle in the Odorous body, because I must not so much as add any new Examples of the incompetency of this sort of Chymical arguments; since having already detain'd You but too long in those generals that appertain to my fourth consideration, 'tis time that I proceed to the particulars themselves, to which I thought fit they ...
— The Sceptical Chymist • Robert Boyle
... refusal of the permission to marry will not change the desire to marry. Many, of course, to whom a permit is refused, will accept the situation, will be thankful to be possessed of the knowledge of their incompetency in order that they may seek medical aid. These individuals will remain under medical supervision until their ailments are cured and their competency established. In this way the eugenic aim is materially furthered. Others may not abide by the decree which forbids marriage. ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume I. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague, M.D.
... been the course of this trial if expert testimony were established upon proper principles? Professor Aiken having shown his complete incompetency in the Schoeppe case, the analysis would have been entrusted to some skillful chemist, who by failing to discover poison would have established the innocence of Mrs. Wharton, or by bringing positive results into court have ensured conviction; or, Dr. Aiken having made the analysis, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... charged to those who had constantly resisted the establishment of an adequate standing army, and who, with inconsistent vehemence, had urged the nation into a war, regardless of its military equipment. The emaciated veterans arriving at Montauk were spoken of as the evidences of "military incompetency;" they were also evidence of that narrow statesmanship which ignores the constant suggestions ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward
... the incompetency of the Church, in its diffusive capacity, to be judge of controversies; and the impertinency of that ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge
... estancia house was as pleasant as that of the morning, and there we found the Chinaman (who, owing to the strenuous exertions of The Chaperon, now appeared with considerably less hair, and obviously a more swollen head), had gauged correctly the incompetency of The Kid, in the brewing of his native beverage, and consequently had prepared a beverage which might pass for tea, and was enjoyed by all. After this refreshment a move was made, the luggage had gone on, and the party followed in their two coaches. ...
— Argentina From A British Point Of View • Various
... of a commander was perhaps the best that could have been made; for Pepperrell joined to an unusual popularity as little military incompetency as anybody else who could be had. Popularity, we have seen, was indispensable, and even company officers were appointed with an eye to it. Many of these were well-known men in rustic neighborhoods, who had raised companies in the hope of being ...
— A Half-Century of Conflict, Volume II • Francis Parkman
... the signs of movement grew. Regiments were moved away mysteriously, and soon the Caribees were almost alone on Meridian Hill. Jack was filled with dire fears that the commanding officer, having discovered the incompetency of Oswald, feared to take the Caribees to the front. Something of the rumor spread through the regiment, and if, as reputed, "Old Sauerkraut" (this was the name he got behind his back) had spies in all the companies, the adage about listeners ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... your Lordships: if a man is of opinion that no public court can truly and properly bring him to any account for his conduct, that the forms observable in courts are totally adverse to it, that there is a general incompetency with regard to such a court, and yet shuns a tribunal capable and competent, and applies to that which he thinks is incapable and incompetent, does not that man plainly show that he has rejected what he thinks will prove ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... help tyrannized over the employers and threw trade into recurring conditions of confusion. That same great body of uninstructed public opinion, which, on the whole, favored the factory laws, was quite clearly opposed to trade unions. With the incompetency of their own class, the power of the law, and the force of public opinion opposed to their existence and actions, it is not a matter of wonder that the development of these working-class organizations was ...
— An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England • Edward Potts Cheyney
... that a decisive result will be reached in that time? Sea warfare has given no answer. The crushing successes of Prussia against Austria, and of Germany against France, appear to have been those of a stronger over a much weaker nation, whether the weakness were due to natural causes, or to official incompetency. How would a delay like that of Plevna have affected the fortune of war, had Turkey had any reserve of national power upon which ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... after Thanksgiving. I had fancied myself appearing among my scholars like a king surrounded by his subjects. But these lofty notions soon melted down beneath the searching glances of forty pairs of eyes. A sense of my incompetency came over me, and I felt like saying,—"Young people, little children, what can I do for you, and how shall I ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... have not been apprehended. This is the sixth in the series of daring daylight robberies that has occurred within the month. The failure of the police to deal with this situation has provoked widespread comment on the incompetency of the King's Chief of Police, and there are some who assert that the police are in league with the robbers. The magnificent new house which the Chief of Police has been erecting, ostensibly with the money left him by a ...
— King Arthur's Socks and Other Village Plays • Floyd Dell
... and were at the mercy rather of the Indians than the Indians at their mercy. M. De La Barre was compelled to withdraw his troops. The blustering, pompous, mischief-loving De La Barre was recalled by his government, for incompetency, and in 1685 ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... at St. Mary's, went home to his village parish church only to hear the hymn murdered, or if it were Advent, Christmas, or Easter, a tradesman shout from the gallery, "We will now sing to the praise and glory of God a hanthem!" when a motet would be sacrificed to incompetency with every circumstance of barbarity attending the execution. Mr. Newman in language of appalling force, written a year after his conversion, has described the Anglican service as "a ritual dashed upon the ground, ...
— Cardinal Newman as a Musician • Edward Bellasis
... intentions of Tom vanished with his success; for, laying aside his weapon, he advanced upon his antagonist, and seized him with an open palm. One more struggle, in which the captain discovered his incompetency to make any defence against the strength of a man who managed him as if he had been a child, decided the matter. When the captain was passive in the hands of his foe, the cockswain produced sundry pieces of sennit, marline, and ratlin-stuff, from his pockets, which appeared to contain ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... the way of books, and consideration for general incompetency, reduced her to WILHELM TELL, and she began with a lecture first on Schiller, and then upon Switzerland, and on the legend; but when Bessie Merrifield put in a word of such history and criticisms as were not in the High School Manual, she was sure everything else must be wrong—'Fraulein ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... naturally flow into the bowels to lubricate and quiet, and proceed at once to repair all irritated surfaces, which is abundantly supplied by nature from the mouth of the sphincter ani, without which forethought and preparation, nature's God will prove his incompetency for the great ...
— Philosophy of Osteopathy • Andrew T. Still
... dream of throwing away their lives. They calculated on a rising of the Syracusans to throw off an insupportable yoke, and they had utter contempt for the tyrant himself, knowing his drunken habits, and effeminate character, and personal incompetency. So, after ten years' exile, Dion, with his followers, landed in Sicily, at Heracleia, also in the absence of Dionysius, who had quitted Syracuse for Italy, with eighty triremes, so that the city was easy ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... enough to "promote on the field for meritorious services." Therefore, as Dennis's task approached completion, he said: "That will do, Mr. Fleet, you can finish the work at your leisure. Mr. Berder, you are discharged from this day for deception. I would have borne with your incompetency if you had been truthful. But I never trust any one who has deceived me once," he said, so sternly that even Christine's cheek paled. "Mr. Schwartz will settle with you, and let me never see or hear from you again. Mr. Fleet, I promote you to Mr. ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... pass the laws which he prepared. Only toward the close of the war did it, in a measure, free itself from this control, and, finally, in 1865, it passed a resolution attributing Confederate disaster to Davis's incompetency as commander-in-chief, a position which he had insisted on occupying; removing him from that position and conferring it upon General Lee, giving the latter, at the same time, unlimited powers in disposing ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... under the circumstances, were no doubt justified in the policy they pursued, for the Swabian emperors failed to respect the acknowledged rights of the church, and to remember their own incompetency in spirituals; but evidently their political views and aims were liberal, far-reaching, and worthy of admiration. Their success, if it could have been effected without lesion to the church, would have set Europe forward some two or three hundred ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson
... respectful camaraderie, yet with such suggestiveness of an Old Guard in reserve, that his innocence became a supererogatory merit. Besides which, he had been, in a general way, a servant of servants in every quarter of the globe, and had been run out of every billet for utter incompetency; often having to content himself with a poor half-pennyworth of bread to this intolerable deal of sack. So he enjoyed (or otherwise) opportunities of seeing things that the literary tourist never sees; and, being a good ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... to them for publication before some critic of established reputation out-of-doors; while more than one eminent publisher might be named who has trusted solely to his own judgment, and rarely found that judgment at fault. In either of these cases there is no reason to assume the incompetency of the judge. Besides, as we have said, the question to be solved by the publisher or reader, is not a purely literary question. It is mainly indeed a commercial question; and the merits of the work are often freely acknowledged while the venture is ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... Normal School gains there a start and an impulse, which carry him forward the rest of his life. A very little judicious experimental training redeems hundreds of candidates from utter and hopeless incompetency, and converts for them an awkward and painful drudgery into keen, hopeful and ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart
... his disqualification. When the Electoral Commission advised Congress, and Congress accepted, by not rejecting, the advice, that fraud could not be proved, that advice being but the equivalent of saying that fraud was of no consequence; when it advised that the incompetency of the Returning Board, for want of jurisdiction, could not be proved, such proof being but the equivalent of proof that the pretended board was not a board at all; when it advised that the forgery, by direction of the board, ...
— The Vote That Made the President • David Dudley Field
... words. "My life is in thy hands, my Emperor!" which must have been said to him often enough before. Let no one reproach me if, henceforth, I keep silence on the subject of Soliman. Offenses of this kind are not mere blunders, they are the sign of complete incompetency on the part of the poet, and solely out of curiosity, not because it is necessary to demonstrate my argument, I shall continue to analyze Zriny, Helena, and ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... For her incompetency she is not entirely to blame; rather is it a matter of heredity and environment. Being a girl, it is not natural to her to work systematically. The working woman is a new product; in this country she is hardly three generations old. As yet she is as new to the idea of what it really ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... capability of this institution for the reception and profitable employment of a greater number of pupils, would very materially depend on the director, and be, in a great measure, accelerated or retarded by his ability or incompetency for a due discharge of ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... only as a formal demand that the President should acknowledge his own incompetency to perform his duties, content himself with the amusement of distributing post-offices, and resign his power as to all important affairs into the hands of his Secretary of State. It seems to-day incomprehensible how a statesman of Seward's calibre could at that period conceive a plan ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... the discomfort of being bored. So lofty and forbidding had been his manner that no one had ventured to intrude even a casual good morning. A bachelor under thirty, with a competence of such dimensions that it had entailed incompetency, and a doting family that danced attendance upon his every whim, he was figuratively as well as literally at sea in this new environment. At times he faltered in his stern determination not to allow any one to become ...
— The Honorable Percival • Alice Hegan Rice
... diplomacy," observed Harleston, "except in large numbers; when it ceases to be diplomacy and becomes war. In fact, only bunglers resort to killing; and if the killing be known it ends one's career in the service. To have to kill to gain an end is conclusive evidence of incompetency. I mean, of course, among reputable nations. There are some thugs among the lesser Powers, just as there are thugs among ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott
... the Queen Regent expressing Her Majesty's hope that Count Ofalia's Note [of 11th May] would be satisfactory to me, and stating that Her Ministers had so fully proved their incompetency by giving any just cause of complaint to the Minister of Her only real Friend and Ally, The Queen of England, that she should have dismissed them, were it not that the state of affairs in the Northern Provinces at this moment might be prejudiced by a change of Government, which Her ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... the Calcutta edition has the following:—Those learned in the Vedas, ascetics, the aged, devotees, and the like, are incompetent witnesses, because so declared by law; no other ground [of incompetency] is assigned. ...
— Hindu Law and Judicature - from the Dharma-Sastra of Yajnavalkya • Yajnavalkya
... sailor. He was about two years and eight months younger than the poet, who found in him quite a congenial spirit. He perished, with nearly all his crew, in the 'Earl of Abergavenny,' East-Indiaman, which he commanded, and which, owing to the incompetency of a pilot, was in his last outward voyage wrecked on the Shambles of the Bill of Portland on the night of Friday, February 5, 1805. His brother William speaks of him in verse, as 'a silent poet,' and in prose describes him as 'meek, affectionate, silently enthusiastic, loving all quiet things, ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth
... wealth by shamelessly robbing poor Tommy of his food and clothes. Mon Dieu! What forbearance the thinking, sympathetic portion of the British people must have had to endure it, knowing that their fellow-subjects and kinsfolk were being done to death by some contractors and by the callousness and incompetency of dunderheaded politicians and drawing-room warriors! It is a sickening subject that cannot be approached ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... two things of which a man cannot be careful enough: of obstinacy, if he confines himself to his own line of thought; of incompetency, if he goes ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... the Tageblatt article give a glimpse not only of how the newspapers of Germany are hampered and censored, but of the positively glorious incompetency of the Government officials who denied the existence of an original document in the Kaiser's own hand which the most elementary inquiries in their own circle would have disclosed not only was in existence ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... a former time had completely faded. To their sharpened minds it was easy to conjure pictures of all kinds of incompetency and blindness and, indeed, cowardice. There was the shore of the populous land, and it was bitter and bitter to them that from it ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... justify their selection by a conspicuous efficiency in the discharge of their duties. Honorable party service will certainly not be esteemed by me a disqualification for public office, but it will in no case be allowed to serve as a shield of official negligence, incompetency, or delinquency. It is entirely creditable to seek public office by proper methods and with proper motives, and all applicants will be treated with consideration; but I shall need, and the heads of Departments will need, time for inquiry and deliberation. Persistent importunity will not, ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison
... walked and walked till I was almost fainting, and found myself in the Park. There the lovely indications of spring, and the quiet, and the fresh air, soothed me, and I sat down under some trees near the water, and rested myself. But the same giddy whirl of thoughts came back, the same incompetency to deal with such strange facts, and the same confusion. I do not know how long I wandered about; but I was faint and weary and hungry, and frightened too, for people were beginning to ...
— Richard Vandermarck • Miriam Coles Harris
... ponies, women, and children, leaving all their camp equipage. Troops are in pursuit. Mail-stages have stopped west of Camp Collins. Everything appears to work unfavorably owing to failure of corn contractors and incompetency of some of my subordinates. I will overcome all obstacles, however, in a short time. Have you sent me cavalry yet? J. D. Doty, Governor of Utah, was buried at Camp Douglas Cemetery this morning. Died of ...
— The Battle of Atlanta - and Other Campaigns, Addresses, Etc. • Grenville M. Dodge
... had been given a major's commission by the Connecticut Legislature, in 1757, and almost every year succeeding he was promoted, until finally he was at the head of the forces of the State. In common with his fellow Provincials, he suffered from the incompetency of the British commanders sent over from England. Crown Point was the objective for assault during several years, and still was not reached until the hearts of all concerned grew heavy with hope deferred. One of the most glaringly inefficient of ...
— "Old Put" The Patriot • Frederick A. Ober
... strongly against permitting Gen. Lovell to remain in command in that State, since the fall of New Orleans (which I omitted to note in regular order in these chronicles), and they attribute that disgraceful event, some to his incompetency, and others to treason. These remonstrances come from such influential parties, I think the President must listen to them. Yes, a Massachusetts man (they say Gen. L. came from Boston) was in command of the troops of New Orleans when that great city surrendered without firing a ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... South the plundering was equally conspicuous. Some of the Northern Senators were fond of pointing out the incompetency and rascality of the Southern oligarchy, while ignoring the acts of the capitalists in their own section. Senator Wilson, for instance, enlarged upon the condition of the railroads in North and South Carolina, describing how, after having been fed with enormous subsidies, ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... this chapter, from saying a word or two about the incompetency of the large majority of "general practitioners" and "family physicians," and their evident carelessness, and in some instances, even disgust, in the diagnosis and treatment of ...
— Manhood Perfectly Restored • Unknown
... establish the great delinquency of the company's servants, and the need that existed of their being subject to supervision. At the same time it did not show that the company of itself was competent to redress these abuses, and the question was, whether the incompetency of the company warranted the interposition of parliament. Ministers acknowledged it to be a stretch of authority, but they justified it on the plea of cogent necessity—a necessity which took precedence of all other law. The company's battle was fought in the commons by Burke, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... on extreme probability. But I doubt whether there is any evidence as to this. Cicero himself brings this accusation, but not in that direct manner which he would have used had he been able to prove it. The Sicilians, at any rate, said that it was so. As to the incompetency of the man, there was probably no doubt, and it might be quite as serviceable to have an incompetent as a dishonest accuser. Caecilius himself had declared that no one could be so fit as himself for the work. He knew Sicily well, having been born there. He had been Quaestor ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... except with the senses, and | skeptics are wrong when, questioning | them, they plunge the mind into | despair. "But by far the greatest | hindrance and aberration of the human | understanding proceeds from the | dulness, incompetency, and deceptions | of the senses" (IV, 58). On the one | hand, they are too dull and too | gross, and let the more subtle parts | of nature escape our observation: | their range is limited to the most | conspicuous information. On the other | hand, they ...
— Valerius Terminus: of the Interpretation of Nature • Sir Francis Bacon
... results of his system in a clearer light, he selected the objects of his experiment from the very dregs of the people. If he found a child who was left in destitute circumstances from the death of its parents or from their incompetency and vice, he immediately took him home, so that, in a short time, his house was converted into an asylum, in which fifty orphan or pauper children were fed, clothed, and instructed in the different employments from which they might afterward be able to gain ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... governess, the only position of the kind which circumstances left open to her, she could hope for nothing more than the paltriest remuneration. Be somebody's 'secretary'? That sounded pleasant, but very ambitious: a sense of incompetency chilled her. In an office, in a shop, who would dream ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... power to destroy a cause. Far away from the great centers of conflict in Virginia and Georgia, on a remote theatre, the opportunity of striking a blow decisive of the war was afforded. An army that included the strength of every garrison from Memphis to the Gulf had been routed, and, by the incompetency of its commander, was utterly demoralized and ripe for destruction. But this army was permitted to escape, and its 19th corps reached Chesapeake Bay in time to save Washington from General Early's attack, while the 13th, 16th, and 17th corps reenforced Sherman in Georgia. More than all, ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... crucible with which lazy, bigoted and incapable merchants can turn incompetency into success—but one into which brains and tenacity and courage can be poured and changed into dollars. It is only a short cut across the fields—not a moving platform. You can't "get there" ...
— The Clock that Had no Hands - And Nineteen Other Essays About Advertising • Herbert Kaufman
... the message brought to him by the sprite, for the thoughts of the Immortals cannot be expressed in human speech, conveyed a semblance of it in such words as he could command, and sought to veil their incompetency by an agreeable measure. In like manner I think may the art of poetry have been invented. It is an effort to cover by wile of dulcet utterance the impotence of mortal speech to tell the things that belong to the spirit. And, after all, language as we know it is an uncertain ...
— Atma - A Romance • Caroline Augusta Frazer
... strangely sensitive to any emotional appeal, it is not surprising that Mr. Merriman displayed the proverbial enthusiasm of the convert in his new political creed. His original perception of the imprudence and administrative incompetency of President Krueger's regime was rapidly obliterated by a growing partizanship, which in turn gave place to an unreasoning sympathy with the Boer cause, combined with a bitter antipathy against all who were concerned, whether in a civil ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... is the easiest and most slovenly way to handle the situation, not to speak of its being an inhuman way. It is, in effect, throwing upon labour the incompetency of the managers of the business. If we only knew it, every depression is a challenge to every manufacturer to put more brains into his business—to overcome by management what other people try to overcome by wage reduction. To tamper with ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford
... INCOMPETENCY.—This is the most common valvular disease. The segments of the valve may be shortened and deformed. There is often stenosis (narrowing) caused by this deformity. The effects are regurgitation, flowing back of blood from the left ventricle into the left auricle, which is also receiving ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... Napoleon's own conduct to Spain. This battle and capitulation of Baylen were termed by the Emperor himself the Caudine forks of the French army. He attributed the disaster to treachery on the part of Dupont: it was the result of the rashness of the expedition, and the incompetency of the conductor. The richest part of Spain was freed wholly of the invaders: the light troops of Castanos pushed on, and swept the country before them; and within ten days, King Joseph perceived the necessity of quitting Madrid, and removed ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... surface it is all well. There is less incompetency among French than English workers, and thus the class who furnish them need less arraignment for their lack of thoroughness. They contend, also, with one form of competition, which has its counterpart in America among the farmers' wives, who take the work at less than regular rates. ...
— Prisoners of Poverty Abroad • Helen Campbell
... disturbed and disastrous. In the northern and western provinces, rebellion after rebellion broke out, due in a great measure to the carelessness, incompetency and obstinacy of the emperor, and the coasts were infested with pirates, whose number and organization enabled them for a long time to hold the imperial fleet in check. Meanwhile the condition of the foreign merchants at Canton had not improved, and to set matters on a better footing the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... fleet for attacking the Turkish Empire, but he does not seem to me capable of so great an enterprise." This throws more light upon the limitations of Bishop Burnet than those of Peter the Great, and fairly illustrates the incompetency of contemporary estimates of genius; or, perhaps, the inability of talent to take the full measure of genius at any time. The good Bishop adds that he adores the wise Providence which "has raised up such a furious man to reign over such a part of the world." ...
— A Short History of Russia • Mary Platt Parmele
... her face by the tender-hearted Juanita, and perhaps there might be something reviving in a soft kiss that the young seaman could not avoid dropping upon her lips as he supported her in his arms. I have already intimated my incompetency to describe a parting scene between two lovers, for reasons then specified: a tender meeting is liable to the same objections. Such things should always be left to the reader's imagination; for it is ten chances to one if the author's description ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... the denominational exhibit in the village works great harm to boys. It is not only that they are deprived of that guidance which true Christianity would give them, but they are confronted from the first with a spectacle of pettiness, jealousy, and incompetency which they will probably forever associate with Christianity, at least in its ecclesiastical forms. Villages are at best sufficiently susceptible to those unfortunate human traits that make for clique and cleavage in society, and when the Christian church, instead of unifying and exalting the community ...
— The Minister and the Boy • Allan Hoben
... force of the enemy accumulated on our coasts, our private cruisers also have not ceased to annoy his commerce and to bring their rich prizes into our ports, contributing thus, with other proofs, to demonstrate the incompetency and illegality of a blockade the proclamation of which is made the pretext for vexing and discouraging the commerce of neutral powers ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... already stirring in men's minds; he could not have written what he has done unless people were in some sort ready for it; any more than those painters could have begun their crusade against the dulness and incompetency that was the rule in their art thirty years ago unless they had some hope that they would one day move ...
— Hopes and Fears for Art • William Morris
... the force of adjuration. But probably the station-master lost little of the meaning the Patriarch desired to convey. This tended in the direction of showing the utter incapacity of the Swiss or French nature to manage a railway, and the discreditable incompetency of the officials of whatever grade. The station-master was properly abashed before the torrent of indignant speech. But he had his turn presently. Calmer inspection disclosed the fact that all the fourteen packets were delivered. It was delightful to see how the station-master, ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy
... hear a word he said. He spoke as though he had a sponge in his mouth, and moved as if paralyzed. The perspiration poured down his face; yet what he was doing no one could guess. It was a case of moral cowardice rather than incompetency. At rehearsals no one had entirely believed in him, and this, instead of stinging him into a resolution to triumph, had made him take fright ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... Melendez, de Abila, sent by Philip the Second expressly to destroy the Frenchmen who had been so presumptuous as to settle in territories claimed by his Catholic Majesty. Nature seemed to conspire with their own incompetency to ruin the French. The French vessels, having gone out to attack the Spaniards, accomplished nothing, and, meeting a terrible storm, were driven far down the coast and wrecked. "Caroline" fell into the ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... after hammering out half a dozen verses, I met with Mr. Tennyson's poems; and the unequalled sketches of women that I found there, while they had, with the rest of the book, a new and abiding influence on my mind, were quite enough to show me my own fatal incompetency in that line. I threw my verses away, never to resume them. Perhaps I proved thereby the depth of my affection. Our mightiest feelings, are always those which remain most unspoken. The most intense lovers and the greatest poets have generally, I think, written very little personal love-poetry, ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... willing to believe, that the degree—if we are rightly informed, no slight one—of interest with which these volumes were welcomed in England, was sufficient to blind their readers to the extreme incompetency with which the translations ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... Treasurer or Secretary die or be expelled, there is no doubt that an election for a successor, to fill the unexpired term, may be held by dispensation from the Grand Master. But the incompetency of either of these officers to perform his duties, by reason of the infirmity of sickness or removal from the seat of the lodge, will not, I think, authorize such an election. Because the original officer may recover from his infirmity, or return to his residence, and, in ...
— The Principles of Masonic Law - A Treatise on the Constitutional Laws, Usages And Landmarks of - Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... above. All went well with him so long as he was not called upon to make a difficult adjustment, but with the loss of his child he develops a mental disorder. That he should have reacted to his daughter's injury with murder is quite in line with his general inability and incompetency for proper adjustment, and the development of a mental disorder which has kept him in an institution for the past twelve years and will in all probability keep him there the rest of his life, in reaction to the committed murder, further emphasizes the general vulnerability of his nervous system. ...
— Studies in Forensic Psychiatry • Bernard Glueck
... myself that most of my associates were really insane, and therefore (as I believed) disqualified as competent witnesses in a court of law, I would occasionally engage in conversation with a few whose evident incompetency seemed to make them safe confidants. One, a man who during his life had more than once been committed to an institution, took a very evident interest in me and persisted in talking to me, often much against my will. His persistent inquisitiveness seemed to support ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... his thirty challenges, as against three for the prosecution. The court reconvened and a new talesman was called, resembling in appearance a professional hangman who for relaxation leaned toward the execution of Italians. Mr. Tutt examined him for bias and every known form of incompetency, but in vain—then challenged peremptorily. Thirty challenges! He looked on Tutt with ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... battle. His general idea was that the troops went out to fight, and he thought that they should be allowed to go at it at once." Near Orange Court House, he wrote to his wife on the 19th of March, 1862, "I know not what is to become of this country. Davis' incompetency is more apparent as our danger increases. ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall
... clearly shown by two great failures, for neither of which were these officers responsible, and in one only of which in fact did either appear, even in a subordinate capacity. The now nearly forgotten miscarriage of Admiral Mathews off Toulon, in 1744, and the miserable incompetency of Byng, at Minorca, in 1756, remembered chiefly because of the consequent execution of the admiral, serve at least, historically, to mark the low extreme to which had then sunk professional theory ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... Negro teacher and educator might as well admit the fact of their incompetency and with the admission bend themselves with renewed energy to hard study, laying aside all bogus degrees and meaningless titles, and acknowledge the fact that they are yet intellectual pigmies. If they will do this, perchance they themselves may not only add to their own statures but they may also ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various |
