"Unfit" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... similar circumstances, beheld such a pair of eyes, you might have been troubled with somewhat similar emotions. Cowardice lies not in the susceptibility of the nervous system to a shock, but in giving way to that shock so as to become unfit for proper action or self-defence. If Olaf had been a coward, he would, forgetting all else, have attempted to fly, or, that being impossible, would have shrunk into the innermost recesses of the cave. Not being a coward, his first impulse was to start to his feet and face the pair of eyes; his ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne
... painfully alive to his defects of temper and deficiency in charm; resolute to make up for these; thinking last of himself: Fleeming was in some ways the very man to have made a noble, uphill fight of an unfortunate marriage. In other ways, it is true, he was one of the most unfit for such a trial. And it was his beautiful destiny to remain to the last hour the same absolute and romantic lover, who had shown to his new bride the flag-draped vessels in the Mersey. No fate is altogether easy; but ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... That the Filipinos are unfit to face the world alone there can be little doubt. As to whether it is our business in that {172} case to manage for them is another question. The Filipinos are, like our negroes, a child-race in habits of thought, whatever they may be from the standpoint of the evolutionist. ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... narrow lanes and courts. How could that place be allowed to suffer destruction? But when the old thing is gone we must cast about for the best uses of anything which once belonged to it. And of all the uses to which the revenues of the old Hospital might be put, the present seems the most unfit ...
— As We Are and As We May Be • Sir Walter Besant
... this miraculous turn of events occurred. When I went before my medical board I was declared unfit for active service for at least two months. A few days later I went in to General Headquarters to see what were the chances of a trip to New York. The officer whom I consulted pulled out his watch, "It's noon now. There's a boat-train leaving Euston in ...
— The Glory of the Trenches • Coningsby Dawson
... consistent to the last degree. The brave man is the pitiful man; and while he may consider a hecatomb necessary for a cause, he regards one life sacrificed unnecessarily, as murder. "Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm, is all unfit to live!" says one of the old poet-philosophers. And are worms therefore never to be trodden upon? Not so, by any means! The adverbial adjective "needlessly" explains the broad distinction. Not one worm, even the creeping, crawling and disgusting caterpillar, for cruelty or even for neglect: ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... you well know I am not sentenced by the Star-Chamber, or any other court, to confinement within this cell. I will not enter it; and I order you, at your peril, to provide me with a better chamber. This is wholly unfit ...
— The Star-Chamber, Volume 2 - An Historical Romance • W. Harrison Ainsworth
... happens, that after the paper has been mounted and dried, it is discovered that lumps in the paste have caused defects to appear on the face of the paper in the shape of raised surfaces that unfit it for the intended purpose. These can be entirely removed by wetting the back of the strainer with some clean water immediately behind where the lumps of paste are, and with a knife scraping the cloth a little at these places; ...
— Crayon Portraiture • Jerome A. Barhydt
... knowledge to which he has devoted himself, he show himself deficient in industry or in capacity, it will be best for the university and best for himself, to prevent him from pursuing a vocation for which he is obviously unfit. And I hardly know of any other method than this by which his fitness or unfitness can be safely ascertained, though no doubt a good deal may be done, not by formal cut and dried examination, but by judicious questioning, at the ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... sentiment becomes, at times, sentimental; and then strenuousness pushes it into a corner. When honoured veterans are wearing out, loyalty, gratitude for past service, reluctance to inflict pain, keep them in positions of responsibility which mentally and physically they are unfit to administer. It is almost as difficult to turn an Eton or Harrow master out of his house, as to turn a parson of the Church of England out of his pulpit. More, in selecting a house-master as in selecting a parson, a man's claims to preferment are too often determined by scholarship, ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... a few weeks to demonstrate that however high were Halleck's professional acquirements in other respects, he was totally unfit for a commander in the field. Grant had undoubtedly been careless in not providing against the enemy's attack at Pittsburg Landing. Halleck, on the other extreme, was now doubly over-cautious in his march upon Corinth. From first to last, his campaign resembled a siege. With over one hundred ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... land were thus rendered unfit for sheep or cattle pasturage. The settlers presented their case to the colonial governments, and the latter placed a bounty on kangaroo scalps. Meantime, it was found that the skins were worth something, and then the ...
— The Land of the Kangaroo - Adventures of Two Youths in a Journey through the Great Island Continent • Thomas Wallace Knox
... of the small river Manor, in Peeblesshire. The few people who had occasion to pass that way were much surprised, and some superstitious persons a little alarmed, to see so strange a figure as Bow'd Davie (i.e. Crooked David) employed in a task, for which he seemed so totally unfit, as that of erecting a house. The cottage which he built was extremely small, but the walls, as well as those of a little garden that surrounded it, were constructed with an ambitious degree of solidity, ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... I thought this question over, but was unable to solve it; a fear now stole over me that I was unfit for anything in the world, save the lazy life of vegetation which I had for many years been leading; yet, if that were the case, thought I, why the craving within me to distinguish myself? Surely it does not occur fortuitously, but is intended ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... Sir, to differ from Mr. Locke in this point; for I think it ought rather to be a rule with parents, who shall chastise their children, to conquer what would be extreme in their own passion on this occasion (for those who cannot do it, are very unfit to be the punishers of the wayward passions of their children), than to defer the punishment, especially if the child knows its fault has reached its parent's ear. It is otherwise, methinks, giving the child, if of an obstinate disposition, so much more time to harden its mind, ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... is largely confined to the ambitious office-seeking class, possessing an insatiable desire for the forum, and when allowed will unfit this class for all the duties of domestic life and transform them into politicians, ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... the first of these, Sligh v. Kirkwood,[962] the Court upheld the application to oranges which were intended for the interstate market of a Florida statute prohibiting the sale, shipment, or delivery for shipment of any citrus fruits which were immature or otherwise unfit for consumption. The burden thus imposed upon interstate commerce was held by the Court to be incidental merely to the effective enforcement of a measure intended to safeguard the health of the people of Florida. Moreover, said the Court, "we may take judicial notice ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... should have done so," she continued after a pause. "I recognise it now; and let there be an end of it. There is a something which does make a woman unfit for matrimony." And the tears coursed themselves down her wan cheeks. "Now it has all been said that need be said, and let there be an end of it. I have talked too much about myself. What has ...
— The Landleaguers • Anthony Trollope
... in all its aspects. The same spirit of truthfulness that makes Sebastian Bach hold himself aloof from the progressive art which he encourages in his sons, drives Beethoven to invent new forms and new means of expression with every work he writes. Gluck abolished the Da Capo Aria, because it was unfit for dramatic music. Bach did not abolish it, because he did not intend to write dramatic music in the strict sense of the term. Mature musical art in Bach's time could not be dramatic, except in the loose ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... is a calm courtliness about him which I think very imposing. He is the only man I ever saw who, without being very young, was not an unfit companion for youth. And there is no affectation of juvenility about him. He involuntarily reminds you of youth, as an empty orchestra does ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... hereditary right. Providence, James declared, had chosen the principle of heredity in order to fix the succession to the throne. This principle, being divine, lay beyond the power of man to alter. Whether the king was fit or unfit to rule, Parliament might not change the succession, depose a sovereign, or limit his authority in any way. James rather neatly summarized his views in a Latin epigram, a deo rex, a rege lex—"the king is from God and law ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... before the court. Although therefore for all ordinary purposes a son had no claim on the paternal estate beyond his maintenance, his right of succession might easily grow up in the eye of the law as an available asset capable of forfeiture with the theoretical assumption that the scapegrace was unfit to hold his position in the family.(220) His future portion, thus becoming deprived of a representative, might be wholly or in part confiscated to the State. There are many inscriptions confiscating to the State the goods of criminals who transgressed the laws ...
— On The Structure of Greek Tribal Society: An Essay • Hugh E. Seebohm
... is no aristocracy of officers. Pensions are fixed by law. There is no substitute system. Every citizen not disabled is liable either to military duty or to duties essential in time of war, such as service in the postal department, the hospitals, or the prisons. Citizens entirely disabled and unfit for the ranks or semi-military service are taxed to a certain per centage of their property or income. No canton is allowed to maintain more than three hundred men under arms without ...
— Direct Legislation by the Citizenship through the Initiative and Referendum • James W. Sullivan
... hangman's assistant, in fact a thoroughly fashionable young man. He said he had seen the notice that there was a room for rent up stairs, and wanted to see it. Of course I told him it was a wretched garret, unfit for people like him; but he insisted, and I ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... whenever any persons in authority or command should so request. This was to invite a secession of the French colonies from the mother country. Gallatin deprecated any action which might induce rebellion against authority, or lead to self-government among the people of the islands who were unfit for it. Moreover, such action would remove still further every expectation of an accommodation with France. The bill was passed by a vote of 55 to 37. He objected to the bill to authorize the President to suspend ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... the gold from the amalgam. At the first "cleaning up" on the Frasers Mine at Southern Cross, West Australia, great consternation was excited by the appearance of the retorted gold, which, as an old miner graphically put it, was "as black as the hind leg of a crow," and utterly unfit for smelting, owing to the presence of base metals. Some time after this I was largely interested in the Blackborne mine in the same district when a similar trouble arose. This I succeeded in surmounting, but a still more serious one was ...
— Getting Gold • J. C. F. Johnson
... well as the trees, become scanty and stunted, the former, at length, giving place to rough stone fences, partly greened over with ivy and moss, the latter to larches and Scotch fir-trees, or isolated blackthorns. The fields, being rough and stony, and wholly unfit for the plough, were mostly devoted to the posturing of sheep and cattle; the soil was thin and poor: bits of grey rock here and there peeped out from the grassy hillocks; bilberry-plants and heather—relics of more savage wildness—grew under the walls; and in many of the enclosures, ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... are similar to tales already well known" (unfortunately the comparative study of popular fictions was hardly begun in his time), while of others bare outlines are furnished, because he considered them "unfit for general perusal." But his work, even as it is, has probably never been "generally" read, and he seems to have had somewhat vague notions of "propriety," to judge by his translations from the Arabic and Persian. ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... at all. The prudery of the newspapers is, like the prudery of the dinner table, a mere difficulty of education and language. We are not taught to think decently on these subjects, and consequently we have no language for them except indecent language. We therefore have to declare them unfit for public discussion, because the only terms in which we can conduct the discussion are unfit for public use. Physiologists, who have a technical vocabulary at their disposal, find no difficulty; and masters of language who think ...
— Revolutionist's Handbook and Pocket Companion • George Bernard Shaw
... me, saying I was the sociologist, and I explained that the laws of nature require a struggle for existence, and that in the struggle the fittest survive, and the unfit perish. In our economic struggle, I continued, there was always plenty of opportunity for the fittest to reach the top, which they did, in great numbers, particularly in our country; that where there was severe economic pressure the lowest classes of course felt it the worst, and ...
— Herland • Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman
... shipped a large quantity of stores, suitable for commencing life in a new land. It was afterwards remembered that the deck of the vessel was encumbered with cargo of various kinds, including a bullock dray, and that the deck hamper would unfit her to encounter bad weather. As she did not arrive at Port Phillip within a reasonable time, a cutter was sent along the coast in search of her; and her long boat was found ashore near the Lakes Entrance, but nothing else belonging to her was ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... gallant appeared, And anxiously to putting off adhered, Pretending that the wind and tide would fail; The galleys sometimes were unfit to sail, Repairs required; then further heard the news, That certain pirates had unpleasant views; To fall upon the escort they'd contrived: At length, a pirate suddenly arrived, Surprized the party left upon the shore, Destroyed the whole; then sought the house for more, And ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... long to read," rejoined the judge, taking up the pamphlet he had laid down upon the lad's entrance, "but it says in substance, as quoted by this author, that negroes are beings 'of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; in fact, so inferior that they have no rights which the white man is bound to respect, and that the negro may justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt
... is precious. Also in his present state of mind he is certainly unfit company for—well, for Dave, here, a man who loves the pure white dove of peace." The station owner grinned. Van turned once more to the car owner, adding, placidly: ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... sometimes God yields to importunity, and grants to men what He knows will be no blessing to them. "It is a thing," says South, "partly worth our wonder, partly our compassion, that what the greatest part of men most passionately desire, that they are generally most unfit for; so that at a distance they court that as an enjoyment, which upon experience they find a plague and a great calamity." It is astonishing how many things we desire for the same reason as the Israelites sought a king, merely that we may have ...
— How to become like Christ • Marcus Dods
... that sacred subjects are not unfit—that they are fit—for didactic and descriptive poetry. Now, this is a very wide and comprehensive admission; and being a right, and natural, and just admission, it cannot but strike the thoughtful reader at once as destructive of the great dogma by which Sacred Poetry is condemned. The doctrines ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... as she told the story, " 'cousin Rachel,' cries the dowager, 'I have sent for you, as the doctors say I may go off any day in this dysentery; and to ease my conscience of a great load that has been on it. You always have been a poor creature and unfit for great honour, and what I have to say won't, therefore, affect you so much. You must know, cousin Rachel, that I have left my house, plate, and furniture, three thousand pounds in money, and my diamonds that my ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Unfit for thee, oh! Lady fair! The scenes where men engage; Thy gentle spirit could not bear The ...
— Poems • Matilda Betham
... bull-fight, being brutally unfair to the horses and the bull engaged and disgustingly cruel, is an unfit spectacle for humane and high-minded people, and no Christian man or woman can attend ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... gas is unfit for respiration, how does it happen that the large proportion of it which enters into the composition of the atmosphere is not a great impediment ...
— Conversations on Chemistry, V. 1-2 • Jane Marcet
... his look of suspicion from the five cadets. No cadet may ever lie; not even to a comrade in the corps. Any cadet who utters a lie, and is detected in it, is ostracized as being unfit for the company of gentlemen. So, when Dick's prompt denial came, Anstey believed, as he was ...
— Dick Prescott's Second Year at West Point - Finding the Glory of the Soldier's Life • H. Irving Hancock
... on, the seat vacated by Viator was taken by a young woman bound for Oil City, where her husband awaited her; but the homesickness epidemic among the female population of the Creek had already seized upon her so strongly as to unfit her for conversation; and Miselle devoted herself to the dismal landscape, privately agreeing with her companion that it was "the God-forsakenest-looking ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 90, April, 1865 • Various
... must ever result from inexperience, and perhaps incompetence, on the part of those in charge. Appliances and stores were scanty, and many of the surgeons and persons in charge, though doing the least that was possible, were totally unfit for their posts through want of experience ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... reported the houses as generally in a filthy, dilapidated condition, and often so far gone as to be worthless; the apparatus rusty, and many of the most necessary articles wanting; in some stations nothing which could be carried away was left; the keepers were utterly unfit for their position, and the crews which they employed worse. Yet, notwithstanding this mismanagement and lack of system, and although no regular official record had been kept, there was proof that 4163 lives had been saved and $716,000 ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... anything of my own opinion on the case, but it was generally contended by the members of the Board, that it would be impossible to maintain that persons who had declared their intention to throw off their allegiance to the Queen, with a view to annexation, were unfit to retain offices granted during pleasure, if persons who made a similar declaration with a view to independence were to be differently dealt with. Baldwin had Lord John's speech in his hand. He is a man of singularly ...
— Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin • James, Eighth Earl of Elgin
... me once," she said; "would you believe it, Ethel, we were not two weeks married when he began to hate me. He dragged me through Europe in blazing heat and blinding snows when I was sick and unfit to move. He brought me here in the depth of winter, and when no one called on us he blamed me; and from morning till night, and sometimes all night long, he taunts and torments me. After he heard that you had bought the Manor he lost all control of himself. He will not let me sleep. He walks the ...
— The Man Between • Amelia E. Barr
... thoroughfares and dilapidated dwellings, until the last decade, have characterized the place, the fine public buildings have for a long while awaited their fit surroundings—buildings mostly of the Grecian types, which, however unfit they might be for a land where damp dark heavens make all the spires that can spring up to catch the sunshine a necessity, are perfectly appropriate to a climate where the long hot summers demand the shelter of flat roofs and cool protecting porticoes. There are, then, already, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various
... quips and sallies together. Rosamund always made him tell the story of his past week in some detail; and Tom had therefore another motive for keeping free from scenes and company which would have made his story unfit hearing for her ...
— Tom Tufton's Travels • Evelyn Everett-Green
... secure the vote is through the referendum. We found in those four States what has always been true whenever any class of people have asked for any form of liberty and was best described by Macaulay when he said: "If a people are turbulent they are unfit for liberty; if they are quiet, they do not want it." We met a curious dilemma. On the one hand a great many men voted in the negative because women in Great Britain had made too emphatic a demand for the vote. Since they made that demand ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... plan very much, only don't be too generous, Teddy," said Mrs. Bhaer, when they were left alone. "You know most of the boys have got to paddle their own canoes when they leave us, and too much sitting in the lap of luxury will unfit them ...
— Little Men - Life at Plumfield With Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... religion with the purpose of making a trial than not to enter at all, because by so doing one disposes oneself to remain always. Nor is a person accounted to turn or to look back, save when he omits to do that which he engaged to do: else whoever does a good work for a time, would be unfit for the kingdom of God, unless he did it always, which ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... await their removal to some war vessel off the coast, and whose wives or mothers could devise no better means for their rescue than to obtain an interview with them in the prison, and there contrive so to mutilate the hands of the captives through the bars of the cell as to render them unfit for service in the Royal Navy. Sometimes, when it became known that the press-gang was about to visit that part of the town where seafaring men were likely to be found, the population of the quarter rallied in defence of their townsmen, and offered ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... against the advice of the wiser soldier, who had pointed out the peril of perishing of thirst in the waterless wastes between them and the enemy. Into those wastes they advanced, and they were already weary and unfit for warfare by the time they came in sight of the strange hills that will be remembered for ever under the name of the Horns of Hattin. On those hills, a few hours later, the last knights of an army of which half had fallen gathered in a final defiance ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton
... very sort of men who ought to be carefully saved as the fathers of the people to come. As these are killed or disabled, governments draw on the older men who are still vigorous and hardy. Then finally they call out the unfit, the sickly, the weak, the aged, and the young boys. As a general rule, the members of this last class make up the bulk of the men who survive the war. They, instead of the strong and healthy, become the fathers of the next ...
— The World War and What was Behind It - The Story of the Map of Europe • Louis P. Benezet
... might love a woman-angel who, at the merest breath going to fashion a word unfit, would spread her wings and soar. Do not, I pray you, fear to let me come! There are things that must be done in faith, else they never have being: let this ...
— The Flight of the Shadow • George MacDonald
... take up the hatchet with you against the French; but let us unite our strength. You are numerous, and all the English governors along your seashore can raise men enough. But don't let those that come from over the great seas be concerned any more. They are unfit to fight in the woods. Let us go by ourselves—we that came ...
— "Old Put" The Patriot • Frederick A. Ober
... Lionel, I thank you; I am dead to the world and am only here to perform a duty; the hearing of names would stir sad memories in my heart and unfit me for my task," and motioning him to bend down towards her, she said in tones ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... great interest in me (my father) had just established me in the City as an analytical chemist and mining engineer. Now, if there was one thing in the world for which I was peculiarly, and I may even say extraordinarily, unfit, it was that very useful profession; but it is a well-known fact that the fondest parents are not always the most discriminating in the choice of professions for their sons. So I had spent two years in a school of chemistry, attending lectures and performing analyses, ...
— George Du Maurier, the Satirist of the Victorians • T. Martin Wood
... If it be within your power, as you say, to release yourself from the hands of justice, the sooner you do so the better I shall be pleased. But I beg you to consider the state we are in. For my part, I am unfit to keep the saddle another hour, and are you not yourself knocked up by this forced march ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - THE COUNTESS DE SAINT-GERAN—1639 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... a wall-eyed scrub that looked unfit to walk, but proved well able to gallop under his light weight. One of Anazeh's men took my bag, with a nod to reassure me, and without a word we were off full-pelt, Anazeh leading with four stalwarts who looked almost as hard-bitten as himself, ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... and the grey hairs floating in the breeze. The countenance of this simple-minded veteran was a little anxious, for, had he feared the enemy a tenth part as much as he stood in awe of his commanding officer, he would have been totally unfit for his station. Now he glanced upward at his sails, to see that all was right; then, as he drew nearer, fathom by fathom as it might be, he anxiously endeavoured to read the expression of the ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... concerning the properties possessed by the water in certain senotes, and the strange phenomena that takes place in others. In one, for example, you are warned to approach the water walking backward, and to breathe very softly, otherwise it becomes turbid and unfit for drinking until it has settled and become clear again. In another you are told not to speak above a whisper, for if any one raises the voice the tranquil surface of the water immediately becomes agitated, and soon assumes the ...
— Vestiges of the Mayas • Augustus Le Plongeon
... are best adapted to the work of the cigar factories, where they excel in the occupation of cigar and cigarette making, and many hundreds are thus employed in Havana. But they are totally unfit for plantation labor, under the hardships of which their feeble frames succumb. They prove themselves very good servants in the cities, being very quick to learn, and ready to adapt themselves to any light occupation. A Chinaman is sly, cunning, and, to a certain degree, enterprising; ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... you will find it equal to your most sanguine expectation, for Indian corn, wheat, barley, pease, or any other tolerably round grain, that you may wish to sow or plant in this manner. I have sown oats very well with it, which is among the most inconvenient and unfit grains for this machine.... A small bag, containing about a peck of the seed you are sowing, is hung to the nails on the right handle, and with a small tin cup the barrel is replenished with convenience, whenever it is necessary, ...
— George Washington: Farmer • Paul Leland Haworth
... to him for one little whispered, yielding word, in which there should be acknowledgment that he had succeeded in making himself master of a human heart. And there are other men,—very many men,—who have felt this love, and have resisted it, feeling it to be unfit that Love should be Lord of all. Frank Greystock had told himself, a score of times, that it would be unbecoming in him to allow a passion to obtain such mastery of him as to interfere with his ambition. Could it be right that he ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... called out the father angrily. "Move farther off; we are about to talk of matters unfit for a woman to ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... your beginning, I can tell you. Is it necessary to mention the name of that old—?" He used a word, described in dictionaries as having a twofold meaning. (First, "A female of the canine kind." Second, "A term of reproach for a woman.") It shocked Mr. Mool; and it is therefore unfit ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... of others, which sins I brought with me; and other such unscriptural statements were made by this brother. Thus we spent again about two hours and a half in intercourse, whilst this teaching elder and one of the other elders considered me unfit to take the Lord's supper with them on the coming Lord's day, but the two other elders and several other brethren who were present were quite ready to break bread with me, and with any who love our Lord Jesus. Brother—now said, there must ...
— A Narrative of some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, Third Part • George Mueller
... character to enable her to break with all these conflicting surroundings and begin life over again as she had eloquently described to the priest, for without money she could not leave St. Ignace, and she could not raise the money without taking some situation which might unfit her for the stage and prolong the time of probation too far into middle life. Pauline might age early, and at thirty-five she saw herself maturing into a gaunt and grizzled dame, incapable of all poetic and youthful impersonations. To be thus crippled was torture to ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... a petty governor or gobernadorcillo of a rich colony of mestizos, in spite of the protests of many who considered him unfit for the position. He held the office for two years, but during this time he wore out ten frock coats, about the same number of high hats, and lost more than a half dozen of gobernadorcillo canes. His high hat and ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal
... Pueblos the first necessity of life is the transportation and preservation of water. The skins and paunches of animals could be used in the effort to meet this want with but small success, as the heat and aridity of the atmosphere would in a short time render water thus kept unfit for use, and the membranes once empty would be liable to destruction by drying. So far as language indicates the character of the earliest water vessels which to any extent met the requirements of the Zuni ancestry, they were tubes of wood or sections ...
— A Study of Pueblo Pottery as Illustrative of Zuni Culture Growth. • Frank Hamilton Cushing
... the records in various places, I was impressed with the great importance of the use of inks which should be permanent, and the necessity of an investigation which might prevent the further use of inks that for one reason or another were unfit for use upon records. I found that, as a rule, the inks upon the most ancient records had preserved their color, many undoubtedly being blacker than when used, but that the later records lost the jet-black ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho
... in his Memoirs of lord Walpole, says, that Mr. Legge, though a man of great talents for business, "was unfit for a foreign mission, and of a character ill suited to the temper of that powerful casuist, whose extraordinary dogmas were supported by 140,000 of the most effectual but convincing arguments in the world." ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... the two images never for an instant merged into one. To Philip she was the only woman in the world; it was the one subject on which he dared not consider, for fear that both conscience and judgment should decide against him, and that he should be convinced against his will that she was an unfit mate for him, that she never would be his, and that it was waste of time and life to keep her shrined in the dearest sanctuary of his being, to the exclusion of all the serious and religious aims which, in any other case, he would have been the first to acknowledge as the object he ought to pursue. ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. I • Elizabeth Gaskell
... he supposed. Now he's found out he will be nice. ... It's been days since I've had a talk with him. He tried to, but I wouldn't. Besides, the major has said nasty things about him when Howard was present; nothing definite, only hints, smiling silences, innuendoes on the verge of matters rather unfit; and I had nothing definite to refute. I could not even appear to understand or notice—it was all done in such a horridly vague way. But it only made me like him; and no doubt that actress he took to the Patroons is better company than ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... marched to the guardhouse and mounted by being inspected by the commander of the main guard, who determines whether all of the men are in proper condition to perform their duties and whether their arms and equipments are in proper condition, and rejects any men found unfit. (303) ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... double-exposure stuff done the next day, nor his remaining single-exposure stuff either. When his own reason and Applehead's earnest assurances convinced him that the day after the real blizzard day was going to be unfit for camera work, Luck took Weary, Pink, and the Native Son to Albuquerque, rented a little house he had discovered to be vacant, and set them to work building a drying drum for his prints, according to the specifications he furnished them. He ...
— The Phantom Herd • B. M. Bower
... considerations of fitness, willingness, daring and might, one should strike another, giving notice. No one should strike another that is unprepared[8] or panic-struck. One engaged with another, one seeking quarter, one retreating, one whose weapon is rendered unfit, uncased in mail, should never be struck. Car-drivers, animals (yoked to cars or carrying weapons), men engaged in the transport of weapons,[9] players on drums and blowers of conches should never be struck. Having made these covenants, the Kurus, and the Pandavas, and the Somakas ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... their want of talent do not hesitate, if invited, to take upon them the care of a college, or of a large and opulent church. If the conduct of men is to be regarded as a just interpreter of their sentiments, then the great body of the Christian ministry, instead of regarding themselves unfit for the work of missions, consider themselves too well qualified to enter it. They really think, that those of inferior qualifications will do for missions; while those of superior minds and brilliant talents must be reserved ...
— Thoughts on Missions • Sheldon Dibble
... the monster! Kill him, for he is unfit to live. Kill him, for he has wronged an unprotected woman, and committed outrages that will condemn him to eternal punishment in the ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... was no small trouble to this particular household to cut off the ends of all the taro, bread-fruit, and cocoa-nut leaves which they required for culinary purposes. Ends of taro, yams, bananas, fish, etc., were also carefully laid aside, and considered as unfit to be eaten as if they were poison. In a case of sickness, however, the god allowed, and indeed required, that the patient should be fanned with the ends ...
— Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before • George Turner
... Alas! in your great military camps during your Spanish war a moral laxity was allowed, which, had it been attempted in the Egyptian campaign, Lord Kitchener would have stamped out with a divine fury. I had it from an eyewitness, but the details are wholly unfit for publication. ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins
... believe that natural miseries Had blasted France, and made of it a land Unfit for Men; and that in one great Band Her Sons were bursting forth, to dwell at ease. But 'tis a chosen soil, where sun and breeze Shed gentle favors; rural works are there; And ordinary business without care; Spot rich in all things that can soothe and please! ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 1 • William Wordsworth
... the school at York," said Mary. "I am less unfit to teach in a school than in a family. I like to teach classes best. And, you see, I must teach: there is nothing else to ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... Sir," said the lady, "Do you think that can be? do you think a woman can fill, gracefully, a high place in society, if she has had disadvantages in early life to contend with, that were calculated to unfit her for it?" ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell
... them a political oration which fired the revolutionary blood in their veins, and made them eager to rush to the State-house en masse, and demand the ballot before one-half of them were quite clear what it meant, and the other half were as unfit for it as any ignorant Patrick bribed with a dollar and a ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... eastward by the Atlantic Ocean, northwardly by Chesapeake Bay, westwardly and southwardly by part of Lynnhaven River and by a creek called Long Creek and the branches thereof, is chiefly desert banks of sand and unfit for tillage or cultivation and contains several ...
— The Bounty of the Chesapeake - Fishing in Colonial Virginia • James Wharton
... was a morose, surly, and ill-natured man. He sent them only a few bananas, and a calabash of eggs, which were all stale and unfit to be eaten, so that some of their people were obliged to go supperless to bed. The governor ascribed the badness of his fare to extreme poverty, yet his vanity exacted from their Jenna messengers ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... Then, too, if a dress could have been procured, bonnet, shoes, and gloves would have also been requisite; and these could not have been obtained even amongst Miss Bessy's own clothes; for if her best were unfit to be seen, her commoner ones were scarce worth picking up in ...
— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood
... would be lost to you. So it was with Biddy's heart. She had never had any of the little pleasures, the good times, little hopes and plans, to which all children have a perfect right. Her hard, friendless, cheerless life had made the outside of Biddy's brave little heart tough, just as hard, unfit work would toughen your little hands. But the doll had made a difference to Biddy in every way. She had done all she could for her doll. She loved it. She had made it a dress from a piece of her own. She ...
— Harper's Young People, March 2, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... officers in the Church of God, of which she will have constant use in all ages, and which at first were divinely appointed, and after frequently mentioned in the New Testament; it will not be thought unfit, before we conclude this section, touching the divine right of Christ's church-officers, briefly to assert the divine right of deacons, ...
— The Divine Right of Church Government • Sundry Ministers Of Christ Within The City Of London
... nothing peculiar, if different agricultural products were either grown indiscriminately and with equal advantage on the same soils, or wholly on different soils. The difficulty arises from two things: first, that most soils are fitter for one kind of produce than another, without being absolutely unfit for any; and, ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... shook his head. "No wood here for fuel, and the blast will have scared away all the game. We'd better go upstream; if we go down, we'll find the water roiled with mud and unfit to drink. And if the game on this planet behave like the game-herds on the wastelands of Doorsha, they'll run ...
— Genesis • H. Beam Piper
... itself ought to follow in order to be saved—for prophets are constitutionally without a sense of humour. These philosophers maintain that intelligence is merely a convenient method of picking one's way through the world of matter, that it is a falsification of life, and wholly unfit to grasp the roots of it. We may well be of another opinion, if we think the roots of life are not in consciousness but in nature, which intelligence alone can reveal; but we must agree that in life itself intelligence is a superficial growth, and easily ...
— Winds Of Doctrine - Studies in Contemporary Opinion • George Santayana
... large cities there is a board of censorship to which the different manufacturing firms must submit duplicates. This board has to pass on all the films before they are released and if the pictures are in any way contrary to morals or decency or are in any respect unfit to be displayed before the public, they cannot be put in circulation. Thus are the people protected and especially the youth who should be permitted to see nothing that is not elevating or not of a nature to inspire them with high and noble thoughts and with ambitions ...
— Marvels of Modern Science • Paul Severing
... hearts there is a determination that they and their children shall receive the same educational advantages, the same right to air and light and decent amusement, as the children of the wealthy. Because I am poor, they say to themselves, why should I therefore have to inhabit a home unfit for decent habitation, receive education utterly useless from every practical point of view—be forced to live in surroundings which absolutely invite degradation of both mind and body? There will always be poverty, but there ought ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... had been delayed until it was too late; the water had risen over the orlop deck, and in a short time gained the lower deck. All that was saved was thirty bags of biscuits, and these so damaged by the salt water, that they were totally unfit ...
— Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly
... the means in the effect. The criterion of the prophecy in this case is influenced by the theory of "natural selection." Mr Wells' vision of the "Sunset of Mankind" was of men so nearly adapted to their environment that the need for struggle, with its corollary of the extermination of the unfit, had practically ceased. Humanity had become differentiated into two races, both recessive; one, the Eloi, a race of childlike, simple, delicate creatures living on the surface of a kindly earth; the other, the Morlocks, a more active but debased race, of bestial habits, ...
— H. G. Wells • J. D. Beresford
... decline to interfere," said the Governor, with asperity; "a man who abuses his office by making it serve a private end and purvey a personal advantage is unfit to be free. By the way, Mr. Warden," he added to that official, as the Convict slunk away, "in appointing you to this position, I was given to understand that your friends could make the Shikane county delegation to the next State convention solid for—for the present ...
— Fantastic Fables • Ambrose Bierce
... buyer of cattle, and some of the beasts I remember to this day. I believe there is no better way to train a young man than to put him to market without assistance. If a man cannot back himself, he is unfit for the trade of a ...
— Cattle and Cattle-breeders • William M'Combie
... really the more humble and low in his own eyes,' as he instanced in the great man Daniel; and, said he, 'God did not make choice of some of us as his instruments in the glorious work of Reformation, because we were more fit than others, but rather because we were more unfit than others.' He was called Malleus Mallignantium, and Mr Baillie, writing to some in this church anent Mr George Gillespie, said, 'He was truly an ornament to our church and nation.' And Mr James Brown, late minister of ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... extra postage. This, with that prepaid from London, amounted to just fifty dollars. The warm weather, after the extreme cold of a Siberian winter, had caused the tires to stretch so much beyond their intended size that, on their arrival, they were almost unfit for use. Some of our photographic material also had been spoiled through the ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... "It was all a mistake. But how should I know any better? I am a straightforward man, Celia; and I am unfit for the care that has been thrown upon me. It's more than I can bear. No, I'm not fit for it!" he cried at last; and his wife, seeing him so crushed, now said ...
— A Fearful Responsibility and Other Stories • William D. Howells
... that the whole number of blocks had been made use of to repair the heavens, that it alone had been destitute of the necessary properties and had been unfit to attain selection, it forthwith felt within itself vexation and shame, and day and night, it gave way to anguish ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... plants transpose the astonishingly large percentage of the physically unfit of our foreign and domestic population and reclaim those whose physical imperfections have either become evident through the draft, or which are not known, but it affords the surest possible means of ...
— Keeping Fit All the Way • Walter Camp
... a little grafting done, new trees and vines set, regardless of the unfit season and entire ignorance of the husbandmen, who honestly believed that in the autumn they would reap a ...
— Humorous Masterpieces from American Literature • Various
... he invented the following plan: Whenever it was probable that an expedition would be despatched to Italy, Libya, or Persia, he ordered them to make ready to take part in the campaign, although he knew that they were utterly unfit for war; and they, being afraid of this, surrendered their salaries to the Emperor. This was a frequent occurrence. When Peter was "Master of Offices," he daily harassed them with monstrous thefts. This man, although ...
— The Secret History of the Court of Justinian • Procopius
... is accompanied by a consumption of material in the body, which thus becomes unfit for further use. These waste substances, composed chiefly of carbon and hydrogen, unite with oxygen breathed in from the air, forming carbonic acid gas and water, which are breathed out of the system. The action is a process of slow combustion, and it is principally by the heat thus evolved ...
— Outlines of Lessons in Botany, Part I; From Seed to Leaf • Jane H. Newell
... of various fungi, which by means of their powers of pervading the cells and vessels of the wood, and of secreting soluble ferments which break down the structure of the timber, render the latter diseased and unfit for use. The only too well known larch disease is a case in point; but since this is a subject which needs a chapter to itself, I may pass on to more general remarks on what ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 643, April 28, 1888 • Various
... the junk having become unfit for food, and five of the crew down with scurvy, I ordered that we send two boats ashore at the nor'-western point of Hispaniola, to seek for fresh fruit, and perchance shoot some of the wild oxen ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... adopt some system with regard to payment, so that the soldiers would not squander it in gambling. A portion should be retained and paid out each day for food and clothing. Through this lack of system much suffering has resulted, and many soldiers have died. Consequently many are unfit to serve. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume X, 1597-1599 • E. H. Blair
... been born to spend money; and as this girl will have plenty of money to spend, I think it would be a good thing if he were to marry her. If Felix had L20,000 a year, everybody would think him the finest fellow in the world.' In saying this, however, Mr Paul Montague showed himself unfit to gauge the opinion of the world. Whether Sir Felix be rich or poor, the world, evil-hearted as it is, will never think ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... an insurance policy is due to the family of a suicide, the doubt depending for solution on the sound or unsound condition of his mind at the moment of the fatal act. Again, there may be a real or pretended doubt whether a certain property-owner is so far demented as to be unfit to manage his estate; or whether he needs a guardian to take care of his person; or it may even seem necessary to confine him in a lunatic asylum. There may be objections raised to the mental soundness of a witness in a civil or a criminal suit; or, finally, a criminal prosecution will ...
— Moral Principles and Medical Practice - The Basis of Medical Jurisprudence • Charles Coppens
... was passing through the press. Without prejudice to her literary ability, it must be allowed that Miss Bacon was wholly unfit to prepare her own work for publication, because, among many other reasons, she was too thoroughly in earnest to know what to leave out. Every leaf and line was sacred, for all had been written under so deep ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... considerations which point to the by no means self-evident proposition, that this factor of irresponsible property is certain to be present in the social body a hundred years ahead. It has, no doubt, occurred to the reader that all the conditions of the shareholder's being unfit him for co-operative action in defence of the interests of his class. Since shareholders do nothing in common, except receive and hope for dividends, since they may be of any class, any culture, any disposition, or any level of capacity, since there is nothing to make them read the same papers, ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... was envied by her seniors; had entirely fallen out of the habit of writing to her aunts in England, or cutting the pages of the English magazines; had been through a very bad cholera year, seeing sights unfit to be told; and had wound up her experiences by six weeks of typhoid fever, during which her head had been shaved and hoped to keep her twenty-third birthday that September. It is conceivable that the aunts would ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... upon a shooting party in the Braes of Ranoch, the dogs were so worn out as to be unfit for travel. Our guide said he knew the shepherd, who had a dog that perhaps might help us. He called, and the young man came with his little black colley, to which, as soon as he had conversed with the guide, he said something ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... All seemed unfit for conversation; a certain dizziness had interrupted the activity of their minds; and except to sing they were tongue-tied. There was present, however, one tall, powerful fellow of doubtful nationality, being neither quite Scotsman nor altogether Irish, but of surprising clearness ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to do it? The shore is open. We cannot take a step that way without being seen, and chased. We might outrun them, though I don't feel quite as supple as I used to; but we should barely arrive before them in time to warn the camp, and should then be almost unfit to fight." ...
— Red Rooney - The Last of the Crew • R.M. Ballantyne
... moral and religious condition of many communities in the Black Belt, is startling. One negro witness who has been in direct association for many years with ministers in this part of the South, says, "three-fourths of those who are now acting as preachers in all this region, are absolutely unfit to preach the gospel. It is rare that one can find in the country districts where the masses of the people dwell, a minister who is both intelligent ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 50, No. 4, April 1896 • Various
... between, and you have directly the huge continental barrack-yard system all over England. And once get into the condition of a great continental military power, and you get the arbitrary power; you cramp down the people, and you unfit them from being what they ought to be—FREE And all the good influences together at work in this country could not have secured us against this, but for that blessed separation between this ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... and mentally said things that are unfit for publication. Aloud he said, "Mebbe Miss Kitty 'ud like to go an' ...
— The Sport of the Gods • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... people's morals; and as they were good workers, they would raise the value of the land. The Count sent Christian David to reconnoitre. Christian David brought back an evil report. It was a filthy place, he said, unfit for respectable people. But Zinzendorf felt that, filthy or not, it was the very spot which God had chosen for his new work. It suited his high ideas. The more squalid the people, the more reason ...
— History of the Moravian Church • J. E. Hutton
... taken out dead at Charleroi station. I was so absolutely miserable about it that I persuaded the Belgian doctor to go to the commandant, and beg that the worst cases might be left to us, which he very pluckily did, but without the slightest effect—they must all go, ill or well, fit or unfit. After all the German patients were returning to their own country and people, but these poor French soldiers were going ill and wounded as prisoners to suffer and perhaps die in an enemy's country—an enemy who knew ...
— Field Hospital and Flying Column - Being the Journal of an English Nursing Sister in Belgium & Russia • Violetta Thurstan
... them were occupied by spare mules, who turned an inquiring gaze at the visitors, and blinked in the light of their lanterns. At one end were bales of hay and bags of oats, while just outside the door stood a long water-trough, which, as mine water is unfit for use, was supplied from above-ground through iron pipes brought down the slope. In spite of living in a continual midnight, so far from pastures and the light of day, which some of them did not see from one year's end to ...
— Derrick Sterling - A Story of the Mines • Kirk Munroe
... possessed by a person who may be, like Mr. Forster, eminently likely to use these powers justly and wisely, but who also may be quite the reverse. I merely wish to draw attention to the fact that such powers are given to the Minister, whether he be fit or unfit. The extent of these powers becomes apparent when the other sections of the Act referred to are considered. The fourth clause of ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... money, Adam (for that was the good old man's name) had brought out with him his own little hoard, and he said: 'I have five hundred crowns, the thrifty hire I saved under your father, and laid by to be provision for me when my old limbs should become unfit for service; take that, and He that cloth the ravens feed be comfort to my age! Here is the gold; all this I give to you: let me be your servant; though I look old I will do the service of a younger man in all your business and necessities.' 'O good old ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... me when I least expect it, and stab me cruelly. I am a plain, blunt man—often irritable and unjust, I know—still, I never flinch from danger when I can see it; but, the very nature of my bringing up has rendered me unfit to cope with the wiles and subtleties of my fellow man. You, Mr. Pinkerton, it is said, have the power to see direct to the hearts of men through the shams and artifices by which they seek to hide their ...
— The Somnambulist and the Detective - The Murderer and the Fortune Teller • Allan Pinkerton
... mankind, without training or intelligence, is permitted to grow and expand unchecked. War acted to reduce their numbers; like storms and earthquakes and droughts, it was nature's way of eliminating the unfit. ...
— The Skull • Philip K. Dick
... evening when Donald and Neal, with weary horses and wearier limbs, came close to Antrim. Neal was unused to riding long distances, and Donald complained that a voyage across the Atlantic left a man unfit for land travelling. They accosted a stranger on the road and asked his guidance to the best inn. The man answered them in a civil way. He spoke with a northern accent, but his voice was singularly sweet and gentle, and his words were those of a ...
— The Northern Iron - 1907 • George A. Birmingham |
