"Inefficient" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... carries with it industrial opportunity and social justice. This they cannot attain until they be permitted to enter the higher pursuits of labor. Two reasons are given for failure to enter these: first, that Negro labor is unstable and inefficient; and second, that white men will protest. Organized labor, however, has done nothing to help the blacks. Yet it is a fact that accustomed to the easy-going toil of the plantation, the blacks have not shown the same efficiency as that of the whites. Some employers report, however, ...
— A Century of Negro Migration • Carter G. Woodson
... new kingdom. Its people cared little for his Continental aims and gave him little loyalty of service. In fact, peculation among public officials was so widespread that, despite large expenditures of money, England had only a most feeble, inefficient army in the field, and William was in black disgust against his new subjects. It was partly to aid the Government in its financial straits that the Bank of England was formed ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... to aid her in putting some restraint over her husband even in this country, should they fail in their effort to take him to England. She saw the doctor in Siena constantly, and had learned from him how such steps might be taken. The measure proposed would be slow, difficult, inefficient, and very hard to set aside, if once taken;—but still it might be indispensable that something should be done. "He would be so much worse off here than he would be at home," she said;—"if we could only make him understand that ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... taxes are levied on a few articles of consumption, then they become inefficient, and if they are divided amongst a great many, they become troublesome, so that either way they are attended with inconvenience ...
— An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. • William Playfair
... Here is the new President of the Republic. Money is no more to you than water. You are a patriotic American. Have you forgotten that a warship of your country with six hundred of her devoted citizens was sent to the bottom by the treachery of one of this effete race? The war was an inefficient revenge. The country still flourishes. It is for you to avenge America. With money Marsine can establish a republic in Spain within twenty-four hours.' Sirdeller hesitates. He would point out that it had never been proved that the destruction of the Maine ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... is working out even better than we dared hope. Experience has shown that by consolidation or the cooperation of several districts, good results may be secured at no greater cost than the same type of school costs in town. The small school of today is expensive because it is inefficient. The consolidated school is giving the children of the country the education that they need and is doing it better than it can be done anywhere else. The consolidated school is becoming the rural community center. An important feature which has been adopted by many of the consolidated ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various
... be expected, the inefficient diplomacy displayed in the preparations for the world war brought down severe criticism of our diplomatic abilities, and if the intention at the Ballplatz was to bring about a war, it cannot be denied that the preparations for it were ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin
... myself, and four square-heads could be called seamen. But the squareheads knew not a dozen words of English between them. The other nine were stiffs, various kinds of stiffs, broken men all, with the weaknesses of dissolute living stamped upon their inefficient faces. ...
— The Blood Ship • Norman Springer
... law on establishing new firms marked the rapid development of a private sector now responsible for 70% of economic activity. In contrast to the vibrant expansion of private non-farm activity, the large agriculture component remains handicapped by structural problems, surplus labor, inefficient small farms, and lack of investment. The government's determination to enter the EU as soon as possible affects all aspects of its economic policies. Improving Poland's worsening current account deficit also is a priority. To date, the government has resisted pressure for protectionist solutions ...
— The 1999 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... reasons of their own, the trout refuse to take the artificial fly. Yet there are men at Loch Leven who troll all day, and poor sport it must be, as a trout of a pound or so has no chance on a trolling-rod. This method is inimical to fly-fishing, but is such a consolation to the inefficient angler that one can hardly expect to see it abolished. The unsuccessful clamour for trolling, instead of consoling themselves, as sportsmen should do, with the conversation of the gillies, their anecdotes of great trout, and their reminiscences of great anglers, especially ...
— Angling Sketches • Andrew Lang
... struggled upwards, and at last I reached a ledge several feet deep and covered with soft green moss, where I could lie unseen in the most perfect comfort. There I was stretched when you, my dear Watson, and all your following were investigating in the most sympathetic and inefficient manner the circumstances ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Humaioun of 1855 was much more than a confirmation of the Imperial Firman of 1850, nor was it a dead letter. A year afterwards Dr. Jewett, while admitting that it was inefficient in certain respects, declared it to have been in an important sense, a quickening spirit. "Never," he says, "within the same space of time, has there been as much religious discussion with the Mussulmans as since the issue of the late firman, and never ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume II. • Rufus Anderson
... if they make a few mistakes," she said to Miss Fanny, who held up her hands in horror at some of the names chosen to serve on committees. "If a secretary proves inefficient, the others will very soon call her a 'slacker,' and she will have to reform or resign. It will be a question of public opinion. A girl may shirk her lessons in school and her classmates don't much care, but if she shirks the work she has undertaken to do for a society they will be very indignant. ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil
... trying to her patience and fortitude. Many of the refugees were of the class called "the poor white trash" of the South, filthy, ragged, proud, indolent, ill-mannered, given to the smoking and chewing of tobacco, often diseased, inefficient, and either unwilling or unable to conform to the necessary regulations of the Home, or to do their own proper share of the work of the household, and the keeping of their apartments in a state of cleanliness ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... when they seemed to be willing to submit without compulsion to orders from the same source. These circumstances, quite as much as the inexperience of Congress and the jealousy of the States, account for the inefficient form of government which was devised; and inefficient the Confederation certainly was. The only organ of government was a Congress in which every State was entitled to one vote and was represented by a delegation whose members ...
— The Fathers of the Constitution - Volume 13 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Max Farrand
... public administration, account for 48% of GDP and employ nearly 20% of the labor force. Basic problems facing the economy include a high population growth rate, a high unemployment rate, a lack of basic services, a large and inefficient public sector, and an export sector dependent mostly on coffee and bananas, which are subject to sharp ...
— The 1990 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... with a party of youthful friends, I crossed the Hillsboro' Creek, to visit the Indians. We had a large heavy boat, with cumbrous oars, very ill balanced, and a most inefficient crew, two of them being boys either very idle or very ignorant, and, as they kept tumbling backwards over the thwarts, one gentleman and I were left to do all the work. On our way we came upon an Indian in a bark canoe, and spent much of our strength ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... only wise and right if, under such circumstances, the vessel had not attempted to pursue her course, but had put into the nearest port. Such was not the case, however, and though she was known to be in a most inefficient state, she proceeded on her voyage. It was about six o'clock on Thursday evening when the "Forfarshire" passed through the Fairway, the water which lies between the Farne Island and the mainland. It was night when she entered Berwick Bay, and at that time the ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope
... attribute the want of proper management to the ministry, and hence the Government found itself under fire. In the House of Lords the Earl of Derby condemned the inefficient manner in which the war had been carried on, the whole conduct of the ministry in the war, and the insufficiency of the number of troops sent out to check the power of Russia. The Duke of Newcastle replied, and while not defending all the actions of the ministry during the ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... the outsiders, the chiefs, and the subordinates all begin to see the same facts, the same damning facts if you like, the obstruction will diminish. The reformer's opinion that a certain bureau is inefficient is just his opinion, not so good an opinion in the eyes of the bureau, as its own. But let the work of that bureau be analysed and recorded, and then compared with other bureaus and with private corporations, and the argument ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... evolution of the soul. The consequence is that physically man is much less specialized than many other animals. In other words, he is bodily less advanced in the race for competitive extermination. He belongs to an antiquated, inefficient type of mammal. His organism is still of the jack-of-all-trades pattern, such as prevailed generally in the more youthful stages of organic life—one not specially suited to any particular pursuit. Were it not for his cerebral convolutions he could not compete for an instant ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell
... and practical good sense, is perhaps entitled to as much respect as any that has ever been urged against the study in question. And so far as the objection bears upon those defective methods of instruction which experience has shown to be inefficient, or of little use, I am in no wise concerned to remove it. The reader of this treatise will find their faults not only admitted, but to a great extent purposely exposed; while an attempt is here made, as well as in my earlier grammars, ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... find in the immediate vicinity, for the darkness rendered it impossible to search for these at a distance. While they were thus engaged they heard the voices of priests speaking on the further side of their somewhat inefficient barrier, and worked harder than ever, thinking that the ...
— The People Of The Mist • H. Rider Haggard
... spared the tormenting question of texts for composition. It is fortunate for posterity that he did not exhaust his energies in setting inefficient libretti, that he did not believe that good music would suffice to command success in spite of bad texts. The majority of his works belong to the field of purely instrumental music. Beethoven often gave expression to the belief that words were a less capable medium ...
— Beethoven: the Man and the Artist - As Revealed in his own Words • Ludwig van Beethoven
... a very inefficient one, its energy being small for the current used, as compared with a revolving motor of the usual kind. But it has the advantage of being ...
— Things To Make • Archibald Williams
... she was busy in dressing the strawberry beds, forking up the ground between the plants, and filling the vacancies that the severe winter or some irregularities of fall dressing had made. Mr. Skillcorn was rendering a somewhat inefficient help, or, perhaps, amusing himself with seeing how she worked. The little old silver-grey hood was bending down over the strawberries, and the fork was going at a ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell
... Acroceraunian bandits and Samaritans. One may stare at a taxi scooting by and think with no incongruity of Carlyle's "Night of Spurs"—with Louis and his harried Antoinette flying the guillotine. And of other things which our inefficient memory prevents us from jotting down at this moment. ...
— A Thousand and One Afternoons in Chicago • Ben Hecht
... of Prussia the railways pay well and are well managed, but they are clogged to a certain extent by inefficient and unnecessary employees, and were the system spread over the United States the chaos in a dozen years would be almost irreparable, and even here the complaints are many and vigorous. Probably one male over twenty-five years of age out ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... got it fairly between their teeth. Well, it is a dead old planet; will its decay vitiate their own blood and leave them the half-willing prey of a Circumstance they do not dream of now? Dewey will take the Philippines, of course. He would be an inefficient fool if he did not, and he is the reverse. The Spanish in Cuba will crumble almost before the world realizes that the war has begun. The United States will find itself sitting open-mouthed with two huge prizes in its lap. It may, in a fit of virtue which would ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... the eyes of men toward Heaven, making them believe that all their evils are due to Divine wrath, in furnishing them but inefficient and futile means of lessening their troubles, it would appear that the only object of the priests is to prevent the nations from dreaming of the true sources of their miseries, and to perpetuate them. The ministers of religion ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier
... father;—he objected. His brother, for whom I was named, was a distinguished professor, to whom I bore, as he thought, a close resemblance, and he desired I should imitate him in my pursuits. I had good abilities, and was neither inefficient nor wanting in resolution or industry. At first I longed for natural life and society; but by degrees habit helped me to endure, and finally to conquer. In fact, I was taught that I was doing God service in ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 41, March, 1861 • Various
... the drive out and back, the airless room and the foul outbuildings, the shy, stupid, staring children, the jolly little arithmetical problems about wall-paper, piles of lumber, the amount of time that notoriously inefficient workmen will take to do "a certain piece of work." Una was honest enough to know that she was not an honest teacher, that she neither loved masses of other people's children nor had any ideals of developing the new generation. But she had ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... past and present lives Peter seemed always to know much. He had seduced them all apparently into a kind of rakish camaraderie which was literally amazing to behold. It thrilled, fascinated, at times frightened me, so thin and inadequate and inefficient seemed my own point of view and appetite for life. He was vigorous, charitable, pagan, gay, full of health and strength. He would play at something, anything, indoors or out as occasion offered, ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... militia of the neighborhood, as well as those which had been summoned from the interior. It was to Marion that Lincoln chiefly looked for the proper drilling of the militia. In his hands they lost the rude and inefficient character, the inexpert and spiritless manner, which, under ordinary commanders, always distinguish them. Feeling sure of their Captain, he, in turn, rendered them confident of themselves. Speaking of Marion's "PATIENCE with the militia"—a phrase of great importance ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... invalid, one wants things particularly nice." And she hurried past them in search of the head waiter. The worry of nursing her husband had fixed a plaintive frown upon her forehead; she was pale and looked unhappy and more than usually inefficient, and her eyes wandered more vaguely than ever ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... discovery must come? He had talked about having tried to do his duty and wanted his nephew to believe it no matter what happened. But, as Cristy had pointed out, new brooms had time to become worn and inefficient in twelve years of use. His uncle had been talking in the past tense! He had tried to do what he thought was his duty—at first, when he swept into politics, inspired by the victory over the Rives crowd. Twelve years apparently was ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... Eliza had not to begin at the very beginning: she knew the names and prices of the cheaper flowers; and her elation was unbounded when she found that Freddy, like all youths educated at cheap, pretentious, and thoroughly inefficient schools, knew a little Latin. It was very little, but enough to make him appear to her a Porson or Bentley, and to put him at his ease with botanical nomenclature. Unfortunately he knew nothing else; and Eliza, though she could count money up to eighteen shillings or so, and had acquired a ...
— Pygmalion • George Bernard Shaw
... let anyone know who you are or how long you intend to remain in any one place. This may strike you as an absurd precaution; but you must remember that you are not in America, but in an isolated Italian province, where government control is inefficient. The truth is that the terrible Mafia is still all powerful on this island, and brigandage is by no means confined to the neighborhood of Castrogiovanni, as the guide books would have you believe. The people seem simple and harmless enough, but Kenneth and I always ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Abroad • Edith Van Dyne
... noted, there is regression to more inefficient and inferior methods of response and adaptation, the types of activity being of a somatic and psychic nature. Following the regression and owing to constant repetition and habit formation there is a gradual fixation to certain ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... unexplained absence. Hester was putting away the ribbons and handkerchiefs, and bright-coloured things which had been used to deck the window; for no more customers were likely to come this night through the blustering weather to a shop dimly lighted by two tallow candles and an inefficient oil-lamp. Philip came up to her, and stood looking at her with unseeing eyes; but the strange consciousness of his fixed stare made her uncomfortable, and called the faint flush to her pale cheeks, and at length compelled her, as it were, to speak, and break the spell of the silence. So, curiously ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. II • Elizabeth Gaskell
... the young midshipman or to his brother, who looked on and listened. The account of assistance given to the Spaniards at Cape Finisterre, and the absurd behaviour of the Junta, are highly interesting—a more inefficient, yet a more resolved class of men than the ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... recumbent postures in honor of it. The chairman's opening address was almost wholly a plea for the enlargement of the Athenian navy: the implication that the republic had been saved, in spite of its inefficient armament, was accepted as the finest possible compliment to the guest of the evening. The note of all the other speeches was their exquisite impersonality. They got further and further from the occasion of the evening, ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... Goa. The commanders of the trading ships should not be allowed to carry on the trade that they now do; and the officials at Acapulco should be checked in making extortionate charges. Ignorant and inefficient men should not be placed in the ships as sailors. The common seamen therein (who are Filipino natives) are inhumanly treated, and many of them die from hunger, thirst, or cold, on each voyage. Slave women are carried on the ships, in spite of the royal prohibition; and thus arise "many ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVIII, 1617-1620 • Various
... what they want, or what they would be, who complain and complain; disappointed and discontented, at having sunk below their powers and their hopes, and are yet without capability of persevering exertion to emerge from their obscurity. Seebright was now become an inefficient being, whom no one could assist to any good purpose. Alfred, after a long, mazy, fruitless conversation, was convinced that the case was hopeless, and, sincerely pitying him, gave it up as irremediable. Just as he had come to this conclusion, and had sunk into silence, a relation of his, whom he ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... should forget that the infant, at birth, has not the power of generating heat, internally, to the extent which it possesses afterward. The lungs have as yet but a feeble, inefficient action. The purification of the blood, through their agency, is not only incomplete, but the heat evolved is as yet inconsiderable. In the absence of internal heat, then, there is an increased demand externally. If 60 be deemed suitable for most other persons, the new-born infant ...
— The Young Mother - Management of Children in Regard to Health • William A. Alcott
... have been by means of carbonic acid or other compressed gas carried by the torpedoes, and by means of electricity conveyed by a conductor leading from a controlling station to electrical apparatus carried by the torpedo. The first method has, to a considerable extent, failed on account of the inefficient way in which the compressed gas was employed to propel the torpedo. The second is open to the objection that by means of telephones placed in the water or by other signaling apparatus the torpedo can be heard approaching while yet at a considerable distance, and that a quick speeded ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 481, March 21, 1885 • Various
... foe that is disregarded and neglected, being all along unsubdued at heart, smites at the proper season, especially when the enemy makes a false step. By employing trusted agents of his own, such a foe would also render the other's forces inefficient by producing disunion. Ascertaining the beginning, the middle and the end of his foes,[309] a king should in secret cherish feelings of hostility towards them. He should corrupt the forces of his foe, ascertaining everything by positive proof, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... insure success the application to the lungs must be made continuously. For this purpose Dr. Mackenzie has used various volatile antiseptics, such as creosote, carbolic acid, and thymol. The latter, however, he has discarded as being too irritating and inefficient. Carbolic acid seems to be absorbed, for it has been detected freely in the urine after it had been inhaled; but this does not happen with creosote. As absorption of the particular drug employed is not necessary, and therefore not to be desired, Dr. Mackenzie now uses creosote ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 286 - June 25, 1881 • Various
... that the quality of powder was so bad that the bullet would get out before all the powder was consumed. All the ancient pistols were very inefficient, because of the short barrel. Even down to the time of the American Revolution the guns on board of war vessels were not capable of throwing shot very far, and the most effective ones were those ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: The Mysteries of the Caverns • Roger Thompson Finlay
... and the saints; they armed a fleet of boats and galleys, displayed their consecrated banners, and boldly steered for the harbor of Constantinople, to place on the throne a new favorite of God and the people. They depended on the succor of a miracle: but their miracles were inefficient against the Greek fire; and, after the defeat and conflagration of the fleet, the naked islands were abandoned to the clemency or justice of the conqueror. The son of Leo, in the first year of his reign, had undertaken an expedition against the Saracens: during his ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... deceived Unionists of Northern Virginia what they think of Gen. Patterson, and of the success of his campaign? How can we estimate the injury to the cause of the Union inflicted in this way alone by a grossly inefficient Federal general? ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... the Social Environment.*—Our social environment includes the people with whom we are directly or indirectly associated. The presence in any community of those who are immoral, inefficient, or defective, places a burden upon those who are mentally and physically capable and renders them liable to results which are the outgrowth of weakness or viciousness. The fact that alcohol causes pauperism, crime, and ...
— Physiology and Hygiene for Secondary Schools • Francis M. Walters, A.M.
... the English have not even attempted to force our positions. One is almost tempted to believe that the English navy is as inefficient as the English army. If our enemies felt strong enough, they would have appeared long ago before Brest, Cherbourg, Flushing, Wilhelmshaven, or Kiel. Heligoland could not stop a fleet of ironclads from forcing its ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... shelter of the hut waited, and only Buck and Blue Grass Pete stood near the blanket-covered doorway. There was little enough confidence in the inefficient shelter of the hut, but it was their natural retreat and so they accepted it. Then the moment of tension passed, and Buck, glancing swiftly round the hut, seized a hammer and hastily secured the ...
— The Golden Woman - A Story of the Montana Hills • Ridgwell Cullum
... grew more and more to the inhabitants of our city into two kinds, the who were served, and the inefficient, who were separate efficient, neglected; but the mental process of which the classification was the result was not so deliberate as may be supposed. Sometimes, when an important client would get ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... wise demands, but not to subvert the constitution or to change the dynasty. They were afraid of serving the purposes of those fierce and determined enemies of monarchy, who now began to show themselves in the lower ranks of the party. The war was, therefore, conducted in a languid and inefficient manner. A resolute leader might have brought it to a close in a month. At the end of three campaigns, however, the event was still dubious; and that it had not been decidedly unfavourable to the cause of liberty was principally owing to the skill and energy which the more violent roundheads ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... pity and sympathy. These impel many to endeavor, not to persuade, but to compel the more efficient and prudent who have by their farsightedness, courage, industry and thrift made good provision for themselves and their offspring, to provide also for the inefficient and the improvident. To be asked to give to these does not offend any sense of right, but if one be told he must give he feels resentful at once. He feels he has a right to decide for himself to whom and to what extent he shall give ...
— Concerning Justice • Lucilius A. Emery
... the outer covering, and the slender central stem itself around which they cluster, are thrown away. Due to the inefficient method of fibre-drawing, or rather the want of mechanical appliances to effect the same, the waste of fibre probably amounts to as much as 30 per cent. of the whole contained ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... people to German "efficiency." For efficiency values in the operations of life are just the ones we are most capable of appreciating, although our government and general social organization remain as lamentably inefficient as, say, the English. But being a business people we are fitted to admire business qualities above all others. The German army, the German state are magnificently run businesses! To some of us, however, the term "efficiency" ...
— The World Decision • Robert Herrick
... how puny! how inefficient for all good purposes are the tools and implements of policy, compared with these mighty engines of Nature!—There is no middle course: two masters cannot be served:—Justice must either be enthroned above might, and the moral law take ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... matters in which they most resent interference. It may be illogical for men to accept cheerfully unpardonable public scandals, benighted educational systems, bad sanitation, bad lighting, a blundering and inefficient system of life, and yet to resent the tearing up of a telegram or a post-card; but the fact remains that the sensitiveness of men is a strange and localised thing, and there is hardly a man in the ...
— Robert Browning • G. K. Chesterton
... from the window. Now, her bright audacity gone, her ardors chilled, you saw how like a grave, straightforward boy she was, how illimitably tender, how inefficient. "It may be that I have decided wrongly in this tangled matter," she said now. "And yet I think that God, Who loves us infinitely, cannot be greatly vexed at anything His children do for ...
— The Line of Love - Dizain des Mariages • James Branch Cabell
... there is much wisdom in this appeal. In the olden days, the complaint against our pilotage system was not only that it was costly, but that it was inefficient; and so even more costly in the losses of vessels and cargoes than in fees. But, after half a century of contest, the present system was reached in 1853, and it is, beyond dispute, acknowledged by underwriters and by merchants that, as a system, it has worked well—uncommonly ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... statement contained a hot attack on the police department. He charged that the department was disorganized, honeycombed with graft, tolerating and protecting vice conditions, inefficient and negligent. He cited the operations of bunko swindlers, gamblers and bandits and declared that ...
— Spring Street - A Story of Los Angeles • James H. Richardson
... physical exaltation, alone with the sun and the wind and all the murmuring voices of Nature, God's life he had called it then. And now! The stress of battle was hard upon him. He was fighting in the front ranks, a somewhat cheerless battle, fighting for great causes with inefficient weapons. But he could not go back. Life had become a more strenuous, a more vital, a less beautiful thing! He felt himself ageing. All the inevitable sadness of the man in touch with the world's great problems was in his heart. But he could not ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... showed his son the spot where he received his education. It was easily come by, but he was of opinion that if he had not had it, "if I had been brought up a milksop, with a nurserymaid everlastingly at my heels, I should have been this day as great a fool, as inefficient a mortal, as any of those frivolous idiots that are turned out from Winchester and Westminster School, or from any of those dens of dunces called Colleges and Universities." The spot is a sandy bank above the Bourne, a little stream, dry in summer, which runs a mile ...
— Highways and Byways in Surrey • Eric Parker
... records of his early life, it would seem that he had talent, and was quite addicted to naval reading, but was wayward, and if not indolent, was inefficient in the tasks undertaken at the instance of other people, and up to the time of his entrance upon his duties as instructor in the naval school, had hardly made up his mind whether he would be a man of character or a blackguard. He was fond of dress, ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow
... service. The cook asks for orders in the morning; the various dishes are properly prepared; but if I were Charles, and my wife understood her business, I should like to taste her hand in them. I never venture into the kitchen. 'The advantage of paid service,' added Charles, 'is that if it is inefficient you can reprimand or dismiss.' Nothing in me finds exercise. I want to work, to laugh, to expect. There was always something going on at Blackdeep, no two days alike. I never got up in the morning knowing what was before me till bedtime. That outlook too from my window, how I miss ...
— More Pages from a Journal • Mark Rutherford
... studying language, we ought to begin with modern languages, and that when we come to more ancient periods, we should always infer similar causes from similar effects, and never admit new forces or new processes, except when those which we know prove totally inefficient. In my own Lectures I had laid it down as one of the fundamental principles of the Science of Language that "what is real in modern formations must be admitted as possible in ancient formations, and that what has been found true ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... by the wonder of it. The journey to Z-40 in the Dart was no more disquieting than, a century and a half ago, before the United States had fused together into one vast city, a journey from Chicago to Florida would have been in one of the inefficient gasoline-driven vehicles ...
— The Planetoid of Peril • Paul Ernst
... the populace suspect like the one who commences authority with a bold reform, only to continue it with hesitating expedients. His very next measure was more vigorous and more unexceptionable than the first. The evil of the laws of Draco was not that they were severe, but that they were inefficient. In legislation, characters of blood are always traced upon tablets of sand. With one stroke Solon annihilated the whole of these laws, with the exception of that (an ancient and acknowledged ordinance) which related to homicide; he affixed, in exchange, to various crimes—to theft, to rape, ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... come should never have left in England a safe and tranquil state of life; and, if it be possible to discourage one set of people, and to encourage another, I would earnestly request that for a few years, the helpless and inefficient may be kept from the settlement; whilst, as to the active, industrious, and intelligent they may be assured with confidence of a ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne
... your son,' Peel wrote to his Under-Secretary, 'can make a more inefficient member of the Board of Stamps than Mr. T. has done. I am perfectly ready, therefore, to acquiesce in the exchange.' 'I make a great sacrifice,' he wrote to Lord Whitworth, 'when I say that I doubt whether O.'s habits would ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... Clerk of the Company, has written an historical account of the Carpenters, which contains many facts of interest. The office of King's Carpenter or Surveyor, the powers of the Carpenters to search, examine, and impose fines for inefficient work, and the trade disputes with the "Joyners," the Sawyers, and the "Woodmongers," are all entertaining reading, and throw many side-lights on the woodwork of the ...
— Illustrated History of Furniture - From the Earliest to the Present Time • Frederick Litchfield
... is a term often used in the colonies, and indicates a lazy and inefficient manner of performing any kind of labour. It originated with the convicts. When a man is forced to work through fear of the lash, and receives no wages, it is quite natural and reasonable that he should exert himself as little as possible. If you were to reason ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... had it out, and as I was now aroused, I gave him some words on the inefficient way he ran his ship. At last I threatened to prophesy again, and this cooled him off. I offered to go hunting bears for him and he became ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... been considered a very inefficient being who could not make and mend and wash and iron her own clothing, and get three regular meals and clear them away every day, besides keeping the house tidy, and doing any other needed neighborly service, such as sitting ...
— A New England Girlhood • Lucy Larcom
... the individual. It is the error into which theoretic writers almost always fall. We meet in every periodical, and in every treatise, and, in fact, in almost every conversation on the subject, with remarks which sound very well by the fireside, but they are totally inefficient and useless in school, from their being apparently based upon the supposition that the teacher has but one pupil to attend to at a time. The great question in the management of schools is not how you ...
— The Teacher • Jacob Abbott
... has shed its genial influence—and of which, each member, albeit bowed down by sympathetic grief, attempts to lift his drooping head, and to others open some source of comfort, which to the kind speaker, is inefficient and valueless indeed! ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... arrived, when the first greetings were over, "Truth's Palace might be a not ineligible residence were not the inmates necessitated not merely to know the truth but to speak it, and did not all innocent embellishments of her majestic person become entirely inefficient and absolutely nugatory. For example, the number of my wife's grey hairs speedily confounded me; and how should it be otherwise, when the excellent dye she had brought with her had completely lost its virtues? She on her part found herself continually obliged to acquaint ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... [he thought,] "was ideally best, but for many reasons impossible." [But the] "conjoint scheme" [recommended in the report appeared to punish the efficient medical authorities for the abuses of the inefficient. Moreover, if the examiners of the Divisional Board did not affiliate themselves to any medical authority, the compensation to be provided would be very heavy; if they did,] "either they will affiliate without further examination, which will give them the pretence of ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... of the state[187] as follows: the state has the right and power to organize and control the economic system, comprehending in that term the production and distribution of all social wealth, wherever private enterprise is dangerous to the social well-being, or is inefficient; the defense of the community from invasion, from fire, flood, famine, or disease; the relations with other states, such as trade agreements, boundary treaties, and the like; the maintenance of order, including the juridical ...
— Socialism - A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles • John Spargo
... Commission democracy is an inefficient weapon. Nothing but disappointment is in store for men who expect a people to outrage its own character. A large part of the unfaith in democracy, of the desire to ignore "the mob," limit the franchise, and confine ...
— A Preface to Politics • Walter Lippmann
... chance of a shot, were withdrawn, and only the look-out man left there. There was some idea that the enemy might have gone away, and no one would have been sorry; for the wells inside the zereba were very inefficient, the water being soon exhausted, and a tedious waiting entailed before the wells filled again. Already the men had to be put on an allowance, and in that country, where the throat is always parched, any stint of water ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... holy orders, to test his learning, was asked by the prelate, "Who was the father of the Four Sons of Aymon?"[149] and not knowing what answer to make, this promising candidate was refused as inefficient. Returning home, and explaining why he had not been ordained, his father told him that he must be an ass if he could not tell who was the father of the four sons of Aymon. "See, I pray thee," quoth he, "yonder is Great John, the smith, who has four sons; if a man should ask thee who ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... not this order, I shall offer other measures, Know I well of other forces; I shall call the Hisi irons, In them I shall boil and roast thee, Thus to check thy crimson flowing, Thus to save the wounded hero. "If these means be inefficient, Should these measures prove unworthy, I shall call omniscient Ukko, Mightiest of the creators, Stronger than all ancient heroes, Wiser than the world-magicians; He will check the crimson out-flow, He will heal this wound of ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... went at once to the home of the county sheriff, who lived in the village. Completely disgusted with the lax manner in which the sheriff had conducted the search, David reported to him the finding of Tom, with a scathing arraignment which the inefficient official accepted in scowling silence. Convinced by David's rebuke that it was high time to redeem himself, he agreed to send out a posse of men the very next day to cover the western stretch of forest in which the demented man had managed to keep ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower
... able to learn that Badeloden was formerly overrun by Germans; that Franzheim was excellent if you stayed at the Grand, but at the Kurhaus the guests were unsociable, while at the Oberalp you were not done well and the central-heating was inefficient. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 17, 1920 • Various
... help, some willingness you can get out of everybody. That's the red. And the same principle applies to most labour and property problems, to health, to education, to population, social relationships and war and peace. We haven't got the right system, we have inefficient half-baked systems, or no system at all, and a wild confusion and war of ideas in all these respects. But there is a right system possible none the less. Let us only hammer our way through to the sane and reasonable organization in this ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... trying to beat anything sensible through the shells of them quahaugs?" snarled Captain Candage, with 'longcoast scorn for the inefficient. ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... of the South American provinces, and recently in Mexico, and the efforts of the British nation in their behalf, together with many other co-operating causes seem to indicate the interposition of Divine Providence in favour of the oppressed. In HIS Almighty hand, the most inefficient causes sometimes produce the most astonishing effects, and often the very means made use of to rivet the chains of oppression are so overruled by Him as to burst the bonds they were designed to perpetuate. We may therefore ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... I thought—have to get old lady Francis to modify her formula or something. Else we'll never get rich. Slow down the rate of growth, dilute it—ought to be more profitable too.... Have to find out how cheaply the inoculant can be produced—no more inefficient hand methods.... Of course the fastness of growth wouldnt affect the sale to farmers—help it in fact. No doubt she'd had more than I originally thought in that aspect, I conceded generously. We could ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... the first inefficient version of the high drive, she had found herself in a deserted section of the universe, with the nearest inhabited star system months away. The secret of the drive couldn't be kept, of course, but the races who used it to build war fleets found it easier to fight with each ...
— Victory • Lester del Rey
... sufficient number of modern war ships and of their necessary armament should progress as rapidly as is consistent with care and perfection in plans and workmanship. The spirit, courage, and skill of our naval officers and seamen have many times in our history given to weak ships and inefficient guns a rating greatly beyond that of the naval list. That they will again do so upon occasion I do not doubt; but they ought not, by premeditation or neglect, to be left to the risks and exigencies of an unequal combat. We should ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison
... governed, will not yield to a more enlarged scale of politics, incompatibility in the laws of different states, and disrespect to those of the general government, must render the situation of this great country weak, inefficient, and disgraceful. It has already done so, almost to the final dissolution of it. Weak at home, and disregarded abroad, is our present condition, ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... that Great Britain had already for at least a generation employed Mounted Infantry in colonial wars; but the innovation had never been approved of on the Continent, where it was regarded as a cheap and inefficient British substitute for Cavalry. ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... gray face of a man-made wall rose sheer a hundred feet above the original bed of the stream, leaving it in part revealed; and this barrier checked and stayed the once resistless flood against which an entire mountain range had proved inefficient. Presently for hundreds of miles each way the transmission lines would carry out power to those seeking light, to those employing labor; and the used water would ...
— The Sagebrusher - A Story of the West • Emerson Hough
... the book. Jane Eyre is throughout the personification of an unregenerate and undisciplined spirit, and more dangerous to exhibit from that prestige of principle and self-control which is liable to dazzle the eye too much for it to observe the inefficient and unsound foundation on which it rests. It is true Jane does right, and exerts great moral strength, but it is the strength of a mere heathen mind which is a law unto itself. No Christian grace is perceptible upon her. She has inherited in fullest ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... and wants are to be proportioned to its means. If individuals do not compete, the whole society has, presumably, to compete with other societies; and, in every case whatever, with the general forces of nature. An indolent and inefficient majority might decide, if it pleased, that the amount of work to be exacted should be that which would be just enough to provide the simplest material necessities. If, again, the indolent and inefficient ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen
... cannot take the place of the Organized Class. Where it does, it is temporary, hurrah-in-character, inefficient and harmful. The Sunday school is educational in purpose. The Boys' Department must ...
— The Boy and the Sunday School - A Manual of Principle and Method for the Work of the Sunday - School with Teen Age Boys • John L. Alexander
... least judgment, in the next. As he said, Lapham had dealt fairly by his partner in money; he had let Rogers take more money out of the business than he put into it; he had, as he said, simply forced out of it a timid and inefficient participant in advantages which he had created. But Lapham had not created them all. He had been dependent at one time on his partner's capital. It was a moment of terrible trial. Happy is the man for ever after who can choose the ideal, the unselfish part in such ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... him,—such perhaps as the fresh inculcation of economy and industry, flares up and bustles about, resolves that his business shall henceforth be prosecuted with vigor and managed with precision, and in a few days relapses into his old, careless, inefficient habits, heedless alike of prudence and precept, gives little promise of success in any department of life. Or should one be perseveringly industrious, but suffer his affairs to lie in confusion, like the material world at its ...
— The Faithful Steward - Or, Systematic Beneficence an Essential of Christian Character • Sereno D. Clark
... bottom of the range, and is finally brought back by adiabatic compression to the highest temperature at which it again takes in heat, and so on. An air-engine working on this cycle would be intolerably bulky and mechanically inefficient. Stirling substituted for the two stages of adiabatic expansion and compression the passage of the air to and fro through a "regenerator,'' in which the air was alternately cooled by storing its heat in the ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... boats, except against the wheelhouses; they were so arranged as to let down on deck when desired. When ready for service, with guns and stores on board, these boats drew from five to seven feet of water; but they were so weakly built as to be dangerous and comparatively inefficient vessels, quickly "disabled," as is apt to be the case with such preparations for war as are postponed to the time of its outbreak. The contingency of civil war on our inland waters was not indeed to be anticipated nor prepared for; but what was the history of the ocean navy, on whose ...
— The Gulf and Inland Waters - The Navy in the Civil War. Volume 3. • A. T. Mahan
... helpless, timid, accustomed to crouch under oppression. To keep the stronger race from preying on the weaker, was an undertaking which tasked to the utmost the talents and energy of Clive. Vansittart, with fair intentions, was a feeble and inefficient ruler. The master caste, as was natural, broke loose from all restraint; and then was seen what we believe to be the most frightful of all spectacles, the strength of civilisation without its mercy. To all ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... might serve as a school whereto children at a certain age might be removed from their parents, and receive education, was now become absolutely necessary; but many other works equally necessary were still in hand; and the labourers employed to erect them were comparatively so inefficient, that it was impossible to think of any other work until they were completed, though both the clergymen offered their services to superintend the erection of ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins
... sight of; the men responsible for them had all passed off the stage; Grenville, Townshend, and Halifax were dead, and North, careless and subservient to George III, Hillsborough, Suffolk, Sandwich, and Rochford—all noblemen, and in many cases inefficient—did not see beyond the problem of coercing noisy and troublesome rioters, indistinguishable from the followers of Wilkes. Over and over again they reiterated that the colonists' resentment was not to be feared, that they would submit to genuine firmness, that they were all cowardly ...
— The Wars Between England and America • T. C. Smith
... physical proportions were less mean. There are thousands of worthy and virtuous young men who never receive their due in social life because they have red hair or stand four-feet-six high, or happen to be the victim of an inefficient dentist. The world, it would seem, does not want virtue or solid worth. It prefers appearance to either. Albert de Chantonnay would, for instance, have carried twice the weight in Royalist councils if his neck ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... new ground, as one may see by looking at the map of Northern India. The conditions of the journey were to a large extent those I have already described; but we suffered from bad roads, from our camp equipage falling behind, and I may add from inefficient service, much more than we had formerly done. On reaching Almora we mentioned to a friend the route we had taken, and he said, "Surely you have not come in a wheeled conveyance, for I am told that road is impassable." I told him ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy
... Under Maximilian's inefficient son, the country went asunder. One branch of the family carried out the Counter-Reformation in Styria; while, north of the Danube, the majority of the inhabitants was either Lutheran or Utraquist, that is, attached to Communion under both kinds, which had ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... College had been hopelessly inefficient in its system of training, if I am justified in forming such an opinion from specimens produced by it, who had the brains of canaries and the manners of Potsdam. There was also a close corporation among the officers ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... conditions Serjeant Snubbin's conduct of the case and his "handling" of the witnesses was truly inefficient. He lost every opportunity for helping his client. He "led" in a quiet, gentlemanly and almost indifferent way. His first opportunity came in examining Mrs. Cluppins. As we have seen, she had deposed to hearing, ...
— Bardell v. Pickwick • Percy Fitzgerald
... laws, and partly oppressed by themselves, many of our people are wicked, unhappy, inefficient. We have skulkers and idlers all round, and brow-beaten waisters, who, for a pittance, do our craft's shabby work. Nevertheless, among our people we have gallant fore, main, and mizzen top-men aloft, who, well treated or ill, still trim ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... is the great event of the day. It is said to show the uselessness of big ironclads in naval warfare. But as the "Camperdown," which sent the "Victoria" to the bottom in a few minutes, has herself sustained very little damage, it looks as though "rams" were anything but inefficient. There has never yet been an engagement between two fleets of ironclads, and no one knows how they would behave in an actual battle. Our own impression is that both fleets would go to the bottom, and this opinion is shared by a good many practical persons at Portsmouth ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote
... look—an emphasis and rising inflection, all logical sequence is cast away, processes are lost—inductions lead nowhere. Moments when the inharmonious becomes harmonious, the indiscreet discreet, the inefficient efficient, and the inevitable evitable. I mean," she corrected herself hurriedly—"You know what I mean! If you have not felt ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... Denver and Gulf Railroad, running from a point in Wyoming across Colorado to Fort Worth, Texas. The financial failure of the system was due to a variety of causes. Its management had been extravagant and inefficient, and construction and expansion had been too rapid. The policy of building expensive branch lines where they were not needed and of obligating the parent company to finance them had been a grievous mistake and had contributed largely to the downfall of the company. Further than ...
— The Railroad Builders - A Chronicle of the Welding of the States, Volume 38 in The - Chronicles of America Series • John Moody
... elements and means of knowledge that all human beings born into the community must acquire during childhood." If their parents have the power of obtaining for them this instruction and fail to do so, they commit a double breach of duty. The child grows up an imperfect being, socially inefficient, and members of the community are liable to suffer seriously from the consequences of this ignorance and want of ...
— The Children: Some Educational Problems • Alexander Darroch
... native builders in the use of the more convenient material brings its own penalty during this season in a necessity for constant watchfulness and frequent repairs to keep the houses habitable. One can often see in Zui where an inefficient drain or a broken coping has given the water free access to the face of a plastered wall, carrying away all its covering and exposing in a vertical space the jagged stones of the underlying masonry. It is noticeable that much more attention has been paid to protective ...
— A Study of Pueblo Architecture: Tusayan and Cibola • Victor Mindeleff and Cosmos Mindeleff
... perfection. They cannot afford to have them otherwise. Neat cubicles and spotless dimity have beguiled an uninterrupted sequence of mammas, and have kept alive, and even flourishing, schools which are in a thoroughly bad moral state and are hopelessly inefficient in every particular. Of course, many a parent feels that he ought to judge for himself, and these mechanical arrangements are too often the only material on which he can form his judgment. Let me assure him ...
— The Power of Womanhood, or Mothers and Sons - A Book For Parents, And Those In Loco Parentis • Ellice Hopkins
... three or four spare ones, in case any of the others should knock up upon the road. In this particular it is proper to say that we were cheated, for had such an accident occurred, the extra-animals were so weak and inefficient, that they could not have supplied the places of any of those in use. There were eight or ten donkey-men, and a boy; the latter generally contrived to ride, but the others walked by the ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... have since been built up. How we could have erected a common public-school system on a religious basis, with the many religious sects among us, it is impossible to conceive. Instead, we should have had a series of feeble, jealous, antagonistic, and utterly inefficient church-school systems, chiefly confined to elementary education, and each largely intent on teaching its peculiar church doctrines and struggling for an increasing ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... were named—and only demurred upon the plan for carrying out a portion of the fourth. The special object was to cancel the preponderance of Russia in the Black Sea. No fewer than seven different plans were simultaneously or in turn propounded. They were every one of them admitted to be dubious, inefficient, and imperfect. I will spare the reader the mysteries of limitation, of counterpoise, of counterpoise and limitation mixed. Russia preferred counterpoise, the allies were for limitation. Was this preference ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... caused by inefficient help and the difficulty of getting materials up the steep road to their plantation, they could see their home gradually growing around them. Mr. Stevenson's health was better than it had been since their marriage, and a deep content settled gently ...
— The Life of Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson • Nellie Van de Grift Sanchez
... which stood on the edge of the town, was small and without upstairs heat, but it seemed luxurious to me, and the family straightway absorbed my interest. Leete, the nominal head of the establishment, was a short, gray, lame and rather inefficient man of changeable temper who teamed about the streets with a span of roans almost as dour and crippled as himself. His wife, who did nearly all the housework for five boarders as well as for the members of her own family, was a soul of heroic pride and most indomitable energy. She was a tall, ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... mere misery: over and over again came 'bad times' as they were called, and indeed they were bad enough for the wage-slaves. The year 1952 was one of the worst of these times; the workmen suffered dreadfully: the partial, inefficient government factories, which were terribly jobbed, all but broke down, and a vast part of the population had for the time being to be fed on undisguised "charity" ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris
... to us as Mrs. GRAHAM, received from nature qualities which, in circumstances favorable to their development, do not allow their possessor to pass through life unnoticed and inefficient. ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... say is extremely wrong. Gentlemen, I think it is also sufficiently proved, that Sandom, the third person for whom I am counsel, was in the chaise which was driven from Northfleet to Dartford, and from Dartford to London; and on my part, I should consider it a most inefficient attempt, if I were to attempt, for one moment, to persuade you that Mr. Holloway and Mr. Lyte, together with Mr. Sandom, have not been most criminally implicated in this part of the transaction; but, gentlemen, although I admit this in the outset, and very sincerely ...
— The Trial of Charles Random de Berenger, Sir Thomas Cochrane, • William Brodie Gurney
... convoy is usually provided with some guard of its own, though it is often absurdly inefficient. These valleys and ravines which branch out of the main pass are alive with Afridis and Pathans, who are keen robbers as well as religious fanatics. I wonder they don't swoop down on some of our caravans. They could plunder them and get back to their mountain fastnesses before ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle
... been considerably sadder and duller since its abandonment; and her father insisted on her reading less, and taking more exercise. She had his companionship no longer; I esteemed it a duty to supply its lack, as much as possible, with mine: an inefficient substitute; for I could only spare two or three hours, from my numerous diurnal occupations, to follow her footsteps, and then my society was obviously less desirable ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... competition. Clearly the bulk of the shame lies with the shareholders, who encourage opposition for the sake of increasing their own dividends at the expense of their neighbours, and who insist on economy in directions which render the line inefficient—to the endangering of their own lives as well as those of the public. Economy in the matter of railway servants—in other words, their reduction in numbers—necessitates increase of working hours, which, beyond a certain point, implies inefficiency and danger. But the general ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... for the elevator; but before the upcoming car reached his floor he decided not to descend. He would have it out. He almost ran back to the committee-rooms and, brushing by the knowing but inefficient outer guard, made for the room where the leaders were. Already he could hear the laughter—yes, and the roaring at something or other; and as he placed his hand on the knob of the inner door he heard: "He's come here from the other end of the State, with ...
— Sonnie-Boy's People • James B. Connolly
... resting-place of the patriot dead. I saw the regent of the kingdom, surrounded by his cabinet, sauntering all a summer's afternoon under a blazing sun over the dusty mile that separates the monument from the Ayuntamiento. The Spaniards are hopelessly inefficient in these matters. The people always fill the line of march, and a rivulet of procession meanders feebly through a wilderness of mob. It is fortunate that the crowd is more ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... of the people a customs-revenue system designed for the protection and benefit of favored classes at the expense of the great mass of our countrymen, and which, while inefficient for the purpose of revenue, curtailed our trade relations and impeded our entrance to the markets of the world, has been superseded by a tariff policy which in principle is based upon a denial of the right of the Government to obstruct ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland
... matter of tonnage duties is well enough in its own sphere. I suppose it may be efficient, and perhaps sufficient, to make slight improvements and repairs in harbors already in use and not much out of repair. But if I have any correct general idea of it, it must be wholly inefficient for any general beneficent purposes of improvement. I know very little, or rather nothing at all, of the practical matter of levying and collecting tonnage duties; but I suppose one of its principles must be to lay a duty for ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... you coming. Anybody can see you coming, Daddy. That's why you ought to be so careful. I shall make you wear a hard hat. Those squashy hats of yours are hopelessly inefficient. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... lingered behind to examine the place wherein the women had concealed themselves. The boughs of the vine-maple, together with other slender shrubs constituting the underbrush, had been rudely woven together, forming, at best, but a very inefficient shelter from the wind, which swept in freezing currents through the valley. Had it rained, they must soon have been drenched, or if snow had fallen heavily, the 'wickey' house and its occupants soon would have been buried. How had they existed? ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... authorities, the people assured me, were induced to report that the single fort-well had run dry; that the condensers had proved a failure, and that the old steamer-magazine, into which they had poured brine, was leaky and inefficient. But what was my astonishment when, after return to Cairo, I was told that the change had been strongly advocated ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 2 • Richard Burton
... more defensible than this. If it were impossible to find any other access to the minds of individual members than by speeches in the House, or if all other modes of conversion to new views were difficult and inefficient in comparison, then we should say that the time of the House must be taxed for the ventilating process. Nothing of the kind, however, can be maintained. Moreover, although the House may be obliged to listen to a speech for a proposal that has merely half a dozen of known supporters, yet, ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... agreeable consummation? There is nothing whatever to prevent it—except insubordination on the part of the brain. And insubordination of the brain can be cured, as I have previously shown. When I see men unhappy and inefficient in the craft of living, from sheer, crass inattention to their own development; when I see misshapen men building up businesses and empires, and never stopping to build up themselves; when I see dreary men expending precisely the ...
— The Human Machine • E. Arnold Bennett
... with these, therefore, our problem has no concern. The larger class, the immense majority, either do their work themselves, or attend personally to its being done by others; "others" signifying that inefficient, untrustworthy, unstable horde who come fresh from their training in peat-bog and meadow, to cook our dinners, take care of our china dishes, and adjust the nice little ...
— A Domestic Problem • Abby Morton Diaz
... sunset to go homewards, would have been thrown upon the enemy, and with as much more of ruinous effect as the distance was greater. As it never was alleged that the cantonments were meant for the overawing of Cabool, and in effect they were totally inefficient as regarded that city—it is clear that the one great advantage by which the Affghans accomplished our destruction, was coolly prepared for them by ourselves, without the shadow of any momentary benefit for our own interests. Even for provisions, the event showed that we had never looked ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Vol. 56, No. 346, August, 1844 • Various
... whatever question arises by the unimpeachable truism, "God is great." Not to fall back on the gods, where a proximate principle may be found, has with us Westerners long since become the sign of an efficient as distinguished from an inefficient intellect. ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... Mind you, I don't mean 'inefficient' in every sense. By no means. If anyone were to come to me and say, 'Boomer, can you put your hand for me on a first-class botanist?' I'd say, 'Take Withers.' I'd say it in a minute." This was true. He would have. In fact, if anyone had made this kind of rash speech, Dr. Boomer would have given ...
— Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich • Stephen Leacock
... or obstacles in the way, and has been known to conduct his coach across "hedges and ditches" when snow blocked up the highways. The firm grip of his position was sometimes apparent to those who encountered him on the road. Woe-betide any inefficient or sleepy driver whom Joe had to pass on the road, for a heavy smack from his whip was often as effectual a cure as the modern roundabout process of dragging the sleepy teamster before the magistrates and extracting a ...
— Fragments of Two Centuries - Glimpses of Country Life when George III. was King • Alfred Kingston
... $600-$800 million, mostly from Albanians residing in Greece and Italy; this helps offset the towering trade deficit. Agriculture, which accounts for more than one-fifth of GDP, is held back because of lack of modern equipment, unclear property rights, and the prevalence of small, inefficient plots of land. Energy shortages and antiquated and inadequate infrastructure contribute to Albania's poor business environment, which make it difficult to attract and sustain foreign investment. The completion of a new thermal power plant near Vlore and ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... council, and fully aware of the danger and of the smallness of their forces, were debating whether they should yield to the demand of the Russian troops, and give up the town without any defence, or, with twelve hundred garrison troops, two rusty cannon, a few thousand wounded soldiers, and an inefficient body of citizens, give battle to the twelve thousand irregular troops of General Tottleben, who would soon he reenforced by the army of General Tschernitscheff, twenty thousand strong, and fourteen thousand Austrians under Count Lacy, who, as they well ...
— The Merchant of Berlin - An Historical Novel • L. Muhlbach
... just now. I'm head keeper," laughed Bunny. "Miss Larpent thinks I'm very inefficient, ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... now adjourned." That was the result of Dr Kenealy's first essay and in his second he came to final and irremediable grief. In a crowded House, he arose to impeach his enemies and traducers. He was ploughing along and I was fighting after him in my own gouty, inefficient shorthand, when one of the strangest premonitions of my life occurred to me. He said "If any of these unjust aspersions are cast anew upon me"—and I seemed to know as absolutely what he was going ...
— Recollections • David Christie Murray
... refractory child. Had you laid down the rod, the child would have come back. And because he runs away from the rod, you take up the poker. Seriously, what means do you possess of enforcing your unjust claims and insolent authority? Never since the Norman Conquest had you an army so utterly inefficient, or generals so notoriously unskilful: no, not even in the reign of that venal traitor, that French stipendiary, the second Charles. Those were yet living who had fought bravely for his father, and those also who had vanquished him: and Victory still hovered ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... dishonesty had never for an instant associated itself in his mind with Firmstone. He deemed him inefficient and lacking a grasp of conditions; but, brought face to face with a question of honesty, there was repugnance at the mere suggestion. His face showed it. Luna caught the look instantly and began ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... but fairly commenced, when a break in the 'piff-paff' chorus warned Andreas that he was losing influence, women and men were handing on a paper and bending their heads over it; their responses hushed altogether, or were ludicrously inefficient. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... which results from the rule of the specialist is the destruction of the AMATEUR. So real a fact is the tyranny of the specialist that the very word "amateur," which means a leisurely lover of fine things, is beginning to be distorted into meaning an inefficient performer. As an instance of its correct and idiomatic use, I often think of the delightful landlord whom Stevenson encountered somewhere, and upon whom he pressed some Burgundy which he had with him. The generous host courteously refused ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Washington; and such was his opinion of the necessity of a prompt distribution and a speedy forwarding of the supplies, if they could be secured, by the blessing of Providence, and so little was his faith in the inefficient commissariat, which, moreover, had to endeavor to keep the balance between different colonies and different bodies of troops, more or less loosely coherent, that he had detailed one of his own staff officers to accompany the ship, ...
— For Love of Country - A Story of Land and Sea in the Days of the Revolution • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... of the gangway, the doctor glanced at each new comer's face, and then seizing him by the wrist uncovered it. Since this took him two or three seconds, one could have fancied that he either possessed peculiar powers, or that the test was a somewhat inefficient one. Then he looked at the official, who made a sign, and the man ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... ideas. He crushes democracy with an iron efficiency, and he creates communism. He closes the door to trade-unionism and makes a revolution. That's efficiency for you. We radicals are not so damned inefficient, while we let the conservatives ...
— The Beauty and the Bolshevist • Alice Duer Miller
... least sitting bolt upright. She, had no business to lounge away the noon on a sofa. She ought likewise to have worn decent garments; a gown covering her properly, which was not the case: out of abundance of material—seven-and-twenty yards, I should say, of drapery—she managed to make inefficient raiment. Then, for the wretched untidiness surrounding her, there could be no excuse. Pots and pans—perhaps I ought to say vases and goblets—were rolled here and there on the foreground; a perfect rubbish of flowers was mixed amongst them, and an absurd and disorderly mass ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... that had earlier been overlooked began to attract the attention of a few thoughtful men. It was estimated that not more than one-half to three-fourths of the legitimate internal revenue was collected during Johnson's presidency, so corrupt and inefficient were the revenue collectors. Endless Indian troubles and countless losses of money resulted from the corruption of the federal Indian agents. Conditions were even worse during the Grant regime. The President's appointments were wretched; he placed his relatives in official positions; revenue ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... provisions. These magistrates had no power of departing from the fundamental laws, or the laws of the Twelve Tables. The people held them in such consideration, that they rarely enacted laws contrary to their provisions; but as some provisions were found inefficient, others opposed to the manners of the people, and to the spirit of subsequent ages, the praetors, still maintaining respect for the laws, endeavored to bring them into accordance with the necessities of the existing time, by such fictions as best suited the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... and Herzegovina ranked next to The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia as the poorest republic in the old Yugoslav federation. Although agriculture has been almost all in private hands, farms have been small and inefficient, and the republic traditionally has been a net importer of food. Industry has been greatly overstaffed, one reflection of the socialist economic structure of Yugoslavia. TITO had pushed the development of military industries in the republic with the result ...
— The 2000 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... makes any serious attempt to administer the collection of this sum of $5,000,000,000 and to authorize the return to Germany of a part it, the trade of Central Europe will be strangled by bureaucratic regulation in its most inefficient form. ...
— The Economic Consequences of the Peace • John Maynard Keynes
... The remedy is timely and constant paring of the hoof before any tendency to lameness is observed, and when this is properly attended to no caustic application is necessary. Lame sheep indicate an inefficient shepherd, and the disorder has been well ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... period of negative growth in the early 1990s. Kenya's real GDP grew at 5% in 1995 and 4% in 1996, and inflation remained under control. Substantial barriers to growth and development remain, including electricity shortages, the government's continued and inefficient dominance of key sectors, endemic corruption, and the country's high population growth rate (which has declined substantially in ...
— The 1997 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... the opera of "Albion and Albanius," which had been nearly finished before the death of Charles. This was originally designed as a masque, or emblematical prelude to the play of "King Arthur;" for Dryden, wearied with the inefficient patronage of Charles, from whom he only "received fair words," had renounced in despair the task of an epic poem, and had converted one of his themes, that of the tale of Arthur, into the subject of a romantic drama. As the epic was to have been adapted to the honour and praise of Charles and ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... seem to forget that I cannot go against my principles, however much I may be sorry for Betty. She should not have given way to ill-temper. As I said before, although I never liked her, and considered her a most inefficient servant, thoroughly spoilt by having had no mistress for so long, I should have borne with her—at least, I think I should—as long as I could. Now I have all but engaged Maria, who was under-housemaid at the Towers, so don't let me hear any more of Betty's sorrow, or anybody else's sorrow, for ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... will be remembered for ever. He is the practical man in the true sense. But there is the other self-styled practical man, who thinks all this proceeding foolish, and cries out for the expedient of the hour. Has he ever realised the promise of his proposals? No, he is the most inefficient person who has ever walked the earth. But for a saving consideration let him go contemplate the wasted efforts of the opportunist in every generation, and the broken projects scattered ...
— Principles of Freedom • Terence J. MacSwiney
... road, would hurriedly snatch as they fled. And the people made his heart ache, even to the deadening of his own sorrow, as he noted their wobegoneness. For these were the sick, the infirm, the poor, the inefficient, who had been unable for one reason or another to migrate with the main body of the Saints earlier in the season. Many of them were now racked by fever from sleeping on the damp ground. These bade fair not to outlast ...
— The Lions of the Lord - A Tale of the Old West • Harry Leon Wilson
... include frequent cyclones and floods, government interference with the economy, a rapidly growing labor force that cannot be absorbed by agriculture, a low level of industrialization, failure to fully exploit energy resources (natural gas), and inefficient and inadequate power supplies. An excellent rice crop and expansion of the export garment industry helped growth in FY91/92. Policy reforms intended to reduce government regulation of private industry and promote public-sector efficiency have been announced but ...
— The 1993 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... horrible cavern with a floor of ice in many places, and with a temperature below freezing even in summer? Fuel they could not procure, as there are but black sandy moors around that grow nothing but dwarf willow, and that is so scarce as to be inefficient for their purpose. They must have supplied themselves with light and heat by the tallow of the sheep they killed, run into a lamp. This is the only heating fuel used at present by the Icelanders, apart from the animal heat they give out in the ...
— Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe • Sabine Baring-Gould
... the railroad. Well-cultivated plantations of sugar-cane, plantains, wheat, rice, and orchards of fruit come into view. The old style of irrigation goes on, by means of buckets worked by hand, the same as was practised in the East four thousand years ago, while the very plough, rude and inefficient, which is used upon their plains to-day is after the antique fashion belonging to the same period. Indeed, except that the railroad runs through Southern India, there appears to have been no progress there for thousands of years. A lethargy of the most hopeless character seems to possess ...
— Foot-prints of Travel - or, Journeyings in Many Lands • Maturin M. Ballou |
