"Unfit" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of the six-wire cable had been recovered, and a portion of the three-wire cable, the rest being abandoned as unfit for use, owing to its twisted condition. Their work was over, but an unfortunate accident marred its conclusion. On the evening of the 2nd the first mate, while on the water unshackling a buoy, was struck in the back by a fluke ...
— Heroes of the Telegraph • J. Munro
... 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 ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... but badly for your sense of shame. If you had the remnants of decent feeling in you, you would be physically incapable of the feat. If you would care to know how your conduct strikes an unprejudiced spectator, I may tell you that I consider you a scoundrel of the worst type and unfit to associate with any but the low company ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... glance generally resolved them into what they were, fancy paintings, and he bit his lips fiercely with annoyance as he called himself coward and one quite unfit for such a task. ...
— The Peril Finders • George Manville Fenn
... the shell is firmly closed; when the shells of oysters are open, they are dead, and unfit for food. The small-shelled oysters, the Byfleet, Colchester, and Milford, are the finest in flavour. Larger kinds, as the Torbay oysters, are generally considered only fit for stewing and sauces, and as an addition to rump-steak puddings and pies, ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... to him, the little boy thought that it would be easier to find him if he went out on the lake. There were several good craft lying along the shore, but they were tied. The only one that lay loose, and at liberty, was an old leaky scow which was so unfit that no one thought of using it. But Per Ola scrambled up in it without caring that the whole bottom was filled with water. He had not strength enough to use the oars, but instead, he seated himself to swing and rock in the scow. Certainly ...
— The Wonderful Adventures of Nils • Selma Lagerlof
... sire, as in private life, Times will arise when even the faithfullest squire Finds him unfit to jog his chieftain's choice, On whom responsibility must lastly rest. And such times are pre-eminently, sire, Those wherein thought alone is not enough To serve the head as guide. As Emperor, ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... with damp air and a stuffy, thunderous feeling and the dust hanging in the air under bilious looking clouds, which made people talk of earthquakes—we perspire, we melt—we run away in rivers, and our own particular temperature is 100 deg.. How annoying to feel unfit to paint when there is so much to do at hand.... Started fairly early this morning for the Pagoda, and sat outside it in a gharry pulled up opposite the entrance porch and steps. It takes courage to attempt to sketch such a scene of shifting ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... assured me that England as a nation is really unfit for any decent other nation to know politically, but they added, with stiff bows in my direction, that sometimes the individual inhabitant of that low-minded and materialistic country is not without amiability, especially if he or she is by some miracle without ...
— Christine • Alice Cholmondeley
... first lot who came here in July, 1868. There were twenty-two of us in all, pres et frres, and two or three weeks afterwards seventeen were down with fever. You can have no idea of what it was here five-and-twenty years ago. The country was unfit for human beings. The people went shivering about in the heat of summer wrapped up as they would be in the depth of winter. It was pitiful to ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... reward and recognition, poor often, and needing a degree to get a teaching position, weak in the eyes of their examiners,—among these we find the veritable chair a canon of the wars of learning, the unfit in the academic struggle for existence. There are individuals of this sort for whom to pass one degree after another seems the limit of earthly aspiration. Your private advice does not discourage them. ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... to many diseases which retard their development, rendering them unfit for food, and even poisonous. The relation of unwholesome foods to the diseases of the animal body are now being thoroughly studied, recent advances in chemistry and microscopy contributing valuable aid to the prosecution ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 392, July 7, 1883 • Various
... there was some way of stopping this harassing, paralyzing litigation. I find my mind wholly unfit for the studies which the present state of the Telegraph requires from me, being distracted and irritated by the constant necessity for standing on the defensive. Smith will be Smith I know, and, therefore, as he is the appointed thorn to keep ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... of the second day Stair was finding himself unfit for human society, because he had not been able to shave since he left the prison. Of course he had brought nothing with him. There was no time. His hand went unconsciously every other minute to his scrubby chin. ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... with extreme gentleness. "That would be the object of the performance, to unfit one for the duties of the day. How beautiful! What a glorious sight it would be to see a great audience flocking out into the orange-coloured sunshine, each unit of which was thoroughly unfitted for any duties whatsoever. It makes ...
— The Green Carnation • Robert Smythe Hichens
... bottom, and this vast sheet of ice might be extended southward to within the parallels of fifty degrees north and south latitude, although the waters under the equator might at the same time be unendurably hot and unfit for the occupancy of ...
— Outlines of the Earth's History - A Popular Study in Physiography • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... size the harbour is beset by a gang of idle fellows, whose pretence is that they are anxious to sign articles for a voyage, but who are, in reality, living from hand to mouth. Captains know only too well that the true 'beach-comber' is always incompetent, often physically unfit for work, and constitutionally mutinous. When his other resources fail, he throws himself upon the nearest consul of the nation to which he may claim to belong, and a very considerable sum is yearly wasted in providing such ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... alderman of my ward, if I wished it, sir—too much jacobism; the people are fools, sir; know nothing, sir; not fit to rule themselves, much less their betters, sir. Here have a set of us, some hundreds in this very town, been telling them what fools they are, how unfit they are to manage their own affairs, and how fast they are going to the devil, any time these twenty years, and still we have not yet persuaded them to entrust one of us with authority! To say the truth, we are in a most miserable condition, and, if anything COULD ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... of Mr. Hastings's opposition. But these he totally abandons, and holds fast to the pecuniary department. Now, as it is notorious that most of the abuses of India grow out of money-dealing, it was peculiarly unfit for a servant, delicate with regard to his reputation, to require a personal and confidential agent in a situation merely official, in which secrecy and personal connections could be of no possible ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... is completely divested of its uses and powers. In the same manner a citizen is a constituent part of a whole system, which invests him with powers and qualifies him for functions for which, in his individual capacity, he is totally unfit; and independently of such system, he might subsist indeed as a lonely savage, but could never attain that improved and happy state to which his progressive nature invariably tends. Perfected by the offices ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... equally good, and their prices varied accordingly. The police of the theatre had to take care that everybody took his seat in the row marked on his ticket. Most of the spectators were men. In older times women were allowed only to attend at tragedies, the coarse jokes of the comedy being deemed unfit for the ears of Athenian ladies. Only hetairai made an exception to this rule. It is almost certain that the seats of men and women were separate. Boys were allowed to witness both tragedies and comedies. Whether slaves were admitted amongst the ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... to the attack; Illugi defended himself and Grettir courageously, but Grettir was unfit for fighting, partly from his wounds, partly from his illness. Angle then ordered them to bear Illugi down with their shields, saying he had never met with his like amongst older men than he. They did so, ...
— Grettir The Strong - Grettir's Saga • Unknown
... Mr. Dodge, confronting the still kneeling and agonized delinquent, "Wretch! these are the penalties of guilt. You have forged and stolen, acts that meet with my most unqualified disapprobation, and you are unfit for respectable society.—I saw from the very first what you truly were, and permitted myself to associate with you, merely to detect and expose you, in order that you might not bring disgrace on our beloved country. An impostor has no chance in America; and you are ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... care I? I have loved this man too well, before he saw thee. There, thou hast now my secret. I have loved him, And he loved me, and left me, and betrayed me. Was it for him to brand me with this stain? Unfit for thy companion! If I be, Whose fault is that but his, who found me pure And left me ...
— Gycia - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Lewis Morris
... now, sirrah! Dost thou slander the horse which is a gift from Mother Church to the king's work? Thou art a knave, and no doubt art but unfit for thy task this morn through over-late ...
— A Boy's Ride • Gulielma Zollinger
... and grossly defective. In the preceding section it has been shown, that the principles of quantity adopted by Sheridan, Murray, and others, being so erroneous as to be wholly nugatory, were as unfit to be the basis of English verse, as are Walker's, which have just been spoken of. But, the puzzled authors, instead of reforming these their elementary principles, so as to adapt them to the quantities and rhythms actually ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... she. "I can't come to harm with him, and when I have told him all, he won't allow me to go to France." For as yet my lord did not know of what had befallen his daughter, nor did my lady, whose sickness made her unfit to be burdened with ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... therefore employed intermediaries, principally Greeks and Cretans, to buy up the captives. The women with children were the first purchased, as the value of these was not great. Then some of the older men, who were unfit for much work, were taken. Then there was a pause, for already many cargoes of captives had reached Alexandria, and the resources of their ...
— For the Temple - A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem • G. A. Henty
... stone,—to send up those turrets and spires into the sky. It was theirs to build; remember it is yours, under Providence, to keep the city,—to keep it from the sword of the invader,—to keep it from licentiousness and crime and irreligion, and all that would make it unsafe or unfit to live in,—to keep it from the fires of faction, of civil strife, of party spirit, that might burn up in a day the slow work of a thousand years of glory. Happy, if we shall so perform our duty that they who centuries hence shall dwell ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... mean anything by those words, I must tell you I consider them unfit for a good subject; and were they spoke publicly I should make it my business to take note of them," said he. "You do not appear to me to recognise the gravity of your situation, or you would be more careful not to pejorate the same by words which ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... flavouring we can give a false palatableness to even the worst and most indigestible rubbish, such as plaster-of-Paris, largely sold under the name of sugared almonds to the ingenuous youth of two hemispheres. But in untouched nature the test rarely or never fails. As long as fruits are unripe and unfit for human food, they are green and sour; as soon as they ripen they become soft and sweet, and usually acquire some bright colour as a sort of advertisement of their edibility. In the main, bar the accidents of civilisation, ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... by eleven Justices of Peace under their hands to be very inconvenient. And therefore, not holding this new grant fit to pass, as being no other in effect but to translate the playhouses and Bear Garden from the Bankside to a place much more unfit, I thought fit to give your lordship these reasons for it; wherewithal you may please to acquaint His Majesty, if there shall be cause. And so remain your lordship's very assured friend ...
— Shakespearean Playhouses - A History of English Theatres from the Beginnings to the Restoration • Joseph Quincy Adams
... I do not claim that. I only say that they are unfit for freedom. I might cite a hundred instances in which it has been ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... my place—here I belong, and I shall be a rogue if ever again I try to find my happiness among strangers. I swear here that I will reject all vanities and foolish hankerings. I know now what I am, and what is unfit for me shall be ...
— Dame Care • Hermann Sudermann
... of the kangaroo to make a bag for holding fat; but it broke and ripped so easily when dry, as to render it unfit for that purpose. We used the skins of the kangaroos to cover our flour-bags, which were in a most wretched condition. Our latitude was 25 degrees ...
— Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia • Ludwig Leichhardt
... making 131 in all. Of these, however, one was taken by her relatives to Australia, to which they emigrated, and wished her to accompany them. Three were sent to their relatives till they might be cured, on account of such diseases as made them unfit to be with other children. Two fell asleep in Jesus as decided believers, of whom the one had been several years in the house and converted some months before her death. The other had been only six months ...
— A Narrative of Some of the Lord's Dealings with George Mueller - Written by Himself, Fourth Part • George Mueller
... what each had said of the other—calling no names, of course—and saying that he was glad that these sinners had had the humility to give up positions of trust and honor in the church which they were evidently unfit to fill. He hoped before the end of the year they would be restored spiritually and worthy to perform the services they had formerly performed. Meanwhile, there was nothing left for him to do but to appoint a committee of sinners to attend to the stewards' duties until these should be ...
— A Circuit Rider's Wife • Corra Harris
... choice of such things in King Pluto's palace. This was the first fruit she had seen there, and the last she was ever likely to see; and unless she ate it up immediately, it would grow drier than it already was, and be wholly unfit to eat. ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... quarters and not driving the enemy out of Philadelphia. He wrote to Congress, giving a full account of how he had been annoyed and hindered by those who should have helped him. He told them that nearly three thousand of his men were unfit for duty because they were almost naked, and two thousand more were sick for want of food ...
— George Washington • Calista McCabe Courtenay
... except that Rust neither asked for her, nor mentioned her, and had always refused to see her. She had never succeeded in gaining admittance to him, except on the night of his death, when the jailer, a fellow unfit for his office, for he had some human feeling left, unable to resist her tears and entreaties, had let her in unannounced, as mentioned in the last chapter. She had left the cell abruptly, had hurried off, and had never returned. 'God help the poor ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... only sixteen, and was amiable, learned, and clever. When the lords who came to her, fell on their knees before her, and told her what tidings they brought, she was so astonished that she fainted. On recovering, she expressed her sorrow for the young King's death, and said that she knew she was unfit to govern the kingdom; but that if she must be Queen, she prayed God to direct her. She was then at Sion House, near Brentford; and the lords took her down the river in state to the Tower, that she might ...
— A Child's History of England • Charles Dickens
... finally decided to despatch Gordon he telegraphed that there was only just enough time left to escape to Berber. While the commandant held and expressed these views, it is not surprising that the garrison and inhabitants were disheartened and decidedly unfit to make any resolute opposition to a confident and daring foe. There is excellent independent testimony as to the state of public ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... have so long flattered myself, I am doubtful what method I shall take to procure a decent maintenance. I have been educated in a manner that has set me above a state of servitude, and my situation renders me unfit for the company of those with whom I have hitherto conversed. But, though disappointed in my expectations, I do not despair. I will hope that assistance may still be obtained for innocent distress, and that friendship, though rare, is yet ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... the independent, were either attached to the imperial government, or at least prevented from exerting themselves in opposition to it; while those whom family cares, or laborious occupations, or habits of indolence, or want of energy of mind, rendered unfit for resistance to any government, were the only people whose interest it was to resist that ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... particular about what the members of their classes eat and drink. One mess of strawberry short cake and cream will unfit a boy for a field contest for a whole week, while a full meal of dainties may completely upset a man or woman for a ...
— The Suffrage Cook Book • L. O. Kleber
... stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of ...
— Reading Made Easy for Foreigners - Third Reader • John L. Huelshof
... forward till some roads had been made, so that the army wagons could be sent on; but General Shafter thought it would be best to march on at once. He feared that after a week or ten days in that climate many of our men might have fever and be unfit for service. So, even before all the men had landed, General Shafter ordered the first ones to go forward and drive the Spaniards from a place near Siboney. Thus, some of our troops began their march just after landing from the boats. About two hundred Cuban soldiers went with ...
— Young Peoples' History of the War with Spain • Prescott Holmes
... fatigued, it was resolved to leave here most of our batteaus, which had already been reduced from 10 to 6 to each company—but 6 I think were carried from this place. We overhauled our ammunition and found most of our powder damaged and unfit for use; all of this description we ...
— An interesting journal of Abner Stocking of Chatham, Connecticut • Abner Stocking
... Archduchess Marie Henriette of Austria. The bridegroom was only eighteen years of age, the bride as young; but it was considered desirable that the heir-apparent should marry, and Queen Louise's place had remained vacant while her daughter, Princess Charlotte, was still unfit to preside over the Court in her ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler
... should rejoice at my misfortune. I went on (not very consistently) to beg him to set me up again, when I would solemnly promise to do a safe business in reliable railroads. Lastly (becoming somewhat carried away), I assured him I was totally unfit for business, and implored him to take me away from this abominable place, and let me go to Paris to study art. He answered briefly, gently, and sadly, telling me the vacation was near at hand, when we could talk ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... could well have understood their reluctance to teach it to the rural labourers, because it is obvious to any one who knows the character of this class that the knowledge of a foreign language would unfit them for agricultural labour and the lower occupations, and produce a new social problem. Even this class, however, might have been mentally improved by elementary books translated into dialect. But, unfortunately, the friars ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... Fletcher, when General Custer came out to go on an Indian expedition with General Hancock. I remained at this post until it was drowned out by the heavy floods of Big Creek, on which it was located; the water rose about the fortifications and rendered the place unfit for occupancy; so the government abandoned the fort, and moved the troops and supplies to a new post—which had been named Fort Hays—located further west, on the south fork of Big Creek. It was while scouting in the vicinity of Fort Hays that I ...
— The Life of Hon. William F. Cody - Known as Buffalo Bill The Famous Hunter, Scout and Guide • William F. Cody
... of good citizenship are ignored in the laws, because the courts can seldom deal with such questions in a uniform and satisfactory way, under rules that apply alike to all. Thus the voter, selected by law to represent himself and four other non-voting citizens, is often a person who is unfit for any public duty or trust. In a town government, having a small area of jurisdiction, where the voice of the majority of qualified voters is conclusive, the fitness of the person who is to exercise that high representative privilege can be determined by his neighbors and acquaintances, ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... dissolved, pour the gold solution into the hyposulphite by small quantities, shaking well after each addition. The soda solution must not be poured into the gold, as the gold would be immediately decomposed, and the solution turn black, and be unfit for use. ...
— American Handbook of the Daguerrotype • Samuel D. Humphrey
... left, the colony of Jamestown fell into wild disorder. Every one wanted to go his own way. A new President named Percy had indeed been chosen. But although an honest gentleman he was sickly and weak, and quite unfit to rule these turbulent spirits. So twenty or more would-be presidents soon sprang up, and in the whole colony there ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... of hunters it comes to be the able-bodied men's office to fight and hunt. The women do what other work there is to do—other members who are unfit for man's work being for this purpose classed with women. But the men's hunting and fighting are both of the same general character. Both are of a predatory nature; the warrior and the hunter alike reap where they have not strewn. Their aggressive assertion of force and sagacity ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... representation is unavoidable. Dalberg told me that several of the Ministers are going out—Guizot, Marshal Gerard, and Baron Louis, the two latter accables with the travail, and the first unused to and unfit for official business;[5] Louis ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... than consult Lord Hailes.—Besides my constant and radical disease, I have been for these ten days much harassed with the gout; but that has now remitted. I hope GOD will yet grant me a little longer life, and make me less unfit to appear before him.' ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... Canon-laws, and Code, And Fathers which he never understood; But little learning needs in noble blood. For, sooth to say, the Swallow brought him in, Her household chaplain, and her next of kin: 470 In superstition silly to excess, And casting schemes by planetary guess: In fine, short-wing'd, unfit himself to fly, His fears foretold foul weather ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... contrary to our legislative restrictions, and I valued myself equally upon my boldness in planning our exploits, and my dexterity in eluding their discovery. But exactly in proportion as our school terms connected me with those of my own years, did our vacations unfit me for any intimate companionship but that which I already ...
— Falkland, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... a governing principle, in all civil relations, that the strong will grow stronger and the feeble more weak, until the first become unfit to rule or the last unable to endure. In this important truth is contained the secret of the downfall of all those states which have crumbled beneath the weight of their own abuses. It teaches the necessity of widening the foundations ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... certainly they would have been very inappropriate for a boy-farmer or a printer's apprentice to wear; but brother was always, both at home and at Poultney, supplied with warm woollen mittens of mother's knitting. As for the cut of his trousers, I am surprised that any sensible author should use so unfit a word as 'elegance' in speaking of a poor farmer's clothing. I told you the other day that our wardrobe for every-day wear was spun, woven, and made by mother, and it is not to be expected that home-made coats and trousers should have the cut of a fashionable New York ...
— The Story of a Summer - Or, Journal Leaves from Chappaqua • Cecilia Cleveland
... gambling and was lost.'" Dr. Guthrie writes: "In regard to the lawfulness of certain pursuits, pleasures, and amusements, it is impossible to lay down any fixed and general rule; but we may confidently say that whatever is found to unfit you for religious duties, or to interfere with the performance of them; whatever dissipates your mind or cools the fervor of your devotions; whatever indisposes you to read your Bibles or to engage in prayer, wherever the thought of a bleeding Savior, or ...
— Questionable Amusements and Worthy Substitutes • J. M. Judy
... ever in the recurrent evening of his day sees the best of it ahead and soon to come. He has the rich reward of a youth and manhood of virtuous living. Dr. Middleton misdoubted the future as well as the past of the man who did not, in becoming gravity, exult to dine. That man he deemed unfit for this world ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... whole region now included in the Netherlands was once a mere swamp, a wild and useless morass, unfit for the habitation of man. Three great rivers, you perceive on the map, have their course, in whole or in part, through Holland and Belgium—the Rhine, the Maas, or Meuse, ...
— Dikes and Ditches - Young America in Holland and Belguim • Oliver Optic
... not,—so said the constable,—honoured Lavington for the last two years, till this his last appearance. He had, however, been seen there in company with another man, and had evidently been in a condition very unfit for work. He had slept one night at a low public-house, and had then moved on. The man had complained of a fall from the cart, and had declared that he was black and blue all over; but it seemed to be clear that he had no broken bones. Mr. Fenwick therefore ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... possess the qualifications which she had fixed as her standard. Some of these women, who in other branches of the service, and under other auspices, became eminently useful, were rejected on account of their youth; while some, alas! were received, who afterwards proved themselves quite unfit for the position, and a disgrace ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... of the administration of this system by incompetent or unfit officers would be the ...
— Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman
... And be ennobled far above thyself. Her brain was ill, her heart was well: she loved. It was the unbroken cord between the twain That drew her ever to the ocean marge; Though to her feverous phantasy, unfit, 'Mid the tumultuous brood of shapes distort, To see one simple form, it was the fear Of fixed destiny, unavoidable, And not the longing for the well-known face, That drew her, drew her to the urgent sea. Better to ...
— A Hidden Life and Other Poems • George MacDonald
... Appert's time stone jars have been generally superseded by tin canisters—contain on an average about 10 pounds each; and out of 643 of these which were opened on the first day's examination, no fewer than 573 were condemned as being utterly unfit for food. On the next day, 734 were condemned out of 779; and by the fourth day, the number examined had risen to 2707, of which only 197 were deemed fit for food. Such wretched offal had been packed in the canisters, instead of good meat, that the stench arising ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 460 - Volume 18, New Series, October 23, 1852 • Various
... course, who are themselves wholly in the dark, verily believing that religion would turn a youth's brain and unfit him for the active business of life, will feel it a part of their duty to oppose every possible obstacle to such attempts at reclaiming the young wanderers under their charge. I knew, and knew right well, an instance wherein a lady who strove to do good to the souls ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth
... was less common than gold earrings in Polotzk. For the ideal of a modern education was the priceless ware that my father brought back with him from his travels in distant parts. His travels, indeed, had been the making of my father. He had gone away from Polotzk, in the first place, as a man unfit for the life he led, out of harmony with his surroundings, at odds with his neighbors. Never heartily devoted to the religious ideals of the Hebrew scholar, he was more and more a dissenter as he matured, but he hardly knew what ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin
... adventures of the preceding night. He awoke at noon, somewhat refreshed, and entered a bath while Josephine sent a servant to purchase a suit of clothes, as those which he had worn were so soiled and torn as to be unfit for further service. ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... not a word to say; he did not know himself in so novel a position. "I cannot conceive, sir," he said, at last, "why I should be unfit company for the gentlemen ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... very uncertain mood, his head still somewhat heavy, John Clare took his way back to Helpston. He congratulated himself of having had a very lucky escape from a kind of servitude for which, of all others, he was most unfit; and yet, notwithstanding this piece of good fortune, he felt by no means easy in his mind. What to do next? was the great question he was unable to solve, and which got more intricate the more he thought of it. While giving the spur to his reflections for the hundredth ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... bright fire, one of the Lapps said to me, "Paulus, you have told us that you intend to travel southward by land. If that is so, there is no time to be lost, for the sun is getting more powerful every day, and the snow will soon be in an unfit condition for reindeer to travel on, and the ice over the rivers and lakes will break; besides you are going to have great difficulty in procuring reindeer, for no reindeer can be had at the post stations now. You may be detained on the way, and be obliged to wait until snow has melted ...
— The Land of the Long Night • Paul du Chaillu
... to a brahman by giving as food what is unfit to be eaten, is amenable to the highest fine; if to a kshattriya, the medium fine; if to a vaisya, the lowest fine; if to ...
— Hindu Law and Judicature - from the Dharma-Sastra of Yajnavalkya • Yajnavalkya
... companions more fit for thee. I am ashamed to stand in thy presence. I am dazzled by the brightness of thy countenance, crushed down by the thought of thy wisdom and power, uneasy lest I say or do something unfit for thee; lest I anger thee unawares in my ignorance, clumsiness; lest I betray to thee my own bad habits: and those bad habits I feel in thy presence as I never felt before. Thou art too condescending; thou honourest me too much; thou hast taken ...
— Discipline and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... some objectors women are supposed to be unfit to vote because they are hysterical and emotional and of course men would not like to have emotion enter into a political campaign. They want to cut out all emotion and so they would like to cut us out. I had heard so much ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... distinction between this sphere of survival and that of the animal world. In it the fittest survive, the others are lost; but in society the unfittest are lost, all the others survive. Social selection weeds out the unfit, the murderer, the most unsocial man, and says to him: "You must die"; natural selection seeks out the most fit and says: "You alone are to live." The difference is important, for it marks a prime series of distinctions, ...
— The Story of the Mind • James Mark Baldwin
... thousandfold hidden beauty and divineness dwells in all Nature; which let all men worship as they can! We may say without offence, that there rises a kind of universal Psalm out of this Shakspeare too; not unfit to make itself heard among the still more sacred Psalms. Not in disharmony with these, if we understood them, but in harmony!—I cannot call this Shakspeare a 'Sceptic,' as some do; his indifference to the creeds and theological quarrels of his time misleading them. No: neither unpatriotic, ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... descending directly toward him, I called to him to look out! When he raised his head, this shell was within five feet of him and grazed his back before entering the ground close behind him. He was severely shocked, and for some days unfit for duty. At the first battle of Fredericksburg, more than a year after this, while holding his horses and kneeling in the same posture, a shell descending in like manner struck him square on his head and passed down through the length of his body. A month after the battle I saw all that ...
— The Story of a Cannoneer Under Stonewall Jackson • Edward A. Moore
... fit for me to read may be most unfit for you. I read the book when I was a young man; I would not read it now. Is it Benoite's?" he inquired, seeing the name ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... narrow windows, and there, sure enough, I saw a little girl, less than my Miss Rosamond—dressed all unfit to be out-of-doors such a bitter night—crying, and beating against the window-panes, as if she wanted to be let in. She seemed to sob and wail, till Miss Rosamond could bear it no longer, and was flying to the door to open it, when, all ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... bay were filled with steamers and vessels of war, in compliment to the occasion. In the midst of these was the enormous floating mass, whose bulk and unwieldy form seemed to render her as unfit for motion, as the land batteries which were ...
— Fulton's "Steam Battery": Blockship and Catamaran • Howard I. Chapelle
... things upon which she has been accustomed to spend her time and thought, lose all attraction for her, and during the time which intervenes between dancing school evenings, she feeds her romantic passion on novels, unfit for any person to read, and which would have been without special interest to her before she entered the dancing school. She spends much thought upon those things which tend to develop her lower nature, for "as a man thinketh, ...
— From the Ball-Room to Hell • T. A. Faulkner
... of 'many among us,' who 'will be found upon inquiry, to fancy God in the shape of a man sitting in heaven, and have other absurd and unfit conceptions of him.' As though it were possible to think of shapeless Being, or as though it were criminal in the superstitious to believe 'God made man after his own image.' A 'Philosophical Unbeliever,' who made minced meat of Dr. ...
— An Apology for Atheism - Addressed to Religious Investigators of Every Denomination - by One of Its Apostles • Charles Southwell
... sense. As to his strength, he was habitually incapable of enduring the fatigue of any game, and seemed weakly, almost infirm. But during the early days of his school-life, one of our little bullies having made game of this sickliness, which rendered him unfit for the violent exercise in vogue among his fellows, Lambert took hold with both hands of one of the class-tables, consisting of twelve large desks, face to face and sloping from the middle; he leaned back against the class-master's desk, steadying ...
— Louis Lambert • Honore de Balzac
... which make a house unfit for habitation. If a Katupong fly into it, or a Beragai over the house, or an armadillo crawls up into it, the Dyaks leave the house and build another for them to live in. Sometimes, however, they sacrifice a pig, and examine the liver, ...
— Children of Borneo • Edwin Herbert Gomes
... be compared to the number in the gorge, and having to remove my blankets only three or four times, I had a most delightful night's rest, although, of course, I did not sleep. The horses were sulky and would not eat; therefore they looked as hollow as drums, and totally unfit to traverse the ground that was before them. However, this had to be done, or at least attempted, and we got away early. We were in the midst of the sandhills, and here they rose almost into mountains of sand. It was most fatiguing to ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... abominably disagreeable. He sees a good deal of this poor middle-class in his inspecting tours, and decides elsewhere about the same time that "of all dull, stagnant, unedifying entourages, that of middle-class Dissent is the stupidest." It is sad to find that he thinks women utterly unfit for teachers and lecturers; but Girton and Lady Margaret's may take comfort, it is "no natural incapacity, but the fault of their bringing-up." With regard to his second series of Poems (v. infra) he thinks Balder will "consolidate the peculiar sort of reputation he got by Sohrab and ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... indeed turned towards her, but with his eyes fixed upon the grass. During this time, however, he was not idle. His cousin's answer, though it had grieved him, had not come upon him as a blow stunning him for a moment, and rendering him unfit for instant thought. He was grieved, more grieved than he had thought he would have been. The thing that he had wanted moderately, he now wanted the more in that it was denied to him. But he was able to perceive ...
— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope
... and hopes all overthrown, My heart-strings almost broke, Unfit my mind for melody, Much ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... Actions, we must endeavour to manage them so as to retain their Vigour, yet keep them under strict Command; we must govern them rather like free Subjects than Slaves, lest while we intend to make them obedient, they become abject, and unfit for those great Purposes to which they were designed. For my Part I must confess, I could never have any Regard to that Sect of Philosophers, who so much insisted upon an absolute Indifference and Vacancy from all Passion; ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... two appear to be contradictory but the flood refers to the valley of the Nene and the lowlands which are apt to be flooded when the river overflows its banks. The mud and dirt consequently settle on the grass and make it unfit for hay, but the rainfall does good, causes the grass to grow and it is ...
— Weather and Folk Lore of Peterborough and District • Charles Dack
... a seven years' absence would also condemn him to orphanhood. His father and mother were too aged by sorrow to be able to abide his return: they would soon die; and if not, who would be there to tend them, to earn them bread, to find them the comforts which their old arms were unfit to earn by themselves? These reflections were terrible; and besides, to make his pain more torturing, he was in love. A young girl of his own age had been destined for him by his parents and by hers, and she was to become his ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... judgment were his characteristical excellencies, rather than fancy and invention. . . He stuck to describing modern manners; but those manners, because they are familiar, uniform, artificial, and polished, are in their very nature, unfit for any lofty effort of the Muse. He gradually became one of the most correct, even, and exact poets that ever wrote. . . Whatever poetical enthusiasm he actually possessed, he withheld and stifled. The perusal ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... unfit for any kind of company, and would have preferred being alone, yet he could not resist the importunities of the honest Quaker; who was the more desirous of sitting with him, from having remarked the melancholy ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... imprudence. Besides, that very day many things had reached his ears concerning these two who suited each other as perfectly as Heinz Schorlin seemed—even to the Hapsburg, who was loyally devoted to the Holy Church—unfit ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... trade, and yet the final impression was not of ragged, tawdry clothing nor of pinched and sallow faces, but of myriads of hands, empty, pathetic, nerveless and workworn, showing white in the uncertain light of the street, and clutching forward for food which was already unfit ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... therefore I opposed his confirmation. There were fair offers of compromise on men who were free from objections, all of which were refused by Butler. The President declined to withdraw the nomination unless it could be made to appear that Simmons was an unfit man. This could not be done. I was upon the Committee on Commerce to which the nomination was referred, and upon my motion the report was adverse to the nomination. Butler came to my room and denounced my action, saying that he would spend ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2 • George S. Boutwell
... by us, Continue anthropophagous. And this, I have no doubt, was why, When Members wished Lord Scutt good-bye, You could not see one humid eye. * * * * * The moral of this simple strain I trust is adequately plain. When people crave for information Unfit, in war, for publication, They take a line, from vice or levity, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 23, 1917 • Various
... the Winslow livery, presented, according to the queer old register, by the unfortunate Margaret. There was talk of velvet and the gold monogram, surrounded by rays, alternately straight and wavy, as in our London church, but this was voted 'unfit for a plain village church.' Still, the new hangings of pulpit, desk, and altar were all good in quality and colour, and huge square cushions were provided as essential to each. Moreover, the altar vessels were made somewhat more respectable,—all this ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in a frame of mind that baffles description. He was a modest man; he had never conceived an overweening notion of his own powers; he knew himself unfit to write a book, turn a table napkin-ring, entertain a Christmas party with legerdemain—grapple (in short) any of those conspicuous accomplishments that are usually classed under the head of genius. He knew—he admitted—his parts to be pedestrian, ...
— The Wrong Box • Robert Louis Stevenson and Lloyd Osbourne
... and one revealed to her alone, and not to the people. Dominica then told her all her fears that her preparation had been too short; that our Lord would certainly never allow her to come to Him; and that she was so unworthy and unfit to communicate, she should drive Him out of the church. But Mary comforted her, and assured her that the tears of contrition she had shed were ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton
... children die before or soon after birth. One-third of those born alive die within the next six months, and those that finally survive are blighted in their development, both physical and mental, and affected with various organic defects and deformities which unfit them for the battle of life. Syphilis has come to be recognized as one of the most powerful factors in the depopulation and degeneration ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume II (of VI) • Various
... humble friend, rather than servant, of the most excellent departed, was the person whom, next to the niece, I most pitied. She was every way to be lamented: unfit for any other service, but unprovided for in this, by the utter and most regretted inability of her ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... very foolish thing, which cannot now be remedied. He supposed at the time that he would make a good parson, and now that he has long got over his fit, he finds himself wholly unfit for it—he is still the officer in heart, and is always struggling with his natural bent, which is very contrary to what a ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Frederick Marryat
... beginning of the new year, the affliction which I have already mentioned, rendered me unfit for public service, and for about three months my brother and I stayed at the home of Brother Baugh on Dry Creek, where we read and studied and prayed and fought the affliction that had been imposed upon us. My brother got ...
— Trials and Triumphs of Faith • Mary Cole
... bringing me to this untimely end; for it is plainly evident, that after having some time ago obtained a pardon from the Crown, I again took up my old trade. My evil habits were so rooted in me, and I was grown unfit for any other kind of employment; and therefore, although in compliance with my friends I resolved to go to the gallows after the usual manner, kneeling with a book in my hand and my eyes lift up, yet I shall feel no more devotion in my heart than I observed in some ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... filled with hard riding as they gathered the cattle, bunched the fat animals, cut out and turned back those unfit for the market, stood guard at night over the herd, steadily and rapidly cleaned the west half of the Kiowa range of the stuff that was ...
— The Ramblin' Kid • Earl Wayland Bowman
... as you please, mother,' said she, the very day before she died, 'but I feel this pain will be the death of me—and I so unfit to die,' she added, with a ...
— The Monctons: A Novel, Volume I • Susanna Moodie
... of Holland. These 'Modern' Protestants reject the dogma of the Holy Trinity and various other dogmas which the Roman Catholics and the Orthodox Protestants consider the essence of the Christian creed; they are, therefore, in the opinion of the latter, mere atheists, and consequently unfit to rule the destinies of ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... of, by open sale, and by private contract, the freehold, leasehold, and funded property of plaintiff, to the incalculable danger of the estate, and to the disregard of decency and justice. What rendered this assumption and exercise of power the more intolerable, was, that the persons the most unfit were selected; and as if, it would appear, from a "hateful love of contraries," the man learned in law being sent to preside over the business of equity, of which he knew nothing, and the man learned in equity being entrusted with the direction ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... the habit of light jesting—persiflage—is so essentially Irish, you should keep it for your countrymen; and if you persist in supposing the career of a private secretary suits you, this is an incongruity that will totally unfit ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... may not be unfit to say something here of their births and burials, which make up so much of the pomp of too many called Christians. For births, the parents name their own children; which is usually some days after they are born, in the presence of the midwife, if she can be there, and ...
— A Brief Account of the Rise and Progress of the People Called Quakers • William Penn |
