"Unsatisfactory" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... beautiful, conservative, yet open to all the liberalizing influences of an age of science and philosophy. Cranmer, though a scholastic, seems to have perceived that nothing is more misleading and uncertain and unsatisfactory than any truth pushed out to its severest logical conclusions without reference to other truths which have for their support the same divine authority. It is not logic which has built up the most enduring institutions, but common-sense and plain truths, and appeals ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord
... previous occasions. She was rather offish, but really would have been glad to make up, had he shown the humility and tractableness he usually manifested after their tiffs; but he was not in a humble frame of mind, and, after a brief and unsatisfactory call, took his leave. The poor girl was completely puzzled. What had come over Arthur? She had snubbed him no more than usual that night, and generally he took it very meekly. She would have opened her eyes very wide indeed if she had guessed ...
— A Love Story Reversed - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... of the Government was to carry through in earnest the building of the railway to the Pacific. For over a year Macdonald persisted in Mackenzie's policy of government construction but with the same slow and unsatisfactory results. Then an opportunity came to enlist the services of a private syndicate. Four Canadians, Donald A. Smith, a former Hudson's Bay Company factor, George Stephen, a leading merchant and banker of Montreal, James J. Hill and Norman W. Kittson, ...
— The Canadian Dominion - A Chronicle of our Northern Neighbor • Oscar D. Skelton
... be unsatisfactory news to Owen Massey," observed Gerald to Norman Foley. "It is my belief that he is the last of the O'Harralls, and Owen will have a good chance of recovering the property of which they ...
— The Missing Ship - The Log of the "Ouzel" Galley • W. H. G. Kingston
... in the morning when she stole my baby. No Sir replyed inspecter Gong I have seen no such person, oh thank you said Mr. Hose good morning, good morning Sir said the inspecter as he shut the door of the police office and Mr. Hose went down the steps and walked feeling very unsatisfactory. ...
— Daisy Ashford: Her Book • Daisy Ashford
... incidents and characters; but they seem rather to have irritated his spleen, than to have drawn forth his powers of picturesque imitation. Certainly if we compare Hudibras with Don Quixote in this respect, it seems rather a meagre and unsatisfactory performance. ...
— Lectures on the English Poets - Delivered at the Surrey Institution • William Hazlitt
... Permanent white, and Barytic white, is, when well prepared, of superior body in water, but has less opacity in oil. It works in a somewhat unsatisfactory and unpleasant manner, and is considerably lower in its tone while wet than when dry, a fault which subjects even an experienced artist to great uncertainty where he uses it in compound tints. The semi-transparency of the white, while wet, prevents his judging of the true tint until his colour ...
— Field's Chromatography - or Treatise on Colours and Pigments as Used by Artists • George Field
... interest among countless former photoplay "fans." They have gone into the theatres expecting to see a "big star" in a "big story"—and have come out after having seen only the "big star." Just who is responsible for this very unsatisfactory state of affairs it is sometimes hard to say. Occasionally the story, if written by an "outside" writer, is lacking in plot-material in the first place, and, having been purchased on account of its having, ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... unsatisfactory even to those who originated them, and doubly so to her whom they were intended to comfort, more than two hours passed; and Lady D—— was beginning to hope that the fated term might elapse without the occurrence of any tragical event, when Sir Robert entered the room. On coming ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... a visit to the notoriously immoral wife of one of the feudal nobles, and that a certain disciple was "displeased" in consequence, whereupon the Master swore, saying, "If I have done any wrong, may the sky fall and crush me!" Wang Ch'ung points out that the form of oath adopted by Confucius is unsatisfactory and fails to carry conviction. Had he said, "May I be struck dead by lightning!" his sincerity would have been more powerfully attested, because people are often struck dead by lightning; whereas the fall of the sky is too remote ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... inclined to the chord of the apse, the former having the usual angle of 45 deg., the latter one of more than 60 deg.. Externally this is not so pleasant as the more "commonplace" form, the great dissimilarity of the several angles being unsatisfactory and the third side too quickly lost to view, but within the church these points are ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Churches of Coventry - A Short History of the City and Its Medieval Remains • Frederic W. Woodhouse
... Algiers he was told the note of the French Minister was unsatisfactory, and that it was under consideration whether a note should not be presented. He ...
— A Political Diary 1828-1830, Volume II • Edward Law (Lord Ellenborough)
... not directed by science,—by acknowledged principles,—he can never make any steady improvement. In like manner, when the principles of education are unknown, no advancement in the art can be expected from the teacher. Every attempt at change in such circumstances must be unsatisfactory; and even when improvements are by chance accomplished, they are but partial, and must be stationary.—When, on the contrary, the teacher is directed by ascertained principles, he never can deviate far from the path of success; and even if he should, he has the means in his own power of ascertaining ...
— A Practical Enquiry into the Philosophy of Education • James Gall
... sake of a little talk. There was much that I should have liked to ask this man, but he could not understand Dthemetri’s language, and the process of getting at his knowledge by double interpretation through my Arabs was unsatisfactory. I discovered, however (and my Arabs knew of that fact), that this man and his family lived habitually for nine months of the year without touching or seeing either bread or water. The stunted shrub growing at intervals through the sand in this part of the Desert enables ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... not be unsatisfactory to you to know that Americans—both those long domiciled here and those in transit—applaud the appointment of the new Chief ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... evidently realized my despair over the violence in a strike quite as definitely as if she had been told about it. Perhaps that sort of suffering and the attempt to interpret opposing forces to each other will long remain a function of the Settlement, unsatisfactory and difficult ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams
... the evening before on the best of terms. Stoller had expected Burnamy twenty-four hours earlier, and had shown his displeasure with him for loitering a day at Leipsic which he might have spent at Carlsbad; and Burnamy had been unsatisfactory in accounting for the delay. But he had taken hold so promptly and so intelligently that by working far into the night, and through the whole forenoon, he had got Stoller's crude mass of notes into shape, and had sent off in time for the first steamer ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... is indeed an unsatisfactory thing: I believe that everybody thinks so. You seem to think that it is purposely unsatisfactory, or rather dissatisfactory: but it seems to me to proceed from a kind of enervation in De Quincey. However, I don't know how he supports himself in other ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... account for it. Pressed for an explanation, Felicity Brown, it is true, might have essayed an answer of sorts. "Oh, Cele's kind of a nut," she might have declared, "but she's a good scout," or something equally unsatisfactory. But Cecille, unless urged, quite likely wouldn't have made any answer at all. Then, "I don't know," she would have murmured. And in the face of such gravity her inquisitor must surely have sought ...
— Winner Take All • Larry Evans
... wonder as such necessarily faded away and the interest could be kept up only if the scenes presented on the screen became themselves more and more enthralling. The trivial acts played in less than a minute without any artistic setting and without any rehearsal or preparation soon became unsatisfactory. The grandmother who washes the baby and even the street boy who plays a prank had to be replaced by quick little comedies. Stages were set up; more and more elaborate scenes were created; the film grew and grew in length. Competing companies in France and later in the United States, England, ...
— The Photoplay - A Psychological Study • Hugo Muensterberg
... greater. The worst feature of the situation seemed to me that we did not know what to expect, and could therefore make no sort of preparation by way of defense. We could anticipate nothing. My explanations made in the sunshine, moreover, now came to haunt me with their foolish and wholly unsatisfactory nature, and it was more and more clear to me that some kind of plain talk with my companion was inevitable, whether I liked it or not. After all, we had to spend the night together, and to sleep in the ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... much to be had in a Trappist monastery without asking, I opened the conversation by making some delicate allusions to breakfast. The truth is that the bread-and-cheese supper was nothing to me now but an unsatisfactory recollection, and, with the sense of vacuum that distressed me, I was unwilling to follow the monk upon the promised round, lest I should die of inanition on the way. He asked me what I would like to eat, and I said, 'Anything that is near at hand.' Had I suggested that a chop or a steak ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... her parents to his rival Delio. In his despair he seeks aid from the priestess of a certain temple, and receives from her a magic potion which drives from him all remembrance of his passion. This very simple and somewhat unsatisfactory story is interwoven with a multitude of episodes and incidental narratives, pastoral and chivalric, and the whole ends with the promise of a second part, which however never came to be written, the author, as it appears, being either murdered or killed ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... interval between the termination of that institution and the charter of its successor; and thirdly, during the limited period which has now so abruptly closed. The connection thus repeatedly attempted proved unsatisfactory on each successive occasion, notwithstanding the various measures which were adopted to facilitate or insure its success. On the last occasion, in the year 1833, the employment of the State banks was guarded especially, in every way which experience and caution could suggest. ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 3: Martin Van Buren • James D. Richardson
... party proceeded to a high and remarkable hill called BROOKS'S BLUFF: following the strait to the northward, they passed the remains of many Esquimaux habitations; and, though their short journey had been unsatisfactory on account of the badness of the weather, there was still sufficient to cause the most lively interest, and give strong hopes of the existence of some passage to the northeast of the small inlet ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... the Mexican calendar, it is best to exclude from consideration at first the signification of the latter, and allow it to have no influence in arriving at a conclusion. The attempt by Dr Brinton to force agreement with the latter appears to be unsatisfactory. ...
— Day Symbols of the Maya Year • Cyrus Thomas
... kitty to the closet where the birds at present hung, but his experiment was unsatisfactory, for she dug into his cheek with a fury which rendered it necessary to abandon the attempt. When the outraged animal had fled down the street, Elsmere looked about for fresh interests. He was in a mood to recognize opportunities, ...
— The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted • Katharine Ellis Barrett
... more often neighbors, who swore that they believed him to be telling the truth. The number of these "oath- helpers" varied according to the seriousness of the crime and the rank of the accused. This method was hardly as unsatisfactory as it seems to be, for a person of evil reputation might not be able to secure the required number of friends who would commit perjury on his behalf. To take an oath was a very solemn proceeding; it was an appeal ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... after this series of very unsatisfactory interviews. I looked at Kennedy blankly. We seemed to have uncovered so little that was tangible that I was much surprised to find that apparently he was well contented with what had happened in the ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... annoyed to see the artist and Miss Lamont drifting along in such laughing good-humor with the world, as if a summer holiday was just a holiday without any consequences or responsibilities. It was to him a serious affair ever since that unsatisfactory note from Miss Benson; somehow the summer had lost its sparkle. And yet was it not preposterous that a girl, just a single girl, should have the power to change for a man the aspect of a whole coast-by her presence to make it iridescent with beauty, and by her absence to take all the life out of ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... to parade his contempt of a lucrative dependency—than he had felt for the countess. No wonder his diction was poor. It was a sample of limp thinness; a sort of tongue of a Master Slender:—flavourless, unsatisfactory, considering its object: measured to be condemned by its poor achievement. He had nevertheless a heart to feel for the dear lady, and heat the pleading for her, especially when it ran to its object, as along a shaft of the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... do believe!" said he; "He's only a cow-boy, I dare say!" And with this sapient, but unsatisfactory conclusion, he opened his book, and read aloud, ...
— The Sketches of Seymour (Illustrated), Complete • Robert Seymour
... in an inflated currency, but actually in a great development of material resources, beneath his management of the treasury. To find fault with him, and to talk of the "might have been" seems unworthy; also unsatisfactory, since the consequences of a different policy are wholly matter ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... 16th century. About that time hollow balls of stone or cast iron were fired from mortars. The balls were nearly filled with gunpowder and the remaining space with a slow-burning composition. This plan was unsatisfactory, as the composition was not always ignited by the flash from the discharge of the gun, and moreover the amount of composition to burn a stipulated time could not easily be gauged. The shell was, therefore, fitted with a hollow forged iron or copper plug, filled with slow-burning ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... momentary diversion among the milliners.) He could not say, however, which drew the slung-shot or which threw the grenade. (It was generally remarked by those in the court room, that the evidence of the witness was obscure and unsatisfactory. Upon questioning him further, and confronting him with the parties to the case before the court, it transpired that the faces of Jones and Smith were unknown to him, and that he had been talking about an entirely different fight all ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various
... thing in novels since the war—always come back with one arm, and never with a lost leg. Is it more romantic to get rid of one than of the other?—considering also that a one-armed embrace of the weeping waiting lady-love must be so utterly unsatisfactory. ...
— Doctor and Patient • S. Weir Mitchell
... though he had on the whole had as good success as Carlton in the "keen encounter of their wits" the night before, it had left an unsatisfactory effect on his mind. The time for action was come; argument was past, as he had himself said; and to recur to argument was only to confuse the clearness of his apprehension of the truth. He began to question ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... you have possibly time, write me a few more particulars, for your letters are very unsatisfactory, and I am full of anxiety. Make Richardson write,—what has he better to do? God bless thee, my dear, dear Dick,—would it were over and all well! I am afraid, at any rate, it will ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... with his intense repugnance to anything like commercial dishonesty, was deeply perturbed. The idea of entertaining at his board as guest a man with whom he would not have a business transaction was exceedingly disagreeable. Leaving the unsatisfactory breakfast half-finished, he rose and paced the room in his perplexity. At last he spoke, as much to himself as to his daughter. "It shall never be said that John Walton was deficient in hospitality. They have been invited ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... talked loosely of "standing against" the king "unto death."[388] The Bishop of Durham fell under suspicion, and was summoned to London. His palace was searched and his papers examined in his absence; and the result, though inconclusive, was unsatisfactory.[389] The religious orders again (especially the monks of such houses as had been implicated with the Nun of Kent) were openly recusant. At the convent at Sion, near Richmond, a certain Father Ricot preached as ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... of Dismemberment, when brought to the touchstone of the three essential conditions, is found wanting. Dismissing it as unsatisfactory, I come to that other guaranty where these conditions are all fulfilled, and we find security for Germany without offence to the just sentiments of France, and also a new safe-guard to civilization. Against the Guaranty of Dismemberment ...
— The Duel Between France and Germany • Charles Sumner
... were beginning to pick up. He was glad she had missed him, and he certainly had missed his comfortable room, because the accommodations on the lot were not of the best. In fact, they were pretty unsatisfactory, if you came right down to it, and he hoped they wouldn't keep him there again. And, oh, yes—he was almost forgetting. Here was ten dollars—he believed there were two weeks' rent now due. He passed over the money with rather a Clifford ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson
... by the physicians who lived a century ago is for us unsatisfactory; we cannot understand what they meant by their vague designating of hepatitis, fibrous enteritis, diarrhoea and dysentery, peripneumonia, remittent and intermittent gastric fever, protracted nervous fever, typhus ...
— Napoleon's Campaign in Russia Anno 1812 • Achilles Rose
... seemingly just as absurd to consider in advance such sordid matters in connection with any one of a dozen couples among his friends whose matrimonial enterprises had gone smash? It was said that nowadays girls went to the altar thinking that if the husbands they were taking proved unsatisfactory they would soon be free again, the better off by the title of Mrs. and a good stiff alimony and some invaluable experience. "I must keep my head," thought he. "I must consider how I'd feel after the fatal cards ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... Telephone system: system is unsatisfactory both for business and for personal use; 3.56 million applications for telephones had not been satisfied as of January 1991; electronic mail services have been established in Kiev, Odessa, and Luhans'k by Sprint ...
— The 1996 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... every good man considers it a great sacrifice on his part to continue living in this transitory, unsatisfactory, and particularly unpleasant world. This is so much a matter of course, that I was surprised to see the divinity-student change color. He took a look at a small and uncertain-minded glass which hung slanting forward over the chapped sideboard. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 20, June, 1859 • Various
... deposed Ali, and announced further that he invested Moawiya with the caliphate. This treacherous decision (but see CALIPHATE, ib.) greatly injured the cause of Ali, which was still further weakened by the loss of Egypt. After much indecisive fighting, Ali found his position so unsatisfactory that according to some historians he made an agreement with Moawiya by which each retained his own dominions unmolested. It chanced, however—according to a legend, the details of which are quite uncertain—that three of the fanatic sect of the Kharijites had made ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... The present unsatisfactory condition of domestic labor in private houses is not confined to any special city or country; it is universal. Each year the difficulty of obtaining women to do housework seems to increase and the demand is so much greater ...
— Wanted, a Young Woman to Do Housework • C. Helene Barker
... man from his printed works! They are the gleanings of his thoughts and investigations, the pick of his mind and heart; and they are at best but an impersonal and partial record of the writer. Even autobiography has something unsatisfactory about it; one feels the narrator is on guard always, as it were, and, aware of an audience cold and of strangers, keeps this back and trims up that to make himself more what he should be (or, in some perverse cases, what he should not be). But probably no man who is worthy of attention ...
— Penguin Persons & Peppermints • Walter Prichard Eaton
... of people were reading papers, talking excitedly, or staring at these unusual Sunday visitors. They seemed to increase as night drew on, until at last the roads, my brother said, were like Epsom High Street on a Derby Day. My brother addressed several of these fugitives and got unsatisfactory ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells
... all—the complete Heyst, even to the kindly sunken eyes on which there still rested the shadow of Morrison's death. Naturally, it was Davidson who had given him a lift out of his forsaken island. There were no other opportunities, unless some native craft were passing by—a very remote and unsatisfactory chance to wait for. Yes, he came out with Davidson, to whom he volunteered the statement that it was only for a short time—a few days, no more. He meant ...
— Victory • Joseph Conrad
... to confesse to you, that as unsatisfy'd as the past discourse may have made you think me with the Doctrines of the Peripateticks, and the Chymists, about the Elements and Principles, I can yet so little discover what to acquiesce in, that perchance the Enquiries of others have scarce been more unsatisfactory to me, than my own ...
— The Sceptical Chymist • Robert Boyle
... The books are rare in any shape. The principal merit of Maittaire's Annales Typographici consists in a great deal of curious matter detailed in the notes; but the absence of the "lucidus ordo" renders the perusal of these fatiguing and unsatisfactory. The author brought a full and well-informed mind to the task he undertook—but he wanted taste and precision in the arrangement of his materials. The eye wanders over a vast indigested mass; and information, when it is to be acquired with excessive toil, is, comparatively, seldom ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... their Government had done. The feeling was akin to that which would have prevailed in America had the President offered his help to the Spanish Government to suppress the insurrection in Cuba. The answers to questions were unsatisfactory, and on February 26th Heinrich von Sybel rose to move that the interests of Prussia required absolute neutrality. It was indeed evident that Bismarck's action had completely isolated Prussia; except the Czar, she had now not a single friend in Europe ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam
... definition contains this much of truth in it, that directly as the demand for an article, and inversely as the supply of the same, is the amount of labour which men find it worth their while to spend upon that article for commercial purposes. Otherwise the definition is unsatisfactory and involved, and leads to endless discussion. Without entering into these discussions, we will remark an ambiguity in the term on which they all roll, the term labour, which ambiguity is at the bottom of three fourths of the ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... to the dignified office which he of all men was most competent to fill. On February 9th, 1720, he was appointed Astronomer Royal in succession to Flamsteed. He found things at the Royal Observatory in a most unsatisfactory state. Indeed, there were no instruments, nor anything else that was movable; for such things, being the property of Flamsteed, had been removed by his widow, and though Halley attempted to purchase from that lady some of the instruments which his ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball
... rumored that the results of this campaign are very unsatisfactory to the English people. The hill-fighting, however, turned out to be so much more severe than the English expected, and the tribesmen proved such formidable foes, that they were glad to make peace ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 58, December 16, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... Gray's "Trivia"; but in form and manner it is more like Phillips's "Splendid Shilling" than either of these; and yet it is not at all like the last in being a mere burlesque of the epic style. These resemblances have been noted by Italian critics, who find them as unsatisfactory as myself; but they will serve to make the extracts I am to give a little more intelligible to the reader who does not recur to the whole poem. Parini was not one to break a butterfly upon a wheel; he felt the fatuity of heavily moralizing ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... relates to the person who is the subject of the book; and, in that, there is such an inaccuracy in the statement of facts, as in so solemn an authour is hardly excusable, and certainly makes his narrative very unsatisfactory. But what is still worse, there is throughout the whole of it a dark uncharitable cast, by which the most unfavourable construction is put upon almost every circumstance in the character and conduct of my illustrious friend[91]; who, I trust, will, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... Hong-Kong on July 2nd and went immediately to Shanghai, but hearing that his old friend, Li Hung Chang, was at Tientsin, he proceeded there at once, and found things in a very unsatisfactory condition. Prince Chun and the Empress Regent were anxious for war with Russia, being supported in this folly by all the Court, while Prince Kung and Li Hung Chang practically stood alone in their desire for peace. Li was so delighted to see Gordon ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... for any arbitrary alterations or curtailments would have been liable to objection or censure. In the first place, there was Dodsley's own preface, chiefly occupied by a sketch of the history of our stage, but based on the most imperfect information, and extremely unsatisfactory, if not misleading. Then there was, like Pelion heaped on Ossa, Isaac Reed's introduction, more elaborate and copious than Dodsley's, yet far from complete or systematic, and not improved by the presence of an appendix or sequel. Reed, of course, went over the same ground as Dodsley had already ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume I. • R. Dodsley
... covered with tinfoil and then rubbed down until smooth; then the whole was coated with quicksilver, which formed an amalgam with the tin. It does no harm to tell you about it now, senorita," added Giusippe a little sadly, "for every one knows. This process was slow and unsatisfactory, but it was the best the workmen then knew. These mirrors they set in elaborate frames of glass, silver, carved wood, mother-of-pearl, coral, tarsi, or into frames of painted wood. Some of them were sent by Venetian nobles ...
— The Story of Glass • Sara Ware Bassett
... respects one of the most unsatisfactory of men and of writers. Yet it is hard to deny that to whatever quarter he turned, he caught the rising illumination and was shone upon by the spirit of the coming day. It was no copious and overflowing radiance, ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... two epochs, and that in advanced life he looks on a different world from one which he can remember. To elucidate this fact has been my present object, and in attempting this task I cannot but feel how trifling and unsatisfactory my remarks must seem to many who have a more enlarged and minute acquaintance with Scottish life and manners than I have. But I shall be encouraged to hope for a favourable, or at least an indulgent, sentence ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... interest to hear. "In this place," he said with a deprecating gesture, "we grudge every hour that is not devoted to thought." He went on to inquire if we were following any particular line of study, and as our answers were unsatisfactory, he said that we could not do better than begin by attending the school of literature. "I observed," he said, "that you were listening to our Professor, Sylvanus, with attention. He is devoting himself to the development of ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... asked the same question of the hospital surgeon and got an unsatisfactory answer. It all depended, the doctor told him non-committally. He might easily have shown evidences of lost memory; on the other hand, it was quite possible, especially with chance acquaintances, that his manner ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... exactly described by the mediaeval scribe. Whether the philosopher and former tutor was implicated in the conspiracy of Piso may be doubted, but some ambiguous phrases he had used were reported to the Emeror, whose messenger demanded an explanation of their meaning. The reply of Seneca was either unsatisfactory or the tyrant had decided to be rid of his former guide. As in more recent times in Japan the condemned man was expected to be his own executioner, and Seneca opened his veins and allowed the life to ooze from them with a stoicism that was certainly heroic if not ...
— Game and Playe of the Chesse - A Verbatim Reprint Of The First Edition, 1474 • Caxton
... No one ever saw him anywhere but at the club. At eight o'clock he went home to dinner, let us hope to the wife of his bosom, and at eleven he returned, and remained as long as there were men to play with. A tedious and unsatisfactory life he had, and it would have been well for him could his friends have procured on his behoof the comparative ease of a stool in a counting-house. But, as no such Elysium was opened to him, the major went on accepting the smaller profits and ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... of houses, wherever one finds them in New England towns, are very apt to be cheerless and unsatisfactory. They have neither the luxury of the mansion-house nor the comfort of the farm-house. They are rarely kept at an agreeable temperature. The mansion-house has large fireplaces and generous chimneys, and is open to the sunshine. The farm-house ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... campaign speaking, was Governor Andrew, of Massachusetts. He had a series of appointments in New York State, but on account of some emergency cancelled them all. The national and State committees selected me to fill his appointments. The most unsatisfactory and disagreeable job in the world is to meet the appointments of a popular speaker. The expectations of the audience have been aroused to a degree by propaganda advertising the genius and accomplishments of the ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew
... the shortness of time since receiving the more important of these documents will prevent doing justice to the very elaborate and extended material which is at hand; but it is with the hope that interest and cooperation may be awakened in Dr. Le Plongeon and his labors, that this crude and unsatisfactory statement, and imperfect and hasty reference to ...
— The Mayas, the Sources of Their History / Dr. Le Plongeon in Yucatan, His Account of Discoveries • Stephen Salisbury, Jr.
... have gone wrong. Yesterday I got unsatisfactory in history, and in arithmetic to-day I couldn't get a single sum right. I'm frightfully worried about missing that gymnastic lesson. It will be all right if Mother gives me the money to-morrow, for if she goes herself she will certainly find ...
— A Young Girl's Diary • An Anonymous Young Girl
... twenty-six letters altogether. It was surprising how many women were willing, even anxious, to ally themselves with "an ex-seafaring man of steady habbits." But most of the applicants were of unsatisfactory types. As Captain Perez expressed it, "There's too many of ...
— Cap'n Eri • Joseph Crosby Lincoln
... and reader part company. But frequently they are something worse, being nothing but hollow shells without any kernel. The author himself has no clear perception of what he means, contents himself with vague ideas, which if expressed in plain language would be unsatisfactory even ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz
... them all down and made a book of them, which it is said was printed by John Worthington & Son in the Strand, London, in 1712, under the name of "Ye Melodious Rhymes of Mother Goose." But even this story of Martha Gooch is based upon very meager and unsatisfactory evidence. ...
— Mother Goose in Prose • L. Frank Baum
... to the consideration of the articles with which Asia supplied Rome; these, as may be easily imagined, were principally articles of luxury. The murrhine cups, of the nature of which there has been much unsatisfactory discussion, according to Pliny, came from Karmania in Parthia; from Parthia they came to Egypt, and thence to Rome. It is probable, however, that they came, in the first instance, from India, as they are expressly mentioned by the author of the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea, as brought down from ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... She was so used to unsure people who took on a new being with every new influence. Her Uncle Tom was always more or less what the other person would have him. In consequence, one never knew the real Uncle Tom, only a fluid, unsatisfactory flux with a ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... strollers as happened to be gathered, in Athens, perhaps at the Panathenaic festival. The repertoire of each stroller would vary indefinitely from those of all the others. One man knew this chant, as modified or made by himself; other men knew others, equally unsatisfactory. ...
— Homer and His Age • Andrew Lang
... A favourite omen is the simple device of taking some rice or juari in the hand and counting the grains. Contrary to the usual rule, even numbers are considered lucky and odd ones unlucky. If the first result is unsatisfactory a second or third trial may be made. If a winnowing basket or millstone be let fall and drop to the right hand it is a lucky omen, and similarly if a flower from Devi's garland should fall to the right ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... recollections, pressed upon Mm, and his heart was once or twice upon the point of falling back into the fresh impulses of its early humanity, when the trial of tomorrow threw him once more into a gloom, that settled him down into a resentful but unsatisfactory determination to discharge the duty he ...
— The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine • William Carleton
... Prohack soothingly. "Perhaps not a bad thing. There's nothing like an unsatisfactory holiday for reconciling us all to a life of toil, ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... some scientific person would investigate the matter in a strictly rational spirit; though it is certainly difficult to see in what directions such investigations could be fruitful. Still it seems to me strange and unsatisfactory that so little should be known about the origin and nature of so ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... of disaffected colonists, whose loyalty had been seriously impaired by the recent victories of their kinsmen. The attitude of many in the districts through which the Cape lines of communication passed was already very unsatisfactory. ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice
... a basket containing, in the words of the programme, "a little pig" was slung. About thirty men stood to the front, as would-be possessors of "porcus." Each of the thirty, as valiant heroes as ever trod a plank or fisted handspike, tried and failed—and tried again with a like unsatisfactory result. Piggy still lay nestled in his swinging stye. True, once or twice he had cocked out his head with an enquiring squeal as the pole now and then received an extra hard shake, making the foundations ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... after a higher and a holier life, but the fight for necessaries, for food, raiment, and shelter, is too incessant for them to indulge much in contemplation. They have a dim idea of a future life, but none of them can give you anything but a very unsatisfactory idea of their religion. They observe certain forms and ceremonies, because their fathers did, and because the Brahmins tell them. Of real, vital, practical religion, as we know it, they have little or no knowledge. Ask any common labourer or one of the low castes about immortality, about ...
— Sport and Work on the Nepaul Frontier - Twelve Years Sporting Reminiscences of an Indigo Planter • James Inglis
... down and write pleasantly of the European crisis? And, if it were needed, herein lies another indictment against the telephone. I was engaged in an argument, which, if not in itself serious, was at least concerned with a serious enough subject, the unsatisfactory nature of human riches; and from that highly moral discussion have I been lured, by the accidental sight of the word "telephone," into the writing of matter which can have the effect only of exciting to frenzy ...
— The Second Thoughts of An Idle Fellow • Jerome K. Jerome
... apply for accommodation, which is readily given. Here is erected a wind-mill, which pumps the water from the lake into shallow reservoirs, where it evaporates and leaves a layer of coarse salt on the bottom. These people drink water that is disagreeably brackish and unsatisfactory to one unaccustomed to it, but which they say has become more acceptable to them, from habitual use, than purely fresh water. This spot, is the healthiest and most favorable for the prolific production of certain forms of insect life I ever was in, and I spend the liveliest ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... mesmerising a lad, but had found it impossible to recall him to his normal condition. So, securing him by a leather strap fastened round his waist, he led him through the streets of Paris to my rooms. There we both tried our powers upon him, the result being very unsatisfactory. The youth, feeling himself freed from one operator and not subjected by the other, refused allegiance to either, and, being of a pugnacious temperament, he squared up and commenced striking out at both of us. It was not without considerable difficulty that I re-mesmerised him completely, ...
— In Bohemia with Du Maurier - The First Of A Series Of Reminiscences • Felix Moscheles
... native peasantry everywhere sang Erse songs in praise of Tyrconnel, who would, they doubted not, soon reappear to complete the humiliation of their oppressors. [186] The viceroy had scarcely returned to Dublin, from his unsatisfactory tour, when he received letters which informed him that he had incurred the King's serious displeasure. His Majesty—so these letters ran—expected his servants not only to do what he commanded, but to do it from the heart, and with a cheerful countenance. ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... after a startled glance at the clock, either stammered, "O mother, I forgot!" or else rattled off an unsatisfactory excuse. ...
— Apples, Ripe and Rosy, Sir • Mary Catherine Crowley
... time past his letters have been most unsatisfactory. He has seemed depressed and discouraged. What word I have received from him during the past few months has been of such a character as to lead one to form the gravest suspicions. His letters have been short and hurried—written, evidently, under great ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... story was unsatisfactory. Here was a set of new characters who were become inordinately prominent and who persisted in remaining so to the end; and back yonder was an older set who made a large noise and a great to-do for a little while and then suddenly played out utterly ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... "I would not exchange the experience of the past decade for all the former years of worldly dissipation and pleasure put together. They have all been unsatisfactory. This is quite the opposite, and, better still, it is the enjoyment of indescribable peace and delight. You are not going to be much longer in this world. Mrs. R——, I beg of you to seek the Lord whilst he may still be found. ...
— Fifteen Years With The Outcast • Mrs. Florence (Mother) Roberts
... good opinion of the nonentities One seed of a piece of folly will lurk and sprout to confound us Secrets throw on the outsiders the onus of raising a scandal She did not detest the Countess because she could not like her Thus does Love avenge himself on the unsatisfactory Past Touching a nerve Unfeminine of any woman to speak continuously anywhere Vulgarity in others ...
— Quotations from the Works of George Meredith • David Widger
... them, contain nothing but carbon, oxygen, and hydrogen, while animal fibers contain in addition to these elements some compounds of nitrogen. The presence of these nitrogen compounds influences the action of the chlorine and produces unsatisfactory results. For animal fibers it is therefore necessary to discard chlorine as a bleaching agent, and to substitute a substance which will have a less disastrous action upon the fibers. Such a substance is to be had in sulphurous acid. When sulphur burns, as in a match, it gives off disagreeable ...
— General Science • Bertha M. Clark
... read the Bible and neighbours dropping in occasionally to read a chapter to one who is unable to read, but where you are distinctly told that the wish is most decidedly to support the clergyman, and answers not unsatisfactory are given upon main points, what difference remains between the two cases I have put that can furnish matter for fair argument, with a man from education, &c., disposed to take a different view of the whole question? Add to this, that I cannot appeal to the universal practice of the ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Austro-Hungarian note of July 23, regard being had to the attitude hitherto adopted by Serbia, represent the minimum of what is necessary for the establishment of permanent peace with the southeastern monarchy, the Serbian answer must be regarded as unsatisfactory. ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... Wall Street was convinced that he was "unsafe," and sadly shook its head over his "impetuosity." When Wall Street stamps a man "unsafe," the last word in condemnation has been said. It was an even shorter time before the politicians found him unsatisfactory. "The breach between Mr. Roosevelt and the politicians was, however, inevitable. His rigid insistence upon the maintenance and the extension of the merit system alone assured the discontent which precedes dislike," wrote another observer. "The era of patronage mongering in the petty offices ...
— Theodore Roosevelt and His Times - A Chronicle of the Progressive Movement; Volume 47 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Harold Howland
... in, brusquely, "don't trouble! I should make a most unsatisfactory father confessor." He spoke quickly. His color was still high, but not of annoyance. His suspense was transformed into unpleasant certainty; but the exchange left him surer of himself. His perplexity had dropped to a quiet sense of ...
— The Masquerader • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... of breaking the truce rested more with the French than the English. But a mere truce, where no real peace is looked for on either side, is but an unsatisfactory state of affairs at best; and although both countries were sufficiently exhausted by recent wars and the ravages of the plague to desire the interlude prolonged, yet hostilities of one kind or another never really ceased, and the struggles between the rival lords ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... in Ezra x., showing that he does not regard himself as the slave, but as the master, of his material. Whatever may be thought of the view that he has reversed the chronological order of Ezra and Nehemiah, the book undoubtedly contains misplaced passages. Ezra x. is a very unsatisfactory conclusion to the account of Ezra, whereas Neh. viii.-x., which deal with the work of Ezra and its issue in a covenant, form an admirable sequel to Ezra x., and have almost certainly been misplaced. [Footnote 1: Unless ...
— Introduction to the Old Testament • John Edgar McFadyen
... content, and spirit, to which in succession he is to devote his attention. It is hoped that the book will give definiteness and delight to literary study, which, for lack of such a guide, has so often been vague, unsatisfactory, and discouraging. ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter
... on purpose, she could not have better freshly riveted his chains. That pensive simplicity, with the smile of heartfelt satisfaction at giving pleasure to anybody, were more and more engaging as her spirits recovered their tone, and the most unsatisfactory consideration which Rachel carried away that evening was that Alexander Keith being really somewhat the senior, if the improvement in Fanny's spirits were really owing to his presence, the objection on the score of age would not hold. But, thought Rachel, Colonel Keith being ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... which they had been made subservient, and partly because, even where the effects upon certain abnormal constitutions were genuinely produced, the effects when fairly examined and analysed, were very unsatisfactory—not to be relied upon for any systematic truthfulness or any practical purpose, and rendered very mischievous to credulous persons by the superstitions they tended to produce. Zee received my answers with much benignant attention, ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... Carlisle, nephew of the admiral, and son of the grand aunt of the poet. Like his mother this Earl aspired to be a poet, and his tragedy, The Father's Revenge, received some commendation from Dr. Johnson; but his relations with his illustrious kinsman were from the first unsatisfactory. In answer to Dr. Glennie's appeal, he exerted his authority against the interruptions to his ward's education; but the attempt to mend matters led to such outrageous exhibitions of temper that he said to the master, "I can have nothing ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... a delightful companion, was a very unsatisfactory politician—nominally, indeed, a Liberal, but full of qualifications and exceptions. When Mr. Gathorne Hardy was raised to the peerage at the crisis of the Eastern Question in 1878, and thereby vacated his seat for the University of Oxford, Henry Smith came forward ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... hastily framed and passed laws this one proved unsatisfactory and a second one, with more detailed provisions ...
— The Bounty of the Chesapeake - Fishing in Colonial Virginia • James Wharton
... experience the powerful action exerted upon the human system by the Buxton Medicinal Thermal Water, and the unsatisfactory results arising from its indiscriminate and incautious use, either in the form of baths or by taking it internally, I have in the following pages, as briefly and succinctly as possible, endeavoured to make some practical suggestions for the guidance of those ...
— Buxton and its Medicinal Waters • Robert Ottiwell Gifford-Bennet
... a season the political career of the Honourable Alberic de Crecy. While the Liberal party at Darlford were suffering under the daily inflictions of Mr. Rigby's slashing style, and the post brought them very unsatisfactory prospects of a champion, one offered himself, and in an address which intimated that he was no man of straw, likely to recede from any contest in which he chose to embark. The town was suddenly placarded with a letter to the Independent Electors ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... Perhaps we were not the first to discover it, but we certainly did find it out,—and this fact was, that housekeeping costs money. At the end of every week we counted up our expenditures—it was no trouble at all to count up our receipts—and every week the result was more unsatisfactory. ...
— Rudder Grange • Frank R. Stockton
... to rags, we trust we are sufficiently in the mode to laugh contemptuously at such abominations)—oh! reader, quit your lighter recreations; seek not for merriment in fictitious humour; it is a poor, unsatisfactory diet, weak and watery; but find substantial drollery from the fluttering of tatters—laugh, and with the crowing joy, grow sleek and lusty at the writhings and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... who could command them, and whom they could not command. He was free from the caste prejudices which caused many even good patriots of that date to hold the masses in horror. If he had prejudices they were against the men of his own order. Once, in summing up the results of an unsatisfactory general election, he wrote: "A dozen marquises, two dozen counts, without reckoning barons and cavalieri—it was enough to drive one mad!" When he had to do with men born of the people, he instinctively treated them ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... him; he left home at an early hour this afternoon, and has not since returned. Most of his domestics, who were 'Glippers,' have long ago made their escape. The watchmen in the course of the night came in with equally unsatisfactory reports—not a trace of the Vrouw ...
— The Lily of Leyden • W.H.G. Kingston
... had so little faith in his own authority that he dared not exercise it in a manifestly righteous cause, Henry might repudiate papal authority altogether. Nevertheless, in spite of all Gardiner's skill and vigour—and he showed himself deficient in neither—the result was unsatisfactory. A commission was obtained for Wolsey with Campeggio; but it was not absolute. The decision they might arrive at could not take effect till referred to ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... among the Kukuanas, my good friend Infadoos, we do as the Kukuanas do," I said majestically, and turned round quickly to address Good, who was tramping along sullenly behind, his mind fully occupied with unsatisfactory attempts to prevent his flannel shirt from flapping in the evening breeze. To my astonishment I butted into Umbopa, who was walking along immediately behind me, and very evidently had been listening with the greatest ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard
... from these unsatisfactory violin makers to violin players: I know nothing of the great Corelli's personal history; his pupil Geminiani is said to have led a life full of romance. Philidor spent his years chiefly in the intrigues of chess-playing. The great ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 2 • Rupert Hughes
... something a little unsatisfactory in the countenance of this light-haired youth, with the sharpish up-turned nose. Throughout our interview he said next to nothing, and smiled lazily to himself, like a man listening to a child's solemn nonsense, ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... knowledge of Zanoni, picked up in the various lounging-places and resorts that he frequented, were unsatisfactory to Glyndon. That night Viola did not perform at the theatre; and the next day, still disturbed by bewildered fancies, and averse to the sober and sarcastic companionship of Mervale, Glyndon sauntered musingly into the public gardens, ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... WM. STUCKLEY published Some Anatomical Observations made upon the Dissection of an Elephant; but each of the above essays is necessarily unsatisfactory, and little has since been done to supply their defects. One of the latest and most valuable contributions to the subjects, is a paper read before the Royal Irish Academy, on the 18th of Feb., 1847, ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... first program and drifted back into afternoon society by degrees; a plan of defensive campaign highly approved by Mrs. McLane, who detested lack of finesse. The winter was an unsatisfactory one for Madeleine altogether. Society would not have bored her so much perhaps if that secret enchanting background had remained intact. But her intercourse with Masters was necessarily sporadic. Her conscience had never troubled her for receiving his visits, for her husband ...
— Sleeping Fires • Gertrude Atherton
... were assuming one of the characters in a mysterious romance, such as unfolded itself only in books or in Boston; but thrilling as it was, it was nevertheless extremely unsatisfactory. ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... the south-west branch proving equally unsatisfactory, Oxley determined to leave the river and strike for the coast in the neighbourhood of Cape Northumberland, anticipating that on this course he would intersect any river rising in these marshes and falling into the sea between Spencer's Gulf and Cape Otway. The boats were ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... and it is questionable whether sufficient revenue can be raised from this source properly to support the government without seriously interfering with our foreign commerce. The internal revenue has many unsatisfactory phases. The income tax has been added to an imperfect system of taxation, instead of being substituted for the antiquated personal-property tax. Taxes on franchises, corporations, and inheritances are among those more recently introduced ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... satisfactory and desirable. So long as the work is done it makes little difference who does it. Every attempt to bring any of these agencies into closer touch with the farm community is to be welcomed most heartily. But beyond a certain limit this promiscuous work must be unsatisfactory. The efforts and interests of any one social agency are bound to be partial. Indeed the more effective such an agency is, the more partial it is likely to be. Intensity is gained at the expense of breadth. The need for federation exists in the desirability of securing both the ...
— Chapters in Rural Progress • Kenyon L. Butterfield
... her twice. She had been quite passive on each occasion, watching him ironically with a sort of dry amusement. She had given him no sign that she cared for him, and their conversation had always been bare and unsatisfactory. Once she had said to ...
— The Cathedral • Hugh Walpole
... he had received this very unsatisfactory epistle, the Master of Ravenswood, while walking up the High Street of Edinburgh, was jostled by a person, in whom, as the man pulled off his hat to make an apology, he recognized Lockhard, the confidential domestic ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... anxiety, and desire to please sitters, frequently tends to produce a cloudy mental state in which the ideas in the mind of the medium blend with the spirit communication, and thus produces a most unsatisfactory result, and one which is apt to confuse the minds of the sitters and sometimes actual arouse suspicion that the medium is trying to practice deception. For this reason the young medium should not seek the attendance of persons desiring ...
— Genuine Mediumship or The Invisible Powers • Bhakta Vishita
... They left the unsatisfactory witness and rushed to the corner around which De Launay had vanished. Here they found a man or two who had seen the galloping horse and its rider. But, as following on foot was manifestly impossible, one of them rushed to a telephone while others ran back to get a police automobile and ...
— Louisiana Lou • William West Winter
... and in the professions. This has changed her attitude toward her original occupation of housewife and is a psychological fact of great importance. She has become more industrial and individualized, and as a result has declined to live in unsatisfactory relations with man, so that divorce has become more frequent. In part this is also caused by her inability to give up petty irresponsibility while claiming equality. Finally, the declining birth rate ...
— The Nervous Housewife • Abraham Myerson
... whereas the barometer light was only a glow. Pondering over this, Hauksbee tried various experiments, revolving pieces of amber, flint, steel, and other substances in his exhausted air-pump receiver, with negative, or unsatisfactory, results. Finally, it occurred to him to revolve an exhausted glass tube itself. Mounting such a globe of glass on an axis so that it could be revolved rapidly by a belt running on a large wheel, he found that by holding ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... and the candelabrum removed. Nor was the kitchen chair any longer to be seen near the book shelves. This fact, small as it was, caused me an instant of chagrin. I had intended to look again at the book which I had examined with such unsatisfactory results the time before. A glance showed me that this book had been pushed back level with the others; but I remembered its title, and, had the means of reaching it been at hand, I should certainly have stolen ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... a teacher works in a school in a rural district are so unsatisfactory that they deserve special mention. There are 245 schools in Wales and 2,199 in England with an average attendance of less than 40; such schools are staffed by a head teacher, assisted, in all probability, only by a supplementary teacher. Education suffers in these circumstances as a result ...
— Women Workers in Seven Professions • Edith J. Morley
... America intelligence is as usual confused and unsatisfactory. By way of England we have dates from Montevideo to the 12th Oct. The war in the Banda Oriental was terminated. Oribe had retreated to his country house at Rinton. The Argentine forces were reported to have joined Urquiza. The Orientals ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various
... Lord Ashbridge, and the fact of Michael being his unsatisfactory son, stiffened him, and he had to ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... countermarched in the snow, in the mud, in the dust of Polish plains, picking up distinction and advancement on all the roads of North-eastern Europe. Meantime, Captain Feraud, despatched southwards with his regiment, made unsatisfactory war in Spain. It was only when the preparations for the Russian campaign began that he was ordered north again. He left the country of mantillas ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... generally been known as "the Kid," "Stumpy's boy," "the Coyote" [Footnote: Coyote: also called prairie wolf.] (an allusion to his vocal powers), and even by Kentuck's endearing diminutive of "the little cus." But these were felt to be vague and unsatisfactory, and were at last dismissed under another influence. Gamblers and adventurers are generally superstitious, and Oakhurst one day declared that the baby had brought "the luck" to Roaring Camp. It was certain ...
— Short Stories and Selections for Use in the Secondary Schools • Emilie Kip Baker
... would the building of a house. Much school work and much home training is vague, indefinite, uncertain, done without a clear understanding of the needs or of the results. We therefore waste time, years of the child's life, and the results are unsatisfactory. ...
— The Science of Human Nature - A Psychology for Beginners • William Henry Pyle
... brought up to me. The name, de X., was that of a good family, well known in Normandy and in the political and scientific world. But instead of one of the faces I was prepared to see, I beheld that of a most unsatisfactory member of the family, whom I instantly remembered having seen in Algeria, wearing a Belgian uniform, and acting as reporter for the Constitutionnel newspaper. He entered ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... who had found the Simiacine was eager, restless, full of suspicion. To the others the scheme obviously presented itself in a different light. Jack Meredith was dilettante, light-hearted, and unsatisfactory. It was impossible to arouse any enthusiasm in him—to make him take it seriously. Guy Oscard was gravely indifferent. He wanted to get rid of a certain space of time, and the African forest, containing as it did the only excitement that his large heart knew, was as good ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... the text for evacuating the kingdom of Narsinga, or Bijanagur, is very unsatisfactory, as it in fact bordered on their dominions. More probably they could not agree on the partition, each being afraid of the others acquiring an ascendancy, and they satisfied themselves with the enormous spoils of the capital. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... M. d'Escorval's son, the peasants became extremely cautious. He questioned them, but could obtain only vague and unsatisfactory answers. A peasant, when interrogated, will never give a response which he thinks will be displeasing to his questioner; he is ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... was still unsatisfactory to Cecilia, who could frame to herself no possible reason for a visit so extraordinary, and so totally inconsistent with his declarations ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... practical demonstrations the study of color will be confusing unless it is understood at the outstart that pure prismatic colors can seldom be found in manufactured pigments, hence any demonstration of the theory of color composition is usually unsatisfactory. ...
— Color Value • C. R. Clifford
... condition of human infirmity. It may be doubted whether Mr. Quickenham's mind was equally philosophic on the matter. He could hardly tell why he went to church, or why he stayed away. But he was aware when he went of the presence of some unsatisfactory feelings of imposture on his own part, and he was equally alive, when he did not go, to a sting of conscience in that he was neglecting a duty. But George Brattle had arranged it all in a manner that was ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... unsatisfactory thing is life, apart from the real work we do for God and the Salvation of souls! I want more faith, more conquering ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... not a hopeful manner of looking at things for the destined master of Cotenoir. M. Lenoble's letters to the anxious folks at Beaubocage became, about this time, somewhat brief and unsatisfactory. He no longer gave ample details of his student-life—he no longer wrote in his accustomed good spirits. His letters seemed ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... that the family had led seemed to have prevented Walter from making much progress as a sculptor,—a profession he had thought of while in Italy,—and his letters were somewhat vague and unsatisfactory as ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... I was indeed alone, he threw open a cupboard in one corner, and brought forth a variety of food, placing this upon a wide shelf near at hand. Occasionally our eyes met, and I knew he was slowly making up his mind regarding me. This silent scrutiny could not have been altogether unsatisfactory, for, when he finally drew up an empty box and sat down, he was prepared ...
— My Lady of Doubt • Randall Parrish
... seeing Port Western from Arthur's Seat, which had one of those unsatisfactory woody summits, of which it is difficult exactly to ascertain the highest part. We passed a spring of water near the south-eastern foot, and in a level beyond were some ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... have answered: "To make this unsatisfactory creature love you;" but her words were, "To civilize ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... you, Captain Lawry, when you are ready," said Mr. Sherwood, after the question had been disposed of in this unsatisfactory manner. ...
— Haste and Waste • Oliver Optic
... by enacting that no small notes should be stamped after a certain period; the other by allowing those already in circulation to run a certain course till a fixed period, and prohibiting any new ones to be created. In three years the first of these modes might lead to unsatisfactory results; for if the power of stamping were to remain unlimited during that period, so considerable a number might be stamped as to subject the country, in its ultimate endeavours to get rid of them, to all its present ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... an unsatisfactory way of painting a portrait, I showed my father a large and really excellent photograph of Aniela, at which he looked with the keenest interest. I was no less interested in the study of his face, in which I saw not only the roused artist, but also the refined connoisseur ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... because his advice as to matters not strictly within his own department was not taken by his master; to leave the Board of Admiralty, for example, because the finances were in disorder, or the Board of Treasury because the foreign relations of the kingdom were in an unsatisfactory state. It was, therefore, by no means unusual to see in high office, at the same time, men who avowedly differed from one another as widely as ever Pulteney differed from Walpole, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Yet unsatisfactory as these brief interviews were, they revived in Miss Keene the sympathizing curiosity and interest she had always felt for this singular man, and which had been only held in abeyance at the beginning of their exile; in fact, she found herself thinking of him more during the ...
— The Crusade of the Excelsior • Bret Harte
... out in the morning in a hired car and spent more than a couple of hours with her. Then for a short time he was closeted with Sir Malcolm, who, referring to the interview afterwards, described him as "infernally close and unsatisfactory"; and finally, in company with the young baronet and Cicely Farmond, he ate a ...
— Simon • J. Storer Clouston
... for their own women. But they are, except in rare cases, unsatisfactory helpmeets for American girls. It is impossible to touch on more than a side or two of this subject. But as an illustration the following ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory
... bitter enemy of Conkling, had been made the Secretary of State; Garfield had made some appointments very obnoxious to Conkling—among them the Collector of the Port of New York—and, generally, conditions were very unsatisfactory. Arthur entered the office bent on restoring harmonious conditions in the party, as far as he could. He did not allow himself to be controlled by any faction, but seemed animated by one desire, and that was to give a good administration and unite ...
— Fifty Years of Public Service • Shelby M. Cullom
... of the attempt at tariff reduction indicate the extent to which political decay and especially Democratic demoralization had gone. As it passed the House, the Wilson bill left both raw and refined sugar on the free list. This was unsatisfactory to the Louisiana sugar growers, who desired a protective duty on the raw product, and was objected to by the Louisiana senators. On the other hand, the American Sugar Refining Company, usually known as the "Sugar Trust," desired free raw materials but sought protective duties on refined ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley |
