"Deficient" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to existing laws, some alterations are thought to be necessary. Many respectable men have suggested that our estray laws, the law respecting the issuing of executions, the road law, and some others, are deficient in their present form, and require alterations. But, considering the great probability that the framers of those laws were wiser than myself, I should prefer not meddling with them, unless they were first attacked by others; in which case I should feel it both a privilege and a ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... ingenuity have been applied, do not the less possess a knowledge and skill which are intrinsically worthy of applause. They therefore contentedly shut up the sum of their acquisitions in their own bosoms, and are satisfied with the consciousness that they have not been deficient in performing an adequate part in the generation of men among ...
— Thoughts on Man - His Nature, Productions and Discoveries, Interspersed with - Some Particulars Respecting the Author • William Godwin
... matured. Probably some gain in such a case would have been balanced against some loss. But it is not necessary to discuss that question. Accident, it was clear, might bring on the first hostile movement at any hour, when the minds of all men were prepared, let the means in other respects be as deficient as they might. Already, in 1820, circumstances made it evident that the outbreak of the insurrection could not long be delayed. And, accordingly, in the following year all ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... the uncle, good naturedly, "that Providence has denied you some of the more human faculties. Nay, I fear that you are partially deficient in some of the senses. Do you see that sunlight to which I point—there, on the hill-side, a sort of rosy haze, which ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... and slow of speech, he was quick to see and admire beauty and wit in others. He had picked out Cherry from amongst her sisters for those qualities of brightness and vivacity in which he felt himself so deficient, and it seemed as though he took to Cuthbert for ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... the occupation peculiarly of a sedentary race, and hence of a race likely to be agriculturists. As it requires the building faculty to originate the mounds, so it requires the constructive faculty to make pottery. In constructive ability our Indians are singularly deficient, just as it is with greatest difficulty that they can be induced even on a small scale to practice agriculture. It has been objected to this conclusion that the Indians can make a canoe, which is a marvel in its way. But ...
— The Mound Builders • George Bryce
... notwithstanding the laborious investigations and critical sagacity of the Schlegels, the Grimms, of P. E. Muller and Lachman, and a whole host of German critics and antiquaries; not to omit our own countryman, Mr. Herbert, whose theory concerning Attila is certainly neither deficient in boldness nor originality. I conceive the only way to obtain any thing like a clear conception on this point would be what Lachman has begun, (see above,) patiently to collect and compare the various forms which the traditions have assumed, without any preconceived, either mythical or poetical, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... managed its own interests, and Rodolph, like so many others of his rank, might have hidden his deficiencies in a mysterious obscurity. But the urgent demand for the qualities in which he was most deficient revealed his incapacity. The position of Germany called for an emperor who, by his known energies, could give weight to his resolves; and the hereditary dominions of Rodolph, considerable as they were, were at present in a situation to occasion ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... Indian would, probably, even with proper discipline to bear, lack powers of concentration, with the kindred faculty of being able to direct the mind to the achieving or subserving of some one grand purpose or aim, and would, likely, be deficient in other allied ways, by which a gifted and powerful mind will be asserted; and would imagine, on the whole, that there is slight ground for thinking him capable, under the most favourable circumstances, of imperilling the eminence of the white in respect ...
— A Treatise on the Six-Nation Indians • James Bovell Mackenzie
... said grandmother. "I warned you my stories were sadly deficient in beginning and end, and middle too—in short they are not ...
— Grandmother Dear - A Book for Boys and Girls • Mrs. Molesworth
... more favorable atmosphere for business initiatives, a more realistic exchange rate, fairly low inflation, and the continued support of international organizations. Growth then slowed in 2003. Chronic problems include a shortage of skilled labor and a deficient infrastructure. The government is juggling a sizable external debt against the urgent need for expanded public investment. The bauxite mining sector should benefit in the near term by restructuring ...
— The 2004 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... properly so called, had terminated. For our course lay down a very steep street, and across the bridge into the Alt Stadt, where at a hotel, rich in all the essentials of food, and wine, and couches, though somewhat deficient in the superfluity of cleanliness, we established our head-quarters for ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... the vegetable kingdom was deficient, the animal was proportionably abundant, and Alexander and the Major were soon at their speed after a troop of quaggas and zebras, which they succeeded in turning toward the Caffres. As soon as the animals had entered the radius of the half-circle, and were ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat
... problem the author ought to have conscientiously and impartially studied both systems of speculation and then only reach certain conclusions. But on its very first pages you see that the author is deficient in every mental preparation to accomplish the aim of his novel. He not only has not the slightest understanding of the new positive philosophy, but even of the old ideal systems his knowledge is merely superficial ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... daughters and sons with their mothers: a disgusting state of affairs which could not very well be helped in a race and in a climate where the animal qualities were extraordinarily developed while the mental were almost entirely deficient. Worse still, I had several cases under observation in which the animal passions had not been limited to closely related human beings, but extended also to animals, principally dogs. The degeneration of those people was indeed beyond all conception. It was caused, first of all, ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... necessary before the Allies could hope to win over any of the States of the Rhenish Confederacy; the flat country beyond Leipzig offered the best possible field for cavalry, in which the Allies were strong and Napoleon extremely deficient. It was accordingly determined to unite all the divisions of the army with Bluecher on the west of Leipzig, and to attack the French as soon as they descended from the hilly country of the Saale, and began their march across the Saxon plain. The Allies took post at ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... said he, and whatever the look had meant Elfie was at no loss for the tone now,—"what do you consider yourself deficient in?" ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... potash or soda dissolves silk; more easily if warm. Dilute caustic alkalis, if sufficiently dilute, will dissolve off the sericin and leave the inner fibre of fibroin; but they are not so good for ungumming silk as soap solutions are, as the fibre after treatment with them is deficient in whiteness and brilliancy. Silk dissolves completely in hot basic zinc chloride solution, and also in an alkaline solution of copper and glycerin, which solutions do not dissolve vegetable fibres or wool. Chlorine and bleaching-powder solutions ...
— The Chemistry of Hat Manufacturing - Lectures Delivered Before the Hat Manufacturers' Association • Watson Smith
... axiom, the law; the second indicates the order of generation of ideas. All our errors arise from the constant confusion of these two kinds of abstractions. In this particular, languages and philosophies are alike deficient. The less common an idiom is, and the more obscure its terms, the more prolific is it as a source of error: a philosopher is sophistical in proportion to his ignorance of any method of neutralizing this imperfection in language. If the art of correcting ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... the Castilian pride. But surely the pride which a nation takes in exercising over other nations a blighting and withering dominion, a dominion without prudence or energy, without justice or mercy, is not a feeling entitled to much respect. And even a Castilian who was not greatly deficient in sagacity must have seen that an inheritance claimed by two of the greatest potentates in Europe could hardly pass entire to one claimant; that a partition was therefore all but inevitable; and that the question was in truth merely ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... deficient faith and confidence in God is that it leads us to trust in creatures. It causes us to reverse the proper order of things. We are dependent beings, and we instinctively feel our deficiencies and the need of some one, or something on which to lean, at times, ...
— The Shepherd Of My Soul • Rev. Charles J. Callan
... treated Sandford with the utmost respect, he began to fear he had been deficient upon this occasion; and the disposition which had induced him to take his ward's part, was likely, in the end, to prove unfavourable to her; for perceiving Sandford was offended at what had passed, as the only means of retribution, he began himself to lament her volatile and captious propensities; ...
— A Simple Story • Mrs. Inchbald
... richer than might be expected even in words referring to mental states and emotions; but in the expression of abstract ideas, and in idioms suitable for philosophical discussion, it remained still, of course, very deficient. Hence the new serious literature was necessarily written entirely in the Latin language, which alone possessed the words and modes of speech fitted for its development; but to exclude it on that account ...
— Early Britain - Anglo-Saxon Britain • Grant Allen
... which favour nitrification. It is only when oxygen is excluded, or, which practically means the same thing, when large quantities of organic matter are in active putrefaction, and the supply of oxygen is therefore deficient, that denitrification takes place. Schloesing, as we have already seen, found that in the case of a moist soil, kept in an atmosphere devoid of oxygen, a reduction of its nitrates to free nitrogen ...
— Manures and the principles of manuring • Charles Morton Aikman
... to apologize to you," the Dasorian said when Seaton had done. "Since you are evidently still land animals, I had supposed you of inferior intelligence. It is true that your younger civilization is deficient in certain respects, but you have shown a depth of vision, a sheer power of imagination and grasp, that no member of our older civilization could approach. I believe that you are right in your conclusions. We have no such rays nor forces upon ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... choruses very freely in rimed lines of uneven length and varying cadence. His work reads smoothly and gives the general effect of Euripides, but cannot count as good translation. It was not only that his Greek scholarship was deficient, but he lacked patience,—an indispensable virtue for the translator. His real original was not the Greek text at all, but the Latin version of Joshua Barnes; and when this appeared to him jejune and unpoetic he sometimes created an ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... discovering that even this eccentric genius could not transplant brains into my deficient skull. I gave over the struggle in despair. An unhappy year dragged its slow length around. A gloomy year it was, brightened only by occasional interviews with Abscissa, the Abbie of my thoughts ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 • Various
... "are deficient in tact. You might, at least, pretend to believe that my personal charm has won for me Dawson's affection. As a matter of fact, he cares not a straw for my beaux yeux; his motives are crudely selfish. He thinks ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... attended the Greenwich Observatory Visitation.—Before my election (as Plumian Professor) there are various schemes on my quires for computation of transit corrections, &c. After Apr. 15th there are corrections for deficient wires, inequality of pivots, &c. And I began a book of proposed regulations for observations. In this are plans for groups of stars for R.A. (the Transit Instrument being the only one finished): order of preference of ...
— Autobiography of Sir George Biddell Airy • George Biddell Airy
... is highly industrialized by East European standards and has a well-educated and skilled labor force. GDP per capita has been the highest in Eastern Europe. Annual GDP growth slowed to less than 1 percent during the 1985-90 period. The country is deficient in energy and in many raw materials. Moreover, its aging capital plant lags well behind West European standards. In January 1991, Prague launched a sweeping program to convert its almost entirely state-owned and controlled economy to a market system. ...
— The 1992 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... great domain extending from the twenty-five-hundred-foot level to the crest of the Sierra Nevada Mountains is a region so deficient in rainfall that, for the greater part, ordinary foodstuffs will not grow without irrigation; so farming must be confined mainly to the flood-plains of the rivers. Here and there considerable areas have been made fertile by capturing rivers, damming their streams so as ...
— Wealth of the World's Waste Places and Oceania • Jewett Castello Gilson
... man of sense, courage and firmness." But four months later he was lamenting Washington's "fatal indecision," and by inference was calling him "a blunderer." In another month he wrote, "entre nous a certain great man is most damnably deficient." At this point, fortunately, Lee was captured by the British, so that his influence for the time being was destroyed. While a prisoner he drew up a plan for the English general, showing ...
— The True George Washington [10th Ed.] • Paul Leicester Ford
... is sub-normal that some of the children will be feeble-minded and that those who appear normal may transmit the defect to their children. Psychological tests have now been developed so that adults with a mentality of nine or ten years or less may be definitely diagnosed as mentally deficient. ...
— The Farmer and His Community • Dwight Sanderson
... priests were not deficient in logic, philosophy, and artful sophistry, by which to defend their mythology. They exhausted these, and then resorted to persecution, torture, and death; yet they prevailed not. With the weapons of truth, the teachers of Christianity successfully ...
— A Brief Commentary on the Apocalypse • Sylvester Bliss
... and pledging their "honor" to hunt down and "deliver up," provided they had a description of the "flesh-marks," and were suitably stimulated by pieces of silver. Abraham seems also to have been sadly deficient in all the auxiliaries of family government, such as stocks, hand-cuffs, foot-chains, yokes, gags, and thumb-screws. His destitution of these patriarchal indispensables is the more afflicting, since he faithfully trained "his household ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... may sup satisfactorily, so far as the liquids are concerned, should the solids prove deficient. Bring a bottle of Burgundy, another of the Brown Madeira, and, let me see—yes, one of old Pedro Ximenes. I suppose the brethren have used up ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... of our own age, we ought to strive to enrich it with those qualities which are complementary to its own. Now with all this toleration, which delights you so much, dear Milverton, is it not an age rather deficient in caring ...
— Friends in Council (First Series) • Sir Arthur Helps
... character for daring wickedness that would stop at nothing. With much difficulty the boatswain had succeeded in obtaining five boats, each capable of carrying one band. Every one brought his own arms, and in general these men did not lack a sufficiency of weapons. Those who were deficient, however, were supplied from a scanty stock which the ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... discovered in the course of the following three days that although most business men enjoy a joke, their sense of humor is so deficient that they don't care to combine jest and business. His ill-fame had preceded him, and in addition thereto, it was the ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... the commander of the land force, Orontes, contrived very artfully to induce the rebels to make their submission. Artaxerxes was thus enabled to withdraw from the country without serious disaster, having shown in his short campaign that he possessed the qualities of a soldier, but was entirely deficient ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson
... much might be written without exhausting the subject, the pathology of which has wide and manifold relations.... There appears to be something analogous between this condition and that which determines in after life the seminal emissions under similar circumstances." Our American works are notably deficient in this regard; although Stewart, of New York, in his "Diseases of Children," published over fifty years ago, devotes a chapter to dysuria and one to retention of urine, treating the subject quite fully, even down to the description of ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... the outer layers or envelope which is commonly rejected as bran. A certain vitamine especially concerned with growth and development, the fat soluble B, is found in the green leaf along with lime and iron, all of which are deficient in seeds. Roots especially supply an abundance of alkaline salts which are highly necessary to balance up an excess of mineral ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Eleventh Annual Meeting - Washington, D. C. October 7 AND 8, 1920 • Various
... then, that under a system so deplorably deficient in some of the most sublime features of Christianity, infidelity and Pelagianism should so often have sprung up. If we write libels on the divine government, we must expect rebellions and insurrections. This is the natural consequence ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe
... He had no relations in America, and but little money, so that of course my father's house, the usual refuge of the needy and distressed, was at once his destination. He appeared to us an indolent, good-natured kind of a man, and his wife resembled him in the former quality, though quite deficient in the latter. She could not speak a word of English, and would scold and rail at her husband in Spanish for hours together. We did not understand what she said, but we knew, by the flashing of those great black eyes and her animated gestures, ...
— A Grandmother's Recollections • Ella Rodman
... epilogue. Yet to good wine they do use good bushes; and good plays prove the better by the help of good epilogues." There can be little doubt that all Shakespeare's plays were originally followed by epilogues, although but very few of these have been preserved. The only one that seems deficient in dignity, and therefore appropriateness, is that above quoted, spoken by the dancer, at the conclusion of "The Second Part of King Henry IV." In no case is direct appeal made, on the author's behalf, to the tender mercies of the audience, although the epilogue to ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... social relations; but in authority of character, in fertility of mental resources, in promptitude of resolution, in command of language, in the sympathetic association of general ideas with public passions,—in all these great sources of influence upon collected assemblies, he was absolutely deficient. Besides which, he had neither the inclination nor habit of sustained, systematic labour, another important condition of internal government. He was at once ambitious and indolent, a flatterer and a scoffer, a consummate courtier in the art of pleasing and of serving without ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... present objects, and with the few ideas which he received by his sense of sight; nor did he seem to have gained as much knowledge as he might have done, by the comparison of these ideas; yet it is said that he did not appear naturally deficient in understanding. ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... convert the heathen. The Spaniards would appear in the East, knowing that their presence was desired. In reality they would come in answer to an invitation, and might look for a welcome. Making up by their zeal for the deficient enterprise of Rome, they might rescue the teeming millions of Farthest Asia, and thus fulfil prophecy, as there were only a hundred and fifty-five years to the end of the world. The conversion of Tartary would be the crowning glory ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... between two creatures, it is an union between two spirits; and the intention of that bond is to perfect the nature of both, by supplementing their deficiencies with the force of contrast, giving to each sex those excellencies in which it is naturally deficient; to the one strength of character and firmness of moral will, to the other sympathy, meekness, tenderness. And just so solemn, and just so glorious as these ends are for which the union was contemplated and intended, ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... inn of men who are not known there and of men who are known. The men who are not known are shy, diffident, doubtful, and anxious to propitiate the chambermaid by great courtesy. The men who are known are loud, jocular, and assured;—or else, in case of deficient accommodation, loud, angry, and full of threats. The guests who had now arrived were well known, and seemed at present to be in the former mood. "Well, Mary, my dear, what's the time of day with you?" said a rough, bass voice, within the hearing of Mr. Dockwrath. ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... adventurous, was not deficient in consistency or method; and he wasted neither his soldiers nor his treasures where the authority of his name sufficed. What he could obtain by negotiations or by artifice, he required not by force of arms. ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... improvement, so Lumley had of late made effects in the House of Lords of which he had once been judged incapable. It is true that no practice and no station can give men qualities in which they are wholly deficient; but these advantages can bring out in the best light all the qualities they do possess. The glow of a generous imagination, the grasp of a profound statesmanship, the enthusiasm of a noble nature,—these no practice could educe from the eloquence ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... burialgrounds, and one at least just outside the city, and planting them in rows to suit the taste for symmetry of the perpetrators. Many years ago, when this disgraceful process was going on under my eyes, I addressed an indignant remonstrance to a leading journal. I suppose it was deficient in literary elegance, or too warm in its language; for no notice was taken of it, and the hyena-horror was allowed to complete itself in the face of daylight. I have never got over it. The bones of my own ancestors, being entombed, lie beneath their own tablet; ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... respected and revered friend, the writer, had made himself acquainted with the character of my advertisements before he made that observation. There is no harm in an advertisement, if truth, decency and the fear of God are observed, and I believe my own will be scarcely found deficient in any of these three requisites. It is not the use of a serviceable instrument, but its abuse that merits reproof, and I cannot conceive that advertising was abused by me when I informed the people of Madrid that the New Testament was to be purchased ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... supplied to the soil in the form of quicklime made by burning lime stone or shells. Other forms are gypsum or land plaster, gas lime (a refuse from gas works) and marl. Most soils contain sufficient lime for the food requirements of most plants. Some soils, however, are deficient in lime and some crops, particularly the legumes, are benefitted by direct feeding ...
— The First Book of Farming • Charles L. Goodrich
... go far towards making all rhetorical precepts needless. He who daily hears and reads well-framed sentences, will naturally more or less tend to use similar ones. And where there exists any mental idiosyncrasy—where there is a deficient verbal memory, or an inadequate sense of logical dependence, or but little perception of order, or a lack of constructive ingenuity; no amount of instruction will remedy the defect. Nevertheless, some practical result may be expected from a familiarity ...
— The Philosophy of Style • Herbert Spencer
... and began writing for the stage in 1657. He became a knight of Santiago in 1660; the date of his death is unknown, but no reference to him as a living author occurs after 1684. Like many other Spanish dramatists of his time, Diamante is deficient in originality, and his style is riddled with affectations; La Desgraciada Raquel, which was long considered to be his best play, is really Mira de Amescua's Judia de Toledo under another title; and the earliest ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 3 - "Destructors" to "Diameter" • Various
... around at her questioner. Her eyes were dark, with black lashes, and she had wonderful, curly hair. When she had finished looking at Maizie, which was a long moment, she put her hand behind her and produced a doll, sadly deficient as to features. Indeed, noseless, entirely, and with one eye gone. But in a very fever of love, she ...
— Suzanna Stirs the Fire • Emily Calvin Blake
... should emigrate?" has now become one of such importance (owing to the number who are desirous of quitting their native land to seek a surer means of subsistence in our vast colonial possessions), that any book treating of Australia would be sadly deficient were a subject of such universal interest to be left unnoticed; and where there are so many of various capabilities, means and dispositions, in need of guidance and advice as to the advantage of their emigrating, it is probable that the experience of any ...
— A Lady's Visit to the Gold Diggings of Australia in 1852-53. • Mrs. Charles (Ellen) Clacey
... a little more quickly, and in the dusk, Willet did not see the glow that appeared in his eyes. They might try to "bait the bear" but he would be ready. The new powers that he had found in himself not only accepted the challenge, but craved it. He was conscious that he was not deficient in wit and quickness himself, and if any follower of Francois Bigot, or if the great Bigot himself tried to make sport of him he might find instead that the ruffler was furnishing sport for the Bostonnais. ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler
... the Engine was good for nothing, but broke before it was got half way; and by a double Misfortune, this happen'd to be at an unlucky time, when the King himself had resolv'd on a Voyage, or Flight to to the Moon; but being deceiv'd, by the unhappy Miscarriage of the deficient Feathers, he fell down from so great a height, that he struck himself against his own Palace, ...
— The Consolidator • Daniel Defoe
... you with solemn unction; all credit in the matter falling to him. If, on the other hand, you called his attention to some back-going vegetable, he would quote Scripture: "PAUL MAY PLANT AND APOLLOS MAY WATER;" all blame being left to Providence, on the score of deficient rain ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the note which precedes it, at page 131., upon a passage in Palamon and Arcite, is less valuable, it is because it is deficient in one of the most essential conditions which such communications ought to possess—that of originality. No suggestion ought to be offered which had been previously published in connexion with the same subject: at least in any very obvious place of reference, such as notes or glossaries already ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 72, March 15, 1851 • Various
... thought, that persons of extraordinary imagination are deficient in judgment: by proper education, this evil might be prevented. We may observe that persons, who have acquired particular facility in certain exercises of the imagination, can, by voluntary exertion, ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth
... sound, was purely regulative, and not always even regulative, where his inward principle was not reflected in the opinions of the society in which he lived. The finer spiritual element in Scott was relatively deficient, and so the strength of the natural man was almost too equal, complete, and glaring. Something that should "tame the glaring white" of that broad sunshine, was needed; and in the years of reverse, when one gift after another was taken away, till at length what he called even ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton
... make way for the Marquis, Mr. Price declared that he would clear out, bag and baggage, top-boots, spurs, and brandy-bottles, at a moment's notice. The Prices of the English world are not, as a rule, deficient in respect for the marquises and marchionesses. "The workmen can come in to-morrow," Price said, when he was told that some preparations would be necessary. "A bachelor can shake down anywhere, Mr. Knox." Now it happened that Cross Hall House was altogether ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... elder-berry is well adapted for the production of wine; its juice contains a considerable portion of the principle necessary for a vigorous fermentation, and its beautiful colour communicates a rich tint to the wine made from it. It is, however, deficient in sweetness, and therefore demands an addition of sugar. It is one of the very best of the genuine old English wines; and a cup of it mulled, just previous to retiring to bed on a winter night, is a thing to be "run for," as Cobbett would say: it ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... States,] England, and Holland, then, for a long time past, and now in most other countries in Europe, the second requisite of increased production, increase of capital, shows no tendency to become deficient. So far as that element is concerned, production is susceptible of an increase without any assignable bounds. The limitation to production, not consisting in any necessary limit to the increase of the other two elements, labor and capital, must turn upon the properties ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... well-meaning persons, even for a few days, will demoralise a whole nursery. Tempers grow wild and unruly, sleep disappears, fretfulness and irritability take its place. Yet of most mothers it is probably true that they are neither strikingly proficient nor utterly deficient in the power of managing children. If they lack the gift that comes naturally to some women, they learn from experience and grow instinctively to feel when they have made a false step with the child. Although by dearly ...
— The Nervous Child • Hector Charles Cameron
... organisation, it is the addition of curiosity to this desire of beauty, that constitutes the romantic temper. Curiosity and the desire of beauty, have each their place in art, as in all true criticism. When one's curiosity is deficient, when one is not eager enough for new impressions, and new pleasures, one is liable to value mere academical proprieties too highly, to be satisfied with worn-out or conventional types, with the insipid ornament of Racine, or the prettiness of that later Greek sculpture, ...
— Appreciations, with an Essay on Style • Walter Horatio Pater
... are making preparations with a view to having the thing in their power is unquestionable, and we should be very deficient in our duty if we did not put the country in a state to ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... that's all," Smoke baffled. "I always told you, Shorty, that a deficient acquaintance with literature was a handicap, even in the Klondike. Now what we're going to do came out of a book. I read it when I was a kid, and ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... which the malice or misapprehension of Ruff had led him into. Accordingly, he went to the Queen my mother and related the whole truth, entreating her to remove any ill impressions that might remain with me, as he perceived that I was not deficient in point of understanding, and feared that I might be induced to engage in some ...
— Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Complete • Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre
... opinion as to the effect of that system of dependence upon the merchant upon the character of the people generally?-Yes; they are deficient in that sturdy independence, if I may so express it, which characterizes the peasantry throughout the rest of Scotland. The system fosters a dependent, time-serving, deceitful ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... Newland, is your perfect confidence in one whom the rest of the world would not trust with a shilling. I will accept your offer as freely as it is made, and take L500, just to make a show for the few weeks that I am in suspense, and then you will find, that with all my faults, I am rot deficient in gratitude." I divided the money with the Major, and he shortly afterwards ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... deficient in caution on the present occasion, and the principal was evidently much disturbed by the conduct of her captain, who was usually very prudent, without being timid. There she was, with all her extra sail set and flapping in the calm, while a ...
— Dikes and Ditches - Young America in Holland and Belguim • Oliver Optic
... I sympathize In his good fortune; and if you have seen me Deficient in the expressions; of that joy, Which such a victory might well demand, Attribute it to no lack of good will, For henceforth are our fortunes one. Farewell, And for your trouble take my thanks. Tomorrow The citadel shall be surrendered to ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... seemed an admirable plan. It relieved him from the nightmare of his wife's continual presence, and this he expressed to himself by thinking that it relieved her from his. It was not that he was deficient in sympathy for her, for in his self-centred way he was fond of her, but he could sympathise with her just as well at Ashbridge. He could do no good to her, and he had not for her that instinct of love which would make it impossible for him to leave her. He would also be spared the ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... motion of our horses. Ten years' experience had made my eye learned in the valuing of motion; and I saw that we were now running thirteen miles an hour. I pretend to no presence of mind. On the contrary, my fear is that I am miserably and shamefully deficient in that quality as regards action. The palsy of doubt and distraction hangs like some guilty weight of dark unfathomed remembrances upon my energies when the signal is flying for action. But, on the other hand, this accursed gift I have, as regards ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... city papers were strangely deficient in local news concerning the revolution,—possibly from a fear of giving valuable military information to the enemy at Washington. Uselessly did I study them for particulars concerning the condition of the batteries, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... man of genius, however deficient in taste and judgement, astonished the world with his Tamburlain the Great, which became in a manner proverbial for its rant and extravagance: he also composed, but in a purer style and with a pathetic cast of sentiment, a drama on ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin
... along the platform, "Mind the Commodore; mind the two 50-gun ships,"—an order which was strictly obeyed, as the losses show. The protection of the work proved to be almost perfect,—a fact which doubtless contributed to the coolness and precision of fire vitally essential with such deficient resources. The texture of the palmetto wood suffered the balls to sink smoothly into it without splintering, so that the facing of the work held well. At times, when three or four broadsides struck together, the merlons shook so that ...
— The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence • A. T. Mahan
... likewise totally deficient in the art of advertising, and advertising is the very breath of American politics. He held himself aloof from all these points of public contact. The World's relations with him have certainly been as close and intimate ...
— Woodrow Wilson's Administration and Achievements • Frank B. Lord and James William Bryan
... passionate desire for her father's forgiveness—but far from complaining of Jasper, or hinting at the idea of deserting a spouse with whom, but for the haunting remembrance of a beloved parent, her lot would be blest indeed. Whatever of pathos was deficient in the letter, the French lady supplied by such apparent fine feeling, and by so many touching little traits of Matilda's remorse, that Darrell's heart was softened in spite of his reason. He went away, however, saying very little, and intending to call no more. But ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... mind, and mean in spirit. What difference is there between such a man and a woman? Though thou art strong of arm, let thy mouth utter sweet words; it is no proof of courage to thrust thy fist into another man's face:—Though thou art able to tear the scalp off an elephant, if deficient in humanity, thou art no hero. The sons of Adam are formed from dust; if not humble as the dust, they fall short of ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... is defectively presented and at correcting any deviation from it existing in the person of the chooser himself, and in this way lead back to a pure presentation of the type. Hence each man loves what he himself is deficient in. The choice that is based on relative considerations—that is, has in view the constitution of the individual—is much more certain, decided, and exclusive than the choice that is made after merely absolute ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer
... the nature of a home-thrust, and Moggs, rather conscience-stricken, was dumb-founded and appalled. Moggs was very cold, and therefore, for the time being, deficient in his usual pride and self-esteem, leaving himself more pervious to the assault of reproach from without and within, than he would have been in a more genial state of the atmosphere. No man is courageous when he is ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... tribe to play at cards, feline from sole to crown was Mr Carker the Manager, as he basked in the strip of summer-light and warmth that shone upon his table and the ground as if they were a crooked dial-plate, and himself the only figure on it. With hair and whiskers deficient in colour at all times, but feebler than common in the rich sunshine, and more like the coat of a sandy tortoise-shell cat; with long nails, nicely pared and sharpened; with a natural antipathy to ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... was exceedingly fond of hearing himself talk, and a shrewd man withal, he had purposely applied to each gentleman the quality in which he was deficient, and spun out his speech with great deliberation, in order to give time for the passion of the opponents to subside. At its conclusion he was startled to hear a voice ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... from them if we are ill and thirsty; and what is to become of them when temptations and trials come, and to whom do they not come? Our educational products must mature slowly, but thoroughly, to genuine human beings whose inner selves will be deficient in no respect. Let the tailor provide ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... part peculiar to that island, though related to other—and therefore presumably parent—species on the neighbouring continent. Now, no less than 200 species—or nearly half the whole number—are so far deficient in wings that they cannot fly. And, if we disregard the species which are not peculiar to the island—that is to say, all the species which likewise occur on the neighbouring continent, and therefore, ...
— Darwin, and After Darwin (Vol. 1 and 3, of 3) • George John Romanes
... of itself, but if I should add the reasons which I have to believe that this account was deficient, and how deficient it was, you would, with me, make no scruple to believe that there died above ten thousand a week for all those weeks, one week with another, and a proportion for several weeks both before and after. The confusion among the people, ...
— A Journal of the Plague Year • Daniel Defoe
... said, 'What hast thou to do with the eldest of these, and what with him that is next? And what with the third and what with the youngest? Go now unto that Lapita of sweet smiles and endued with youth, unto whom thou didst go of old, beholding me deficient in everything!' Mandapala replied, 'As regards females, there is nothing so destructive of their happiness whether in this or the other world as a co-wife and a clandestine lover. There is nothing like these two that, inflames the fire of hostility and causes such ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... natural philosopher, it was evident to Paco, that if wind came through, there must be a vault on the other side of the wall, and not the solid earth, as he had hitherto believed; and it also became probable that the wall was deficient either in thickness or solidity. After some scratching at the plaster, he succeeded in uncovering the side of a small stone of irregular shape. A vigorous push entirely dislodged it, and it fell from him, leaving an opening ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... this is quite obvious in some cases; the female hybrids, although possessing all the external appearances and characteristics of perfect animals, are physiologically imperfect and deficient in the structural parts of the reproductive elements necessary to generation. It is said to be invariably the case with the male mule, the cross between the ass and the mare; and hence it is that although crossing the horse with the ass is easy enough, and is constantly done as far as I am aware, ...
— Evolution - An Investigation and a Critique • Theodore Graebner
... his allegiance. It was a new experience to the timid girl to be thus singled out in preference to the more brilliant beauties around her; and while it raised her in the estimation of others, it gave a decision and self-possession to her character in which it was previously deficient. And the intimate intercourse which she thus enjoyed with a kindred mind of high cultivation, earnest thought, and large acquaintance with mankind, gave a stimulus to her mental powers which only human sympathy can impart. The Emperor himself was greatly pleased with the gallant knight, and frequently ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... send you a list of the medals recently struck in bronze from the dies of a public character in our possession. It will be seen that it is deficient in medals of the ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... the reason. But this will wear off and is already wearing away. Men, when they have once got benches, will soon fall into the use of cushions. They are advancing in the lists of our literature, and they will not be long deficient in the petite morale, especially as they have, like ourselves, the rage ...
— Sir Walter Scott as a Critic of Literature • Margaret Ball
... of money in the treasury was reduced to the lowest ebb, and Charles was obliged to pay his troops in meal, and even this was frequently deficient, and the men suffered severely from hunger. Many deserted, and others scattered over the country in ...
— Bonnie Prince Charlie - A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden • G. A. Henty
... drink and, at one time, of fighting—occasionally took place; but they were never known to be followed by any reference to the disapproval of "the Shepherd." In some respects, indeed, Robert Dellanow showed himself singularly deficient in moral graces. To the very end of his life he was given to outbreaks of violent behaviour—as we have seen; and not only would he show no signs of after-contrition for his bad conduct, but would hint, at times, that his invisible companion had been a partner, or at least an unreproving ...
— Mad Shepherds - and Other Human Studies • L. P. Jacks
... is deficient in still another essential feature. Every other European country possesses a mountain system which gives form and solidity to its structure. She alone has no such system. No skeleton or backbone gives promise of stability to the dull expanse of plains ...
— A Short History of Russia • Mary Platt Parmele
... with the lady, and what was deficient by nature was supplied by art, for she was one of those who always paid the most scrupulous attention to their toilette. If we were to describe her as fat, fair, and forty, we should certainly wrong her. Fair and forty she undoubtedly was, but fat she certainly was ...
— Vellenaux - A Novel • Edmund William Forrest
... gratitude and kindness, partly to stop her mouth, and prevent the saying of something which it might have been still more difficult to support. "You are a real lady yourself, dear Mrs. Turner," she cried. (And this notwithstanding the one deficient letter: but many people who are much more dignified than Mrs. Turner—people who behave themselves very well in every other ...
— Old Lady Mary - A Story of the Seen and the Unseen • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... and as a religious enthusiast he must be judged. To us who read his story from a distance, who breathe an atmosphere totally different from his, and whose lives are governed by quite other passions and ideals, he may often appear one-sided, extravagant, deficient in tact and forethought, and, in the excess of his zeal, too ready to sacrifice everything to the purposes he never for an instant allowed to drop out of his sight. We may even, with some of his critics, protest that he was not a ...
— The Famous Missions of California • William Henry Hudson
... been suggested that the insectivorous bats, though nocturnal, are deficient in that keen vision characteristic of animals which take their ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... with accuracy; and by studying its effects in isolation we reach many true conclusions. But the other motives, with which socialists declare that we must supplement this, are treated by them in a manner so crude, so childish, so incomplete, so deficient in the mere rudiments of scientific analysis, that they do not correspond to anything. Instead of forming any true addition to the data of economic science, they are like images belonging to the dream of a maudlin school-girl. They have only the effect of obscuring, not completing, the facts to ...
— A Critical Examination of Socialism • William Hurrell Mallock
... dissolution is therefore an event of the near future; the Conservatives will come in, but they have no power of organization, and very little political talent at their backs, above all, they are deficient in energy, probably because there is nothing that they can destroy and therefore no pickings to struggle for. In short, they are not 'capaces imperii.' The want of these qualities and of leaders will very soon undermine their hold upon the country, always a slight ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... information, or, what is still better, merely to test it by them. Notwithstanding, there lies so seductive a charm in the possession of a specious art like this—an art which gives to all our cognitions the form of the understanding, although with respect to the content thereof we may be sadly deficient—that general logic, which is merely a canon of judgement, has been employed as an organon for the actual production, or rather for the semblance of production, of objective assertions, and has thus been ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant
... inferior animals on Dryden's immortal Hind; and, incapable of fully estimating a merit, which, in some degree, they could not help feeling, many were their absurd experiments to lower it to the standard of their own comprehension. One author, deeming the "Paradise Lost" deficient in harmony, was pleased painfully to turn it into rhyme; and more than one, conceiving the subject too serious to be treated in verse of any kind, employed their leisure in humbling it into prose. The names of these well-judging and considerate persons are preserved by Mr Todd in his edition ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... I mean that inner consciousness which aspires. By prayer I do not mean a request for anything preferred to a deity; I mean intense soul-emotion, intense aspiration. The word immortal is very inconvenient, and yet there is no other to convey the idea of soul-life. Even these definitions are deficient, and I must leave my book as a whole to give its own meaning to ...
— The Story of My Heart • Richard Jefferies
... Vineyard Association has been formed for the purpose of improvement. Wool, however, is at present the great staple; and the Circular seems to derive some consolation from the idea, that if the crop should continue deficient, prices in England will probably be maintained. 'To anticipate the future prices for our staples,' it says, 'in a market open to so many influences as that of Great Britain, is almost impossible; but it may be ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 435 - Volume 17, New Series, May 1, 1852 • Various
... abundantly fair pretext for his removal; still advantage was not taken of it. Some of his enemies, as he wrote in December, 1770, by plentiful abuse endeavored to provoke him to resign; but they found him sadly "deficient in that Christian virtue of resignation." It was not until 1774, after the episode of the Hutchinson letters and the famous hearing before the privy council, that he was actually displaced. If this forbearance of the ministry was attributable to magnanimity, it stands out in prominent ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... many generations after its consolidation. That in modern time abuses have impaired its faculties and diminished its usefulness they admit. Some of them are candid enough to allow that, as a school for the systematic study of law, it is under existing circumstances a deplorably deficient machine; but they unite in declaring that there was a time when the system of the combined Colleges was complete and thoroughly efficacious. The more cautious of these eulogists decline to state the ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... cellar is made. The reason for this is plain. In such a cellar the vapor pressure of the air is not only greater but is less influenced by the shifting vapor pressure of the outside air. In a good cellar the operator, though his knowledge of the factors with which he deals is grievously deficient, learns, through long and costly experience, about what addition of moisture or about what rate of ventilation will give him the best results. In the room more subject to outside influences, the ...
— The Dollar Hen • Milo M. Hastings
... can scarcely be considered an appropriate symbol of an institution which dates its organization and refers its primitive history to a period long anterior to the origin of that language. Such a symbol is deficient in the two elements of antiquity and universality which should characterize every masonic symbol. There can, therefore, be no doubt that, in its present form, it is a corruption of the old Hebrew symbol, the letter yod, by which ...
— The Symbolism of Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... to me, with a brown paper parcel, tied with skinie, and having a memorandum letter sewed on the top of it, and wafered with a wafer. It ran as follows; "Maister Batter has sent down, per the bearer, with his compliments to Mr Wauch, a cuttikin of corduroy, deficient in the instep, which please let out, as required. Maister Wauch will also please be so good as observe that three of the buttons have sprung the thorls, which he will be obliged to him to replace, at his earliest convenience. Please send me a message what they may be; ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - tailor in Dalkeith • D. M. Moir
... access to them, are liable, and which often proves trying and painful. One is appealed to in behalf of some person in needy circumstances who wishes to make a living by the pen. A manuscript accompanying the letter is offered for publication. It is not commonly brilliant, too often lamentably deficient. If Rachel's saying is true, that "fortune is the measure of intelligence," then poverty is evidence of limited capacity, which it too frequently proves to be, notwithstanding a noble exception here and there. Now an editor is a person under a contract with the public to furnish them ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... on all occasions; until, at length, it was painful to listen to a speech of his. I remember, about the time of the Crimean war, when the organisation of the English army was found to be so lamentably deficient, there was a society established in Birmingham called by some such name as "The Administrative Reform Association." A large meeting was held in Bingley Hall, at which all the leading Liberals of the town were present. George Dawson made a capital ...
— Personal Recollections of Birmingham and Birmingham Men • E. Edwards
... She was not deficient in wit, and could talk very well whenever she chose. She did not like to be called La Marquise, but preferred the simpler and shorter title ...
— The Memoirs of the Louis XIV. and The Regency, Complete • Elizabeth-Charlotte, Duchesse d'Orleans
... type of girl that can be found in every school and almost every Form. Rather deficient in moral fibre, and badly trained at home, her influence was always on the wrong side. She was clever enough, as a rule, just to avoid getting into open trouble with the authorities, but under the surface she was a source of disturbance. She had a certain following of gigglers and slackers, ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil
... experience no difficulty in believing it. Conversely, I entertain but little difficulty in conceiving—i.e., imagining—a shark with a mammalian heart, and yet it would require extremely strong evidence to make me believe that such an animal exists. The truth appears to be that our language is deficient in terms whereby to distinguish between that which is wholly inconceivable from that which is with difficulty conceivable. This, it seems to me, was the principle reason of the dispute between Spencer and Mill above alluded ...
— A Candid Examination of Theism • George John Romanes
... thinking the end of the first act deficient. The leaves stuck together, and, there intervening two or three blank pages between the first and second acts, I examined no farther, but concluded the former imperfect, which on the second reading ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... "Rural Hours" we might fancy that Miss Cooper was less familiar than perhaps should be for such a task with botany and other sciences, but a closer study of the book reveals the most minute and comprehensive knowledge, so interfused that it is without technical forms only, and never deficient in precision. The style is everywhere not only delightfully free, while artistically finished, but it is remarkably pure, so that there is in the literature of this country not a specimen of more genuine English. In this respect the work ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... once too often. My mother, who had been living at Brighton, was dead. It is curious how the sea seems to sterilize the emotions in some natures. Perhaps I am wrong, and judge the general from the particular. Perhaps we are deficient in power to express grief. Perhaps we don't feel it. I don't know. I have known men at sea who raved about their parents' perfections and I was unable to sympathize and regale them with anecdotes about my 'old lady.' I couldn't. I don't remember ever talking to anybody about my ...
— Aliens • William McFee
... of the Scots from 1550 to 1650. The arts of civil life little known in Scotland till the Union. Life of a sailor. The folly of Peter the Great in working in a dock-yard. Arrive at Talisker. Presbyterian clergy deficient in learning. September 24. French hunting. Young Col. Dr. Birch, Dr. Percy. Lord Hailes. Historical impartiality. Whiggism unbecoming in ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... needless invention. When anyone else had done a popular thing, Shakspere was pretty sure to imitate him and do it better. But he hardly ever did anything first. To his contemporaries he must have seemed deficient in originality, at least as compared with Lilly, or Marlowe, or Ben Jonson, or Beaumont and Fletcher. He was the most obviously imitative dramatist of all, following rather than leading ...
— The Critics Versus Shakspere - A Brief for the Defendant • Francis A. Smith
... give my information nor sell it," interrupted the Princess, smiling coldly. "I am only a woman—and women are supposed to know nothing. With the rest of my sex, I am judged illogical and imaginative; you wise men would call my knowledge of history deficient, my facts not proven. But, if you like, I will tell you the story of the construction of the Great Pyramid, and why it is unlikely that anyone will ever find the treasures that are buried within it. You ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... of the earth it must necessarily be spherical.... If it were not so, the eclipses of the moon would not have such sections as they have. For in the configurations in the course of a month the deficient part takes all different shapes; it is straight, and concave, and convex; but in eclipses it always has the line of divisions convex; wherefore, since the moon is eclipsed in consequence of the ...
— A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... succeeding poets bear no manner of proportion to the distance of time between him and them. The verses of bishop Hall are in general extremely musical and flowing, and are greatly preferable to Dr. Donne's, as being of a much smoother cadence; neither shall we find him deficient, if compared with his successor, in point of thought and wit; but he exceeds him with respect to his characters, which are more numerous, and wrought up with greater art and strength of colouring. Many of his lines would do ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume I. • Theophilus Cibber
... Wordsworth, son of the master of Trinity at Cambridge, and afterwards Bishop of Saint Andrews, he read for scholarship, apparently not wholly to his own satisfaction. While still an undergraduate, he writes to his father (Nov. 2, 1830), 'I am wretchedly deficient in the knowledge of modern languages, literature, and history; and the classical knowledge acquired here, though sound, accurate, and useful, yet is not such as to complete an education.' It looked, in truth, as if the caustic saying of a brilliant colleague ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... slight knowledge of English verse of a select character, unfortunately, did not assist her in the interpretation of the young man's speech, nor relieve her from the momentary feeling that he was at times deficient in intellect. She preferred, however, to take a personal view of the question, and expressed her sarcastic regret that she had not known before that she had been indebted to the great flume and ditch at Excelsior for the pleasure of his acquaintance. This pert remark occasioned some ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... plants. The effects of a milk and vegetable diet, of gluten bread in diabetes, of cod-liver oil in phthisis, even of such audacious innovations as the water-cure and the grape-cure, are only hints of what will be accomplished when we have learned to discover what organic elements are deficient or in excess in a case of chronic disease, and the best way of correcting the abnormal condition, just as an agriculturist ascertains the wants of his crops and modifies the composition of his soil. In acute febrile diseases ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... the enemy had been in Italy, and one hundred and twenty horsemen each. If any of them was unable to make up that number of horsemen, that it should be allowed to furnish three foot soldiers for every horseman deficient. That both the foot and horse soldiers should be chosen from the wealthiest of the inhabitants, and should be sent out of Italy wheresoever there was want of recruits. If any of them refused to comply, it was their pleasure ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... he applied for relief to the clerk, a sleek, smiling Frenchman, named Montalon. The letter read, Bordeaux (the bourgeois) seemed gradually to awaken to a sense of what was expected of him. Though not deficient in hospitable intentions, he was wholly unaccustomed to act as master of ceremonies. Discarding all formalities of reception, he did not honor us with a single word, but walked swiftly across the area, while we followed in some admiration ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... good position in the city of London; especially for that of the head of a firm in the wine trade, in which an acquaintance with the world, and the manners of a gentleman, if not of a man of fashion—a matter in which my firm has been very deficient, heretofore—are specially valuable. It is probable, from what I hear, that Gibraltar will be besieged; and the event is likely to be a memorable one. It will be of advantage to him, and give him a certain standing, to have been present on ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty
... knowledge I have never been indicted; or if I have the sheriff has never caught up with me! My heart bleeds nevertheless for these poor devils who are always in the toils, and in my poor weak fashion I try to help them. Really, my dear Archie, thieves as a class are shockingly deficient in intelligence. Until I dropped into the underworld they were a peculiarly helpless lot—like dear old Hoky whose loss I shall mourn ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... walked down to the deserted battery, examined it carefully, and found that although it was in very bad order, and deficient especially in screens—the one greatest essential—it was still capable of a great deal of work. Then he washed off a dish or two of tailings from one of the many heaps about, and although he had no acid, nor any other means of making a proper test in such a short time, his scientific knowledge ...
— Chinkie's Flat and Other Stories - 1904 • Louis Becke
... of the Body. If the Matter turns to a Male, he will be too dull and too cold to Engender, and will be imperfect in his privy Parts; if it proves a Female, she will in time be of too hot and dry a Nature, and will be Deficient of Organs for the Seed and menstruous Blood, in order to Form and Nourish ...
— Tractus de Hermaphrodites • Giles Jacob
... proposing to present Madame de Genlis to the Queen. But Madame de Genilis never could obtain either a public or a private audience. Though the Queen was a great admirer of merit and was fond of encouraging talents, of which Madame de Genlis was by no means deficient, yet even the account the Duchess herself had given, had Her Majesty possessed no other means of knowledge, would have sealed that lady's exclusion from the opportunities of display at Court which she sought ...
— The Secret Memoirs of Louis XV./XVI, Complete • Madame du Hausset, an "Unknown English Girl" and the Princess Lamballe
... of honor, for instance, is a vital compelling force in one individual, and is so weak or deficient in another as to be a negligible quantity, what is the explanation of this difference? What influence has developed the sentiment in one, and retarded or eliminated it in the other? On what does it depend? What causes ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)
... unmistakably in literary interest by the change. We feel that he is wanting in feeling and inspiration; his characters no longer palpitate with life; his narrative drags, its interest decreases, and his language is often deficient in force and colour. But while writers, trained in the schools of the prophets, thus sought to bring home to the people the benefits which their God had showered on them, the people themselves showed signs of disaffection towards Him, ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... wounded, or in any way disabled, he fled to the extremity of the stage, and implored the pity of the spectators; if he had shown good sport, they took him under their protection by pressing down their thumbs; but if he had been found deficient in courage or activity, they held the thumb back, and he was instantly ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... is completely separated from all fixed saline matters, and consequently from all hardening matters. Distilled water, however, has a vapid and unpleasant taste, due partly to deficient aeration and partly to the presence of traces of volatile organic matter; and though filtration through animal charcoal will remove this, and the aeration can begin chemically, the process is too expensive, except in certain cases, as on board ship, or at military or naval ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 392, July 7, 1883 • Various
... untrue, representation of George Fellows's mind; only the "friend" in the image must be supposed to mean his own wayward fancy; for he is not particularly amenable (though very amiable) to external influences. So dominant, however, is present feeling and impulse, or so deficient is he in comprehensiveness, that he often takes up with the most trumpery arguments; that is, for a few days at a time. Yet he does not want acuteness. I have known him shine strongly (as has been ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... Bedouins rely on a porridge of lentils for their mainstay. In India and China where rice is the staple food, beans are eaten to provide the necessary nitrogenous matter, as rice alone is considered deficient ...
— No Animal Food - and Nutrition and Diet with Vegetable Recipes • Rupert H. Wheldon
... is—hopelessly lost. I may arrive at my destination faint for want of food. But I bear all these things without protest or complaint. This is not because I am particularly virtuous or self-trained to turn the other cheek to the smiter. I am morally feeble, deficient in power of self-defence, a lover of peace with discomfort, rather ...
— Our Casualty And Other Stories - 1918 • James Owen Hannay, AKA George A. Birmingham
... descendants, but far better realized the description in Longfellow's "Hiawatha," of the magnificently grave, imperturbably patient savage, the slave of his word, and hospitable to the most scrupulous extent. It was in mercy and tenderness that the character was the most deficient. The whole European instinct of forbearance and respect to woman was utterly wanting,—the squaws were the most degraded of slaves; and to the captive the most barbarous cruelty was shown. Experience has shown that there ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... number to be distinctly and specifically the opposites to the many truths that were absent; but a few false notions, such as could hardly fail to take the place of absent truth in the ignorant mind, however crude they might be, and however deficient for constituting a full system of error, would be sure to dilate themselves so as to have an operation at all the points where truth was wanting. It is frightful to see what a space in an ignorant mind one false notion can occupy, working nearly the same effect in many distinct particulars, ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... Winnington, was not a gossip, partly out of scruples, but mainly perhaps because of a certain deficient vitality, and he had but disjointed ideas on the subject of the two ladies who had now settled at the Abbey. He understood, however, that Delia, whom he remembered as a child, was a "Suffragette," and that Mr. Winnington, Delia's guardian, ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... A thousand of these arms were purchased by the Government in 1901 for experimental purposes, with the view of making them standard army equipment. They were found to be deficient in stopping power, due to their small calibre, and were for the most part sold to Bannerman & Co., of New York. Differences from the ordinary commercial Luger are as follows:—one inch longer barrel, grip of black walnut, U. S. coat of arms stamped on receiver, and thumb-safety is reversed. ...
— A Catalogue of Early Pennsylvania and Other Firearms and Edged Weapons at "Restless Oaks" • Henry W. Shoemaker
... deficient in the vicinity where the plants are grown, it may be advantageous to convey the fibrous layers to some other place provided with a better supply of water for the final washing and drying; imperfect retting and cleaning are apt to create defects in the fibre, and to ...
— The Jute Industry: From Seed to Finished Cloth • T. Woodhouse and P. Kilgour
... awful and hostile appearance, crying out to his troops that he would soon demolish the bugbear. This saying encouraged some of the runaways, who followed him to the combat. Approaching within a sword's length, for he was not deficient either in hardihood or valour, he made a furious stroke right in the face of this flaming apparition, when down it fell, revealing its ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 1 (of 2) • John Roby
... charge discrimination to mask his failure to compete successfully for a job or grade, but to accept such failures as a universal explanation for the disproportionate number of Negroes in the lower ranks and undesirable occupations was to accept as true the canard that Negroes as a group were deficient. Diggs's conclusion, which he pressed upon the department with some notice in the press, was that some black servicemen were being subtly but deliberately and arbitrarily restricted to inferior positions because their military superiors exercised ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... music, in medicinal botany and the knowledge of diseases, in the making of the most cunning electuaries and syllabubs, and even in Arithmetic,—a science of which young gentlewomen were then almost wholly deficient,—she became, before she was sixteen years of age, a truly wonderful proficient. A Bristol bookseller spoke of printing her book of recipes (containing some excellent hints on cookery, physic, the casting of nativities, and farriery); and some excellent ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 1 of 3 • George Augustus Sala |
