"Incompetency" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... The shares of the administrators who had emigrated were confiscated, in the names of Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, and the confiscators sent sundry 'patriots' to sit on the administrative council of the company. Their incompetency was so ludicrous and mischievous that Robespierre, representing the State which had thus stolen an interest in the enterprise, could not stand it. He actually 'requisitioned' two noblemen—two 'aristocrats'—among the ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... and prejudice had burned out, our people nobly rose to the demands of the situation. But confidence in the generals of the Northern army was gone forever. The men of New England would not sit long in the shadow of defeat, but they said they would no more be sacrificed to the incompetency of leaders who had been tried and found wanting. Congress had to pay heed to this feeling. Washington had to admit the force of it, because he knew that New England must be chiefly looked to in this crisis, to make head against Burgoyne. If she failed, all else ...
— Burgoyne's Invasion of 1777 - With an outline sketch of the American Invasion of Canada, 1775-76. • Samuel Adams Drake
... afterwards. He possesses his full share of national characteristics. He is by inheritance an individualist. He lives in a society which, so far from being, as is the case on the Continent, saturated with respect for officialism, is somewhat prone to regard officialism and incompetency as synonymous terms. By such association, any bureaucratic tendency which may exist on the part of the British official is kept in check, whilst his individualism is subjected to a sustained and healthy course ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... for us to pass any judgment whatever upon the musical and artistic value of these transmissions of trumpet music to a distance; we prefer to confess our incompetency in the matter. But it is none the less certain that these experiments are having the same success that they had at their inception in 1881 at the Universal Exposition of Electricity, and they allow us to foresee that there is a time coming in which it will ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 711, August 17, 1889 • Various
... "Miscellaneous Objections to the Theory of Natural Selection." It was partly derived from modified portions of chapter iv. of former editions, but the latter and larger part was new, and relates chiefly to the supposed incompetency of natural selection to account for the very early stages of useful structures. Numerous cases, such as the development of the giraffe's neck, the baleen of the whale, the mammary glands, &c., are admirably discussed. Causes preventing the acquisition, through natural selection, ...
— Life of Charles Darwin • G. T. (George Thomas) Bettany
... an important change by assigning Brigadier-General Hascall to command the second division in place of General Judah. In the battle of Resaca the division suffered severe loss without accomplishing anything, and General Schofield found, on investigation, that it was due to the incompetency of the officer commanding it. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. iv. p. 243.] The brigade commanders, in their reports, complained severely of the way in which the division had been handled, and the army commander felt obliged to examine and to act promptly. [Footnote: ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... affords, especially if it had been tested, for a period of eighty years, by all the inward strain of domestic evils, and all the outward pressure of invasion; by the influence of foreign envy, of intrigue, of hostility; by the debasing power of disloyalty, the incompetency of rulers, and the general degeneracy of human nature; I say, in view of all these untoward influences, the government which could still retain its majesty and power, still stretch its Aegis over every national and individual right—you would pronounce the best, both for ruler ...
— Government and Rebellion • E. E. Adams
... on the 10th of November, 1728, at the hamlet of Pallas, or Pallasmore, county of Longford, in Ireland. He sprang from a respectable, but by no means a thrifty stock. Some families seem to inherit kindliness and incompetency, and to hand down virtue and poverty from generation to generation. Such was the case with the Goldsmiths. "They were always," according to their own accounts, "a strange family; they rarely acted like other people; their ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... return to Panama, and stay there until he had mustered a sufficient force to enable him to take the field against the insurgents with advantage. But the courageous heart of Vaca de Castro shrunk from a step which would proclaim his incompetency to the task assigned him. He had confidence in his own resources, and in the virtue of the commission under which he acted. He relied, too, on the habitual loyalty of the Spaniards; and, after mature deliberation, he determined ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... of the circle—who seems to have been the ablest—was Colonel James Purdy, on whom the brunt of the American work and fighting were to fall, and who seems to have done his best in a struggle against natural difficulties and against the incompetency of both his commander ...
— An Account Of The Battle Of Chateauguay - Being A Lecture Delivered At Ormstown, March 8th, 1889 • William D. Lighthall
... his affairs, has reached, during the last twelvemonth, a deplorable depth of depression; that his infirm will was the first thing to show the results of the malady; and that its effete state leaves M. the Marquis d'Espard exposed to all the perils of his incompetency, as is proved by ...
— The Commission in Lunacy • Honore de Balzac
... him so long as he was not called upon to make a difficult adjustment, but with the loss of his child he develops a mental disorder. That he should have reacted to his daughter's injury with murder is quite in line with his general inability and incompetency for proper adjustment, and the development of a mental disorder which has kept him in an institution for the past twelve years and will in all probability keep him there the rest of his life, in reaction to the committed murder, further emphasizes the general ...
— Studies in Forensic Psychiatry • Bernard Glueck
... form the basis of the statements in this article are as follows: leucorrhea, displacements, or malpositions of the internal organs; lacerations, ulcers, tumors, sexual incompetency, and the ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol. 3 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... it mean?" thought Valentine. "Mrs. Sheldon talked of this man's inexperience. Can it be that his incompetency lost the life of his patient, and that he knows ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... to your Lordships: if a man is of opinion that no public court can truly and properly bring him to any account for his conduct, that the forms observable in courts are totally adverse to it, that there is a general incompetency with regard to such a court, and yet shuns a tribunal capable and competent, and applies to that which he thinks is incapable and incompetent, does not that man plainly show that he has rejected what he thinks will prove his guilt, and that he has chosen ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... understood only as a formal demand that the President should acknowledge his own incompetency to perform his duties, content himself with the amusement of distributing post-offices, and resign his power as to all important affairs into the hands of his Secretary of State. It seems to-day incomprehensible ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... The incompetency of the Irish engineering staff, and a defective commissariat, at that time was most deplorable; and although the town of —— was notoriously disaffected, the barrack chosen, temporarily, to accommodate ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various
... killed the lord-warden himself, and pushed on to Taga Castle, which they burned, destroying vast stores of arms and provisions. It was precisely at this time that the State council, as related above, memorialized the Throne, denouncing the incompetency of the provincial conscripts and complaining that the provincial authorities, instead of training the soldiers, used them for forced labour. The overthrow of the army in Mutsu and the destruction of Taga Castle ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... was "seclusive," had few friends, was averse to meeting people, never had a beau. She was taken out of school at 14 because she was not promoted on two successive occasions from the same class. Then she was put to work, but she was usually discharged for incompetency. ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch
... years, and even now I cannot recall without a smile the absurd incompetency of every one connected with the institution and their utter ignorance of the art of imparting ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... country write you a letter, calling your attention to partisan speeches of this character, emphasizing the parts I have mentioned, and ask your opinion with reference to the plan of the Republican party to regain power. In other words, we ought to accept these speeches charging incompetency and inefficiency as a challenge, and call the attention of the country to the fact that the leadership of the Republican party is still reactionary and standpat, laying particular emphasis on what the effect in Europe would be of a divided leadership at this time. I think a letter ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... and my own came close together after each blow, through the shadowy arms I struck with. My blows were delivered with more extreme violence than I ever think I exerted, but I became painfully convinced of my incompetency. I have no consciousness of what happened after this feeling of unsubstantiality ...
— Clairvoyance and Occult Powers • Swami Panchadasi
... of graduation meant! I might have been a marked individual, with people murmuring words of admiration, of speculation concerning the brilliancy of my future!... When at last my name was called and I rose to receive my diploma it seemed as though my incompetency had been proclaimed ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... new school Angelina taught history, for which she was admirably qualified, while Sarah taught French, and was also book-keeper, both of which offices were distasteful to her because of her conscious incompetency. She did herself great injustice, as the results of her work showed, but it required a great mental struggle to reconcile herself to ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... demand reform in the administration of the Government and the application of business principles to public affairs. As a means to this end, civil-service reform should be in good faith enforced. Our citizens have the right to protection from the incompetency of public employees who hold their places solely as the reward of partisan service, and from the corrupting influence of those who promise and the vicious methods of those who expect such rewards; and those who worthily seek public employment have the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... by Mr. Cooper in most of his performances forbid it to be believed that his failures result from incompetency; or that there is any excellence, to which the actors of the present day attain, too great for his grasp, if his industry were nearly equal to his personal endowments. But the honest and zealous critic loses all patience, ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... easily diagnosed, sometimes after long observation by professional people, or else they are clearly abnormal individuals who, by the possession of certain capacities, manage to keep their heads well above the level of social incompetency as judged by the ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy
... old story of the southwestern miner's indolence and incompetency,—utterly distasteful to his northern habits of thought and education. Here was their old fatuous endurance of Nature's wild caprices, without that struggle against them which brought others strength and success; here ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... whenever asked by his wife for supplies of cash, invariably gave as a reason why he could not supply her want, the fact of some new loss of custom, or money, in consequence of neglect, carelessness, or incompetency of clerks or workmen, when ...
— Home Lights and Shadows • T. S. Arthur
... station-master lost little of the meaning the Patriarch desired to convey. This tended in the direction of showing the utter incapacity of the Swiss or French nature to manage a railway, and the discreditable incompetency of the officials of whatever grade. The station-master was properly abashed before the torrent of indignant speech. But he had his turn presently. Calmer inspection disclosed the fact that all the fourteen packets were ...
— Faces and Places • Henry William Lucy
... Pike (1806); Schoolcraft (1832) fleshed his pen in Beltrami; Allen, who accompanied Schoolcraft, afterward became his enemy and branded him as a geographical quack; Nicollet (1836) arraigned both Schoolcraft and Allen for incompetency; and so on. And now, at this late day, in a mild way tradition repeats itself. Your great original geographer, Mr. Siegfried, concluded his two essays on the "High Mississippi" by saying, "Beyond reasonable doubt our party is the only one that ever pushed its ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... for merely political reasons have been carefully guarded against, the examinations for admittance to the service enlarged and at the same time rendered less technical and more practical; and a distinct advance has been made by giving a hearing before dismissal upon all cases where incompetency is charged or demand made for the removal of officials in any of the Departments. This order has been made to give to the accused his right to be heard but without in any way impairing the power of removal, which should always be exercised ...
— Messages and Papers of William McKinley V.2. • William McKinley
... not that our people will fail in the world's contests because they lack either money, mind, or muscle. We are in little danger from illiteracy or from business incompetency; but we are in danger from moral paralysis, due to undue pressure on the money nerve. We have talked before the youth in the home and amongst ourselves on the street as though the only thing worth living for was money, as though ...
— Levels of Living - Essays on Everyday Ideals • Henry Frederick Cope
... so noble, his courtesy so charming, that there was no sting in his snub to Sir Lupus. Even I had heard of the amazing jealousies and intrigues which had made Schuyler's life miserable—charges of incompetency, of indifference, of corruption—nay, some wretched creatures who sought to push Gates into Schuyler's command even hinted at cowardice and treason. And none could doubt that Gates knew it and encouraged it, for ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... least, this aspect of poverty, by representing the condition of the poor to be chiefly "their own fault," lightens the sense of responsibility for the "well to do." It is decidedly the more comfortable view, for it at once flatters the pride of the rich by representing poverty as an evidence of incompetency, salves his conscience when pricked by the contrast of the misery around him, and assists him to secure his material interests by adopting an attitude of stern repression towards large industrial or political agitations in the interests of labour, on the ground that "these are wrong ...
— Problems of Poverty • John A. Hobson
... principle that a large portion of the inhabitants of France and England are deprived of the same privilege. As it is acknowledged that the slaves may be justly deprived of political rights, on the ground of their incompetency to exercise them without injury to the community, it must be admitted, by parity of reason, that they may be justly deprived of personal freedom, if incompetent to exercise it with safety to society. If this ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... light, is reflected by a plane glass mirror in all directions; the green light, on the contrary, is not so reflected. The image of the tourmaline is now horizontal; reflected upwards, it is still green; reflected sideways, the image is reduced to blackness, because of the incompetency of the green light to be reflected in this direction. Making the plate of tourmaline vertical, and reflecting it as before, it is the light of the upper image that is quenched; the side image now shows the green. This is a result of the greatest significance. If the vibrations of ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall
... What forbearance the thinking, sympathetic portion of the British people must have had to endure it, knowing that their fellow-subjects and kinsfolk were being done to death by some contractors and by the callousness and incompetency of dunderheaded politicians and drawing-room warriors! It is a sickening subject that cannot be ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... palsied every where by the long pressure of financial misrule: credit vanishing rapidly: the working-classes plunged daily deeper and deeper into misery and starvation, ready to listen to the most desperate suggestions: and a Government bewildered with a consciousness of incompetency, and of the swiftly approaching consequences of their misrule, at the eleventh hour—on the eve of a general election— suddenly resolving (in the language of their own leader) to stir society to its foundations, by proposing a wild and ruinous alteration ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... floating to me, and half believing and half hoping that three months of my incompetency would satisfy the church and send me back to my business again, I consented to go. Leaving my temporal interests in the hands of my father, I hastened to make the necessary preparations for my new responsibilities. ...
— Thirty Years in the Itinerancy • Wesson Gage Miller
... golf than handle a brush, and on dark days he couldn't see to paint (so he said). In truth, he was not well, and his slender store of strength did not permit him to do as he would. To cover the real seriousness of his case he loudly admitted his laziness and incompetency. ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... this chapter with a full recollection of the painful sense of incompetency I endured on becoming "a teacher of babes;" and this, I trust, will enable me to offer any remarks on the present subject with the humility that is desirable, blended with the confidence of experience. It is a very common idea, that almost any person can ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... offensive war which should appear to be unjust. A serious altercation ensued, in the course of which the other colonies pressed the war as a measure essential to their safety; but Massachusetts adhered inflexibly to its first resolution. This additional evidence of the incompetency of their union to bind one member, stronger than all the rest, threatened a dissolution of the confederacy; and that event seems to have been prevented only by the inability of the others to stand alone. Alarmed at their situation, ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall
... was disturbed and disastrous. In the northern and western provinces, rebellion after rebellion broke out, due in a great measure to the carelessness, incompetency and obstinacy of the emperor, and the coasts were infested with pirates, whose number and organization enabled them for a long time to hold the imperial fleet in check. Meanwhile the condition of the foreign merchants at Canton had not improved, ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... uncommonly like a master plumber come to present his bill. The First Secretary of the Embassy, from his occasional excursions into the field of American humour, had formed a special notion of that class of mechanic as the embodiment of fraudulent laziness and incompetency. ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... knowledge; I relapsed into enchanted listening. I thought to myself, "There exists then such a world, but I am shut out of it, not by the accidents of college, but by my own unfitness to enter"' (p. 148). Mankind suffers much from brassy incompetency and over-complacency, but Pattison is only one of many examples how much more it may lose in a man who has ability, but no fight and no mastery in him. As we have all been told, in this world a man must be either ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 3 of 3) - Essay 5: On Pattison's Memoirs • John Morley
... at her ignorance, but gratified, at the same time, by the reproach of metropolitanism. This implication of town-bred incompetency was most flattering to the seven frame houses and one corner store of Burd Settlement, ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... in numbers by speed, activity, and dash. Here, on the contrary, we have a force hampered to an unheard-of degree by baggage and camp followers; with an invalid at its head, controlled by two civilians; and moving at a rate which, in itself, testifies to divided councils and utter incompetency on the part of its commander. It is almost impossible even to hope for success, under ...
— At the Point of the Bayonet - A Tale of the Mahratta War • G. A. Henty
... respect to any proposed work of liturgical revision. Bishops have probably become inured to the hard measure habitually dealt out to them in the columns of the Church Times, and are unlikely to allow charges of ignorance and incompetency so far to disturb their composure as to make them afraid to prosecute a work which, from time immemorial, has been held to lie peculiarly within their province. It may be affirmed, with some confidence, that no revision of ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington
... recalled to office in July, 1757, it was too late to prevent the humiliation of England through the incompetency of Holbourne, Loudoun, and Webb, and the year 1757 closed with Montcalm triumphant in America. But while France neglected to give adequate support to her brave sons in Canada, England rallied to the support of Pitt, and the whole nation felt a confidence in the future which it ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... in the light of past experiences with the able but unwilling, the willing but unable, the stupid, the dishonest, the ignorant servant within our gates, with the very occasional good genius of the kitchen to leaven the lump of incompetency, we are sorely tempted to give up the struggle and do our own work, feeling that the time and strength so consumed are more than compensated for by the peace of mind which comes with the cessation of hostilities. ...
— The Complete Home • Various
... Canton was blockaded; a port on the island of Chusan was subsequently occupied; and Lord Palmerston's letter to the Emperor was carried to Tientsin, and delivered there to the Viceroy of Chihli. Commissioner Lin was now cashiered for incompetency; but was afterwards instructed to act with the Viceroy of Chihli, who was sent down to supersede him. Further vexatious action, or rather inaction, on the part of these two at length drove Captain Elliot to an ultimatum; and as no attention was paid ...
— China and the Manchus • Herbert A. Giles
... with the new conditions of his readopted country, but he remains an exotic and is regarded by his neighbours as one to whom the lesson must be taught that he is no longer of importance. What had been the cause of this breach in the Roman Catholic tradition, this curious incompetency, this Anglo-Indian conservatism and pretentiousness? Perhaps it had begun when in the seventeenth century the propagation of Roman Catholicism in England was handed over to the Jesuits, who mismanaged the country hopelessly. ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... give a glimpse not only of how the newspapers of Germany are hampered and censored, but of the positively glorious incompetency of the Government officials who denied the existence of an original document in the Kaiser's own hand which the most elementary inquiries in their own circle would have disclosed not only was in existence but in ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... she could do? Teach children, perhaps; but as a visiting governess, the only position of the kind which circumstances left open to her, she could hope for nothing more than the paltriest remuneration. Be somebody's 'secretary'? That sounded pleasant, but very ambitious: a sense of incompetency chilled her. In an office, in a shop, who would dream of giving ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... the wild and unsteady energy of a half barbarous people: it was transient: it was often misdirected: but, though transient and misdirected, it did wonders. The French Ambassador was forced to own that those officers of whose incompetency and inactivity he had so often complained had suddenly shaken off their lethargy. Recruits came in by thousands. The ranks which had been thinned under the walls of Londonderry were soon again full to overflowing. Great efforts were made to arm and clothe the troops; and, in the short space ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... victory was of supreme importance in Europe itself. "We have a mission to fulfill. It is to show, by our example to the people of England in particular, and to all nations in general, the value of republican institutions." There was still a general belief in the incompetency of those institutions. "The greatest triumph of all would be to prove these calculations vain. In comparison with this, what would be the gain to be derived from any collision ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... of that service, and should use them accordingly. This should be their highest ambition. And what higher ambition,' asked Sir Gregory, 'could they have? They all, alas! knew that the service had been disgraced in other quarters by idleness, incompetency, and, he feared he must say, dishonesty; till incompetency and dishonesty had become, not the exception, but the rule. It was too notorious that the Civil Service was filled by the family fools of the aristocracy and middle classes, and that any family who had no fool ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... commanded by Pedro Menendez, or Melendez, de Abila, sent by Philip the Second expressly to destroy the Frenchmen who had been so presumptuous as to settle in territories claimed by his Catholic Majesty. Nature seemed to conspire with their own incompetency to ruin the French. The French vessels, having gone out to attack the Spaniards, accomplished nothing, and, meeting a terrible storm, were driven far down the coast and wrecked. "Caroline" fell into ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... adequate standing army, and who, with inconsistent vehemence, had urged the nation into a war, regardless of its military equipment. The emaciated veterans arriving at Montauk were spoken of as the evidences of "military incompetency;" they were also evidence of that narrow statesmanship which ignores the constant suggestions ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward
... that style and that eloquence expressing what was already stirring in men's minds; he could not have written what he has done unless people were in some sort ready for it; any more than those painters could have begun their crusade against the dulness and incompetency that was the rule in their art thirty years ago unless they had some hope that they would one day move people ...
— Hopes and Fears for Art • William Morris
... a doctor at Sairmeuse, but he was the most stupid of men—a former surgeon in the army, who had been dismissed for incompetency. The peasants shunned him as they would the plague; and in case of sickness always sent for the cure. M. d'Escorval followed their example, knowing that the physician from Montaignac could not ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... intentions of Tom vanished with his success; for, laying aside his weapon, he advanced upon his antagonist, and seized him with an open palm. One more struggle, in which the captain discovered his incompetency to make any defence against the strength of a man who managed him as if he had been a child, decided the matter. When the captain was passive in the hands of his foe, the cockswain produced sundry pieces of sennit, marline, and ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... was now well known that the person who had abstracted the jewels was the same who had executed such a neat manoeuvre at Gilling's. One or two of the papers actually published leaderettes upon the subject, severely criticising the incompetency of the police in such matters. I have since heard, however, that at Scotland Yard there is a proverb that the wealthier the thief the less chance of his being caught. Bindo and his friends certainly did not lack funds. The various hauls they had made, even since my association ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux
... at large; that which you have been heard now is concerning the competency or incompetency of the witness: the incompetency against him is this, that when you came thither none more violent for the parliament than himself, and that he was a great spy, and you say it was usual with him to take ...
— State Trials, Political and Social - Volume 1 (of 2) • Various
... spirit of the times. The call on all sides now is for young men, and I have not the nerve to put myself in opposition to the demand. Were 'The Jupiter,' when it hears of my appointment, to write article after article setting forth my incompetency, I am sure it would cost me my reason. I ought to be able to bear with such things, you will say. Well, my dear, I own that I ought. But I feel my weakness, and I know that I can't. And to tell you the truth, I know no more than a child what the ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... It" the author tells us how he finally was dismissed from the "Call" for general incompetency, and presently found himself in the depths of hard luck, debt, and poverty. But this is only his old habit of making a story on himself sound as uncomplimentary as possible. The true version is that the "Call" publisher and ...
— The Boys' Life of Mark Twain • Albert Bigelow Paine
... man does not go into Parliament. Impossible. He regards government as sheer business, when it is often a passing show. Foster's Business Conference that never met would have caused him to discharge the department for incompetency. Sir Thomas White had no desire to lift his eyes unto the hill Flavelle, the super-Minister who for years had been a critic of his own party, and now believed it more inept than ever in spite of the great work of the Finance Minister. ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... done in diplomacy," observed Harleston, "except in large numbers; when it ceases to be diplomacy and becomes war. In fact, only bunglers resort to killing; and if the killing be known it ends one's career in the service. To have to kill to gain an end is conclusive evidence of incompetency. I mean, of course, among reputable nations. There are some thugs among the lesser Powers, just as there are ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott
... likewise for failure to satisfy the wishes of his subordinates, or at least the majority of his subordinates. If this majority be displeased with their minister, governor, president, manager, chief, or director, the fact is considered proof of administrative incompetency.... Perhaps educational circles afford the most curious examples of this old idea of responsibility. A student-revolt is commonly supposed to mean, not that the students are intractable, but that the superintendent or teacher does not know [399] his business. ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... to dispossess the present rightful occupant, S.A. SEVERNE, Esq., of the beautiful domain of Thenford; to ransack the Library; to scatter abroad pictures and curiosities of every description; on the alleged ground of insanity, or incompetency to make a will, on the part of Mr. Wodhull. As I had been very minute in the account of Mr. Wodhull's person, in the work just alluded to, I became a witness in the cause; and, as it was brought into ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... once awakened, we bear the dream, and which rests upon the absurdity and apparent illogicality of the dream, is probably nothing but the reasoning of our sleeping ego on the feelings about what was repressed; with greater right it should rest upon the incompetency of this disturber of our sleep. In sleep we are now and then aware of this contempt; the dream content transcends the censorship rather too much, we think, "It's only a dream," and ...
— Dream Psychology - Psychoanalysis for Beginners • Sigmund Freud
... and Gazette makes the following remarks, which somewhat bear on the subject in question. He observes—"In spite of the knowledge and clear views possessed by the profession on all that concerns the management of children, no fact is more palpable than that the most grievous ignorance and incompetency prevail respecting it among the public. We want some means of making popular the knowledge which is now almost restricted to medical men, or, at ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse
... those that admitted of reparation through any of the ordinary means of reprisal. In this manner Esther had made a sort of convenient ally of the word of God; rarely troubling it for counsel, however, except when her own incompetency to avert an evil was too apparent to be disputed. We shall leave casuists to determine how far she resembled any other believers in this particular, and proceed directly with the matter ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... their precious booty, and escaped. They have not been apprehended. This is the sixth in the series of daring daylight robberies that has occurred within the month. The failure of the police to deal with this situation has provoked widespread comment on the incompetency of the King's Chief of Police, and there are some who assert that the police are in league with the robbers. The magnificent new house which the Chief of Police has been erecting, ostensibly with the money ...
— King Arthur's Socks and Other Village Plays • Floyd Dell
... discharged or judiciously shelved. The trouble is, that those who remain are among the senior officers in our volunteer army, in their respective grades. They command posts, brigades, divisions. They preside at court-martials. Beneath the shadow of their notorious incompetency all minor evils may lurk undetected. To crown all, they are, in many cases, sincere and well-meaning men, utterly obtuse as to their own deficiencies, and manifesting (to employ a witticism coeval with themselves) all the Christian virtues except ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... into disfavor in later years, and, when he refused to give up his records, Smith and Rigdon addressed a letter to him,* in connection with his dismissal, which said that his notes required correction by them before publication, "knowing your incompetency as a historian, that writings coming from your pen could not be put to press without our correcting them, or else the church must suffer reproach. Indeed, sir, we never supposed you capable of writing a history." Why the Lord did not consult Smith and Rigdon ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... of five little ones procured a divorce from her husband, whose incompetency and unkindness was the result solely of intemperance, and that intemperance the consequence of his strong social bias and inability to resist the temptations of a period, when every man put the bottle to his neighbor's month as proof of his ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... everyone a use in this world?" The drive back to the estancia house was as pleasant as that of the morning, and there we found the Chinaman (who, owing to the strenuous exertions of The Chaperon, now appeared with considerably less hair, and obviously a more swollen head), had gauged correctly the incompetency of The Kid, in the brewing of his native beverage, and consequently had prepared a beverage which might pass for tea, and was enjoyed by all. After this refreshment a move was made, the luggage had gone on, and the party followed in their two coaches. We now ...
— Argentina From A British Point Of View • Various
... ultimo. After adverting to the suggestion heretofore made by the British Government that a conventional line equally dividing the territory in dispute between the two parties should be substituted for the line described by the treaty, and regretting the constitutional incompetency of the Federal Government to agree to such an arrangement without the consent of the State of Maine, Mr. Fox refers to the conventional line adopted, although different from that designated by the treaty, with respect to the boundary westward from the Lake of the Woods, and asks, ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 3: Martin Van Buren • James D. Richardson
... said to the army, as he did to the distant provinces, 'Manage your own affairs, and don't bother us.' Then pause and say, slowly and emphatically, 'You now have a taste of what we have endured in the colonies. The same incompetency ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... It is true that the verdict of the jury, in civil as well as in criminal cases, comprises the question of fact and the question of right in the same reply; thus, a house is claimed by Peter as having been purchased by him: this is the fact to be decided. The defendant puts in a plea of incompetency on the part of the vendor: this is the legal question to ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... Of the incompetency of the Church, in its diffusive capacity, to be judge of controversies; and the impertinency of ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge
... at the same time doubt whether they would pass with those of others; it made him despise all flesh, as if he were of a superior race, and yet have an idle and weak fear of coming in contact with them, from a dread of his incompetency to cope with them; so he at once depreciated and exalted, to an absurd ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... terrible disaster at Ball's Bluff, and the promising Colonel E. D. Baker has fallen, while gallantly leading his noble Californians. Discussions as to the cause or causes of that fatal advance and bloody retreat are going on throughout our camps. It does seem to many as though gross incompetency or treachery must have influenced the authorities having immediate oversight of the affair, and that our fallen braves have been needlessly immolated ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... cause. Far away from the great centers of conflict in Virginia and Georgia, on a remote theatre, the opportunity of striking a blow decisive of the war was afforded. An army that included the strength of every garrison from Memphis to the Gulf had been routed, and, by the incompetency of its commander, was utterly demoralized and ripe for destruction. But this army was permitted to escape, and its 19th corps reached Chesapeake Bay in time to save Washington from General Early's attack, while the 13th, 16th, and 17th corps reenforced Sherman in ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... commission to inspect a province. Such persons were frequently of royal rank, brothers or sons of the king. They were accompanied by an armed force, and were empowered to correct whatever was amiss in the province, and in case of necessity to report to the crown the insubordination or incompetency of its officers. If this system had been properly maintained, it is evident that it would have acted as a most powerful check upon misgovernment, and would ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 5. (of 7): Persia • George Rawlinson
... all unmanned, many sobbing aloud, overwhelmed by emotions utterly uncontrollable. This scene stamps the impress of almost celestial greatness upon the soul of the tzar. He knew his son's weakness, incompetency and utter depravity, and even in that hour of agony his spirit did not bend, and he would not sacrifice the happiness of eighteen millions of people through parental tenderness for his ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... not whether the bulk of mankind are fully competent to form an independent and profound judgment on its evidences: very few are competent to do so either on this or any other complex subject; certainly not (as our differences show) on the subject of your 'spiritualism.' But the incompetency of the great bulk of mankind to deal with complicated evidence makes a thing neither true nor false; perhaps on this, as on so many other subjects, the few must thoroughly sift the matter for the many. If your present objection were of force, what would become of truth in politics, law, ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... nor had he used dishonourable means to secure his ends: his name stood high in his own country for commercial integrity; men said: he "played square." He had, maybe, too keen a contempt for dulness and incompetency in enterprise, and he loathed red-tape; but this was racial. His mind was as open as his manners. He was utterly approachable. He was a millionaire, and yet in his own offices in New York he was as accessible as a President. He handled things without gloves, and this ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... their preparations for battle. His general idea was that the troops went out to fight, and he thought that they should be allowed to go at it at once." Near Orange Court House, he wrote to his wife on the 19th of March, 1862, "I know not what is to become of this country. Davis' incompetency is more apparent as our danger increases. Our only ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall
... and other Christian men went up to our legislature two years ago, representing our legislation on divorce as demoralizing and as fatal to the best interests of the marriage relation. It really seems as if the incompetency for the management of public affairs which by mere assumption is charged in advance upon women, has been proved with regard to men by an actual experience of many years. The true idea is for man and woman to share together the responsibilities and duties ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... it is all well. There is less incompetency among French than English workers, and thus the class who furnish them need less arraignment for their lack of thoroughness. They contend, also, with one form of competition, which has its counterpart ...
— Prisoners of Poverty Abroad • Helen Campbell
... happiness. The disabilities of such an individual is a misfortune; or, as it is generally termed, a curse, an evil; but the evil consists in the incompetence of the individual, and not in that condition or station in life, to which his incompetency subjects him. It is, (to use common parlance), a curse, or an evil, to be physically, mentally, and morally disqualified to enjoy the rights, privileges and immunities of a free man; but if such be the condition of ...
— A Review of Uncle Tom's Cabin - or, An Essay on Slavery • A. Woodward
... The incompetency of the superior officers in the British army had of late become painfully manifest on both sides of the Atlantic. The American campaign of 1757 was even more disastrous than were British operations in Europe. ...
— Canadian Notabilities, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... marble slabs which bore the names of the streets, illustrious historical names, Gracchus, Scipio, Pliny, Pompey, Julius Caesar, blazing forth on those unfinished, crumbling walls like a buffet dealt by the Past to modern incompetency. ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... walked and walked till I was almost fainting, and found myself in the Park. There the lovely indications of spring, and the quiet, and the fresh air, soothed me, and I sat down under some trees near the water, and rested myself. But the same giddy whirl of thoughts came back, the same incompetency to deal with such strange facts, and the same confusion. I do not know how long I wandered about; but I was faint and weary and hungry, and frightened too, for people were beginning ...
— Richard Vandermarck • Miriam Coles Harris
... appeased by Ali's paltry words. "My life is in thy hands, my Emperor!" which must have been said to him often enough before. Let no one reproach me if, henceforth, I keep silence on the subject of Soliman. Offenses of this kind are not mere blunders, they are the sign of complete incompetency on the part of the poet, and solely out of curiosity, not because it is necessary to demonstrate my argument, I shall continue to analyze Zriny, Helena, and ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... incompetence of the right heart, more or less temporary perhaps, from muscular exertion. This incompetence being frequently repeated, peripheral veins may dilate. Moreover, the contraction of the right heart may cause a wave in the veins of the extremities, and he believes that incompetency of the tricuspid valve may be the cause of varicosities in the veins of ...
— DISTURBANCES OF THE HEART • OLIVER T. OSBORNE, A.M., M.D.
... administration. On the way across Siberia, I met with many Russians, some of whom were army officers, and one and all bitterly criticized the government for its mismanagement of the war, for the betrayal of Russia as they called it, for its incompetency, and general worthlessness. At the capital, it was the same, everywhere, street, car, and public places, the government was denounced; there was no attempt at concealment. In the archives where I worked, which are almost under the very nose ...
— The Russian Revolution; The Jugo-Slav Movement • Alexander Petrunkevitch, Samuel Northrup Harper,
... scarcely be any hope of checking, until this central point of the mutiny had fallen before the British arms. A position more dispiriting can scarcely be imagined; and to all these causes for despondency were added the incompetency and fatuity of the Indian government, and the procrastination of the home government in the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... he first learns to teach at all. The pupil of a Normal School gains there a start and an impulse, which carry him forward the rest of his life. A very little judicious experimental training redeems hundreds of candidates from utter and hopeless incompetency, and converts for them an awkward and painful drudgery into keen, ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart
... a few semi-tropical islands, producing parrots and cocoanuts chiefly, and inhabited by harmless barbarians living in an idyllic state of poverty and idleness. The enthusiasm aroused by his first voyage subsided and his fame as an explorer was obscured by his incompetency as a governor. He himself never lived to comprehend the real importance of his discovery and he persisted in regarding the islands as the outposts of a great Oriental empire. Having sailed to seek a short route to the ancient East, ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt
... human capacity; it is the point of speech beyond our treasury of language. He attacked the shrug, as he thought, very temperately; but in controlling his native vehemence he grew, perforce of repression, and of incompetency to deliver himself copiously in French, sarcastic. In fine, his contrast of the pretence of their noble country to head civilization, and its encouragement of a custom so barbarous, offended M. d'Orbec and ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... a large number of which are offered for sale by their respective patentees, who in many cases have no definite lines to pursue in negotiating their patents; many realizing little or nothing from their inventions through careless or bad management, while others, through incompetency, drift into the hands of unscrupulous patent-selling agents only to ...
— Practical Pointers for Patentees • Franklin Cresee
... rather higher than the average for urban districts, according to official figures, but Dally seems to consider it as typical. He gives examples of the carelessness and incompetency of the rural record keepers, and insists that the percentage is really much higher than the official figures would indicate. He estimates the consanguineous marriages in France not including second cousins, at from four ...
— Consanguineous Marriages in the American Population • George B. Louis Arner
... with his second Vice substituted for the first, with the more justification, as "Andy" Johnson was impeached for his incompetency. Detective Baker put it this way: "As to the crazy folks, I must take my chances. The most crazy people being, I fear, some of ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... priestly vocation—a hypocrite brings reproach upon the religious profession—a dishonest lawyer sinks the legal character—and even the bravest men care but little for promotion in an army, when cowardice and incompetency are rewarded with rank and power. But manifest incapacity, culpable neglect of duty, or even a positively vicious character, will not reduce a calling to contempt, or bring it into disrepute so soon, as any quality which ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... man "paid off'' is sometimes retained and the foreman, on the evidence of prejudice, bad temper, or other incompetency, is discharged. In consequence every workman knows that his place does not depend upon the whim of his immediate superior, but that faithful service will ...
— Increasing Efficiency In Business • Walter Dill Scott
... been the course of this trial if expert testimony were established upon proper principles? Professor Aiken having shown his complete incompetency in the Schoeppe case, the analysis would have been entrusted to some skillful chemist, who by failing to discover poison would have established the innocence of Mrs. Wharton, or by bringing positive results into court have ensured conviction; or, Dr. Aiken having made the analysis, and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... the care of her rulers and patriots to admit of the consideration of lesser objects. With the best of hearts and affections devoted to the welfare of her niece, Miss Emmerson had early discovered her own incompetency to the labour of fitting Julia for the world in which she was to live, and shrunk with timid modesty from the arduous task of preparing herself, by application and study, for this sacred duty. The fashions of the day were rapidly ...
— Tales for Fifteen: or, Imagination and Heart • James Fenimore Cooper
... have a master, is a sign of incompetency on your part to command others, and you will do better work under the leadership of ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... Substitutes, forwarded in a documentary form to Edinburgh. It would scarce be wise to attempt extemporizing an official code in a newspaper article; but the laws of such a code might, we think, be ranged under three heads,—immorality, incompetency, and breach of trust to the parents. We would urge the dismissal, as wholly unqualified to stand in the relation of teacher to the youthhead, of the tippling, licentious, or dishonest schoolmaster; further, we would urge the ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... motto. All history is strewn with its brilliant victims, the wrecks of half-finished plans and unexecuted resolutions. It is the favorite refuge of sloth and incompetency. ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... himself the multitude of occasions arising in the daily work of the library, where promptness, tact, and wide knowledge of books will make a success, and the want of any of these qualities a failure. Still less can he judge the competency or incompetency of one who is to be employed in the difficult and exact work of cataloguing books. Besides, there is always the hazard that trustees, or some of them, may have personal favorites or relatives to prefer, ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... be remembered that the English writer in Longman's Magazine, had got to the point when after trying to get out of the expedition by pleading poverty, incompetency, and anything else I could think of, I was forced to go on my way to England with apparent satisfaction. We had putrid pork and mouldy biscuit, but still I informed the King that we were "content and cheerful." Had I given him any other intelligence, the chances are that he would have had ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 3rd, 1891 • Various
... appreciating his own personal responsibility for my safety—so that should he still hold any wrongful designs, and afterwards succeed in carrying them out, he or his attorneys will be debarred from again pleading insanity or mental incompetency. ...
— Quit Your Worrying! • George Wharton James
... interests in universal order, and the loyalty of the parts to the wholes. The desire to remove the obligations and sanctions of the moral law from their intrinsic supports, and posit them on the fictitious pedestals of a forensic heaven and hell, reveals incompetency of thought and vulgarity of sentiment in him who does it, and is a procedure not less perilous than unwarranted. If the creation be conceived as a machine, it is a machine self regulating in all its parts by the immanent ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... superiority and distinction, a burning ambition for fame. He had the body of a giant, and a giant's mental apparatus. But with all his gifts, physical and spiritual, all his energies and aims, he arrived at middle life a melancholy spectacle of failure and incompetency. There was no one object which he could pursue with steadiness and patience—no single mark to which he could perseveringly apply the combined powers of his gifted intellect. He frittered his faculties upon a hundred trifles, never concentrated them upon a worthy ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... from the Dalles October 30, under conditions that were not conducive to success. The season was late for operations; and worse still, the command was not in accord with the commanding officer, because of general belief in his incompetency, and on account of the fictitious rank he assumed. On the second day out I struck a small body of Indians with my detachment of dragoons, but was unable to do them any particular injury beyond getting possession of a large quantity of their winter food, which their hurried ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 1 • Philip H. Sheridan
... habitation, the sensations that seized my mind are better felt than I can describe. It is now six weeks since I began to wear the matrimonial chain. I have clasped it without one thought of regret, and through grace I hope I ever shall; yet am conscious of my own incompetency to fill up the sphere I have entered. Oh! my God, help me, help me. I bless God my mind is drawn to seek my heaven in Jesus, although my earthly comforts are ready to ensnare me: yet having been taught to know the uncertainty of all ...
— Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth
... capitulation of Baylen were termed by the Emperor himself the Caudine forks of the French army. He attributed the disaster to treachery on the part of Dupont: it was the result of the rashness of the expedition, and the incompetency of the conductor. The richest part of Spain was freed wholly of the invaders: the light troops of Castanos pushed on, and swept the country before them; and within ten days, King Joseph perceived the necessity of quitting Madrid, and removed his ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... that men had stayed and fought in them when only a mass of ruins. The French, indeed, were entirely sheltered the last days; to my unpractised eyes, the extent and thoroughness of their works seemed miraculous, and gave me the first clear idea of the incompetency of the Italians to resist organized armies. I saw their commanders had not even known enough of the art of war to understand how the French were conducting the siege. It is true, their resources were at any rate inadequate to resistance; only continual sorties would ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... pushed her hair behind her ears, and prepared herself to prove her capability of helping him in Euclid. She began to read with full confidence in her own powers; but presently, becoming quite bewildered, her face flushed with irritation. It was unavoidable: she must confess her incompetency, and she ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various
... an old story of a Roman general, who after a most terrific defeat, a defeat due largely to his own incompetency, not only escaped censure but was officially thanked by the senate, because he declared publicly that he did not despair of the republic. Of that same temper ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... Mr. Rathbawne discharged fifteen employees on the ground of incompetency. It is hard to see exactly what Mr. Rathbawne means by 'incompetency.' These men were not newcomers. Some of them had been in the mills for as much as eighteen months. It seems as if he might have discovered the alleged ...
— The Lieutenant-Governor • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... institution for the reception and profitable employment of a greater number of pupils, would very materially depend on the director, and be, in a great measure, accelerated or retarded by his ability or incompetency for a due discharge ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... Various disappointed schemers, among these one person who had not been allowed to make an undue profit out of the university lands, and another who had been allowed to depart from a professorship on account of hopeless incompetency, were the main witnesses. The onslaught was led by the person who made the attack in the legislature, and he had raked together a mass of half-truths and surmises; but the evidence on Mr. Cornell's side consisted of a complete exhibition of all the facts and documents. The unanimous ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... almost said undue— reverence. It has been a labor of love, and he has performed it well. The book will be a popular one, as readers who are not familiar with or do not understand Browning's poetry either from incompetency, indolence, or lack of time, can here gain a fair idea of Browning's poetical aims, influence, and works without much effort, or the expense of intellectual effort. Persons who have made a study of Browning's poetry will welcome it as a matter of ...
— A Brief History of the English Language and Literature, Vol. 2 (of 2) • John Miller Dow Meiklejohn
... rather starving, as attaches to some theatre, the signal for disturbance whenever they present themselves; detected by the lynx eyes of the public, whether disguised as Roman citizens or Neapolitan brigands, and severely punished for incompetency by heaped-up insult and abuse. These men live and die miserably; yet, doubtless, their lives are checkered with rays of hope; they regard themselves as martyrs, and die with the secret consciousness that they ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... general:—to-morrow, the leader, who had hitherto been invincible, must acknowledge a victor. This morning was to place it beyond a doubt, whether the victories of Gustavus at Leipzig and on the Lech, were owing to his own military genius, or to the incompetency of his opponent; whether the services of Wallenstein were to vindicate the Emperor's choice, and justify the high price at which they had been purchased. The victory was as yet doubtful, but certain were the labour and the bloodshed by which it must be earned. Every private in both armies, ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... on duty in General Hospitals, are under the exclusive control of the senior medical officer, who will direct their several duties, and may be discharged by him when considered supernumerary, or for incompetency, insubordination, or violation of his orders. Such discharge, with the reasons therefor, being endorsed upon the certificate, will be at once ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... the defeat of the Irish and Spanish confederacy at Kinsale, O'Neill comforted himself with the assurance that Philip III. would send another expedition to Ireland to retrieve the honour of his flag, and avenge the humiliation it had sustained, owing to the incompetency or treachery of Don Juan d'Aquila. That the king was inclined to aid the Irish there can be no question; 'for Clement VIII., then reigning in the Vatican, pressed it upon him as a sacred duty, which he owed to his co-religionists ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... OR INCOMPETENCY.—This is the most common valvular disease. The segments of the valve may be shortened and deformed. There is often stenosis (narrowing) caused by this deformity. The effects are regurgitation, flowing back of blood from the left ventricle into ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... sound, left me small time for consideration. "We doubt," said that journal, "if a more feeble collection of drivel could have been made, even if taken exclusively from the editor's own verses, which we note he has, by an equal editorial incompetency, left out of the volume. When we add that, by a felicity of idiotic selection, this person has chosen only one, and the least characteristic, of the really clever poems of Adoniram Skaggs, which have so often graced these columns, we have said enough to satisfy our readers." The Mormon Hill "Quartz ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... disingenuous misrepresentation from incompetent men, who have entered upon labors they were never fitted to accomplish. Such men undertake their labors in ways that want and must want the Divine sanction; and they are tempted to ward off a just verdict of unsuitableness and of incompetency by bringing many and grievous charges against their flocks. "A mania for church-extending"; "a hankering for architectural splendor"; "or for discursive and satirical preaching"; "or for something florid or profound": these and the like imputations have been put forward, as a screen, by many an ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... half a dozen verses, I met with Mr. Tennyson's poems; and the unequalled sketches of women that I found there, while they had, with the rest of the book, a new and abiding influence on my mind, were quite enough to show me my own fatal incompetency in that line. I threw my verses away, never to resume them. Perhaps I proved thereby the depth of my affection. Our mightiest feelings, are always those which remain most unspoken. The most intense lovers and the greatest poets have generally, I think, written ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... your wishes; and our conduct towards Mr. Galloway, who has much to answer for, has been chiefly directed by his representations." "Galloway is the evil genius that pursues us everywhere," wrote the same correspondents on the 25th of September; "his presumption is only equalled by his incompetency. Whatever he has to do with is miserably deficient. We do not think his misconduct has been intentional; but it has proved most fatal to the interests of Greece, and of those engaged in her behalf. On your lordship it has pressed peculiarly hard; and most ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... kindest-hearted but weakest gentleman who ever wore the name of king! When the distracted Louis gave the impotent order for the National Assembly to disperse, and for the three bodies to assemble and vote separately, according to ancient custom; and then when he gave still further proof of childish incompetency by telling the Tiers Etat they were "not to meddle with the privileges of the higher orders," kingship had become a mockery. It was a child telling the tornado not to come ...
— A Short History of France • Mary Platt Parmele
... American lunch-counter, its baked beans, and pies, and its cream cakes and doughnuts under glass covers. I don't believe English people are as good as we are; they can't be; they're too comfortable. I wonder if the little discomforts of living in America, the dissatisfaction and incompetency of servants, and all the other problems, will work out for the nation a more exceeding weight of glory, or whether they will ...
— Penelope's Postscripts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... never disturbed the dreams of a schoolboy; yet no one has ever pressed a reasonable undertaking with more earnestness and confidence than Burr his visionary purpose. He exhibited, throughout, an infatuation and a degree of incompetency for great achievements, which would cover the enterprise with ridicule, were it not for the misfortunes which it ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... obtaining. In most Southern States in which Negro preachers could not be deterred from their mission by public sentiment, they were prohibited by law from exhorting their fellows. The ground for such action was usually said to be incompetency and liability to abuse their office and influence to the injury of the laws and peace of the country. The elimination of the Christian teachers of the Negro race, and the prevention of the immigration of workers from the Northern States rendered the ...
— The Education Of The Negro Prior To 1861 • Carter Godwin Woodson
... be classified as physical losses, economic losses, and social losses. The immediate physical effect is exhilaration, but this is succeeded by lassitude and incompetency. The stimulus gained is momentary, the loss is permanent. It is well established that even small quantities of alcohol weaken the will power and benumb the mental powers. Habitual use depletes vitality and so predisposes to disease. Life-insurance policies consider the alcoholic a poor risk. The ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... excessively pleased. If Lady Bertram, with all her incompetency and languor, could feel this, the inference of what her niece, alive and enlightened as she ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... old driver heartily disliked his little fireman—whom he always dubbed an intruding foreigner—and had more than once reported him to me on the ground of incompetency, I concluded his remarks were not wholly disinterested, and was about to reprove him, when Ovide, with much heartiness, replied: "Dat's not your bizness to ax me question lak dat; I'm not on de engine now." He then raised his shoulders ...
— A Lover in Homespun - And Other Stories • F. Clifford Smith
... for the reason that the necessary fluids naturally flow into the bowels to lubricate and quiet, and proceed at once to repair all irritated surfaces, which is abundantly supplied by nature from the mouth of the sphincter ani, without which forethought and preparation, nature's God will prove his incompetency for the great ...
— Philosophy of Osteopathy • Andrew T. Still
... committee took a mass of testimony, disclosing abuses and frauds of a startling character, covering over 1,000 printed pages. The majority of the committee, Messrs. Bocock, Groesbeck and Ready, submitted a report condemning the glaring abuses proven, and, while reporting the inefficiency and incompetency of subordinate officers and employees, yet declared that nothing had been proven which impeached the personal or official integrity of the Secretary of the Navy. ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... weighed against it in the balance of the sanctuary. When the Lord hath spoken, well does it become the whole earth to be silent before him; when the eternal Judge Himself hath decided, the witness of man bears on its very face the stamp of incompetency ...
— Primitive Christian Worship • James Endell Tyler
... of French marshals, was appointed to try him; but they had little inclination to pass sentence on an old companion in arms; and declared their incompetency to try one, who, when he consummated his treason, was a peer of France. Accordingly, by a royal ordinance of November 12th, the Chamber of Peers were directed to take cognizance of the affair. His defence ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 405, December 19, 1829 • Various
... the defense and the assault, so certain to rise swiftly to the level of every emergency, as the boy who, in the good old phrase, had been "well-raised" in a Godfearing home, and went to the field in obedience to a conviction of duty. His unfailing courage and good sense won fights that the incompetency or cankering jealousy of commanders had lost. High officers were occasionally disloyal, or willing to sacrifice their country to personal pique; still more frequently they were ignorant and inefficient; but the enlisted ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... this sweeping disaster for the Union arms did not deceive either President Lincoln or the people, who had once more seen the lives of thousands of our gallant troops sacrificed on the altar of shoulder-strapped incompetency. The killed and wounded in this battle numbered about 25,000, of whom more than half were Unionists. These figures repeat eloquently that real soldiers were waiting for a real general. The death of "Stonewall" Jackson at Chancellorsville ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... Laurier himself was as profoundly and sincerely a free trader in power as he had been out of office. Enemies aver that the Laurier government now launched reciprocity to divert public attention from criticism of the railroad policy, in which there had undoubtedly been great incompetency and gross extravagance—an extravagance more of a recklessly prosperous era than of dishonesty—but this motive can hardly be accepted. If Laurier had launched reciprocity as a political dodge, he would have sounded public opinion and learned that it was ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut |
