"Incompetency" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... resisted the establishment of an 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 ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward
... her greatest 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 Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... the signs of movement grew. Regiments were moved away mysteriously, and soon the Caribees were almost alone on Meridian Hill. Jack was filled with dire fears that the commanding officer, having discovered the incompetency of Oswald, feared to take the Caribees to the front. Something of the rumor spread through the regiment, and if, as reputed, "Old Sauerkraut" (this was the name he got behind his back) had spies in all the companies, the adage about listeners was abundantly confirmed. In the secrecy of ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... family, 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 Chancery, ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... indeed, 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 arrive until ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... Thorpe would have no use for a valet. No doubt she would marry again,—Wade had his notions!—but he couldn't think of subjecting himself to the incompetency of a new master, even though his old place were held open for him. He would not be able to adjust himself to another master,—or to put it in his own words, it would be impossible to adjust another master to himself. ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... 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 in America among the farmers' wives, who ...
— Prisoners of Poverty Abroad • Helen Campbell
... his disqualification. When the Electoral Commission advised Congress, and Congress accepted, by not rejecting, the advice, that fraud could not be proved, that advice being but the equivalent of saying that fraud was of no consequence; when it advised that the incompetency of the Returning Board, for want of jurisdiction, could not be proved, such proof being but the equivalent of proof that the pretended board was not a board at all; when it advised that the forgery, by direction of the board, of the statements and affidavits on which it pretended ...
— The Vote That Made the President • David Dudley Field
... spirit and resolution rarely needed support under 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
... is any more danger on the road than in the ring, and you have never been thrown! It would be unkind, in the face of that "never," to remind you that you have been in the saddle precisely twice, and, really, there is no more danger from your incompetency, should it manifest itself on the road, than might arise from its display in the ring, but with your horse it is another matter. Having the whole world before him, why not, he will meditate, speed forth into ...
— In the Riding-School; Chats With Esmeralda • Theo. Stephenson Browne
... of a commander was perhaps the best that could have been made; for Pepperrell joined to an unusual popularity as little military incompetency as anybody else who could be had. Popularity, we have seen, was indispensable, and even company officers were appointed with an eye to it. Many of these were well-known men in rustic neighborhoods, who had raised ...
— A Half-Century of Conflict, Volume II • Francis Parkman
... 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
... Treasurer or Secretary die or be expelled, there is no doubt that an election for a successor, to fill the unexpired term, may be held by dispensation from the Grand Master. But the incompetency of either of these officers to perform his duties, by reason of the infirmity of sickness or removal from the seat of the lodge, will not, I think, authorize such an election. Because the original officer may recover from his infirmity, ...
— The Principles of Masonic Law - A Treatise on the Constitutional Laws, Usages And Landmarks of - Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... The great army of letters that marches Southward with every morning sun is a powerful engine of war. Fill them with tears and sighs, lament separation and suffering, dwell on your loneliness and fears, mourn over the dishonesty of contractors and the incompetency of leaders, doubt if the South will ever be conquered, and foresee financial ruin, and you will damp the powder and dull the swords that ought to deal death upon the foe. Write as tenderly as you will. In camp, the roughest man idealizes his far-off ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... a third-half-nephew by marriage, to whom, ground under the heel of financial incompetency, he had once loaned the startling sum of fifty dollars,—I say startling, because it startled me to know a preacher ever had that much ready cash ahead of his grocery bill. Anyhow, the third-half-nephew, with the fifty dollars as a nucleus,—I think Providence must have multiplied it a little, for ...
— Sunny Slopes • Ethel Hueston
... unrighteous judgments result from failure to ascertain and apply the truth as to the facts of the case; some from errors in judgment; some from lack of firmness in judges in enforcing the known rights of the individual on the one hand, or those of society on the other; and perhaps a very few from incompetency or corruption. These causes can be removed to a large extent, by a more rigid insistence on skill, ability, industry, learning, and courage on the part of those assuming to administer justice as ...
— Concerning Justice • Lucilius A. Emery
... Women nurses, while 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 returned ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... permitted to execute this design; instructive if it shall point while in embryo, and serve to teach me the folly of presumptuous schemes conceived during the buoyancy of youth, and only relinquished on a discovery of incompetency in later years. Meanwhile I am only contemplating the ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... these two poor, unappreciated old men, living contentedly from hand to mouth, gayly propping each other up when one or the other weakened, had strangely affected him. If, as he reasoned, such battered hulks, stranded these many years on the dry sands of incompetency, with no outlook for themselves across the wide sea over which their contemporaries were scudding with all sails set before the wind of success—if these castaways, their past always with them and ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... which 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 Eugenic Marriage, Vol. 3 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... 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 ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... 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
... days he would rather play 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
... 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, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 3rd, 1891 • Various
... impossible," he continued, "to get the nurse who left you before Nell Beecroft came, saying that she knew enough about you both to 'send you over the road.' It is not too difficult to bring to light the examples of your incredible incompetency which prove you unfit to sign a death certificate, nor is your record in Nebraska hard ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... publisher of that account) has heard Cooper himself describe with great pleasantry his first interview with the Scotch manager; he was at that time a raw country youth of seventeen. On his arrival in Edinburgh, little conscious of his appearance and incompetency, he waited on Mr. Kemble, made up in the extreme of rustic foppery, proud of his talents, and little doubting his success. When he mentioned his name and errand, Mr. Kemble's countenance changed from a ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... 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
... that such a man as Berlioz did not spare the lash, once he griped the whip-handle, and, though no man was more generous than he in recognizing and encouraging genuine merit, there was none more relentless in scourging incompetency, pretentious commonplace, and the blind conservatism which rests all its faith in what has been. Our composer made more than one powerful enemy by this recklessness in telling the truth, where a more politic man would have gained friends strong to help in ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... "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 thugs ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott
... means stopping short of the right thing. It is a makeshift. It is a failure and defeat. Not what "will do," but what is the best possible thing to do,—is the point to be aimed at! Let a man once adopt the maxim of "It will do," and he is given over to the enemy,—he is on the side of incompetency and defeat,—and we give him up ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... crushing successes of Prussia against Austria, and of Germany against France, appear to have been those of a stronger over a much weaker nation, whether the weakness were due to natural causes, or to official incompetency. How would a delay like that of Plevna have affected the fortune of war, had Turkey had any reserve of national ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... which the latter escaped by a timely retreat. The bombastic Order No. 49 which followed 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
... 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 ...
— The Grimke Sisters - Sarah and Angelina Grimke: The First American Women Advocates of - Abolition and Woman's Rights • Catherine H. Birney
... certain, human evidence cannot be 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 and presumption. ...
— Primitive Christian Worship • James Endell Tyler
... of the affair of the six novels, for it 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 ...
— The Count's Chauffeur • William Le Queux
... 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 ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... continued his march for a minute or two in silence, while Miss Lucilla waited nervously for him to speak again. It was one of the few points in the round of daily existence on which she was prepared to give him battle. It was part of the ridiculous irony of life that Derek, with the domestic incompetency natural to a banker and a club-man, should have a daughter to train, while she whose instinct was so passionately maternal must be doomed to spinsterhood. She had never made any secret of the fact that to ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... other species of the leviathan, died out of the minds of the whalemen as a body. There are those this day among them, who, though intelligent and courageous enough in offering battle to the Greenland or Right whale, would perhaps—either from professional inexperience, or incompetency, or timidity, decline a contest with the Sperm Whale; at any rate, there are plenty of whalemen, especially among those whaling nations not sailing under the American flag, who have never hostilely encountered the Sperm Whale, but whose ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... of which a man cannot be careful enough: of obstinacy, if he confines himself to his own line of thought; of incompetency, if he ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... the easiest and most slovenly way to handle the situation, not to speak of its being an inhuman way. It is, in effect, throwing upon labour the incompetency of the managers of the business. If we only knew it, every depression is a challenge to every manufacturer to put more brains into his business—to overcome by management what other people try to overcome by wage reduction. To tamper with wages before all else is changed, is to evade the real ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford
... beginning of the twentieth century it became clear that the land acquired in 1861 was not nearly enough to support a growing population. These factors, together with the disastrous Russo-Japanese war, which revealed an appalling state of corruption and incompetency in the government of the country, furnished the revolutionaries with an opportunity which was not to be missed. A rapid series of military and naval mutinies, agrarian disorders, assassinations of obnoxious officials, socialist risings in the towns, during the year 1905, culminating in the ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... take over the government of Naples, he flew, as usual, to Sicily, and under the continuous protection of British men-of-war was with great difficulty kept reigning there until the end of war, when he was again put on the throne of Naples in 1815, and forthwith commenced again his rule of incompetency and despotism, reversing the beneficent rule of his two able predecessors. The old reprobate died on the 4th January, 1825, having reigned off and on for sixty-five years, largely owing to the indulgent and costly support of the ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... fair hair, on her white arms, and small hands where one or two diamonds flashed like drops of dew,—and Aubrey, as he entered, was conscious of an overpowering sense of weakness, poverty of soul, narrowness of mind, incompetency of attainment,—for the tranquillity and sweet perfection of the picture his eyes rested upon—a picture lovelier than even the Gretchen which tempted Goethe's Faust to Hell,—made him doubtful of ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... own incompetency to exercise any protective influence on the fate of his companion, Theos said nothing, but silently followed him, as he thrust aside the drooping cypress boughs and made his way out to more open ground, his lithe, graceful figure looking ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... 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 and people, that ...
— Government and Rebellion • E. E. Adams
... 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 began to approach a ...
— Argentina From A British Point Of View • Various
... Of the incompetency of the Church, in its diffusive capacity, to be judge of controversies; and the impertinency of that ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge
... housework these days, and viewed 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. But after a breathing ...
— The Complete Home • Various
... 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. Lord Loudoun, who ...
— Canadian Notabilities, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... were also rising to distinction. These were William Gibbs McNeill, of Bladen, and William McRee, of Wilmington. Both became Colonels in the corps of engineers. Amid the frequent disasters and exhibitions of incompetency on the part of other officers in that department, these gallant men were of great credit to America ...
— School History of North Carolina • John W. Moore
... III. himself the credit of being the first person who resolutely desired to see a change of the system, and to "try the experiment whether Ireland might not be managed by open rectitude and real integrity."[128] But his first efforts were baffled by the carelessness or incompetency of the Viceroys, since it was difficult to find any man of ability who would undertake the office. And for some years things went on with very little change, great lords of different ranks having equally no object but that of controlling the Castle and engrossing the ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... pages to the public, without the trace of an excellent scholar or eloquent orator, I fully realize my inability to compete with writers of the nineteenth century. With this incompetency in view, I have hesitated and delayed until three-score and thirteen years are closing over me. Yet as I am still spared to toil on a little longer in the great field so white to harvest, praying the Lord of the harvest ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... inserted after the sixth, and entitled "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, ...
— Life of Charles Darwin • G. T. (George Thomas) Bettany
... interpretation of the shrug in argument is beyond 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
... news of the day that the Americans will stay, and the intelligence of the city would regard its redemption as assured, every drooping interest revive, and an era of prosperity unknown under the dismal incompetency of Spain, open at once. It is legitimate that there should be freedom of speech as to the details of the proceedings. If our Government should do what Admiral Dewey did when he was the master of Manila, because he had annihilated the Spanish fleet and had the power to destroy the city—cast anchor ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... 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 ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... 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 very ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... now attacked the Grecian Empire again, captured Adrianople, and laid siege to Constantinople. There were two emperors in the city then, in succession to Leo the Philosopher—Romanus Lecapenus and Constantine Porphyrogenitus. For all the grandeur of their names they rivalled one another in incompetency and timidity. Simeon was able to force upon the Grecian Empire a humiliating peace, which made Bulgaria now the paramount Power in the Balkans, since Servia had been already subdued by her arms. From the Roman Pope, Simeon received authority to be called ...
— Bulgaria • Frank Fox
... 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 ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... loyally contributed all the troops it could spare. But the plans had been drawn up in London and had been worked out by British commanders; and the acknowledgment of failure was a confession of British, not French, incompetency. It was a blow at British prestige such as had not been dealt since the early disasters of ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... to my help with the information that it was "coontie" (Zamia integrifolia), famous as a plant out of which the Southern people made bread in war time. This confession of botanical amateurishness and incompetency will be taken, I hope, as rather to my credit than otherwise; but it would be morally worthless if I did not add the story of another plant, which, in this same New Smyrna hammock, I frequently noticed hanging in loose bunches, like blades of flaccid deep green grass, from ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey
... elevator ascended you met with more courtesy and consideration. By the time you passed the fourth floor the man behind the desk had time to answer a relevant question, as he was not riled by his own incompetency. ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt
... 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 right to insist that merit and competency ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... Was such a state of pitiable helplessness ever seen or heard or dreamed of anywhere! And yet this church, please to observe, is supposed to be a body sent by God to teach. Heaven preserve us from such a teacher. As a further illustration of the utter incompetency of the Establishment to perform this primary duty, we may call to mind the strikingly instructive correspondence that was published some years ago between his Grace Archbishop Sumner and Mr. Maskell, who very naturally and very rightly sought direction ...
— The Purpose of the Papacy • John S. Vaughan
... patronage, the progress of events, and the chance of luring the opposing party into by-questions, the Presidential Micawber of the moment is almost sure that something will turn up to extricate him from the consequences of his own incompetency or dishonesty. The only check upon this system is the chance that the temerity engendered by irresponsible power may lead the executive to measures which, as in the case of Kansas, shall open the eyes of thinking ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... full relief the different phases of a life so varied, so laborious, so gloriously interlaced with the greatest events of the most memorable epochs of our history. Fortunately, the scientific discoveries of the illustrious secretary had nothing to dread from the incompetency of the panegyrist. My object will have been completely attained if, notwithstanding the imperfection of my sketches, each of you will have learned that the progress of general physics, of terrestrial physics, and ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... 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 was the old philosophy which accepted ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... 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 with ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... in his life enumerated above. All went well with 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 ...
— Studies in Forensic Psychiatry • Bernard Glueck
... 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 the individual, ...
— A Review of Uncle Tom's Cabin - or, An Essay on Slavery • A. Woodward
... went on the new master of Fool's hall, "I reward with the government of Guienne, for he who governs his own house so ill is surely fitted for greater tasks of incompetency." ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... which is afforded by the denominational exhibit in the village works great harm to boys. It is not only that they are deprived of that guidance which true Christianity would give them, but they are confronted from the first with a spectacle of pettiness, jealousy, and incompetency which they will probably forever associate with Christianity, at least in its ecclesiastical forms. Villages are at best sufficiently susceptible to those unfortunate human traits that make for clique and cleavage in society, and when ...
— The Minister and the Boy • Allan Hoben
... 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 ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 1 • Philip H. Sheridan
... admiration and applause, a craving after 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 purpose once. Pride, emulation, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... 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 dismissal (and ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... put on a similar boldness; they would help heads of colleges out of very trying difficulties with well-meaning but incompetent or indolent professors. Undergraduate popularity is often illusive and unstable, but undergraduate perception of incompetency is often very keen ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... 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 ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart
... evidence as to this. Cicero himself brings this accusation, but not in that direct manner which he would have used had he been able to prove it. The Sicilians, at any rate, said that it was so. As to the incompetency of the man, there was probably no doubt, and it might be quite as serviceable to have an incompetent as a dishonest accuser. Caecilius himself had declared that no one could be so fit as himself for the work. He knew Sicily well, ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... drawing of character in Henry, Eleanor, and Becket, but there is a want of concentration, due, perhaps, to the long period of time covered by the action. So, at least, it seems to a reader who has admitted his sense of incompetency in the dramatic region. The acuteness of the poet's power of historical intuition was attested by Mr J. R. Green and Mr Bryce. "One cannot imagine," said Mr Bryce, "a more vivid, a more perfectly faithful picture than it gives both of Henry and Thomas." Tennyson's portraits of these ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang
... 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
... from the Queen Regent expressing Her Majesty's hope that Count Ofalia's Note [of 11th May] would be satisfactory to me, and stating that Her Ministers had so fully proved their incompetency by giving any just cause of complaint to the Minister of Her only real Friend and Ally, The Queen of England, that she should have dismissed them, were it not that the state of affairs in the Northern Provinces at ...
— The Life of George Borrow • Herbert Jenkins
... believe she would be able to rule. Any one who understood the nature of the political factions in Russia well knew that an uprising among the nobles might occur upon any pretext, and no pretext could be so powerful as the suspicion of incompetency in the sovereign. The seat of a ruler who did not ...
— The Vizier of the Two-Horned Alexander • Frank R. Stockton
... great big stupid man, what an opportunity I have procured for all of you?" was the question that came in the soft voice of the beautiful Madam Patricia Whitworth. "All my life I have worked just to get a little ease and comfort, carrying the burden of Jeff in his incompetency strapped to my shoulders, and now you, who know how I've suffered and slaved, are going to take it all from me when it is just within my reach, and all from no earthly reason than a fancied scruple of honor which that old doddering woman-hater imposes on you. I cannot believe that you ...
— The Daredevil • Maria Thompson Daviess
... chance. 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 ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... circumstances, were no doubt justified in the policy they pursued, for the Swabian emperors failed to respect the acknowledged rights of the church, and to remember their own incompetency in spirituals; but evidently their political views and aims were liberal, far-reaching, and worthy of admiration. Their success, if it could have been effected without lesion to the church, would have set Europe forward some two or three hundred years, and ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson
... idiots, and other defectives; but the results of more careful examinations of the subject invalidate the views heretofore held, and it must be acknowledged that when both parties are healthy there is no more liability of mental incompetency in the children of cousins, than in the offspring of persons more remotely related. It must be added, however, that there are other reasons why the marriage of cousins is not to be generally recommended. Besides ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... imitating the perfidy of Napoleon's own conduct to Spain. This battle and 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, ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... was born 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 hearts ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... we now know as the survival of the fittest, the mere's capacity had snuffed out her weaker spouse's incompetency; she had taken her place at the helm, because she belonged there by virtue of natural fitness. There were no tender illusions which would suffer, in seeing the husband allotted to her, probably by her parents and the dot system, relegated to the ignominy of passing his days washing ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... heard 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 such courses; ...
— State Trials, Political and Social - Volume 1 (of 2) • Various
... hundred men of average ability would not have descended from his balloon-like elevation with any better grace. It is in the last degree unjust to brand with disloyalty, conduct that seems to be a result natural enough to incompetency. That upon certain occasions he may have been used for disloyal purposes by designing men, may be the consequence of lack of discrimination rather than ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... 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.
... at times accused of incompetency, and traitors slandered him, but Congress stood by him and the country had confidence in him; as well it might, since, while he had not gained great victories, and even perhaps had made military mistakes, he had delivered Boston, had rescued the remnant of his army ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XI • John Lord
... reason that the wind scatter the sands of the desert—a man full of books and tangent inconsequence of ideas, without sense; a simpleton who knows a painting but does not know men; a garrulous, philosophizing, blind, old simpleton, whose pompous incompetency has betrayed a trust! Through me, men and women came here to settle and make a home! Through me they ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... 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 ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... "Personally I care very little. Popularity and prosperity can be manufactured by any shrewd press-agent employed at so much a year. Without publicity, the professional man or woman would never obtain a hearing. These are the days when incompetency properly boomed raises the incompetent to greatness—and even to Cabinet rank. Neither would the society woman ever obtain a friend without her boom," he went on. "Bah! I'm sick of it all!" he added with a sweep of his thin white hand. ...
— The Stretton Street Affair • William Le Queux
... 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 upon ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... arm. Defective guns and materiel furnished by the States had to be withdrawn, and replaced by the more serviceable ordnance with which the regular batteries were being armed. Boards of examination were organized, and the officers thoroughly examined. Incompetency was set aside, zeal and efficiency rewarded ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... Sister Anything, unfortunately. You could only go as Nurse Rosemary Gray; for I engaged her this morning, and posted a full and explicit account of her to Dr. Mackenzie, which he will read, to our patient. I never take a case from one nurse and give it to another, excepting for incompetency. And Nurse Rosemary Gray could more easily fly, than prove incompetent. She will not be required to eat in the kitchen. She is a gentlewoman, and will be treated as such. I wish indeed you could be in her shoes, though I doubt whether you could have carried ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... prosecution. The court reconvened and a new talesman was called, resembling in appearance a professional hangman who for relaxation leaned toward the execution of Italians. Mr. Tutt examined him for bias and every known form of incompetency, but in vain—then challenged peremptorily. Thirty challenges! He looked on Tutt with slightly ...
— Tutt and Mr. Tutt • Arthur Train
... I knew the 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 commiseratingly and continued: "You not be 'fraid, ...
— A Lover in Homespun - And Other Stories • F. Clifford Smith
... 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, ...
— Burgoyne's Invasion of 1777 - With an outline sketch of the American Invasion of Canada, 1775-76. • Samuel Adams Drake
... 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 ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... duties are legally supposed to be defined by the three expressions, "hand, reef, and steer." If he can do those three things, which mean furling or making fast sails, reefing them, and steering the ship, his wages cannot be reduced for incompetency. Yet these things are the A B C of seamanship only. A good SEAMAN is able to make all the various knots, splices, and other arrangements in hempen or wire rope, without which a ship cannot be rigged; he can make a sail, send up or down yards and masts, ...
— The Cruise of the Cachalot - Round the World After Sperm Whales • Frank T. Bullen
... upon poor human nature are exceedingly delightful to our careerists. Every unpleasant social fact, every outrage to our best instincts, every exhibition of incapacity, incompetency, inefficiency, indifference, every example of super-criminal negligence is pardoned as an effect of that universal sin, human nature. Take the case of the statesman and the diplomats who failed to prevent the Great War, ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... Arthur Wellesley's first foreign service was in 1794, when his regiment was sent to the support of the Duke of York, who was near the end of his ignominious campaign in the Low Countries. In March, 1795, he was back in England, disgusted with the incompetency of his superiors. Of the value of this experience he afterward said, "Why, I learned what one ought not to do, and that is always something." At the time, however, he was less philosophical, and after consulting with his wise elder brother as to the future possibilities ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... believe, that the degree—if we are rightly informed, no slight one—of interest with which these volumes were welcomed in England, was sufficient to blind their readers to the extreme incompetency with which the translations ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXIX. - March, 1843, Vol. LIII. • Various
... 1898 was a joke, a pitiful exhibition of incompetency and unreadiness in every department. We only won because Spain was more unprepared than we were. And as to our great naval victory, the truth is that the Spanish fleet ...
— The Conquest of America - A Romance of Disaster and Victory • Cleveland Moffett
... of throwing away their lives. They calculated on a rising of the Syracusans to throw off an insupportable yoke, and they had utter contempt for the tyrant himself, knowing his drunken habits, and effeminate character, and personal incompetency. So, after ten years' exile, Dion, with his followers, landed in Sicily, at Heracleia, also in the absence of Dionysius, who had quitted Syracuse for Italy, with eighty triremes, so that the city was easy ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... week after Thanksgiving. I had fancied myself appearing among my scholars like a king surrounded by his subjects. But these lofty notions soon melted down beneath the searching glances of forty pairs of eyes. A sense of my incompetency came over me, and I felt like saying,—"Young people, little children, what can I do for you, and how shall ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... taken up again his successor would be in charge. He, the indefatigable, the over-intense, with his mediaeval partisan fervor, who loathed in secret machines like Turcas, was the first man of the staff to go for incompetency. ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... to engage in the act, to any considerable extent, without suffering therefrom. If such case arises, the best should be made of the situation, the more robust party accommodating himself or herself to the incompetency or inability of the other, and the weaker one doing all that can rightly be done to strengthen and develop his or her infirmity. If this is done, the chances are many to one that, as times goes on, the parties ...
— Sane Sex Life and Sane Sex Living • H.W. Long
... by the approach of a Spanish squadron, 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 the hands of Menendez, and its garrison was mercilessly put to death. The same fate befell the ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... entered a sane mind. A wilder or more chimerical scheme 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 brought ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... talents displayed 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 ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... untarnished through the fire of criticism. Not so with all his subordinates, although in the case of the great majority of these there were shown bravery and devotion to duty, even though sometimes linked to narrowness and incompetency. ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... north, where, in February 1644, old Leslie, with twenty regiments of foot, three thousand horse, and many guns, was besieging Newcastle. With him was the prototype of Scott's Dugald Dalgetty, Sir James Turner, who records examples of Leslie's senile incompetency. Leslie, at least, forced the Marquis of Newcastle to a retreat, and a movement of Montrose on Dumfries was paralysed by the cowardice or imbecility of the Scottish magnates on the western Border. He returned, took Morpeth, was summoned by Prince Rupert, and reached him the day after the disaster ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... he cannot be insensible to the genius, the learning, the philosophic inspiration, the generous devotion to virtue, and the love of country, displayed in the writings now committed to the press, is restrained, not less by his incompetency, than by his relation to the Author, from dwelling on themes which belong to an eloquence that can do justice to the names of illustrious benefactors to their country ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... appointed by the house of Representatives; and as it has been before the world for some months without refutation, I think that I have a right to presume it to be true.* On no less authority than this would I consider myself justified in bringing any such charge. Of Mr. Seward's incompetency I have heard very much among American politicians; much also of his ambition. With worse offenses than these I ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... St. Mary's, went home to his village parish church only to hear the hymn murdered, or if it were Advent, Christmas, or Easter, a tradesman shout from the gallery, "We will now sing to the praise and glory of God a hanthem!" when a motet would be sacrificed to incompetency with every circumstance of barbarity attending the execution. Mr. Newman in language of appalling force, written a year after his conversion, has described the Anglican service as "a ritual dashed upon the ground, trodden on, and broken piecemeal; prayers clipped, ...
— Cardinal Newman as a Musician • Edward Bellasis
... Notwithstanding the incompetency of so diminished a pittance, the daily task of the soldier and convict continued unaltered. I never contemplated the labours of these men without finding abundant cause of reflection on the miseries which our nature can overcome. Let me for a moment quit the cold track of narrative. Let me not ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... 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
... interests at Johannesburg. With political principles thus unstable and a mind strangely sensitive to any emotional appeal, it is not surprising that Mr. Merriman displayed the proverbial enthusiasm of the convert in his new political creed. His original perception of the imprudence and administrative incompetency of President Krueger's regime was rapidly obliterated by a growing partizanship, which in turn gave place to an unreasoning sympathy with the Boer cause, combined with a bitter antipathy against all who were concerned, whether in ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... forbearance toward the insolent French minister was no longer required by the most exacting courtesy. His official communications, and public and private acts, were becoming too offensive to be longer tolerated by the government, without virtually abdicating authority and acknowledging its utter incompetency. So the president called the cabinet together at the beginning of August to consult upon the matter, when the whole official correspondence between Jefferson and Genet, and the conduct of the latter, were thoroughly reviewed. The result was, a determination that the ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... of any perishable form of products, who are already successful in the producing end, wish to take up co-operation and will see that men are selected to manage it who will use the same precautions to guard against incompetency or graft that they, as individuals, would use in their own business, there is excellent chance ...
— The Dollar Hen • Milo M. Hastings
... that very many of these are kept open but three months during the year.[64] The inadequacy of existing provisions for the proper education of the rising generation will be more strikingly apparent when we consider the incompetency of, I may perhaps safely say, the majority of persons who are put in charge of the public schools of the country. It is readily conceded that, in those states where education has received most attention, ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... been, through adventitious circumstances, pushed in our country to a sudden and not wholly merited prominence, Sir. Spencer's republished essays may be named,—while they acknowledge some progress in details, disclose an undertone of growing conviction of the incompetency and unsatisfactoriness of our present modes of teaching and training. The Oswego School Report, speaking of primary education, tells us 'There has been too much teaching by formulas;' and that 'We are quite too apt, in the ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... While from the incompetency of the administration the country was fast approaching the real crisis of open war, the Republicans in Congress were deliberately destroying and undermining the basis of national credit, by which alone it could be carried on. In February the ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... a proof of this incompetency, that now, when really called upon for advice in an emergency, he should recommend a continuance of the interim. Certainly nothing worse could be devised. Granvelle recommended a reappointment of the Duchess Margaret. Others ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... into Osage Court House. Fire, pillage, countless stores wasted, trains destroyed, miles of railroads rendered useless. What, in Heaven's name, could his superiors be thinking of, to run such risk with one of the bases of supplies? Somewhere—somewhere, not far from corps headquarters, sat incompetency enthroned—gross negligence—under a pair of starred shoulder straps. And, musing bitterly, he thought he knew to whom those shoulder ...
— Special Messenger • Robert W. Chambers
... the naval force of the enemy accumulated on our coasts, our private cruisers also have not ceased to annoy his commerce and to bring their rich prizes into our ports, contributing thus, with other proofs, to demonstrate the incompetency and illegality of a blockade the proclamation of which is made the pretext for vexing and discouraging the commerce of neutral powers ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... traveller. Beltrami (1823) attacked 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 way by boat up the entire ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various |
