"Lacking" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... filled it. The sharpness of sound when it did come, the strangeness of suppressed excitement, the unfamiliar place with Split's quick figure missing, the loneliness of being without her, the boredom of lacking a playmate or a fighting-mate—it all affected Sissy as the prelude of a drama the end of which has something terrifyingly fascinating in it. It must be wonderful to die, thought Sissy, with a swift, ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... on the Green Meadows than Blacky the Crow when he hopes to gain something thereby. His tongue is so smooth that it is a wonder it does not drip oil. He is crafty, is Blacky. But these same things are true of Reddy Fox. No one ever yet had a chance to accuse Reddy Fox of lacking in sharp wits. Mistakes he makes, as everybody does, but Reddy's wits are always keen ...
— Bowser The Hound • Thornton W. Burgess
... judgment: 'So, to return to myself, the sole feature for which I hold myself in some esteem is that in which no man has ever thought himself defective. My self-approbation is common, and shared by all. For who has ever considered himself lacking in common sense? This would be a self-contradictory proposition. Lack of sense is a disease that never exists when it is seen; it is most tenacious and strong, yet the first glance from the patient's eye pierces ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... she halted, ashamed to be so lacking in cordiality. "I want to see you. That's a cold, cruel way to greet a fellow who's just come home from college and rushes over to see ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... action, and lack of spirits prevents passive enjoyments from being entered upon with zest. In brief, life becomes a burden. The irritability resulting now from ailments, now from failures caused from feebleness, his family has daily to bear. Lacking adequate energy for joining in them, he has at best but a tepid interest in the amusements of his children; and he is called a ...
— Practical Ethics • William DeWitt Hyde
... of their relative position among remedies is due to empiricism which is founded on daily experience, on observation of results obtained in specific cases, facts that are handed down from father to son for generations. The scientific explanation is lacking, but those first ideas frequently owing their origin to chance, or, perhaps, to superstition, have often been based upon the observation of facts which, although fortuitous, are ...
— The Medicinal Plants of the Philippines • T. H. Pardo de Tavera
... continued in Middle English lyric poetry. These lyrics are often lacking in polish; the tendency to use alliteration as an ornament has nothing to do with such occasional troubadour examples of the trick as may be found in Peire d'Auvergne. Sometimes a refrain of distinctly popular origin is added to ...
— The Troubadours • H.J. Chaytor
... new bond between them seemed to soften him. He took more interest in his tenants and their needs than he had ever done; and works of charity on his part as well as on his sweet young wife's were not lacking. He seemed to have set all his hopes on the child that was coming, and as he looked deeper into the future the dark shadow that had come over his face seemed to ...
— Dracula's Guest • Bram Stoker
... Jack. "Who would choose to grow old and be forgotten? What should we do sitting stiffly in an armchair, wearing slippers because boots hurt our poor swollen feet? What should we be without a pair of legs strong enough to grip the saddle or with eyes too dim to recognise a pretty woman, lacking fire to fall in love, and with lips which had ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner
... was lacking to complete the dismal picture and to bring out the full symmetry between the end of Nicholas' reign and its ominous beginning: a medieval ritual murder trial after the pattern of the Velizh case. And a trial ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... refining influences of God's grace and love by living near the Master, very soon the beauty of expression which is born of consecration and unselfishness, the irradiation of lofty emotions, the tenderness caught from Him, will not be lacking, and some eyes that look upon them will ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... shifts from the centre of interest, which may be on one side, to the other side of the canvas. If there be something there to receive it, the balance it seeks is gratified. If it finds nothing, the artist must create something, with the conclusion that some element of the picture was lacking. ...
— Pictorial Composition and the Critical Judgment of Pictures • Henry Rankin Poore
... I was there after dinner, watching intently, saying little, and hearing the very least possible, when there approached me one of the most eccentric figures in the country, where God has not made them lacking. He is a mixture of elevation and lowness, of good sense and madness; the notions of good and bad must be mixed up together in strange confusion in his head, for he shows the good qualities that nature has bestowed on him without any ostentation, and the bad ones without the smallest shame. ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... darling. Oh, you still don't understand! Lacking the person or thing to be sent back in Time, something that is part of the person or thing will work. It keys ...
— A World Apart • Samuel Kimball Merwin
... afterwards, or if we were alone upon the world, the last survivors of a new flood? Could we bear to write? Could we bear not to write? It is not fair to ask us. But we can admit this much without reserve; it is the second reward which tears at us, and, lacking it, we should ...
— Second Plays • A. A. Milne
... belief that it is marble. There, as at Grosvenor House, were wealth and splendour and the highest rank; a hospitable host and a handsome hostess; but the peculiar feeling of welcome, which distinguished Grosvenor House, was lacking, and the aspect of the whole place, on an evening of entertainment, was rather that of a mob ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... Farm—an amiable, kind-hearted little damsel, and a favourite with all her companions, but careless and thoughtless, with a want of steadiness and moral principle which made her teacher long to see the taking root of the good seed, whose development might supply what was lacking. ...
— Lucy Raymond - Or, The Children's Watchword • Agnes Maule Machar
... Lacking a gun limber, the Germans used a post with a cross-bar for this man's case. After that, this was a recognized mode of punishment for many petty ...
— The Escape of a Princess Pat • George Pearson
... the Bluegrass to meet this man at the railroad in Virginia, nearly two hundred miles away; he had stopped to examine some titles at the county seat and he meant to go on that day by way of Lonesome Cove. Opposite was the brick Court House—every window lacking at least one pane, the steps yellow with dirt and tobacco juice, the doorway and the bricks about the upper windows bullet-dented and eloquent with memories of the feud which had long embroiled the whole county. Not ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.
... for "more money" as her battle-cry, carried on a campaign of complaint, grumbling, nagging, fault-finding, insult and abuse, but little short of persecution, making conditions wretched and miserable at home. Things at length became quite unbearable to him—so much so that, feeble in willpower and lacking in initiative as he was and is, he was compelled to leave home and live with his aunt, since his wife had practically deserted him. Although she had sold out the furniture and the rest of the furnishings of the home, and had pocketed the money thus received, she ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... answer when we shall have spoken again with Ranjoor Singh. He shall give our answer. It is right that a regiment should answer through its officer, and any other course is lacking discipline!" ...
— Hira Singh - When India came to fight in Flanders • Talbot Mundy
... poetry at all? Some people ask that question, and for them the case may be hopeless. If the lyric sense is utterly lacking, then it is their sad lot to live in the desert of the practical world. Art is not for them: neither music nor poetry nor painting nor sculpture nor architecture; for something of the lyric impulse lives in all of these. But many ...
— A Book Of German Lyrics • Various
... settle matters by taking up a warlike attitude, it turns out that we have landed ourselves in war, and what is more, in war on our own frontiers, with and for the King of Prussia. We have everything in perfect order, only one little thing is lacking, namely, a commander in chief. As it was considered that the Austerlitz success might have been more decisive had the commander in chief not been so young, all our octogenarians were reviewed, and of Prozorovski and Kamenski the latter was preferred. ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... explanation be lacking, its significance seems to run beneath the texts. At the first apparition of Jesus, the chief preoccupation of those that stood about was what prophet of the old days had returned in the new. Some thought him Elijah. ...
— The Lords of the Ghostland - A History of the Ideal • Edgar Saltus
... evidently made for a theological disputant, and fell back at once on the inexpugnable stronghold of faith when other evidence was lacking. "There's a fool! I know it is true, because I know it," is the exemplar and epitome of the sceptic-crushing process in other places than ...
— The Evolution of Theology: An Anthropological Study - Essay #8 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley
... myself and my fore parts with holy water, and my hinder parts with the things that make clean, and my inward parts have been [immersed] in the Lake of Truth. There is not one member of mine wherein truth is lacking. I purified myself in the Pool of the South. I rested in the northern town in the Field of the Grasshoppers, wherein the sailors of Ra bathe at the second hour of the night and at the third hour of the day." One would think that the moral worth of the deceased was such that he might then pass ...
— The Literature of the Ancient Egyptians • E. A. Wallis Budge
... scenes, some bold, telling strokes, in Jarvis's handling of his theme. Again, it was utterly lacking in drama. The author stopped the action ...
— Bambi • Marjorie Benton Cooke
... so very hot, but if Mr. Pawket had not asked this question he would have felt lacking in geniality. He did not, however, go forward to intercept possible mail. There was the little iron box with his name on it nailed to the tulip-tree; there was the red signal to be adjusted. It pleased Mr. Pawket to realize that the government had all this planned out for his special ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1919 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... them, but because their invariable policy was to kill any strangers on any grounds over which they themselves ever hunted, no matter what man had the best right thereto. The Kentucky hunters were promptly taught that in this no-man's-land, teeming with game and lacking even a solitary human habitation, every Indian must ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... most conspicuous in Lisbon, and partly in consequence that city is only a little modern capital, somewhat feebly imitating Paris in certain ways, and, consequently, lacking the individuality and interest of Oporto. Yet Lisbon has a charm of its own; and the beauties of the Aveneida, the Roscio (known to the English as the "Rolling Motion Square," from its curious pattern of black and white pavement), the ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... revealing the cash-basis aspect of the old gentleman's objection: "You say that there are forty officers in the Marine who have contracted marriages similar to that which you propose to make. You have better models to follow, and in any case what was lacking on the side of birth, in these instances, was compensated by fortune. Without that balance they would not have had the baseness and imprudence to marry thus." Poor Eleonore had no compensating balance of that kind in ...
— Laperouse • Ernest Scott
... square-built, sturdy-looking man of some forty years. His appearance was the reverse of engaging, but by no means lacking in intelligence. He was ill-satisfied and annoyed with the universe, and habitually defied it from the stronghold of a double bed. Thither he had retired after the death of his father, an old market-porter, who had been crushed by the fall of a basket of potatoes. The son saw in this tragic ...
— A Girl Among the Anarchists • Isabel Meredith
... periods of animal husbandry and primitive agriculture on the very narrow margins produced during bountiful harvests. When harvests were bad, husbandmen and farmers were reduced to starvation levels. Lacking means of storage and refrigeration as well as facilities for transporting heavy materials such as food, fuel and building materials, pre-civilized society accumulated wealth slowly in mobile forms (precious metals and jewels) and ...
— Civilization and Beyond - Learning From History • Scott Nearing
... other moods, and, perhaps, he is at his best when he is writing about flowers. Occasionally he wearies the reader by tedious enumerations of plants, lacking indeed reticence and tact and selection in many of his descriptions, but, as a rule, he is very pleasant when he is babbling of green fields. How pretty these stanzas from the ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... were lacking, for no wagons could be found in the deserted villages, and for this reason many whose wounds had been dressed had to be left to their fate—to die. Those but slightly wounded and those even who could crawl in some manner followed ...
— Napoleon's Campaign in Russia Anno 1812 • Achilles Rose
... Because of the lack of technical and educational opportunities for Negroes in America, fewer blacks than whites were included in the manpower pool, and Tuskegee, already overburdened with its manifold training functions and lacking the means to train bomber crews, was unable to fill the training gap. Sending black cadets to white training schools was one obvious solution; the Army Air Forces chose instead to postpone the operational ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... Pot an idealist. If he were, he might have been tempted to mistake the Pipkin for a statelier, more pretentious Vessel—a Vase, say, all graceful curves and embossed sides, but shallow, perhaps, possibly lacking breadth. No, the Pipkin is a pipkin, made of common clay—even though it has the uncommon sweetness and strength to overcome the tendencies of clay—and fashioned for those common uses of life, deprivation of which ...
— In the Bishop's Carriage • Miriam Michelson
... Frederick, the vast majority of citizens aimed only at a life of peace (he had been improved by his visits to the Dambreuses), and the chances were all on the side of the Conservatives. That party, however, was lacking in new men. ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert
... the loop type, possessing two of the basic or essential characteristics of the loop, but lacking ...
— The Science of Fingerprints - Classification and Uses • Federal Bureau of Investigation
... involves competition with a perfect galaxy of distinguished authors. There is always room for more of it, however, and, if Mr. VERNON RENDALL disappoints us, it is not merely because the standard has been set unusually high. His style is smooth and assured, and, though somewhat lacking in humour, his touch is light and pleasing. He begins well and interests us in his principal character so that we look forward with zest to the adventures of a personality which is everything that this sort of fiction requires. Here unfortunately the matter ends. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, June 20, 1917 • Various
... days when he was never weary of pouring forth tirades against the Philistinism he had now embraced. They admired the skill with which he painted stuffs and gowns, but among themselves they agreed that the old-time vigor and sincerity were painfully lacking in his work; and if they grumbled sometimes at the prices he got, it is only just to believe that it was seldom with any real willingness to pay, in the sacrifice of convictions and ideals, the equivalent which he had given ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... gate that opened into the long, deep-rutted lane and, folding his arms on it, looked earnestly and scrutinizingly over the buildings. They were grey and faded, lacking the prosperous appearance that had characterized them once. There was an air of failure about the whole place as if the very land had become disheartened ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... the Kentuckian. Trained to a romantic point of view she had a frank liking for handsome stalwart men. Cavendish was neither, but none knew better than Polly that where he was most lacking in appearance he was richest in substance. He carried scars honorably earned in those differences he had been prone to cultivate with less generous natures; for his scheme of life did not embrace ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... stately processions of soldiers made it, indeed, a marvellous show of power; and this was increased by the arrival of ambassadors from the Shah of Persia, who had so much helped King Humayon. They brought magnificent presents and hearty congratulations on success. So, nothing was lacking; and at night, lit up by red fires, the scene was one never to be forgotten. But with the dawn everything changed! A thousand servants set to work, and in one short half hour the garden showed green. ...
— The Adventures of Akbar • Flora Annie Steel
... of this great controversy, I shall have the consolation of believing that no efforts were lacking, on my part, to uproot the prejudices of my countrymen, to persuade them to walk in the path of duty and shun the precipice of expediency, to unloose the heavy burdens and let the prisoners go free at once, to warn them of the danger of expelling the people of color from their native land, and to ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... difficult than those of the summarizing type, their difficulty being but one effect of the cause which makes them necessary. An examination of a large number of these leads shows that their purpose is to make attractive news that for some cause is lacking in interest. Most frequently the news is old; often it is merely commonplace; or possibly it may have come from such a distance that it lacks local interest. In such cases the aid of the informal lead is invoked for the purpose of stimulating the reader's interest and ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... that gentle blood was lacking, but whose object could her abduction be—her, a penniless dependent? Could she have been seized by mistake for some heiress? In that moment's hope she asked, "Sir, do you know who I am—Anne Woodford, a poor, ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... afresh, very much crippled and embarrassed, owing over $200. I have been unsuccessful in everything. I wish to profit by my experience and to cultivate those qualities necessary to success in which I have been lacking. I have not saved as much as I ought, and am resolved to practice a rigid economy until ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume IV (of 6) - Authors and Journalists • Various
... my cousin asked me. "I shall make books." "You mean that you will be a bookseller." "Oh, no," I replied, "I mean to make books—to compose them." These dawning dispositions needed time and favourable circumstances to be developed, and what was so completely lacking in all my surroundings was ability. My worthy tutors were not endowed with any seductive qualities. With their unswerving moral solidity, they were the very contrary of the southerners—of the Neapolitan, for instance, who is all glitter and clatter. Ideas did not ring within ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... hesitation. It was evident that some great idea struggled in his thought for utterance, but it was not expressed in the theme he had chosen for his preaching. It was near the close of his sermon that he began to gather a certain strength that had been painfully lacking at ...
— In His Steps • Charles M. Sheldon
... hearty English welcome make up for anything lacking," said the doctor's lady. "He knows that ...
— The Rajah of Dah • George Manville Fenn
... arrangements for an equitable division. But the separation, thus amicably proposed, did not take place without great exasperation on both sides. In the Annual Conferences the vote authorizing the division was 2135 out of 3205, lacking 269 of the requisite majority of three-fourths. The Northern Commissioners, therefore, decided that they had no authority to act. The separation was formally effected in 1845. In May, 1848, the General Conference, held at Pittsburgh, authorized ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, July, 1851 • Various
... good-humour that I at once lost all fear of her, and found her actually attractive. Her eyes were charming, her voice pleasant and musical, and even the flowing lines of her fullness seemed to my youthful vision not wholly lacking ...
— Youth • Leo Tolstoy
... by the wet, were cut to ribbons; yet he enjoyed a peace of mind and health of body hitherto unknown. Plenty of open air, plenty of physical exertion, a continual instancy of toil—here was what had been hitherto lacking in that misdirected life, and the true cure of vital scepticism. To get the train through, there was the recurrent problem: no time remained to ask if it were necessary. Carthew, the idler, the spendthrift, the drifting dilettante, was soon remarked, praised, and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... For five years she gave herself, with love's devotion, to the mere mechanical well-being of that unhappy man, whose madness she so penetrated that she never believed him mad. She was simple in manner, frank in speech, and her pallid face was not lacking in strength and character, though its features were regular. She never spoke of the events of her life. But at times a sudden quiver passed over her as she listened to the story of some sad or dreadful incident, thus betraying ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... of your opinion, John Thomas," said the Squire, rising, and as he did so he looked at the Judge, who immediately indorsed the proposal. One after the other rose with sweet and strong assent, until there was only Tyrrel Rawdon's voice lacking. But when all had spoken ...
— The Man Between • Amelia E. Barr
... before making up their minds to do anything. A most profligate waste of time! My prime object in visiting Tunis was to obtain information concerning The Scented Garden, to consult MSS. &c. After a month's hard work I came upon only a single copy, the merest compendium, lacking also Chapter 21, my chief Righah (the absurd French R'irha) for a week or ten days [for the sake of the baths] then return to Algiers, steam for Marseilles and return to Trieste via the Riviera and Northern Italy—a route of which I am dead sick. Let us hope that the untanned ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... army garrisoning it was 10,000 strong. The number of guns possessed by the garrison was about five hundred; and the place was so strongly fortified by nature and art, that the Chinese fancied the place to be impregnable. Amoy, however, wanted a brave and skilful garrison; and lacking this, the place was soon captured. The mandarins and soldiers fled, leaving the city occupied by only a few coolies. This success was attained without the loss of a man on the part of the British; and the number of Chinese killed is supposed ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... retorted, now glowering at the engineer, "are traits which every man possesses in his own estimation, and in which he regards his neighbors as singularly lacking!" ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... dreams, discernings of spirits, and similar irrational processes. The public madness was immense, tempestuous, and unequalled by anything of the kind since the "jerks" which appeared in the early part of this century under the thundering ministrations of Peter Cartwright. That nothing might be lacking to make the movement a fact in history, it had acquired a name. As its disciples used the word "dispensation" freely, the public called them Dispensationists, and their faith Dispensationism, while their meetings received the whimsical ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... short while ago since I last visited Canada; but in twelve years there is a great change to be seen. Twelve years ago the British North American provinces were only isolated colonies, bound together by no Federal union, and lacking in the strength and deprived of the advantages of unity. Now the decrees of the Central Parliament at Ottawa are passed by the representatives of peoples whose mandates are obeyed through all that broad zone ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell
... Lacking a partner, however, I trudged on alone, plish-plash-plosh, through the clayey sludge, cold, dripping and miserable, stopping occasionally to turn my back to the wind or to tie up a wayward shoestring, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... other as they were, regardless of social prejudices. Criminals they doubtless were, yet none the less were they all remarkable for some one of the virtues which go to the making of great men, and their numbers were filled up only from among picked recruits. Finally, that nothing should be lacking to complete the dark, mysterious romance of their history, nobody to this day knows who they were. The Thirteen once realized all the wildest ideas conjured up by tales of the occult powers of a Manfred, a Faust, ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... that the music had stopped, and that certain suppressed laughs and gasps and long, silent gaps in the irregular conversation meant rather too obvious love-making for an affair which had not been formally recognized by the family. Yet the formality was all that was lacking. For if ever an affair of the heart was encouraged, was promoted, was greeted with everything but hurrahs and hosannas by the family of the lady thereunto appertaining, it was the love affair of Kenyon Adams ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... in which the volume of the eggs makes up for any lacking liquid, is still served as a savory after the sweets to finish a fine meal in some old-fashioned ...
— The Complete Book of Cheese • Robert Carlton Brown
... miscellaneous prose and poetry of this period there is lacking the free, exulting, creative impulse of the elder generation, but there is a soberer feeling and a certain scholarly choiceness which commend themselves to readers of bookish tastes. Even that quaintness of thought, which is a mark of the Commonwealth ...
— Brief History of English and American Literature • Henry A. Beers
... pieces of glass to a diamond. And yet fashion and folly are all here, sunning themselves by the sea instead of in the park; driving up and down in the same way, in equally charming toilets. But still there seems to be something lacking, something wanting. They are too small, these towns; you so soon know everyone by sight, and grow tired both of them and their costumes. There is a good deal of stir and life about all the same. There are bands, niggers, clairvoyantes, fire-eaters; plenty indeed for you to see and hear when ...
— Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Girl - Sister of that "Idle Fellow." • Jenny Wren
... me for more than once I had felt a strong desire to do like Agonashi-Jizo, though lacking the necessary courage and indifference to earthly consequences. Moreover, the tradition suggested so humane and profound a comprehension of toothache, and so large a sympathy with its victims, that I felt myself ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... for ourselves); you know that by being nearer to them you could assert your power over all these disordered possessions, and could dictate what terms you might choose; but as you now act, if some chance should give you Amphipolis, you could not take it, so lacking are you in ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... Aristotle was not lacking in religious insight and imagination, as he certainly was not without profound influence on the future history of religion. His complete rejection of mythology and of anthropomorphism; his resolute attempt to combine religion and science, not by sacrificing one to the other ...
— Five Stages of Greek Religion • Gilbert Murray
... applied to Australian-born whites only. I should have said that we saw no Aboriginals—no "blackfellows." And to this day I have never seen one. In the great museums you will find all the other curiosities, but in the curio of chiefest interest to the stranger all of them are lacking. We have at home an abundance of museums, and not an American Indian in them. It is clearly an absurdity, but it never ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... proved not lacking in penetration; men of his stamp are commonly endowed with that quality to an eminent degree. Not slow to reckon the caliber of the man before him, the leaven of intuition began to work in his adipose ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... wonderful were their feats, and their pranks so strange. But their evident anxiety to please, their glances full of question as to their success in making their offering acceptable, their unconscious efforts to supply the lacking excitement of the public gaze, and, more than all, the occasional appearance amidst the marvels of their performance, in which their bodies seemed mere india-rubber in response to their wills, of a strangely mingled touch of pathos, prevailed chiefly to interest Hester ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... be solicited, we opine, is with all earnestness for that which is lacking: of all things may be destitute he who for nothing asks: few heed the ...
— The Elder Eddas of Saemund Sigfusson; and the Younger Eddas of Snorre Sturleson • Saemund Sigfusson and Snorre Sturleson
... in addition to moral perfection possesses a highly developed intellect and power of imagination. To anticipate the objection that if this be so, why are there no prophets among the philosophers, Maimonides adds that divine grace is necessary besides, and that if this is lacking, one may have all the qualifications and yet not be a prophet. Crescas sees the forced nature of this explanation, and once more frankly returns to the plain intent of Scripture and Jewish tradition that the prophet is the man chosen by God ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... limitations, my life had been singularly full and vivid. I was born, as I say, in a public-house in the East End, and, however lacking a public-house may be in refinement and the true culture, it certainly provides plenty of excitement. Before I was six weeks old I had upset three policemen by getting between their legs when they came round to the side-door, thinking they had heard suspicious noises; and I ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... Dieppe two private letters of a discouraging sort; one correspondent said that the enterprise was to be reconsidered, the other that the boldness and constancy required "for such an enterprise" were lacking among the nobles. Meanwhile Knox had spent his time, or some of it, in asking the most godly and the most learned of Europe, including Calvin, for opinions of such an adventure, for the assurance of his own conscience and the consciences of ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... commanded by Moreau in person. There, for two more hours, a hand-to-hand struggle took place, whilst the terrible artillery belched forth death almost muzzle to muzzle. At last the Austrians, rallying for a last time, advanced at the point of the bayonet, and; lacking either ladders or fascines, piled the bodies of their dead comrades against the fortifications, and succeeded in scaling the breastworks. There was not a moment to be lost. Moreau ordered a retreat, ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... right. He carried no papers and no portfolio, and was unattended by any personal secretary, though several French ministers and officials appropriate to the particular matter in hand would be present round him. His walk, his hand, and his voice were not lacking in vigor, but he bore nevertheless, especially after the attempt upon him, the aspect of a very old man conserving his strength for important occasions. He spoke seldom, leaving the initial statement of the French case to his ministers or officials; he closed his eyes often ...
— The Economic Consequences of the Peace • John Maynard Keynes
... it, but now changed their votes and thereby reversed the action of the Senate. These senators, with the addition of Nesmith and Willey, who did not vote on the passage of the bill, gave the final count of 30 in favor of the passage to 18 against—lacking the two-thirds and therefore failing to pass the bill. The result was wholly unlooked for and the vote of Governor Morgan of New York gave great uneasiness to his political associates. It was for ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... inventions of everyone, that as children only do we laugh, and as we travel onward laughter sinks down and dies out, like the light of the oil-lit lamp. This signifies, that to laugh you must be innocent, and pure of a heart, lacking which qualities you purse your lips, drop your jaws, and knit your brow, after the manner of men hiding vices and impurities. Take, then, this work as you would take a group of statue, certain ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 1 • Honore de Balzac
... the novelle or nouvelles, in which, although pastoral subjects are occasionally introduced, the treatment is entirely independent of conventional tradition. Without making any pretence at covering the whole field of the novellieri, I may instance a tale of Giraldi's, not lacking in the homely charm which belongs to that author, of a child exposed in a wood and brought up by the shepherds. These are represented as simple unpretending Lombard peasants, who look to their own business and are credited with none of the arts and graces of their literary fellows. ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... settled down when she too experienced the same feeling of suffocation and the same involuntary opening of the jaws which Mr. Pottigrew had described. She struggled against it, but, lacking the will-power of her robust nephew-by-marriage, she was overcome by unconsciousness. When she came to, a little dazed and faint, a few moments later, she was dismayed to discover that her expensive dental-plate—a full set—was lying on the floor, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 1st, 1920 • Various
... Ja'afar, "Seest thou what I see?" Answered the Wazir, "Yes, O Commander of the Faithful; I see a dim figure on a high mound; belike he is the keeper of a garden or of a cucumber- plot, and in whatso wise water will not be lacking in his neighborhood;" presently adding, "I will go to him and fetch thee some." But Al-Rashid said, "My mule is swifter than thy mule; so do thou abide here, on account of the troops, whilst I go myself to him and get of this person [FN219] ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... years of her marriage, Rachael would say these things to herself, in the bitterness of her humiliation and disappointment. Others, less beautiful and lacking her talent, had been again and again introduced from lower ranks into the nobility of England, accepted by its queen, and honored by society. Why was she alone so persistently excluded? The answer was always ready, full of bitterness. The enmity ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens
... presence of mind, which is the most practical kind of courage; they had, while lacking everything else, the formidable improvisation of duty, which never loses heart. They had no printing-offices, they obtained them; they had no guns, they found them; they had no balls, they cast them; they had no powder, they ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... untransmissible by print; They are imbued through all things, conveying themselves willingly, Conveying a sentiment and invitation of the earth. I utter and utter: I speak not; yet, if you hear me not, of what avail am I to you? To bear—to better; lacking these, ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman
... For O, the unborn babes she keeps, The unthought glory, lips unwooed!— And O, the quickening of her sleeps Whose dreams, dreamed over, do repeat The echoes of Love's falling feet! For his, her young inviolate mouth Longs with the longing of long drouth: And, lacking substance for such feast, She clasps a dream-baby to breast, And kisses, where her head has place, The dream-lips of her ...
— Eyes of Youth - A Book of Verse by Padraic Colum, Shane Leslie, A.O. • Various
... in the camp, to which I refer later, I should have been compelled to face the bone-piercing, marrow-congealing wintry weather without the slightest covering beyond the clothes in which I stood. Those who, unlike me, were lacking a liberal friend, lay shivering, depending purely upon the warmth radiating from one another's bodies as ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... rank of moralists. Yet he taught what he felt the people could receive, and the flat mediocrity of his character and his teachings has been stamped forever upon a people who, while they are kindly, gentle, forbearing, and full of family piety, are palpably lacking not only in the exaltation of Mysticism, but in ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... repose the blind trust in him which the Duke of Wellington's soldiers reposed in their leader—a trust born of the conviction that he would lead to victory. Latterly this was Victor Emmanuel's own way of feeling towards Cavour. Sympathy was always lacking. ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... likewise "a former bailiff, without means, negligent in the highest degree and a confirmed drunkard." Alongside of these sit "a horse-dealer, without any means, more fit for shady dealings than governing, moreover a drunkard, a dyer, lacking judgment, open to all sorts of influences, pushed ahead by the Jacobin faction, and having used power in the most arbitrary manner, rather, perhaps, through ignorance than through cruelty, a shoemaker, entirely uninstructed, knowing only how to sign ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... conducting the latter, and he was soon called to give his advice on all difficult questions. Between times, Favre had courageously studied the principal bases of such sciences as were to be useful to him. In the evening, he made up at the public school what was lacking in his early instruction; not that he hoped to make a complete study for an engineer, but only to learn the indispensable. He was, before all things, a practical man, who made up for the enforced insufficiency of his technical knowledge by a coup d'oeil of surprising ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 365, December 30, 1882 • Various
... wife is at the postern, and it is fit we go to relieve her watch. Thou wilt not forget the horns of powder, since it would not tell to our credit, were there service for the pieces, and we lacking in wherewithal to give them ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... death of life, the utter annihilation of the living—save only the sparkle of reborn waters slowly covering the baked bed of the stone-edged pool—strange, luminous water, lacking the vital sky tint, enameled with a film of dust, yet, for all that, quickening with imprisoned brilliancy like ...
— The Tracer of Lost Persons • Robert W. Chambers
... may with honour and right do for Father Urban shall not be lacking. I owe him my life. I can never grudge any service for him, ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... each of these early college libraries with continuity is not to our purpose, and is perhaps not feasible. So many details are lacking. We do not know whether all the libraries, once started, were constantly maintained; but it is reasonable to assume they were, as records—a few only—of purchases and donations are preserved. Usually gifts were made only to the college in which the donor felt special interest, but sometimes ...
— Old English Libraries, The Making, Collection, and Use of Books • Ernest A. Savage
... here, and we'd be in a pretty fix if we should all get down with it, and no medicine in the house to help us out." Here he got up and drew his chair closer to his mother's side, adding in a whisper, "I've twenty-one hundred dollars in gold in my valise, lacking what I paid for my railroad ticket, and nearly four hundred dollars of it belongs to me. The rest belongs to the ...
— Marcy The Blockade Runner • Harry Castlemon
... she saw and the man that Sally knew were two different persons, drawing life from two different sources of sympathy. To her I was still, and would always be, the "magnificent animal,"—a creature of good muscle and sinew, with an honest eye, doubtless, and clean hands, but lacking in the finer qualities of person and manner that must appeal to her taste. Where Sally beheld power, and admired, Bonny Page saw only roughness, ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... would wait until he saw the kitchen light from the window of his old home. Then he would go. He waited until the whole valley was zoned with a glittering girdle, but no light glimmered out through his native trees. Why was it lacking, that light he had so often hailed at dark, coming home from boyish rambles on the hills? He felt anxious and dissatisfied, as if he could not go away until he had ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... is something lacking, the tender personal love for Himself. There's intense loyalty to Church and to the faith, but a lack of personal love for Himself. And the startling thing is that this is said to quite outweight all these good things. They may have these things without the love, but they cannot have the ...
— Quiet Talks on the Crowned Christ of Revelation • S. D. Gordon
... Paphian Venus, come, Thy well-beloved Cyprus spurn, Haste, where for thee in Glycera's home Sweet odours burn. Bring too thy Cupid, glowing warm, Graces and Nymphs, unzoned and free, And Youth, that lacking thee lacks ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace
... wife Jane, who both, after leading a happy married life, died on the very same day, August 21, 1625; and in St. Helen's Church, it is recorded that W. Lee, who died in 1637, "had in his lifetime issue from his loins two hundred lacking but three." If you work this out you will find that Mr. W. Lee's family numbered one hundred and ninety-seven. Mr. W. Lee - five times Mayor of Abingdon - was, no doubt, a benefactor to his generation, but I hope there are not many of his kind about ...
— Three Men in a Boa • Jerome K. Jerome
... of the bare spiritual facts of machinery is not denied. What seems to be lacking in the machines from the artistic point of view at present is a mere knack of making the faces plain and literal-looking. Grasshoppers would be more appreciated by more people if they were made with microscopes on,—either the ...
— The Voice of the Machines - An Introduction to the Twentieth Century • Gerald Stanley Lee
... dignified front when a traveler spoke of a meal out of the regular hour, perhaps because there was a gentleness and sincerity in the tall, honest-looking man before her that reached her with an appeal lacking in those who commonly came and went before ...
— Trail's End • George W. Ogden
... say with certainty that his calculations are reasonably based on facts, he is forced to admit that his design must be lacking, either in the elements of safety, on the one hand, or of economy, on the other, and, until he can give to his client a full measure of both these factors in fair proportion, he cannot justly claim that his profession has ...
— Pressure, Resistance, and Stability of Earth • J. C. Meem
... or had been burned or washed away. Steamboats had almost disappeared from the rivers. Those which had escaped capture as blockade runners had been subsequently destroyed or were worn out.. Postal facilities, which had been poor enough during the last year of the Confederacy, were entirely lacking for several ...
— The Sequel of Appomattox - A Chronicle of the Reunion of the States, Volume 32 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Walter Lynwood Fleming
... accused of lacking sentiment; and yet, the very first thing he did when starting for his walk the next morning was to order a large bunch of violets to be sent to number sixty-four Boulevard Saint-Germain. Then, at ...
— The Triflers • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... of you, too. I'm ever so pleased to meet you." Mary exhibited a friendliness toward Jerry Macy that had been quite lacking in her greeting ...
— Marjorie Dean - High School Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... of the ocean to the seething turmoil which Franklin found in the colonies must have been a startling transition. He had come home an old man, lacking but little of the allotted threescore years and ten. He had earned and desired repose, but never before had he encountered such exacting, important, and unremitting labor as immediately fell to his lot. Lexington and Concord fights had taken place a fortnight before he landed, and the news ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr. |
