"Shortcoming" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Retainer; and Yue-ts'un, apprehending, on the other hand, lest he might in the presence of others, divulge the circumstances connected with the days gone by, when he was in a state of penury, naturally felt very unhappy in his mind. But at a later period, he succeeded, by ultimately finding in him some shortcoming, and deporting him to a far-away place, in ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... brought was eaten with such a relish as hunger only can impart. I was fortunate in respect to quantity, for my companion was not well, and could not eat much; but I atoned for his shortcoming by eating both ...
— Daring and Suffering: - A History of the Great Railroad Adventure • William Pittenger
... very conservative in their ideas. Outwardly polite, they are not unfrequently coarse in conversation. If the Canadian evinces respect, it is expected that he will be treated with respect in consideration therefor. His chief shortcoming is excessive sociability. When once settled among friends and relatives he cannot leave them—absence from home does in truth only make the heart grow fonder of home associations. He is active, compactly made, but generally below rather than above ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... well that ends well, and only that is well, then this story fails at the finish, for we never caught the cannibals, so never taught them the lesson in housekeeping and economics that they needed. But there is no other shortcoming ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... Alessandro walked up and down between the kitchen and the shed. He could hear the sounds of rattling dishes, jingling spoons, frying, pouring water. Savory smells began to be wafted out. Evidently old Marda meant to atone for the shortcoming of the noon. Juan Can, in his bed, also heard and smelled what was going on. "May the fiends get me," he growled, "if that wasteful old hussy isn't getting up a feast for those beasts of Indians! There's ...
— Ramona • Helen Hunt Jackson
... sculpture of M. Dubois seems positively to have but one defect, a defect which from one point of view is certainly a quality, the defect of impeccability. It is at any rate impeccable; to seek in it a blemish, or, within its own limitations, a distinct shortcoming, is to lose one's pains. As workmanship, and workmanship of the subtler kind, in which every detail of surface and structure is perceived to have been intelligently felt (though rarely enthusiastically rendered), ...
— French Art - Classic and Contemporary Painting and Sculpture • W. C. Brownell
... achievement of a favourable comparison with other men; and therefore the repugnance to futility to a good extent coalesces with the incentive of emulation. It acts to accentuate the struggle for pecuniary reputability by visiting with a sharper disapproval all shortcoming and all evidence of shortcoming in point of pecuniary success. Purposeful effort comes to mean, primarily, effort directed to or resulting in a more creditable showing of accumulated wealth. Among the motives which lead men to ...
— The Theory of the Leisure Class • Thorstein Veblen
... self-denial, and self-abasing, in hungering and thirsting after more of righteousness, in the secret engagements of the heart to God in Christ, in these burstings of heart and bleeding of soul, to which God alone is witness, because of shortcoming in holiness, because of a body of death within, and because of that law in the members warring against the law of the mind, and bringing often into captivity to the law of sin, as it grows upward ...
— Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life • John Brown (of Wamphray)
... to the recipes are interesting, copious and well-authenticated. The editor reveals himself to be a better scholar, well-read in the classics, than a practical cook, well-versed in kitchen practice. Frequently, for instance, he confounds liquamen with garum, the age-old shortcoming of the ...
— Cooking and Dining in Imperial Rome • Apicius
... I am using terms unjustifiable in violence. They would, indeed, be unjustifiable, if, spoken from this chair, they were violent at all. They are, unhappily, temperate and accurate,—except in shortcoming of blame. For we are not only impotent to restore, but strong to defile, the work of past ages. Of the impotence, take but this one, utterly humiliatory, and, in the full meaning of it, ghastly, example. We have lately been busy embanking, in the capital ...
— Aratra Pentelici, Seven Lectures on the Elements of Sculpture - Given before the University of Oxford in Michaelmas Term, 1870 • John Ruskin
... the old complaint of Japanese goods failing to come up to sample, the shortcoming is often due not to intentional dishonesty but simply to inability to produce a uniform product. In one factory an order had to be filled by bringing together work from 300 different places. The first delivery of the cloth produced for the Russian army was like the sample, ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... In a Roman soldier such dependence is inadmissible. Let me see no more of it whilst we are in the city. Further, your orders are that in addressing Christian prisoners, the manners and tone of your men must express abhorrence and contempt. Any shortcoming in this respect will be regarded as a breach of discipline.(He turns to the ...
— Androcles and the Lion • George Bernard Shaw
... for Common Curselors first published in 1566-7. He did not escape conviction, however, for Samuel Rowlands showed him up in Martin Mark-All. Yet another instance of wholesale "conveyance" is mentioned in the Note to "Canting Rhymes" (ante). In spite of this shortcoming, however, and a certain recklessness of workmanship, the scholar of to- day owes Dekker a world of thanks: his information concerning the social life of his time is such as can be obtained nowhere else, and it is, therefore, ...
— Musa Pedestris - Three Centuries of Canting Songs - and Slang Rhymes [1536 - 1896] • John S. Farmer
... movement or repose, [39] the criticism is a happy one: Virgil lingers over these with more affection than any previous writer. The absence of a strong feeling for the peaceful or the grand in nature has often been remarked as a shortcoming of the Greek mind, and it does not seem to have been innate even in the Italian. Alpine scenery suggested no associations but those of horror and desolation. Even the more attractive beauties of woods, rills, and flowers, were hailed rather as a grateful exchange from ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... of the church were closed, wherein he was like Nero, who allowed no one to leave the theater while he was singing. But the former did it for the salvation and the latter for the corruption of souls. Fray Salvi rarely resorted to blows, but was accustomed to punish every shortcoming of his subordinates with fines. In this respect he was very different from Padre Damaso, who had been accustomed to settle everything with his fists or a cane, administering such chastisement with the greatest good-will. ...
— The Social Cancer - A Complete English Version of Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... food in stock, and most families not more than a few days; yet no one ever entertains the slightest apprehension of a failure in the supply, or even of a variation in the price from day to day in consequence of any possible shortcoming. That this should be so, would be one of the most surprising things in the history of modern London, but that it is sufficiently accounted for by the magnificent system of roads, canals, and railways, which connect it with the remotest corners of the ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles
... that some of the shortcoming lies with yourself?" continued Mr. Furlong. "Is it not possible that as a preacher you fail somewhat, do not, as it were, deal sufficiently with fundamental things as others do? You leave untouched the truly vital issues, such things ...
— Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich • Stephen Leacock
... under fire, made him the idol of the army. Nor was his reputation confined to the Confederate ranks. "I think even our men," says a Federal officer, "had a kind of admiration for him, as he sat unmoved upon his horse, and let them pepper away at him as if he enjoyed it." His one shortcoming was his ignorance of drill and discipline. But in the spring of 1862 these deficiencies were in a fair way of being rectified. He had already learned something of tactics. In command of a few hundred mounted riflemen and a section of horse-artillery he was unsurpassed; and if his men ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... to the unconverted world, but where it has presented the Gospel, it presents it to all men as a Gospel of salvation and sanctification. When tempted to discouragement let us remember that whatever the shortcoming of the Church, it is yet true that every man, woman and child in these United States of America can through its instrumentality, become a saint whenever he desires. But, naturally, to become a ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... failure, n. failing, deficiency, shortcoming, lack; omission, pretermission, default, nonperformance, neglect, dereliction nonfulfillment, nonobservance; nonsuccess, miscarriage, frustration, abortion, foil, fizzle, fiasco; deterioration, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... was by no means absent from Byron though hardly present at all in most respects as regards Shelley and Keats. Certainly in none of the groups, and only in one or two individuals, is there much if any shortcoming as concerns letter-writing. Wordsworth indeed makes no figure as a letter-writer, and nobody who has appreciated his other work would expect him to do so. The first requisite of the letter-writer is "freedom"—in a rather peculiar sense of that word, closest to ...
— A Letter Book - Selected with an Introduction on the History and Art of Letter-Writing • George Saintsbury
... corn-plants from the seed which the Greeks typified by the descent of Proserpine into Hades for a season of the year and her triumphant re-emergence to the upper air. Meanwhile he fasts and atones for any sin or shortcoming of his which may possibly have offended the goddess and cause her to hold her hand. From the beginning of Asarh (June) the Oraons cease to shave, abstain from eating turmeric, and make no leaf-plates for their food, but eat it straight ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... before me and thrust out his hand. "Hello!" he said. I thought his "Hello!" might be French quite as easily as American, so I merely returned his handshake. He grinned, and then said in perfectly good "American": "You forget me, huh?" I admitted my shortcoming in memory; but his beard was very thick and stubby and his uniform was very dirty. I complimented his linguistic ability. He waved his arms, saying: "Huh, didn't I live eight years in little old New York?" Then ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... way. Failure on such points would have so much surprised him that he would scarcely have known what steps to take. But Jervis, his butler, knew what was best as well as Mr. Tatham did, and was quite as little disposed to put up with any shortcoming. I say I am not sorry for him that he was not married—up to this time. But, as a matter of fact, the time does come when one becomes sorry for the well-to-do, highly respectable, refined, and agreeable man who has everything that heart can desire, except the best things in life—love, ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... indebtedness to Godkin, it is with some reluctance that I present a certain phase of his thought which was regretted by many of his best friends, and which undoubtedly limited his influence in the later years of his life. A knowledge of this shortcoming is, however, essential to a thorough comprehension of the man. It is frequently said that Godkin rarely, if ever, made a retraction or a rectification of personal charges shown to be incorrect. A thorough search of The Nation's columns would ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... conflict with the freeholders of Westminster. Discontent became active and general. "Junius" began, in his letters, to attack boldly the King's friends, and into the midst of the discontent was thrown a message from the Crown asking for half a million, to make good a shortcoming in the Civil List. Men asked in vain what had been done with the lost money. Confusion at home was increased by the great conflict with the American colonies; discontents, ever present, were colonial as well as home. In such a time Burke endeavoured to show ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke
... I shall accept the challenge, doctor. The wit on one side will, I am afraid, be very shortcoming; but the poetry on the other ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... had full command of the phraseology of the demagog. His only shortcoming in the eyes of his own party was that he had not been persecuted by the Government. The officials, alas, soon supplied this deficiency. A few days before the Presidential election in July, 1910, when making a speech in Monterey, Madero was arrested as a disturber of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... thought in the young man's mind. His consciousness seemed to be full of rebellion, longing and amazement. Never in his life had he been refused anything he greatly desired, when he had justice on his side. Now he was rejected, not for a shortcoming, but, according to his religious lights, for a virtue instead. His gaze searched the visible portion of the other chamber and found Rachel. In the half-light he saw that she had cast herself down against the sarcophagus, ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... She wove her needle into the seam, a practise so habitual that probably she would have done the same if the lamp had exploded unexpectedly, and crossing to the kitchen door, opened it without warning. A small untidy woman, the shortcoming of her appearance partly concealed by the old plaid shawl that enveloped her person, dodged away from the key-hole with a celerity perhaps due ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... he is a competent moralist than there is to suppose that I am a competent mathematician. But truly it does not matter whether he is a moralist or not. Let nobody dream for a moment that what is wrong with the Censorship is the shortcoming of the gentleman who happens at any moment to be acting as Censor. Replace him to-morrow by an Academy of Letters and an Academy of Dramatic Poetry, and the new and enlarged filter will still exclude original and ...
— Mrs. Warren's Profession • George Bernard Shaw
... went by; Alan picked up increasing skill at the game, but failed to win. He saw his shortcoming, but could not do anything to help it: he was unable to extrapolate ahead. Hawkes was gifted with the knack of being able to extend probable patterns two or three moves into the future; Alan could only work with the given, and ...
— Starman's Quest • Robert Silverberg
... This funny shortcoming about him was known; this trait of his was ridiculed good-naturedly and unceremoniously, but willingly forgiven for the sake of that independent comradely obligingness and faithfulness to his word, given to a man (oaths ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... to record, though probably many will think them superfluous. Perhaps they will serve to give a true idea of the magnitude of the undertaking, and of the great responsibility which weighed upon me, and thus prove an anticipatory excuse for any accusation of shortcoming or dilatoriness that may be preferred against me. I will not, however, enter further into the business-details of the expedition—merely observing that, among other things to which I had to attend during my stay in Mourzuk, were, in the first place, to collect ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson
... speech. "But your father remembers nothing of it, and if there was a single human being who shed a tear in Barchester for that woman, I believe it was your father. And it was the same with mine. It came to that at last, that I could not bear to speak to him of any shortcoming as to one of his own clergymen. I might as well have pricked him with a penknife. And yet they say men become heartless and unfeeling ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... nominee of the Democrats, was attracting the attention of the whole nation. This local contest not only enlisted Mr. Clay's interest, but aroused his deep personal feeling. In a private letter, since made public, he urged the editors of the Whig press "to lash Butler" for some political shortcoming which he pointed out. In a tone of unrestrained anger, he declared that "we should have a pretty time of it with one of Jackson's lieutenants at Washington, and another at Frankfort, and the old man in his dotage at the Hermitage dictating to both." To lose Kentucky ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... painter, he is also a great artist. Yet we may safely infer, that, if he has been true in one department of the several which constitute art, he cannot have been false in others. Should there be a shortcoming, it must be that of a man whose mission does not include that wherein he fails. Fidelity to himself is all we should demand. We say this for those who are disposed to depreciate what an artist actually accomplishes, because in some one point Turner or Overbeck ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... interest in the professional and business ventures of his race-variety can be of weight, there are several antecedent facts of primal value to be considered. If devotion to either class is lacking, it must be remembered, that shortcoming is traceable to causes which, however marked may be their effects in the Negro's case, are equally marked and striking in others of similar condition. Given centuries of environments and discipline hostile to the development of racial pride and co-operation, the result will not be unlike, ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... here; you will have one of these taxes to pay every stage to Uyofu, and then the heavy work will begin; for all these men, although they assume the dignity of chief to themselves, are mere officers, who have to pay tribute to Suwarora, and he would be angry if they were shortcoming." ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... certain sides of human life and, secondly, early distortion of originally good human powers by arbitrary interference with the orderly course of human development ... a suppressed or perverted good quality—a good tendency, only repressed, misunderstood or misguided—lies at the bottom of every shortcoming." Hence the only remedy even for wickedness is to find and foster, build up and guide what has been repressed. It may be necessary to interfere and even to use severity, but only when the educator ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith
... Lancaster-road was to possess a diploma of respectability not easily vitiated by individual conduct. No disreputable persons had ever yet set up their unholy Lares and Penates in one of those new slack-baked villas; and that person must have been very bold who, conscious of moral unfitness or pecuniary shortcoming, should have ventured to pitch his tent in that ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... the sound of her horse's footsteps died away on the road; and then, sinking on her knees beside her rocking-chair, she poured forth her whole heart in prayers and tears. She confessed many a fault and shortcoming that none knew but herself, and most earnestly besought help that "her little rushlight might shine bright." Prayer was to little Ellen what it is to all that know it—the satisfying of doubt, the soothing of care, the quieting of trouble. She had knelt down very uneasy; but ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner
... ending with e or other letters not good to sing. Some exceptionally beautiful poems possess this shortcoming, and, again, words that prove insurmountable obstacles. I have in mind one by Aldrich in which the word 'nostrils' occurs in the very first verse, and one cannot do anything with it. Much of the finest poetry—for instance, the wonderful writings of Whitman—proves ...
— Edward MacDowell • Lawrence Gilman
... you, Mrs. Upton, with the deepest pain," he said, "that I agree with Miss Imogen. I must inform you, Mrs. Upton, that you have no right, legal or moral, to bind us by your own shortcoming. Miss Imogen and I may do our duty without ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... his pet ambition to write for the "London Charivari." Unhappily, its realisation came too late to permit him to do justice to his talent and his humour; and he himself was only too conscious of his sad shortcoming, or, rather, of his failing powers. Only eight papers had come from his hand when it closed in death. In September the first of his papers was published—"Personal Recollections;" the last in November—"A Visit ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... replied the other. "And d'ye know, this makes me think of that Injun that got lost, and was found, half starved, by some white men; but he was too proud to admit his little shortcoming; so when they asked him if he hadn't kinder managed to get twisted in his bearings, he slaps his breast with his hand, take a pose like this, and says he: 'Injun not lost; wigwam lost; Injun here!' And we're like that Injun, Giraffe; oh! no, we're ...
— The Boy Scouts in the Maine Woods - The New Test for the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... grief in things as they are, in man as he has come to be, as he certainly is, over and above those griefs of circumstance which are in a measure removable—some inexplicable shortcoming, or misadventure, on the part of nature itself—death, and old age as it [182] must needs be, and that watching for their approach, which makes every stage of life like a dying over and over again. Almost all death is painful, and ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume Two • Walter Horatio Pater
... "that, to combine the ceremonial shortcoming of the eunuch with the imperfect faith of the Samaritan, is to arrive at the admission of the Gentiles[56]." Preparation had been made in both these instances for the carrying out of the Divine scheme by means of St. Philip, whose fellow-Deacon had ...
— A Key to the Knowledge of Church History (Ancient) • John Henry Blunt
... his shortcoming it must be said that Freytag, at the time of the accession to the throne of the present head of the German Empire, laid himself open to much censure by attacking the memory of the dead Emperor Frederick who had always been his ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... moment, and in these days it was very far from being well with Paul Armstrong. Yet the jaundiced fit served its turn, and even whilst its anguish burned and nauseated, he began to ask one wholesome question: 'For whose shortcoming, for whose wrong-doing, for whose virtues turned vicious, and whose vices tuned to airs of virtue, do I thus suffer?' The answer was at first confused and loud. Annette's name was noisy in it Claudia's sounded there. So did Gertrude's. And of course the poor ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... his own business. And indeed the hour was now close at hand in which he should be sitting as a director at the Shadrach Fire Assurance Office. If not at the Shadrach by two, or, with all possible allowance for the shortcoming of a generally punctual director, by a quarter past two, he would be too late for his guinea; and now, as he looked at his watch, it wanted only ten minutes to two. He was very particular about these guineas, and the chambers of the Shadrach were away ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... that is rarely cured. Apology is only egotism wrong side out. Nine times out of ten, the first thing a man's companion knows of his shortcoming is from his apology. It is mighty presumptuous on your part to suppose your small failures of so much consequence that you must ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... One shortcoming of such methods of arming an aeroplane will be observed. Ahead firing only is possible; the weapon cannot be trained astern, while similarly the line of fire on either broadside is severely limited. This is one reason why ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot
... said aloud. "You give yourself away, old sport! Don't you, now!" The mirrored head shook in disparaging admission of its own shortcoming. Jenny bent nearer, meeting the eyes with a clear stare. There were wretched lines about her mouth. For the first time in her life she had a horrified fear of growing older. It was as though, when she shut ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton
... means many things. It means first and foremost an understanding of human nature; a realization that the great shortcoming of industry has been that it held, as organized, too little opportunity for a normal outlet to the normal and more or less pressing interests ...
— Working With the Working Woman • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... quantity or degree.] Inequality. — N. inequality; disparity, imparity; odds; difference &c. 15; unevenness; inclination of the balance, partiality, bias, weight; shortcoming; casting weight, make- weight; superiority &c. 33; inferiority &c. 34; inequation[obs3]. V. be unequal &c. adj.; countervail; have the advantage, give the advantage; turn the scale; kick the beam; topple,topple over; overmatch &c. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... the conditions of his fellow men. He was a fanatic, let it be admitted, but a fanatic who suffered and labored for his cause. He was stigmatized as a demagogue, and many of the attributes of the demagogue adhered to him. But he was not a demagogue, for he sought nothing for himself... His great shortcoming was singleness of vision. He fixed his eyes upon one height and was unable to see ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... ideal was to be daring in speech and reckless in braving dangers, both moral and physical; and though her practice fell far behind her ideal, this shortcoming seemed to be due to the pettiness of circumstances, the narrow theatre which life offers to a girl of twenty, who cannot conceive herself as anything else than a lady, or as in any position which would lack the tribute of respect. She had no permanent consciousness ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... it should hardly be imputed to John as a fault or a shortcoming that he did not for a long time realize his father's failing powers. True, as has been stated, he had noted some changes in appearance on his return, but they were not great enough to be startling, and, though he thought at times ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... romances—of which, though written last of all, this is the third, chronologically speaking—the author is very conscious of error and shortcoming. But the theme was surely worth attempting; and if the failure to convince be only partial then is the writer grateful to the Fates, and well content to leave it to the next and ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... army had been in Orleans since May 4, he supposes that, on the evening of Friday the 6th, it was still expected.[53] From such blunders we may judge of the muddled condition of this poor priest's brain. His most serious shortcoming, however, is the invention of miracles. He tries to make out that when the convoy of victuals reached Orleans, there occurred, by the Maid's special intervention, and in order to carry the barges up the river, a sudden flood ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... not probable that Gissing will ever succeed in impressing himself. There is an absence of transcendental quality about his work, a failure in humour, a remoteness from actual life, a deficiency in awe and mystery, a shortcoming in emotional power, finally, a lack of the dramatic faculty, not indeed indispensable to a novelist, but almost indispensable as an ingredient in great novels of this particular genre.[1] In temperament and vitality he is palpably inferior to the ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... asserted; for indeed in other matters he was bright and clever, and his father had been well pleased with the progress he made with his studies; but, in the first place; he hated his work, and, in the second, every shortcoming and mistake was magnified and made the most of by the foreman, Andrew Carson. This man had long looked to be taken into partnership, and finally to succeed his master, seeing that the latter had no sons, and he conceived a violent jealousy ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... lack, scantiness, defect, economy, inadequacy, need, shortcoming, deficiency, failure, insufficiency, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... wretched as they, or even more so, being convinced of her own shortcoming in not having won the affection or confidence that would have made all open between them. She could not understand why Hubert Delrio should not have been ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... of his home he was depressed and dispirited to a degree; and to that genial temper, which once he could count on against every reverse that befell him, there now succeeded an irritable, peevish spirit, that led him to attribute every annoyance he met with to some fault or shortcoming of others. ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... They well deserved,—and yet not so.— They had not baptism, which is the gate Of Faith,—thou holdest. If they lived before The days of Christ, though sinless, in that state God they might never worthily adore. And I myself am such an one as these. For this shortcoming—on no other score— We are lost, and most of all our torment is That lost to hope we live in strong desire." Grief seized my heart to hear these words of his, Because most splendid souls and hearts of fire I recognized, hung in that Limbo there. "Tell me, my master dear, tell me, my sire," ...
— Emerson and Other Essays • John Jay Chapman
... city of St. Augustine was fully equipped with religious institutions and organizations. Grave complaints are on record, which indicate that the great number of the Indian converts was out of all proportion to their meager advancement in Christian grace and knowledge; but with these indications of shortcoming in the missionaries there are honorable proofs of diligent devotion to duty in the creating of a literature of instruction in the barbarous ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... the death of Adam. He then sent His Word, and raised him up and said to him, "Fulfil your offering, for indeed, Adam, it is worth much, and there is no shortcoming ...
— First Book of Adam and Eve • Rutherford Platt
... This shortcoming could not be laid at his own door. He talked steadily on. After a while, though, a reaction of weariness began to blunt Dempsey's sprightly vivacity. His talk trailed off into grunts and he slept the sleep of a hurt ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... to 1899 devoted himself to the writing of lyrics. For the past thirteen years he has been busiest with dramas, in none of which has he more than approximated to a dramatic quality that is as great as the quality of his lyrics. He has owned himself one reason of such shortcoming, in the notes to "Deirdre."[2] "The principal difficulty with the form of dramatic literature I have adopted is that, unlike the loose Elizabethan form, it continually forces one by its rigour of logic away from one's capacities, experiences, and desires, ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt
... up the bank. Her head was bent, and could Gilbert have seen her face he would not have been quite so sure that his shortcoming was to her such an entirely impersonal affair. With her usual self-effacement, she made a brave attempt to put aside her grief. She had promised to spend this last evening with Arabella, and she ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... expands to a new length and breadth every time the plough passes through it. And, knowing well to whom he writes on this subject, Rutherford goes on to say that there is a sorrow for sin, and for shortcoming in service, that is as acceptable with God in the evangelical covenant as would be the very service itself. But, then, it must be what Rutherford calls 'honest sorrow after a sincere aim.' And let no man easily allow himself to take shelter under that, lest it turn ...
— Samuel Rutherford - and some of his correspondents • Alexander Whyte
... the leadership crisis that developed in black units early in the war. The logic of segregated units demanded a black officer corps, but there were never enough black officers to command all the black units. In 1942 only 0.35 percent of the Negroes in the Army were officers, a shortcoming that could not be explained by poor education alone.[2-48] But when the number of black officers did begin to increase, obstacles to their employment appeared: some white commanders, assuming that Negroes did not possess leadership ability and that black troops preferred white (p. 037) officers, ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... made an open profession of Christ have a claim to the consolation of His promises, and to the support which good men have found in the mysteries of faith; and I ask his patience and that of others who feel that I have not laid sufficient stress upon these. My shortcoming is something that I would not have you overlook in any survey of my ministry among you; and I am not here now to defend that ministry in any point of view. As I look back over it, by the light of the one ineffable ideal, it seems only a record of failure ...
— Annie Kilburn - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... 19th of March. The Letter you speak of there as "written last Saturday" has not yet made its appearance, but may be looked for now shortly: as there is no mention here of any mischance, except the shortcoming of Printers' copy, I infer that all else is in a tolerably correct state; I wait patiently for the "last Saturday" tidings, and will answer as to the matters of copy, in good heart, without ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... of Art is, how far it will carry us,—not any comparison by the yardstick. We demand to be raised above our habitual point of view, and be made aware of a deeper interest than we knew of. It is in hope of this alone that we pardon the necessary shortcoming of the means. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 76, February, 1864 • Various
... the problems contingent upon space flight it is doubtful if any are more perplexing than the biological ones. In fact, it now appears quite likely that the limiting factor on manned space exploration will be less the nature of physical laws or the shortcoming of space vehicle systems than the vulnerability ...
— The Practical Values of Space Exploration • Committee on Science and Astronautics
... anguish even, to pleasure. But if Emerson thought from the glance he gave my verses that I had better not lavish myself upon that kind of thing, unless there was a great deal more of me than I could have made apparent in our meeting, no doubt he was right. I was only too painfully aware of my shortcoming, but I felt that it was shorter-coming than it need have been. I had somehow not prospered in my visit to Emerson as I had with Hawthorne, and I came away wondering in what sort I had gone wrong. I was not a forth-putting youth, and I could not ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... and Phebe were in the welfare of Felix and Hilda. But they could never quite reconcile themselves to this marriage. They had quitted England with no intention of dwelling here again, but they felt that Phebe's shortcoming in her attachment to them made their old country less attractive to them. She had severed the last link that bound them to it. Possibly, in the course of years, they might visit their old home; but it would never seem the same to them. ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton
... not discriminate between the divine purpose and the human instrument. When we listen to Napoleon fretting his soul away at Elba, or to Carlyle wrangling with his wife at Chelsea, we are shocked at the discrepancy between the lofty public performance and the petty domestic shortcoming. Yet we do wrong to blame them; the nature of which they are examples is the same nature that is shared also by the ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... educational franchise which is estimated to give about four million voters (1 per cent of the population) although in practice relatively few vote. The Senate is elected by the Provincial Assemblies by direct ballot. In the opinion of the writer, the Chinese Parliament in spite of obvious shortcoming, is representative of the country in its present transitional stage.] Hopes rose with mercurial rapidity as a solution at last seemed in sight. But hardly had the first formalities been completed and Speakers been elected to both Houses, than by a single ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... of her appearance. Mellicent was often untidy, and even Esther had moments of dishevelment, but Peggy was a dainty little person, whose hair was always smooth, whose dress well brushed and natty. Her artistic sense was too keen to allow of any shortcoming in this respect; but she seemed blessed with a capacity of acting before she thought, which had many disastrous consequences. She was by no means a robust girl, and Mrs Asplin fussed over her little ailments like an old mother-hen with ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... handsome?—handcuffed, and on the way to the penitentiary! And I'm only an ordinary mother! The fisherwomen were now groaning and weeping all around the square, not forgetting, meanwhile, to study the Virgin's costume for any improvement or shortcoming as compared with the ...
— Mayflower (Flor de mayo) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... the standard of Giorgione's genuine work. Finding here sufficient to explain his influence, and the true seal of mastery, its authors assign to Pellegrino da San Daniele the Holy Family in the Louvre, in consideration of certain points where it comes short of this standard. Such shortcoming, however, will hardly diminish the spectator's enjoyment of a singular charm of liquid air, with which the whole picture seems instinct, filling the eyes and lips, the very garments, of its sacred personages, with some wind- searched brightness ...
— The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Horatio Pater
... forenoon she kept the child busy with various tasks and watched over her with a keen eye while she did them. By noon she had concluded that Anne was smart and obedient, willing to work and quick to learn; her most serious shortcoming seemed to be a tendency to fall into daydreams in the middle of a task and forget all about it until such time as she was sharply recalled to earth by a ...
— Anne Of Green Gables • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... nobody could (or indeed did) deny that the author, six months later, made up for any shortcoming in The Abbot, where, except the end (eminently of the huddled order), everything is as it should be. The heroine is, except Die Vernon, Scott's masterpiece in that kind, while all the Queen Mary scenes are unsurpassed in him, and rarely equalled out of him. Nor was there any ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... 1. A shortcoming of a program or algorithm that manifests itself only when a large problem is being run on a powerful machine (see {cray}). Generally more subtle than bugs that can be detected in smaller problems running on a workstation or mini. 2. More specifically, a shortcoming of algorithms which are well ...
— The Jargon File, Version 4.0.0
... have the appearance almost equal to an opal. To make sure of the picture adhering to the glass, however, and at the same time to give greater brilliancy, it is better to flow the glass with a 10 or 15 grain solution of clear gelatine before squeezing it down. The one fault or shortcoming of the plain argentic paper is the dullness of the surface when dry, and this certainly makes it unsuitable for small work, such as the rapid production of cartes or proofs from negatives wanted in a hurry; ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 415, December 15, 1883 • Various
... cause or other failed to retain the Earl's interest; "indeed," says Mr. Sidney Lee, "he did not retain the favour of any patron long." It is only fair to state, however, that the withdrawal of Lord Southampton's patronage may not have been due to any fault or shortcoming on the part of Nash, for there is likewise no evidence whatever to show that any close intimacy existed between Southampton and Shakspeare after 1594. Probably there was much else to claim Lord Southampton's attention—his marriage, ...
— The Choise of Valentines - Or the Merie Ballad of Nash His Dildo • Thomas Nash
... the inferiors of those who give. Thus, God is superior to all because he is the supreme giver, and the offerings of man fall short by an infinite distance of being a full return for the gifts of God; but gratitude in some degree makes up for this deficiency and shortcoming. I therefore, grateful for the favour that has been extended to me here, and unable to make a return in the same measure, restricted as I am by the narrow limits of my power, offer what I can and what I have to offer in my ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... swamps. Again and again he had tramped through them on foot, picked his way along their treacherous paths on horseback, and finally put their few roads to the supreme test of the motor car. He knew their every shortcoming and advantage. His topographical information included fording places for men ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... 1: Man can avoid each but not every act of sin, except by grace, as stated above. Nevertheless, since it is by his own shortcoming that he does not prepare himself to have grace, the fact that he cannot avoid sin without grace does not ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... truth; I felt abashed. How can we expect the heathen to become Christians, when those who call themselves so show so little regard to the religion of Christ? I see the same sad shortcoming on shore. Christians do not strive to bring honour to ...
— The Cruise of the Mary Rose - Here and There in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston
... of his time. His faith in his hereditary paganism was probably only political, but he never made the desperate, and no doubt perilous, plunge of giving up all the world to save his own soul. Was it his fault, or was it any shortcoming in the teaching that was laid before him, and was that human honour a want of faith? It puzzles us! Here was Swartz, from early youth to hoary hairs unwavering in the work of the Gospel, gathering in multitudes to the Church, often at great ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... regard sin simply as a defect or shortcoming, a missing of the mark, as the Greek word hamartia implies, others treat it as a disease, or infirmity of the flesh—a malady affecting the physical constitution which may be {29} incurred by heredity or induced by environment. In both ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander
... congregations in Kentucky, both among our people and others. Indeed, I must confess that at that time I was unusually strict in such matters. I wanted everything pertaining to the church to come square up to the mark in all respects, and I was unnecessarily worried over every shortcoming. On account of not having discipline attended to as strictly as I desired, I was disposed to resign at the close of 1868. But the elders promised more hearty cooperation in the matter, and I accepted for another year conditionally. I stated publicly that I would begin on three months' trial, ...
— Autobiography of Frank G. Allen, Minister of the Gospel - and Selections from his Writings • Frank G. Allen
... finer feelings, the flashes of genius, the sallies of wit, the little touches of tenderness and romance, and so forth. Very likely; but the actual child does just the reverse of this. Is there a trivial weakness, a venial shortcoming, a microscopic spot of imperfection anywhere? The ruthless little imp has marked it for his own, and will infallibly reproduce it, certainly before your servants, and possibly before ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... to write that. It spoke in his whimsical fashion the attitude of humility, the ready acknowledgment of shortcoming, which was his chief characteristic and made him lovable—in his ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... worship is but hollow consistency in the strict performance of outward acts of devotion. Our religion is but a hypocritical show of conformity. Our asylums, our hospitals, our institutions of charity? Alas! they but evidence our woeful shortcoming, and our persistent refusal to rise into the strength of the healing, saving Christ, which would render these obsolete institutions unnecessary in the world of to-day! The Holy Catholic Church is but a human institution. Its worldliness, ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... critics somewhat too easily forgot that material must make ready the foundation for ideal triumphs, that the arts have no chance in poor countries. But it must be allowed that democracy stood for a great deal in our shortcoming. The Edinburgh Review never would have thought of asking, "Who reads a Russian book?" and England was satisfied with iron from Sweden without being impertinently inquisitive after her painters and statuaries. Was it that they expected ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various
... poetry and feeling, the author brings his great work to an end. Emphatically a great work—a noble jewel in the crown of art literature, resplendent enough to have its flaws dwelt upon and some imperfections and shortcoming in its setting pointed out, and yet to lose little in estimation after the utmost has been said and done in ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... unholy we are, we have only to come under the covering of the Holiness of Jesus, to enjoy the full assurance that we and our gifts are most acceptable. However great be the weakness of our faith, the shortcoming in our desire for God's glory, the lack in our love or zeal, as we see Jesus, with Holiness to the Lord on His forehead, we lift up our faces to receive the Divine smile of full approval and ...
— Holy in Christ - Thoughts on the Calling of God's Children to be Holy as He is Holy • Andrew Murray
... sure there is an underlying cause in extenuation for this temperamental shortcoming which in justice to the ostensibly weaker sex should be set forth here. Even though I am taking on the role of Devil's Advocate in the struggle to keep woman from canonizing herself by main force I want to be as fair as I can, always reserving the privilege where ...
— 'Oh, Well, You Know How Women Are!' AND 'Isn't That Just Like a Man!' • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... sudden departure was received differently by the three ladies. The countess was inclined to be displeased that he had foregone the ceremony of an adieu. Any shortcoming in the payment of the full amount of deference, which she considered her due, was a great offence. Of late, Maurice had several times wounded her upon this tender point, and ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... reporting still in its infancy, but many of the Indian newspapers have still to learn that "it is not cricket" to report only the speeches of their political friends and to omit or compress into a few lines the speeches of their adversaries. A glaring instance of this shortcoming was afforded by the Bengalee. The Nationalist organ published Mr. Bupendra Nath Bose's speech on the partition of Bengal in extenso, as he had intended to deliver it, without taking the slightest notice of the fact that he ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol |
