"Incompetency" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the course of this trial if expert testimony were established upon proper principles? Professor Aiken having shown his complete incompetency in the Schoeppe case, the analysis would have been entrusted to some skillful chemist, who by failing to discover poison would have established the innocence of Mrs. Wharton, or by bringing positive results into court have ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... the circumstances, were no doubt justified in the policy they pursued, for the Swabian emperors failed to respect the acknowledged rights of the church, and to remember their own incompetency in spirituals; but evidently their political views and aims were liberal, far-reaching, and worthy of admiration. Their success, if it could have been effected without lesion to the church, would have set Europe forward some two or three hundred years, and probably ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson
... state of pitiable helplessness ever seen or heard or dreamed of anywhere! And yet this church, please to observe, is supposed to be a body sent by God to teach. Heaven preserve us from such a teacher. As a further illustration of the utter incompetency of the Establishment to perform this primary duty, we may call to mind the strikingly instructive correspondence that was published some years ago between his Grace Archbishop Sumner and Mr. Maskell, who very naturally and very rightly sought direction from his ...
— The Purpose of the Papacy • John S. Vaughan
... aroused indignation in London and Paris. Now the London "Times" came out with a leading article which produced a profound sensation throughout England. The burden of it was a bitter complaint that "the noblest army ever sent from our shores has been sacrificed to the grossest mismanagement. Incompetency, lethargy, aristocratic hauteur, official indifference, favor, routine, perverseness and stupidity reign, revel, and riot in the camp before Sebastopol, in the harbor of Balaklava, in the hospitals of Scutari, and how much ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... trying, the Irish displayed. It was indeed the wild and unsteady energy of a half barbarous people: it was transient: it was often misdirected: but, though transient and misdirected, it did wonders. The French Ambassador was forced to own that those officers of whose incompetency and inactivity he had so often complained had suddenly shaken off their lethargy. Recruits came in by thousands. The ranks which had been thinned under the walls of Londonderry were soon again full to overflowing. Great efforts ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... your spirit. The great army of letters that marches Southward with every morning sun is a powerful engine of war. Fill them with tears and sighs, lament separation and suffering, dwell on your loneliness and fears, mourn over the dishonesty of contractors and the incompetency of leaders, doubt if the South will ever be conquered, and foresee financial ruin, and you will damp the powder and dull the swords that ought to deal death upon the foe. Write as tenderly as you ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... caught of these two poor, unappreciated old men, living contentedly from hand to mouth, gayly propping each other up when one or the other weakened, had strangely affected him. If, as he reasoned, such battered hulks, stranded these many years on the dry sands of incompetency, with no outlook for themselves across the wide sea over which their contemporaries were scudding with all sails set before the wind of success—if these castaways, their past always with them and their hoped-for ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... The incompetency of the Irish engineering staff, and a defective commissariat, at that time was most deplorable; and although the town of —— was notoriously disaffected, the barrack chosen, temporarily, to accommodate the garrison—a ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various
... sometimes put on a similar boldness; they would help heads of colleges out of very trying difficulties with well-meaning but incompetent or indolent professors. Undergraduate popularity is often illusive and unstable, but undergraduate perception of incompetency is ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... to the public, without the trace of an excellent scholar or eloquent orator, I fully realize my inability to compete with writers of the nineteenth century. With this incompetency in view, I have hesitated and delayed until three-score and thirteen years are closing over me. Yet as I am still spared to toil on a little longer in the great field so white to harvest, praying the Lord of the harvest to ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... the way of books, and consideration for general incompetency, reduced her to WILHELM TELL, and she began with a lecture first on Schiller, and then upon Switzerland, and on the legend; but when Bessie Merrifield put in a word of such history and criticisms as were not ...
— More Bywords • Charlotte M. Yonge
... than five thousand women to the office of postmaster; and although many women have been appointed in the Departments and to pension agencies and like important employments and trusts, so far as your committee are aware no charge of incompetency or of malfeasance in office has ever yet been sustained against ...
— Debate On Woman Suffrage In The Senate Of The United States, - 2d Session, 49th Congress, December 8, 1886, And January 25, 1887 • Henry W. Blair, J.E. Brown, J.N. Dolph, G.G. Vest, Geo. F. Hoar.
... again, captured Adrianople, and laid siege to Constantinople. There were two emperors in the city then, in succession to Leo the Philosopher—Romanus Lecapenus and Constantine Porphyrogenitus. For all the grandeur of their names they rivalled one another in incompetency and timidity. Simeon was able to force upon the Grecian Empire a humiliating peace, which made Bulgaria now the paramount Power in the Balkans, since Servia had been already subdued by her arms. From the ...
— Bulgaria • Frank Fox
... pointed out that the Bureau, through the schools, would strike at one of the deep roots of poverty—incompetency. More people are poor for lack of proper equipment to earn a living and proper direction in choosing a vocation, he said, than for any ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... from the Dalles October 30, under conditions that were not conducive to success. The season was late for operations; and worse still, the command was not in accord with the commanding officer, because of general belief in his incompetency, and on account of the fictitious rank he assumed. On the second day out I struck a small body of Indians with my detachment of dragoons, but was unable to do them any particular injury beyond getting possession of a large quantity of their ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... that time? Sea warfare has given no answer. The crushing successes of Prussia against Austria, and of Germany against France, appear to have been those of a stronger over a much weaker nation, whether the weakness were due to natural causes, or to official incompetency. How would a delay like that of Plevna have affected the fortune of war, had Turkey had any reserve of national power ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... strictures upon poor human nature are exceedingly delightful to our careerists. Every unpleasant social fact, every outrage to our best instincts, every exhibition of incapacity, incompetency, inefficiency, indifference, every example of super-criminal negligence is pardoned as an effect of that universal sin, human nature. Take the case of the statesman and the diplomats who failed to prevent the Great War, though they saw it coming for years, and ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... the people of Raymond that the question of local option comes up at the election. That will be the most important question on the ticket. The crisis of our city affairs has been reached. The issue is squarely before us. Shall we continue the rule of rum and boodle and shameless incompetency, or shall we, as President Marsh said in his noble speech, rise as good citizens and begin a new order of things, cleansing our city of the worst enemy known to municipal honesty, and doing what lies in our power to do with the ballot ...
— In His Steps • Charles M. Sheldon
... position of the kind which circumstances left open to her, she could hope for nothing more than the paltriest remuneration. Be somebody's 'secretary'? That sounded pleasant, but very ambitious: a sense of incompetency chilled her. In an office, in a shop, who would dream ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... of the circle—who seems to have been the ablest—was Colonel James Purdy, on whom the brunt of the American work and fighting were to fall, and who seems to have done his best in a struggle against natural difficulties and against the incompetency of both his ...
— An Account Of The Battle Of Chateauguay - Being A Lecture Delivered At Ormstown, March 8th, 1889 • William D. Lighthall
... or Secretary die or be expelled, there is no doubt that an election for a successor, to fill the unexpired term, may be held by dispensation from the Grand Master. But the incompetency of either of these officers to perform his duties, by reason of the infirmity of sickness or removal from the seat of the lodge, will not, I think, authorize such an election. Because the original officer may recover from his infirmity, or return to his residence, and, in either ...
— The Principles of Masonic Law - A Treatise on the Constitutional Laws, Usages And Landmarks of - Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... establishment of an adequate standing army, and who, with inconsistent vehemence, had urged the nation into a war, regardless of its military equipment. The emaciated veterans arriving at Montauk were spoken of as the evidences of "military incompetency;" they were also evidence of that narrow statesmanship which ignores the constant suggestions of ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward
... authorized for the purpose, and it was ratified by a convention in each State which was especially called to consider and decide on the same. In this progress the State governments were never suspended in their functions. On the contrary, they took the lead in it. Conscious of their incompetency to secure to the Union the blessings of the Revolution, they promoted the diminution of their own powers and the enlargement of those of the General Government in the way in which they might be most adequate and efficient. ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 3) of Volume 2: James Monroe • James D. Richardson
... when we think of the music of Shri Krishna's flute, all human music seems as discord amidst its strains. Nevertheless since bhakti grows by thought and word, it is not amiss that we should come near a subject so sacred; only in dealing with it we must needs feel our incompetency, we must needs regret our limitations, we must needs wish for greater power of expression than we can have down here. For, perhaps, amid all the divine manifestations that have glorified the world, there is none which has ...
— Avataras • Annie Besant
... mother of five little ones procured a divorce from her husband, whose incompetency and unkindness was the result solely of intemperance, and that intemperance the consequence of his strong social bias and inability to resist the temptations of a period, when every man put the bottle to his neighbor's month as ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... only as a formal demand that the President should acknowledge his own incompetency to perform his duties, content himself with the amusement of distributing post-offices, and resign his power as to all important affairs into the hands of his Secretary of State. It seems to-day incomprehensible how a statesman ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... and fought in them when only a mass of ruins. The French, indeed, were entirely sheltered the last days; to my unpractised eyes, the extent and thoroughness of their works seemed miraculous, and gave me the first clear idea of the incompetency of the Italians to resist organized armies. I saw their commanders had not even known enough of the art of war to understand how the French were conducting the siege. It is true, their resources were at any rate inadequate to resistance; only continual sorties would have ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... already stirring in men's minds; he could not have written what he has done unless people were in some sort ready for it; any more than those painters could have begun their crusade against the dulness and incompetency that was the rule in their art thirty years ago unless they had some hope that they would one day move people ...
— Hopes and Fears for Art • William Morris
... of our terrible disaster at Ball's Bluff, and the promising Colonel E. D. Baker has fallen, while gallantly leading his noble Californians. Discussions as to the cause or causes of that fatal advance and bloody retreat are going on throughout our camps. It does seem to many as though gross incompetency or treachery must have influenced the authorities having immediate oversight of the affair, and that our fallen braves have been needlessly immolated upon their ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... the new master of Fool's hall, "I reward with the government of Guienne, for he who governs his own house so ill is surely fitted for greater tasks of incompetency." ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... approach of a Spanish squadron, commanded by Pedro Menendez, or Melendez, de Abila, sent by Philip the Second expressly to destroy the Frenchmen who had been so presumptuous as to settle in territories claimed by his Catholic Majesty. Nature seemed to conspire with their own incompetency to ruin the French. The French vessels, having gone out to attack the Spaniards, accomplished nothing, and, meeting a terrible storm, were driven far down the coast and wrecked. "Caroline" fell into the ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... focussing day of graduation meant! I might have been a marked individual, with people murmuring words of admiration, of speculation concerning the brilliancy of my future!... When at last my name was called and I rose to receive my diploma it seemed as though my incompetency had been proclaimed ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Gray; for I engaged her this morning, and posted a full and explicit account of her to Dr. Mackenzie, which he will read, to our patient. I never take a case from one nurse and give it to another, excepting for incompetency. And Nurse Rosemary Gray could more easily fly, than prove incompetent. She will not be required to eat in the kitchen. She is a gentlewoman, and will be treated as such. I wish indeed you could be in her shoes, though I doubt whether ...
— The Rosary • Florence L. Barclay
... "Oui, et peut-etre un pen trop." Of Constantine[85] he spoke with indignation, and his whiskers vibrated as he described his detestable character—debauched, depraved, cruel, dishonest, and a coward. Constantine was abusing a Colonel in very gross tones, a short time ago, for misconduct and incompetency in battle. "Indeed!" said the officer; "you must have been misinformed; this cannot arise from your own observation, as I do not recollect having ever seen you near ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... to prove her capability of helping him in Euclid. She began to read with full confidence in her own powers, but presently, becoming quite bewildered, her face flushed with irritation. It was unavoidable; she must confess her incompetency, and she was not fond ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... Borroughchffe found himself without arms, completely at the mercy of his foe. The bloody intentions of Tom vanished with his success; for, laying aside his weapon, he advanced upon his antagonist, and seized him with an open palm. One more struggle, in which the captain discovered his incompetency to make any defence against the strength of a man who managed him as if he had been a child, decided the matter. When the captain was passive in the hands of his foe, the cockswain produced sundry pieces of sennit, marline, and ratlin-stuff, from his pockets, which appeared to contain ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... of a Normal School gains there a start and an impulse, which carry him forward the rest of his life. A very little judicious experimental training redeems hundreds of candidates from utter and hopeless incompetency, and converts for them an awkward and painful drudgery into ...
— In the School-Room - Chapters in the Philosophy of Education • John S. Hart
... as profoundly and sincerely a free trader in power as he had been out of office. Enemies aver that the Laurier government now launched reciprocity to divert public attention from criticism of the railroad policy, in which there had undoubtedly been great incompetency and gross extravagance—an extravagance more of a recklessly prosperous era than of dishonesty—but this motive can hardly be accepted. If Laurier had launched reciprocity as a political dodge, he ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut
... refrain, before closing this chapter, from saying a word or two about the incompetency of the large majority of "general practitioners" and "family physicians," and their evident carelessness, and in some instances, even disgust, in the diagnosis and treatment of this class ...
— Manhood Perfectly Restored • Unknown
... be fancied that such a man as Berlioz did not spare the lash, once he griped the whip-handle, and, though no man was more generous than he in recognizing and encouraging genuine merit, there was none more relentless in scourging incompetency, pretentious commonplace, and the blind conservatism which rests all its faith in what has been. Our composer made more than one powerful enemy by this recklessness in telling the truth, where a more politic man would ...
— Great Italian and French Composers • George T. Ferris
... one. This distinction seems to have been imperfectly realised by several of those critics, writing in India, who have examined the views expressed in my Introduction to the translation of Sankara's Commentary. A writer should not be taxed with 'philosophic incompetency,' 'hopeless theistic bias due to early training,' and the like, simply because he, on the basis of a purely critical investigation, considers himself entitled to maintain that a certain ancient document ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... come to this pass in Canada, Lord Durham's Report on Canada had been presented to the British House of Commons and its proposals of reform had been made known to the British public. It revealed the incompetency of Lord Glenelg as colonial secretary; he resigned and made way for Lord John Russell, who was in hearty accord with the principles and recommendations of the Report. The chief recommendation was that the only possible solution of the Canadian ...
— The Winning of Popular Government - A Chronicle of the Union of 1841 • Archibald Macmechan
... nobly rose to the demands of the situation. But confidence in the generals of the Northern army was gone forever. The men of New England would not sit long in the shadow of defeat, but they said they would no more be sacrificed to the incompetency of leaders who had been tried and found wanting. Congress had to pay heed to this feeling. Washington had to admit the force of it, because he knew that New England must be chiefly looked to in this crisis, to make head against Burgoyne. If ...
— Burgoyne's Invasion of 1777 - With an outline sketch of the American Invasion of Canada, 1775-76. • Samuel Adams Drake
... which gilded rays shone forth, as if the inner glory and blessedness of the holy men blazed through them. It is a very ugly picture, and its ugliness is not that of strength and vigor, but of weakness and incompetency. Fra Angelico should have confined himself to miniature heads, in which his delicacy of touch and minute labor often produce an excellent effect. The custode informed us that there were more frescos of this ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... own, neglecting the ordinary courses of High School instruction to lecture on archaeology to the dumfounded scholars; growing year by year more forgetful and absent, lost in his few books and his own reflections, until, though undeniably a scholar, he had been discharged for incompetency. He was old; he had no money and no way to make money; he could find nothing to do. The blow had seemed to daze him for a time; then he began to drop in at the hotel bar, where Wilkerson, the professional drunkard, favored him with his society. The old man ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... and then by their help tyrannized over the employers and threw trade into recurring conditions of confusion. That same great body of uninstructed public opinion, which, on the whole, favored the factory laws, was quite clearly opposed to trade unions. With the incompetency of their own class, the power of the law, and the force of public opinion opposed to their existence and actions, it is not a matter of wonder that the development of these working-class organizations ...
— An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England • Edward Potts Cheyney
... is repeated with his second Vice substituted for the first, with the more justification, as "Andy" Johnson was impeached for his incompetency. Detective Baker put it this way: "As to the crazy folks, I must take my chances. The most crazy people being, I fear, some of my own ...
— The Lincoln Story Book • Henry L. Williams
... entered upon labors they were never fitted to accomplish. Such men undertake their labors in ways that want and must want the Divine sanction; and they are tempted to ward off a just verdict of unsuitableness and of incompetency by bringing many and grievous charges against their flocks. "A mania for church-extending"; "a hankering for architectural splendor"; "or for discursive and satirical preaching"; "or for something florid ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Hascall to command the second division in place of General Judah. In the battle of Resaca the division suffered severe loss without accomplishing anything, and General Schofield found, on investigation, that it was due to the incompetency of the officer commanding it. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxviii. pt. iv. p. 243.] The brigade commanders, in their reports, complained severely of the way in which the division had been handled, and the ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... is beyond human capacity; it is the point of speech beyond our treasury of language. He attacked the shrug, as he thought, very temperately; but in controlling his native vehemence he grew, perforce of repression, and of incompetency to deliver himself copiously in French, sarcastic. In fine, his contrast of the pretence of their noble country to head civilization, and its encouragement of a custom so barbarous, offended M. d'Orbec and ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Society insisted that he should deliver the annual address. "I begged to be excused on the ground of incompetency," he said, "but my excuses were of no avail, and as I could not instruct my auditors in farming, I gave them the benefit of several mistakes which I had committed. Among other things, I told them that in the fall of 1848 my head-gardener reported that I had fifty bushels of potatoes to spare. ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton
... that those who remain are among the senior officers in our volunteer army, in their respective grades. They command posts, brigades, divisions. They preside at court-martials. Beneath the shadow of their notorious incompetency all minor evils may lurk undetected. To crown all, they are, in many cases, sincere and well-meaning men, utterly obtuse as to their own deficiencies, and manifesting (to employ a witticism coeval with themselves) all the Christian virtues ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... Tennyson's poems; and the unequalled sketches of women that I found there, while they had, with the rest of the book, a new and abiding influence on my mind, were quite enough to show me my own fatal incompetency in that line. I threw my verses away, never to resume them. Perhaps I proved thereby the depth of my affection. Our mightiest feelings, are always those which remain most unspoken. The most intense lovers ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... the bar also served to establish the great delinquency of the company's servants, and the need that existed of their being subject to supervision. At the same time it did not show that the company of itself was competent to redress these abuses, and the question was, whether the incompetency of the company warranted the interposition of parliament. Ministers acknowledged it to be a stretch of authority, but they justified it on the plea of cogent necessity—a necessity which took precedence of all other law. The company's battle was fought in the commons by ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... present rightful occupant, S.A. SEVERNE, Esq., of the beautiful domain of Thenford; to ransack the Library; to scatter abroad pictures and curiosities of every description; on the alleged ground of insanity, or incompetency to make a will, on the part of Mr. Wodhull. As I had been very minute in the account of Mr. Wodhull's person, in the work just alluded to, I became a witness in the cause; and, as it was brought into ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... "The writer of this sketch (says the publisher of that account) has heard Cooper himself describe with great pleasantry his first interview with the Scotch manager; he was at that time a raw country youth of seventeen. On his arrival in Edinburgh, little conscious of his appearance and incompetency, he waited on Mr. Kemble, made up in the extreme of rustic foppery, proud of his talents, and little doubting his success. When he mentioned his name and errand, Mr. Kemble's countenance changed from a polite smile to a stare of disappointment: Cooper had ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... Hongkong; Canton was blockaded; a port on the island of Chusan was subsequently occupied; and Lord Palmerston's letter to the Emperor was carried to Tientsin, and delivered there to the Viceroy of Chihli. Commissioner Lin was now cashiered for incompetency; but was afterwards instructed to act with the Viceroy of Chihli, who was sent down to supersede him. Further vexatious action, or rather inaction, on the part of these two at length drove Captain Elliot to an ultimatum; and as no attention was paid to this, the Bogue forts near the mouth of the ...
— China and the Manchus • Herbert A. Giles
... of the southwestern miner's indolence and incompetency,—utterly distasteful to his northern habits of thought and education. Here was their old fatuous endurance of Nature's wild caprices, without that struggle against them which brought others strength and success; here was ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... hand there is nothing disgraceful in borrowing for productive purposes. The feeling that it is not quite respectable to go into debt has grown out of the old habit of borrowing to pay living expenses. That was regarded, perhaps rightly, as a sign of incompetency. ... But to borrow for a genuinely productive purpose, for a purpose that will bring you in more than enough to pay off your debt, principal and interest, is a profitable enterprise. It shows business sagacity and courage, and is not a thing to be ashamed of. But it cannot be ...
— Community Civics and Rural Life • Arthur W. Dunn
... evil which there could scarcely be any hope of checking, until this central point of the mutiny had fallen before the British arms. A position more dispiriting can scarcely be imagined; and to all these causes for despondency were added the incompetency and fatuity of the Indian government, and the procrastination of the home government in the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 2, December, 1857 • Various
... of intemperance may be classified as physical losses, economic losses, and social losses. The immediate physical effect is exhilaration, but this is succeeded by lassitude and incompetency. The stimulus gained is momentary, the loss is permanent. It is well established that even small quantities of alcohol weaken the will power and benumb the mental powers. Habitual use depletes vitality and so predisposes to disease. Life-insurance policies consider the alcoholic ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... conduct to Spain. This battle and capitulation of Baylen were termed by the Emperor himself the Caudine forks of the French army. He attributed the disaster to treachery on the part of Dupont: it was the result of the rashness of the expedition, and the incompetency of the conductor. The richest part of Spain was freed wholly of the invaders: the light troops of Castanos pushed on, and swept the country before them; and within ten days, King Joseph perceived the necessity of quitting Madrid, and removed ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... fluids naturally flow into the bowels to lubricate and quiet, and proceed at once to repair all irritated surfaces, which is abundantly supplied by nature from the mouth of the sphincter ani, without which forethought and preparation, nature's God will prove his incompetency for the great battle ...
— Philosophy of Osteopathy • Andrew T. Still
... Hirozumi's army, killed the lord-warden himself, and pushed on to Taga Castle, which they burned, destroying vast stores of arms and provisions. It was precisely at this time that the State council, as related above, memorialized the Throne, denouncing the incompetency of the provincial conscripts and complaining that the provincial authorities, instead of training the soldiers, used them for forced labour. The overthrow of the army in Mutsu and the destruction of Taga Castle justified ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... told that this is already done; that there are no poor in this country save those who are either incompetent or indolent or vicious. If that could be proved, the question would still remain whether the incompetency and the indolence and the viciousness may not, to a considerable degree, be the effects of causes for which society is responsible, and which, in a thoroughly Christianized society, would not be permitted to exist. But it cannot be proved that poverty is wholly the fault of the poor. The ...
— The Church and Modern Life • Washington Gladden
... attractions of man are proportioned to his destinies;" in other words, that every desire predicts its own satisfaction. Yet, all experience exhibits the reverse of this; the incompetency of power is the universal grief of young and ardent minds. They accuse the divine Providence of a certain parsimony. It has shown the heaven and earth to every child, and filled him with a desire for the whole; a desire raging, infinite; a hunger, as of ...
— Representative Men • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... the jury, in civil as well as in criminal cases, comprises the question of fact and the question of right in the same reply; thus—a house is claimed by Peter as having been purchased by him: this is the fact to be decided. The defendant puts in a plea of incompetency on the part of the vendor: this is the legal question to be resolved. But the jury do not enjoy the same character of infallibility in civil cases, according to the practice of the English courts, as they do in criminal cases. The judge may refuse to receive the ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... come among them. His troops were sick and starving, and were at the mercy rather of the Indians than the Indians at their mercy. M. De La Barre was compelled to withdraw his troops. The blustering, pompous, mischief-loving De La Barre was recalled by his government, for incompetency, and in ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... especially if it had been tested, for a period of eighty years, by all the inward strain of domestic evils, and all the outward pressure of invasion; by the influence of foreign envy, of intrigue, of hostility; by the debasing power of disloyalty, the incompetency of rulers, and the general degeneracy of human nature; I say, in view of all these untoward influences, the government which could still retain its majesty and power, still stretch its Aegis over every national and ...
— Government and Rebellion • E. E. Adams
... sudden rush of joy, that her mind, was engaged on some other topic, and this at a moment when some appeal or interrogatory to herself rendered such abstracted enjoyment more obvious. Sensible, therefore, of her incompetency as yet to regulate her imagination so as to escape notice, she withdrew in about an hour to her own room, there once more ...
— Jane Sinclair; Or, The Fawn Of Springvale - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... meritorious services." Therefore, as Dennis's task approached completion, he said: "That will do, Mr. Fleet, you can finish the work at your leisure. Mr. Berder, you are discharged from this day for deception. I would have borne with your incompetency if you had been truthful. But I never trust any one who has deceived me once," he said, so sternly that even Christine's cheek paled. "Mr. Schwartz will settle with you, and let me never see or hear from you again. Mr. Fleet, I promote you to Mr. Berder's ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... feelings engrossed with one thought. I proved myself a good assistant; I knew Dr. Sandford approved of me; I triumphed, so far, in the consciousness that I had made good my claim to my position, and was in no danger of being shoved away on the score of incompetency. ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell
... from the various parts of society. It is an assemblage of practical knowledge, which no individual can possess; and therefore the monarchical form is as much limited, in useful practice, from the incompetency of knowledge, as was the democratical form, from the multiplicity of population. The one degenerates, by extension, into confusion; the other, into ignorance and incapacity, of which all the great monarchies are an evidence. The monarchical form, ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... The incompetency of the superior officers in the British army had of late become painfully manifest on both sides of the Atlantic. The American campaign of 1757 was even more disastrous than were British operations in ...
— Canadian Notabilities, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... this design; instructive if it shall point while in embryo, and serve to teach me the folly of presumptuous schemes conceived during the buoyancy of youth, and only relinquished on a discovery of incompetency in later years. Meanwhile I am only contemplating the ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... recalled to office in July, 1757, it was too late to prevent the humiliation of England through the incompetency of Holbourne, Loudoun, and Webb, and the year 1757 closed with Montcalm triumphant in America. But while France neglected to give adequate support to her brave sons in Canada, England rallied to the support of Pitt, and the whole nation felt ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... these objections serious, but decided on its own incompetency to take cognizance of them. It was a question for the twelve judges, who were now on the point of assembling, and to whom they referred the whole affair on appeal. In the meantime, justice could not be stayed. The prisoner must ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... shall be heard at large; that which you have been heard now is concerning the competency or incompetency of the witness: the incompetency against him is this, that when you came thither none more violent for the parliament than himself, and that he was a great spy, and you say it was usual with him ...
— State Trials, Political and Social - Volume 1 (of 2) • Various
... sought about in her mind for some way out of the difficulty and could find none. She grew more and more painfully crimson, and wished she could cry. A well worked-up passion of tears would have come in very usefully just then, but somehow she could not turn the passion on. And a horrid sense of incompetency and failure began to steal over her—an awful foreboding of defeat. What could she do to seize the slippery opportunity and grasp the doubtful prize? How could she land the big golden fish which she foolishly fancied she had at the end of her line? ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... York at the time of the passage of this law, resolved to resist it, and to continue the old police in power. His conduct came near creating a terrible riot, but he was at length induced to submit to the law. The new system worked badly for some years, owing to the incompetency of the persons appointed as superintendent; but in 1860 a change was made. Mr. John A. Kennedy was appointed Superintendent of the Metropolitan Police, and the number of the commissioners was cut down to ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... to fill that place until I could find a perfectly honest and trustworthy boy for it. I believe I have found him. I discharged the last boy because he lied to me about some trifling offence for which I would have forgiven him if he had told the truth. I can bear with incompetency, but falsehood and deceit I cannot and will not tolerate," he said, so sternly that Dan's face paled. "I am convinced that you are incapable of either. Will ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1896 to 1901 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... an official afterwards. He possesses his full share of national characteristics. He is by inheritance an individualist. He lives in a society which, so far from being, as is the case on the Continent, saturated with respect for officialism, is somewhat prone to regard officialism and incompetency as synonymous terms. By such association, any bureaucratic tendency which may exist on the part of the British official is kept in check, whilst his individualism is subjected to a sustained and healthy ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... Benevolence, Justice, and Veracity. He devotes a chapter to each. In Chapter I., on Benevolence, he re-opens the consideration of the Ethical systems founded on Benevolence or Utility, and argues against them; but merely repeats the common-place objections—the incompetency of individuals to judge of remote tendencies, the pretext that would be afforded for the worst conduct, and each one's consciousness that a sense of duty is different ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... mean?" thought Valentine. "Mrs. Sheldon talked of this man's inexperience. Can it be that his incompetency lost the life of his patient, and that he knows ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... their preparations for battle. His general idea was that the troops went out to fight, and he thought that they should be allowed to go at it at once." Near Orange Court House, he wrote to his wife on the 19th of March, 1862, "I know not what is to become of this country. Davis' incompetency is more apparent as our danger increases. Our ...
— Robert Toombs - Statesman, Speaker, Soldier, Sage • Pleasant A. Stovall
... responsible likewise for failure to satisfy the wishes of his subordinates, or at least the majority of his subordinates. If this majority be displeased with their minister, governor, president, manager, chief, or director, the fact is considered proof of administrative incompetency.... Perhaps educational circles afford the most curious examples of this old idea of responsibility. A student-revolt is commonly supposed to mean, not that the students are intractable, but that the superintendent or teacher ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... South the plundering was equally conspicuous. Some of the Northern Senators were fond of pointing out the incompetency and rascality of the Southern oligarchy, while ignoring the acts of the capitalists in their own section. Senator Wilson, for instance, enlarged upon the condition of the railroads in North and South Carolina, describing how, after having been fed with enormous subsidies, they were almost ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... importunately as Klesmer's judgment of her powers; but she found larger room for resistance to a disapproval of her marriage, because it is easier to make our conduct seem justifiable to ourselves than to make our ability strike others. "How can I help it?" is not our favorite apology for incompetency. But Gwendolen felt ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... the fact that we, in the midst of this nineteenth century, had arrived at the knowledge of no better solution of it than an appeal to the old, barbarous, uncertain, and terrible ordeal of battle, is an illustration of the incompetency in question. Slavery, bad as it is, is the representative of a great social principle, which, separated from the special mode of its manifestation, has in it that which is good and right. Mr. Cobden justly characterizes the great American ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol V. Issue III. March, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... us to pass any judgment whatever upon the musical and artistic value of these transmissions of trumpet music to a distance; we prefer to confess our incompetency in the matter. But it is none the less certain that these experiments are having the same success that they had at their inception in 1881 at the Universal Exposition of Electricity, and they allow us to foresee that there is a time coming in which it will ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 711, August 17, 1889 • Various
... OR INCOMPETENCY.—This is the most common valvular disease. The segments of the valve may be shortened and deformed. There is often stenosis (narrowing) caused by this deformity. The effects are regurgitation, flowing back of blood from the left ventricle into the left auricle, ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... it once before, but had not carried my experiments to a successful termination. I made a trip around the rink last August, but was ruled out by the judges for incompetency, and advised to skate among the people who were hostile to the government of the United States, while the proprietors ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... other species of the leviathan, died out of the minds of the whalemen as a body. There are those this day among them, who, though intelligent and courageous enough in offering battle to the Greenland or Right whale, would perhaps—either from professional inexperience, or incompetency, or timidity, decline a contest with the Sperm Whale; at any rate, there are plenty of whalemen, especially among those whaling nations not sailing under the American flag, who have never hostilely encountered the Sperm Whale, but ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... stated in another connection, to erroneous notions about the topography of the country; the incompetency perhaps, in some cases, of surveyors; and the want of due care in the General Court and the towns to have boundaries clearly defined,—uncertainties and conflicting claims arose in various portions of the colony, but nowhere to a greater ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... and disastrous. In the northern and western provinces, rebellion after rebellion broke out, due in a great measure to the carelessness, incompetency and obstinacy of the emperor, and the coasts were infested with pirates, whose number and organization enabled them for a long time to hold the imperial fleet in check. Meanwhile the condition of the foreign merchants ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... out-of-doors; while more than one eminent publisher might be named who has trusted solely to his own judgment, and rarely found that judgment at fault. In either of these cases there is no reason to assume the incompetency of the judge. Besides, as we have said, the question to be solved by the publisher or reader, is not a purely literary question. It is mainly indeed a commercial question; and the merits of the work are often freely acknowledged while the ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 4, September, 1850 • Various
... Arkansas. From the first, with him Christian faith meant Christian service, and he at once became active in church and Sunday-school. Nature was generous to him in the saving gift of common sense, and he was not long in perceiving the incompetency of the ministers to whom the people at that time looked for religious ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 52, No. 2, June, 1898 • Various
... amused or thoroughly wearied. But, as the strains grew more familiar and I sang occasionally with the others, I felt each day more tired and more conscious of my own incompetency. And still the Words rang in my ears; "I hear the Saviour say, thy strength indeed is small;" with much about trusting in Him, and his willingness to bear it all. As the wind beat against the Ark on ...
— Cape Cod Folks • Sarah P. McLean Greene
... their action was akin to that of the thousands of citizens who refrain from voting at primary elections, where the seed is planted which will produce its kind in the fruiting on the day of the final and determining election, and subsequently complain of the incompetency or dishonesty of the incumbents whose election is largely attributable to the neglect of these very citizens, to make it their special care that only good and qualified and worthy men shall be elected ...
— The Vigilance Committee of '56 • James O'Meara
... Of the incompetency of the Church, in its diffusive capacity, to be judge of controversies; and the impertinency of ...
— The Literary Remains Of Samuel Taylor Coleridge • Edited By Henry Nelson Coleridge
... certain, human evidence cannot be weighed against it in the balance of the sanctuary. When the Lord hath spoken, well does it become the whole earth to be silent before him; when the eternal Judge Himself hath decided, the witness of man bears on its very face the stamp of incompetency and presumption. ...
— Primitive Christian Worship • James Endell Tyler
... power that they possessed, the accountant tried to take it upon himself to dismiss a clerk without any agreement with his associates, or the consent of the government. In fact, he abolished the position. I was informed that it was not for incompetency, or for any failure of which the clerk had been guilty in his office, but only for the accountant's own private reasons. He was ordered to return the man to his place, and to have him serve as before. The accountant alleged with too unmeasured language that he and his associates ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIII, 1629-30 • Various
... Mr. Rathbawne discharged fifteen employees on the ground of incompetency. It is hard to see exactly what Mr. Rathbawne means by 'incompetency.' These men were not newcomers. Some of them had been in the mills for as much as eighteen months. It seems as if he might have discovered the alleged incompetency long ago. It is more or less arbitrary, one might say, this discharging ...
— The Lieutenant-Governor • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... must constantly remember that it was the almost incomparable faith of this woman in the God of Jacob, amid the greatest difficulties and discouragements, that gave her such remarkable success. Incompetency for Christian work is a lack, not only of patience, but of faith in the great love of our God, and the triumphant death of Christ, and the persistent power of the Holy Spirit, combined with a humble trust in our own capabilities to do valiantly ...
— Gathering Jewels - The Secret of a Beautiful Life: In Memoriam of Mr. & Mrs. James Knowles. Selected from Their Diaries. • James Knowles and Matilda Darroch Knowles
... children that attend school at all receive instruction, and the fact that very many of these are kept open but three months during the year.[64] The inadequacy of existing provisions for the proper education of the rising generation will be more strikingly apparent when we consider the incompetency of, I may perhaps safely say, the majority of persons who are put in charge of the public schools of the country. It is readily conceded that, in those states where education has received most attention, there are many teachers who are thoroughly furnished unto all good works. But it is far otherwise ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... Division Superintendent of a railway was attending closely to his business of placing obstructions on the track and tampering with the switches he received word that the President of the road was about to discharge him for incompetency. ...
— Fantastic Fables • Ambrose Bierce
... under those that admitted of reparation through any of the ordinary means of reprisal. In this manner Esther had made a sort of convenient ally of the word of God; rarely troubling it for counsel, however, except when her own incompetency to avert an evil was too apparent to be disputed. We shall leave casuists to determine how far she resembled any other believers in this particular, and proceed directly ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... at last an excellent woman came to my help with the information that it was "coontie" (Zamia integrifolia), famous as a plant out of which the Southern people made bread in war time. This confession of botanical amateurishness and incompetency will be taken, I hope, as rather to my credit than otherwise; but it would be morally worthless if I did not add the story of another plant, which, in this same New Smyrna hammock, I frequently noticed hanging in loose bunches, like blades of flaccid deep green grass, from the trunks ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey
... minister was no longer required by the most exacting courtesy. His official communications, and public and private acts, were becoming too offensive to be longer tolerated by the government, without virtually abdicating authority and acknowledging its utter incompetency. So the president called the cabinet together at the beginning of August to consult upon the matter, when the whole official correspondence between Jefferson and Genet, and the conduct of the latter, were ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... a doctor at Sairmeuse, but he was the most stupid of men—a former surgeon in the army, who had been dismissed for incompetency. The peasants shunned him as they would the plague; and in case of sickness always sent for the cure. M. d'Escorval followed their example, knowing that the physician from Montaignac could not arrive ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... her ignorance and incompetency. Not having seen Dr. Broadbent, she could not give her opinion. Pause third came on. During its continuance, Caroline was feeling at her heart's core what a dreaming fool she was, what an unpractical life she led, how little fitness there was in her for ordinary intercourse ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... Harleston, "except in large numbers; when it ceases to be diplomacy and becomes war. In fact, only bunglers resort to killing; and if the killing be known it ends one's career in the service. To have to kill to gain an end is conclusive evidence of incompetency. I mean, of course, among reputable nations. There are some thugs among the lesser Powers, just as there are thugs ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott
... only how government is supposed to run, but how it actually is run. There are plenty of reports of investigating committees, Federal and state, which furnish authentic information in regard to political corruption, graft, waste, and incompetency. These have not hitherto been supposed to have anything to do with the science of government, although they are obviously absolutely essential to an understanding of it. Similar reflections suggest themselves in the matter of ...
— The Mind in the Making - The Relation of Intelligence to Social Reform • James Harvey Robinson
... day to learn who was her greatest general—tomorrow the leader, who had hitherto been invincible, must acknowledge a victor. This morning was to place it beyond a doubt whether the victories of Gustavus at Leipzic and on the Lech were owing to his own military genius, or to the incompetency of his opponent; whether the services of Wallenstein were to vindicate the Emperor's choice and justify the high price at which they had been purchased. The victory was as yet doubtful, but certain were the labor and the bloodshed by which it must be earned. Every ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... practically a nullity. What with his immense patronage, the progress of events, and the chance of luring the opposing party into by-questions, the Presidential Micawber of the moment is almost sure that something will turn up to extricate him from the consequences of his own incompetency or dishonesty. The only check upon this system is the chance that the temerity engendered by irresponsible power may lead the executive to measures which, as in the case of Kansas, shall open the eyes of thinking men to the real designs and objects of those ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... having been, through adventitious circumstances, pushed in our country to a sudden and not wholly merited prominence, Sir. Spencer's republished essays may be named,—while they acknowledge some progress in details, disclose an undertone of growing conviction of the incompetency and unsatisfactoriness of our present modes of teaching and training. The Oswego School Report, speaking of primary education, tells us 'There has been too much teaching by formulas;' and that 'We are quite too apt, in the education ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... incompetence of the right heart, more or less temporary perhaps, from muscular exertion. This incompetence being frequently repeated, peripheral veins may dilate. Moreover, the contraction of the right heart may cause a wave in the veins of the extremities, and he believes that incompetency of the tricuspid valve may be the cause of varicosities in the ...
— DISTURBANCES OF THE HEART • OLIVER T. OSBORNE, A.M., M.D.
... of the morning, and there we found the Chinaman (who, owing to the strenuous exertions of The Chaperon, now appeared with considerably less hair, and obviously a more swollen head), had gauged correctly the incompetency of The Kid, in the brewing of his native beverage, and consequently had prepared a beverage which might pass for tea, and was enjoyed by all. After this refreshment a move was made, the luggage had gone on, and the party followed in their two coaches. We now began to approach a more pleasing country, ...
— Argentina From A British Point Of View • Various
... business was to pass the laws which he prepared. Only toward the close of the war did it, in a measure, free itself from this control, and, finally, in 1865, it passed a resolution attributing Confederate disaster to Davis's incompetency as commander-in-chief, a position which he had insisted on occupying; removing him from that position and conferring it upon General Lee, giving the latter, at the same time, unlimited powers in ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... with respect to any proposed work of liturgical revision. Bishops have probably become inured to the hard measure habitually dealt out to them in the columns of the Church Times, and are unlikely to allow charges of ignorance and incompetency so far to disturb their composure as to make them afraid to prosecute a work which, from time immemorial, has been held to lie peculiarly within their province. It may be affirmed, with some confidence, that no revision of the American Offices will ever be ratified, in the conduct of which the Bishops ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington
... Wheel" is the title of a German story by Hermann Hesse, in which he severely criticizes the incompetency of the present school system to fully develop the youth. The characterization of the teachers' profession as Hesse puts it, does not only serve for Germany, but for all modern states in which governments ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 1, March 1906 • Various
... your Lordships: if a man is of opinion that no public court can truly and properly bring him to any account for his conduct, that the forms observable in courts are totally adverse to it, that there is a general incompetency with regard to such a court, and yet shuns a tribunal capable and competent, and applies to that which he thinks is incapable and incompetent, does not that man plainly show that he has rejected what he ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... vanishing rapidly: the working-classes plunged daily deeper and deeper into misery and starvation, ready to listen to the most desperate suggestions: and a Government bewildered with a consciousness of incompetency, and of the swiftly approaching consequences of their misrule, at the eleventh hour—on the eve of a general election— suddenly resolving (in the language of their own leader) to stir society to its foundations, by proposing a wild and ruinous ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... and appreciating his own personal responsibility for my safety—so that should he still hold any wrongful designs, and afterwards succeed in carrying them out, he or his attorneys will be debarred from again pleading insanity or mental incompetency. ...
— Quit Your Worrying! • George Wharton James
... motherhood. There are those hopelessly incompetent who should never be allowed to have children. There are far more with power to bear and rear children successfully whom adverse circumstances submerge to incompetency. These, we are now learning, must be helped in some way, for society's sake even more than for their own, if they are willing to undertake parental service to ...
— The Family and it's Members • Anna Garlin Spencer
... surface it is all well. There is less incompetency among French than English workers, and thus the class who furnish them need less arraignment for their lack of thoroughness. They contend, also, with one form of competition, which has its counterpart in America among the farmers' wives, who take the work at less than regular ...
— Prisoners of Poverty Abroad • Helen Campbell
... myself that most of my associates were really insane, and therefore (as I believed) disqualified as competent witnesses in a court of law, I would occasionally engage in conversation with a few whose evident incompetency seemed to make them safe confidants. One, a man who during his life had more than once been committed to an institution, took a very evident interest in me and persisted in talking to me, often much against my will. His persistent inquisitiveness seemed to support his own statement that ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers
... dispute was the right application of personal judgment. Catholics maintained, and always have and always will maintain, that a divine revelation necessitates a divine interpreter. Catholics resisted, and always will resist, on the ground of its incompetency, a human authority applied to the interpretation of the contents of a divinely-revealed religion. They consider such an authority, whether of the individual or the state, in religious matters an intrusion. Catholics insist, without ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... Women nurses, while on duty in General Hospitals, are under the exclusive control of the senior medical officer, who will direct their several duties, and may be discharged by him when considered supernumerary, or for incompetency, insubordination, or violation of his orders. Such discharge, with the reasons therefor, being endorsed upon the certificate, will be at once ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... we now know as the survival of the fittest, the mere's capacity had snuffed out her weaker spouse's incompetency; she had taken her place at the helm, because she belonged there by virtue of natural fitness. There were no tender illusions which would suffer, in seeing the husband allotted to her, probably by her parents and the dot ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... on, the signs of movement grew. Regiments were moved away mysteriously, and soon the Caribees were almost alone on Meridian Hill. Jack was filled with dire fears that the commanding officer, having discovered the incompetency of Oswald, feared to take the Caribees to the front. Something of the rumor spread through the regiment, and if, as reputed, "Old Sauerkraut" (this was the name he got behind his back) had spies in all the companies, the adage about listeners was abundantly ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... Negroes, such a policy not only discourages thrift and intelligence among black men, but puts a direct premium on the very things you complain of,—inefficiency and crime. Draw lines of crime, of incompetency, of vice, as tightly and uncompromisingly as you will, for these things must be proscribed; but a color-line not only does not accomplish this ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois
... been given a major's commission by the Connecticut Legislature, in 1757, and almost every year succeeding he was promoted, until finally he was at the head of the forces of the State. In common with his fellow Provincials, he suffered from the incompetency of the British commanders sent over from England. Crown Point was the objective for assault during several years, and still was not reached until the hearts of all concerned grew heavy with hope deferred. One of the most glaringly inefficient of Britain's generals in America was Lord Loudoun, ...
— "Old Put" The Patriot • Frederick A. Ober
... found great impediment in the production of evidence, not only on account of the general doctrines supposed to exist concerning its inadmissibility, drawn from its own alleged natural incompetency, or from its inapplicability under the pleading of the impeachment of this House, but also from the mode of proceeding in bringing it forward. Here evidence which we thought necessary to the elucidation of the cause was not suffered, upon the supposed rules ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... century relating to colonies, shipping, and commerce. In America, the unsettled commercial and financial conditions which succeeded the peace, the divergence of interests between the several new states, the feebleness of the confederate government, its incompetency to deal assuredly with external questions, and lack of all power to regulate commerce, inspired a conviction in Great Britain that the continent could not offer strong, continued resistance to commercial ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... the States had to be withdrawn, and replaced by the more serviceable ordnance with which the regular batteries were being armed. Boards of examination were organized, and the officers thoroughly examined. Incompetency was set aside, zeal and efficiency ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... stupendous failure. It cost us about four thousand men, mostly, however, captured; and all due to inefficiency on the part of the corps commander and the incompetency of the division commander who was sent ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... throwing away their lives. They calculated on a rising of the Syracusans to throw off an insupportable yoke, and they had utter contempt for the tyrant himself, knowing his drunken habits, and effeminate character, and personal incompetency. So, after ten years' exile, Dion, with his followers, landed in Sicily, at Heracleia, also in the absence of Dionysius, who had quitted Syracuse for Italy, with eighty triremes, so that the ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... utter incompetency to fill the place of a trained man. And he never gets half so complete a view of his uselessness as do those around him. Such proof-readers rarely work two nights. They are corporals in captains' places. Or, perhaps, they are captains ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... facts respecting the natural inferiority of the negro race, and their incompetency ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... Government had given its unqualified approval at the start and had loyally contributed all the troops it could spare. But the plans had been drawn up in London and had been worked out by British commanders; and the acknowledgment of failure was a confession of British, not French, incompetency. It was a blow at British prestige such as had not been dealt since the early disasters of the ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... of a schoolboy; yet no one has ever pressed a reasonable undertaking with more earnestness and confidence than Burr his visionary purpose. He exhibited, throughout, an infatuation and a degree of incompetency for great achievements, which would cover the enterprise with ridicule, were it not for the misfortunes which it brought upon ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various |
