"Defect" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... consider it a very great defect, and slight as this blemish appears in Miss Lovel, her money could never blind me to the fact if I knew her ever ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... dances at the Opera, and those on which the French chiefly pride themselves, are much injured, in point of beauty, by this artificial taste, the execution of the less laboured parts of these dances, and of nearly the whole of their common national dances, is quite free from this defect, and is, we should conceive, the most beautiful exhibition of the kind that is any where to be seen. It is only in a city where amusements of all kinds are sought for, not merely by way of relaxation, but as matters of serious interest and national concern, and ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... been attained similar to what has been accomplished for the earlier middle ages by the comparison of different monastic chronicles. Unfortunately the Romans in later times preferred to supply the defect by Hellenic ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... turban the father wore an old cocked hat, which gave him an indescribably ludicrous appearance. A son and a daughter of this worthy patron of the semi-Turkish, semi-European garb, had but one eye, a defect frequently met with in Syria. It is generally supposed to be caused by the dry heat, the fine particles of sand, and the intense ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
... The serrated wheel F, of hardened steel, driving the second sweep hand, is cut on the edge with 120 serrations; stopping of this hand therefore is only to the nearest half second regardless of how minutely the escapement is dividing time. This is rather a serious defect as, if timing a horse race as an example, the time of the fastest horse is taken on this hand which registers a lesser degree of accuracy than the time recorded on the second and less important horse. A general view of one of these watches ...
— The Auburndale Watch Company - First American Attempt Toward the Dollar Watch • Edwin A. Battison
... pinnacles, intended to carry seated figures. From each of the great tower pinnacles two ogee-shaped flying buttresses spring to the near angles of the octagon. A recent writer criticizes these as too flimsy in effect, but the fact that they are in pairs obviates this defect from most points of view. The walls of the octagon are 21/2 feet thick at the base, but, as the inner slope of the spire begins at the level of the window transoms, the thickness at its parapet is more than 3 feet. The greater weight in this part corrects ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Churches of Coventry - A Short History of the City and Its Medieval Remains • Frederic W. Woodhouse
... shoot of her nature, for she had before been rather of a repellent disposition. I wish there were more, and amongst them some of the best of people, similarly changed. Surely the latter would soon be, if once they had a glimpse of how much the coming of the kingdom is retarded by defect of courtesy. The people I mean are slow to like, and until they come to like, they seem to dislike. I have known such whose manner was fit to imply entire disapprobation of the very existence of those upon whom they looked for the first time. They might ...
— Paul Faber, Surgeon • George MacDonald
... would be magnified times without number, and the value of the stone greatly reduced. It is therefore essential that a flaw should be removed whenever possible, but, when this is not practicable, the expert will cut the stone into such a shape as will bring the defect into the least important part of the finished gem, or probably sacrifice the size and weight of the original stone by cutting it in two or more pieces of such a shape that the cutting and polishing will obliterate ...
— The Chemistry, Properties and Tests of Precious Stones • John Mastin
... this letter Alfred betrayed a slight defect of character. He pooh-poohed the calamity: said David had now a chance, and a good one, of being cured: whereas confinement was one of the common causes of insanity even in sane persons. And he stoutly maintained that David's going to sea was a ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... traces of humour in the sayings and the conduct of our Lord;" and he proceeded to quote examples. Everyone is aware how Dr. Bonar himself knew how to combine with the profoundest reverence and saintliness a strain of delightful mirth; and the absence of this is the great defect of his ...
— The Trial and Death of Jesus Christ - A Devotional History of our Lord's Passion • James Stalker
... were not beauties, certainly; but we danced with them all the evening, changing every now and then for variety, though I had to look hard to make out which was my original partner, as I only knew them apart by the defect in their eyes. Dicky asked me if I didn't think them as pretty as Alice Marlow, at which I very nearly knocked him down in the ball-room. But he appeased me by assuring me with the greatest gravity, that he admired the squinting one very much, and should ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... the making it's best left to itself; you can lay a cable between London and a colony too soon for the good of that colony. There's no fear of the colonist forgetting the mother country—he may forget the Home Government, does at times, and then there's a mistake or two. But that's the defect of the quality.' He checked himself abruptly. 'But I'm running away from what we were talking about. Yes; I think we shall ...
— The Philanderers • A.E.W. Mason
... lawyer's eye to discern the fatal defect which was now revealed in the evidence for the defense. Every intelligent person present could see that the prisoner's chance of an honorable acquittal depended on tracing the poison to the possession of his wife—or at least on proving her expressed intention to ...
— The Law and the Lady • Wilkie Collins
... be nothing more directly offensive to the eye of an artist than the interior of what is termed in the United States—that is to say, in Appallachia—a well-furnished apartment. Its most usual defect is a want of keeping. We speak of the keeping of a room as we would of the keeping of a picture—for both the picture and the room are amenable to those undeviating principles which regulate all varieties of art; and very nearly the same laws by which we decide on the higher ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... to be imperceptible. If the movement becomes perceptible, on the contrary, and multiplied by the number of times that the gesture is repeated, it ends by throwing the conductor behind in the time he is beating, and by giving to his conducting a tardiness that proves injurious. This defect, moreover, has the result of needlessly fatiguing the conductor, and of producing exaggerated evolutions, verging on the ridiculous, which attract the spectators' attention, and ...
— The Orchestral Conductor - Theory of His Art • Hector Berlioz
... deliberations.... Considered merely as an instrument denning the powers and duties of magistrates and rulers, the Charter may justly be considered as unprovisional and imperfect. Yet it ought to be recollected that what is now its greatest defect was formerly a pre-eminent advantage, it being then highly important to the people to acquire the greatest latitude of authority with an exemption from British ...
— The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut • M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.
... composed of a pair of movable ridges of tissue, has almost a sphincteric action, in addition to a tilting movement. The ventricular bands can approximate under powerful stimuli. The vocal cords act similarly. The one defect in the efficiency of this barrier, is the tendency to take a deep inspiration preparatory to the cough excited by the ...
— Bronchoscopy and Esophagoscopy - A Manual of Peroral Endoscopy and Laryngeal Surgery • Chevalier Jackson
... spirit of those Saviours consist; but into every defect had they put their illusion, their stop-gap, which they ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... attractions, so far as I could see. Her defects were, to my mind, equally noticeable. Under a heavy forehead, her piercing eyes looked out at persons and things with an expression which was not to my taste. Her large mouth—another defect, in my opinion—would have been recommended to mercy, in the estimation of many men, by her magnificent teeth; white, well-shaped, cruelly regular. Believers in physiognomy might perhaps have seen the betrayal of an obstinate nature in the lengthy firmness of her chin. ...
— The Legacy of Cain • Wilkie Collins
... children as soon as they are able to walk? But did ever any father provide a tutor for his son to instruct him betimes in the nature and improvements of that land which he intended to leave him? That is at least a superfluity, and this a defect in our manner of education; and therefore I could wish, but cannot in these times much hope to see it, that one college in each university were erected, and appropriated to this study, as well as there are to medicine and the civil law. There would be no need of making a body of ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley
... humility; {299} he obliges them only to the little office of our Lady, which all might easily learn to understand; meditations, spiritual reading, recollection, and retreats, abundantly compensating the defect. All his regulations tend to instil a spirit of piety, charity, meekness, and simplicity. He subjects his Order to the bishop of each place, without any general. Pope Paul V. approved it, and erected the congregation of the Visitation into a ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... ascended the Parthian throne before the end of the year A.D. 46. It is not likely that his rule would have been resisted had he conducted himself well; but the cruelty of his temper, which had already once cost him his crown, again displayed itself after his restoration, and to this defect was added a slothful indulgence yet more distasteful to his subjects. Some military expeditions which he undertook, moreover, failed of success, and the crime of defeat caused the cup of his offences to brim over. The discontented portion of his people, who were ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson
... no knowledge of things conveyed by men's words, when their ideas agree not to the reality of things. Though it be a defect that has its original in our ideas, which are not so conformable to the nature of things as attention, study and application might make them, yet it fails not to extend itself to our words too, when we use them as ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume II. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books III. and IV. (of 4) • John Locke
... Individual of Each Succeeding Generation, on Arriving at the Age of Maturity." The party manifesto began with the startling declaration that "all human society, our own as well as every other, is constructed radically wrong." The new party proposed to right this defect by an equal distribution of the land and by an elaborate system of public education. Associated with Skidmore were Robert Dale Owen and Frances Wright of the "Free Enquirer," a paper advocating all sorts of extreme social ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth
... Expedition to Quebec, by J. Codman, is another careful work. These are the complements of the British books mentioned above, as they emphasize the American point of view and draw more from American than from British sources of original information. The unfortunate defect of Our Struggle for the Fourteenth Colony is that the author's efforts to be sprightly at all costs tend to repel the serious student, while his very thoroughness itself repels ...
— The Father of British Canada: A Chronicle of Carleton • William Wood
... wanted ships for the furnishing of his enterprise, his wit and policie found a shift to supplie that defect: for choosing out a piked number of such Britains as he had there with him in aid, which knew the foords and shallow places of the streames there, and withall were verie skilfull in swimming (as the maner of the countrie then was) he ...
— Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (4 of 8) - The Fovrth Booke Of The Historie Of England • Raphael Holinshed
... time before the great white men of Ohio began to be born here, but in the meanwhile there were those born elsewhere who, like General Harrison, became Ohioans, and so did what they could to repair the defect of birth. There is no reason to think that such men were shaped by Ohio influences, but it is the habit of our generous Ohio state patriotism to claim as Ohioans not only those who were born here, and those who came to live here, but those who were born here ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... they are not guilty, Since nature cannot choose its origin), By the o'ergrowth of some complexion, Oft breaking down the pales and forts of reason; Or by some habit that too much o'er-leavens The form of plausive manners; that these men,— Carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect; Being nature's livery, or fortune's star,— Their virtues else (be they as pure as grace, As infinite as man may undergo) Shall in the general censure take corruption From that ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson
... learned to handle these materials so carefully that in spite of the narrow and sloping shelf, the little tables no longer fell to the ground. The children, by carefully directing their movements, had overcome the defect in this piece ...
— The Nervous Child • Hector Charles Cameron
... an instance of the defect classed No. 1 in the blank leaf. With what propriety is this speech of profound moral insight put in the mouth of that ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... a harsh disposition is the introduction to future misery. To be totally indifferent to praise or censure is a real defect in character. The intermixture of evil in human society serves to exercise the suffering graces and virtues of ...
— English Grammar in Familiar Lectures • Samuel Kirkham
... because you possess superior qualities that you are a pleasant companion, it may be a real defect which is essential to you. To be received with open arms, you must be agreeable, amusing, necessary to the pleasure of others. I warn you that you can not succeed in any other manner, particularly with women. Tell me, what would you have me do with your learning, the geometry of your ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... these assurances; far better as policy than so ignominious an attempt at hedging would have been the acknowledgment to all the world of the noble crime of patriotism. But, as Massimo d'Azeglio once observed, Charles Albert had the incurable defect of thinking himself cunning. It was, moreover, only too true that, although in these diplomatic communications the King allowed the case against him to be stated with glaring exaggeration, yet they contained an element of fact. He was afraid of revolution at home; he was afraid ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... were very miserable and confined, I had only in my power to remedy the latter defect, by putting ourselves at watch and watch; so that one half always sat up, while the other half lay down on the boat's bottom, with nothing to cover us but the heavens."—A Narrative of the Mutiny of the Bounty, by William Bligh, 1790, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... imitated, or, rather, faultily exceeded, Mrs. Barry in the habit of prolonging and toning her pronunciation, sometimes to a degree verging upon a chant; but whether it was that the public ear was at that period accustomed to a demi-chant, or that she threw off the defect in the heat of passion, it is certain that her general judgment and genius, in the highest bursts of tragedy, inspired enthusiasm in all around her, and that she was thought to be alike mistress of the terrible ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... most men, the intelligent and virtuous as well as the ignorant and vicious, are intolerant of other individualities. They are uncharitable by defect of sympathy and defect of insight. Society, even the best, is apt to be made up of people who are engaged in the agreeable occupation of despising each other; for one association for mutual admiration there are twenty for mutual contempt; ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... versification excellent, and my disinclination to take the parentage is not because of any defect in them; but it is a matter of fact, there is only one word which I inserted, and which I claim as my own composition—that word is 'Erin.' In the original lines the word was 'Scotland;' they are from a poem ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... but it suffered from the defect from which most big things suffer; it moved slowly. That it also moved steadily was to some extent a consolation to Mr. Scobell. Undoubtedly it would progress quicker and quicker, as time went on, until at length the Casino ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... be effectual, must change the circumstances of the individual when they are the cause of his wretched condition, and lie beyond his control. Among those who have arrived at their present evil plight through faults of self-indulgence or some defect in their moral character, how many are there who would have been very differently placed to-day had their surroundings been otherwise? Charles Kingsley puts this very abruptly where he makes the Poacher's widow say, when addressing the ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... was owing to some defect in their civil polity that the ancients were comparatively so easily put down by the Roman power, which might have been the superior civilisation. Possibly the great majority of the people may have been dissatisfied with their rulers, and gladly removed to another place and another ...
— Notes & Queries 1850.01.19 • Various
... no salvation, no scheme of grace, no great Physician. In visiting any Mohammedan country one is impressed with this one defect, the want of a Mediator. I once stood in the central hall of an imposing mansion in Damascus, around the frieze of which were described, in Arabic letters of gold, "The Hundred Names of Allah." They were interpreted to me by ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... count it barbarous, they count it unworthy to be accounted of."[284] Chapman says in his preface to Achilles' Shield: "Some will convey their imperfections under his Greek shield, and from thence bestow bitter arrows against the traduction, affirming their want of admiration grows from the defect of our language, not able to express the copiousness (coppie) and elegancy of the original." Richard Greenway, who translated the Annals of Tacitus, admits cautiously that his medium is "perchance not so fit to set out a piece ...
— Early Theories of Translation • Flora Ross Amos
... Colors, however, vary with the prejudice or partiality of the spectator; and, moreover, people do not agree even upon the most palpable prismatic tint. A writing-master whom we had at Enfield was an artist of more than ordinary merit; but he had one dominant defect: he could not distinguish between true blue and true green. So that, upon one occasion, when he was exhibiting to us a landscape he had just completed, I hazarded the critical question, why he painted his trees so blue? "Blue!" he replied,—"what ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... made sure to all the seed. "Who then can condemn? It is God that justifieth; because Christ hath died, yea rather, that is risen again." Who, now seeing all this is so effectually done, shall lay anything, the least thing? who can find the least flaw, the least wrinkle, the least defect or imperfection, in this glorious satisfaction (Rom 8:33-34; Heb 6:20; 9:24; John ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... to the present outcry against the triviality and meanness, both of thought and language, which some of my contemporaries have occasionally introduced into their metrical compositions; and I acknowledge that this defect, where it exists, is more dishonourable to the Writer's own character than false refinement or arbitrary innovation, though I should contend at the same time, that it is far less pernicious in the sum of its consequences. From such verses the Poems in these volumes will be found ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... successfully given at Marseilles and Lyons, and now published in many different arrangements. Her concerto for piano and orchestra has received high praise from the critics, who seem always ready to laud its refined melodic charm and graceful delicacy of sentiment. The one defect seems to be an excess of vigour and virility in certain of the later movements. Her other orchestral works consist of two suites, one of them being ...
— Woman's Work in Music • Arthur Elson
... Extraordinary sensation caused by his amatory verses. Causes co-operating to spread his renown. His coronation at Rome. His poetical powers. His genius. Paucity of his thoughts. His energy when speaking of the wrongs and degradation of Italy. His poems on religious subjects. Prevailing defect of his best compositions. Remarks on ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... way he was always,' pursued Mr. Ratsch, at first in a low voice, and then louder and louder, and, to my surprise, with a perceptible German accent, 'he was always warning me: "Ay, Ivan Demianitch! ay! my dear boy, you must be careful! Your stepdaughter has an organic defect in the heart—hypertrophia cordialis! The least thing and there'll be trouble! She must avoid all exciting emotions above all.... You must appeal to her reason."... But, upon my word, with a young lady... can one appeal ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... confidence which not even the shock of political campaigns has been able to move. But in respect of grammar we find ourselves in a state of the most painful uncertainty. We have never regarded it as our beloved President's strong point, but we have considered any linguistic defect more than atoned for by the hearty, timely, sturdy, plain sense which appeals so directly and forcibly to the good sense of others. This book calls up a distressing doubt, and a doubt that strikes at vital ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... careful reading for the purpose of correction: you must, therefore, receive it with all its imperfections, accompanied with this assurance, that, though there may be many inaccuracies in the letter, there is not a single defect in the friendship of, ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... would be, for all the world, like the teeth of the animal that had bitten the old one. In proof of this she named old Master Simmons, who had a very large pig's tooth in his upper jaw, a personal defect that he always averred was caused by his mother, who threw away one of his cast teeth by accident into the hog's trough. A similar belief has led to practices intended, on the principles of homoeopathic magic, to replace old teeth by new and better ones. Thus in many parts of the ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... of the Amphioxus and the Ascidia has so much increased our knowledge of man's stem-history that, although our empirical information is still very incomplete, there is now no defect of any great consequence in it. We may now, therefore, approach our proper task, and reconstruct the phylogeny of man in its chief lines with the aid of this evidence of comparative anatomy and ontogeny. In this the reader will soon see the immense importance of the direct application of the biogenetic ...
— The Evolution of Man, V.2 • Ernst Haeckel
... Rising from out the surface of daily experience, like the watery issuings of a fountain, it throws itself upward for a moment, then descends in a soft, glittering shower to the level whence it rose. Herein resides the chief defect of Bayly's songs; that they are too general and vague—a species of pattern songs—being embodiments of some general feeling, or reflection, but lacking that sufficient reference to some season or occurrence which would justify their appearing, ...
— Poems • George P. Morris
... you; but, unless the office of 'devil' in your newspaper is a purely technical one, I think he has all the qualities required. He is very quick, active, and intelligent; understands English better than he speaks it; and makes up for any defect by his habits of observation and imitation. You have only to show him how to do a thing once, and he will repeat it, whether it is an offence or a virtue. But you certainly know him already. You are one of his godfathers; for is he not Wan Lee, the reputed son of Wang the ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... good knowledge of obstetric operations. His ideas in relation to pathology did not proceed much further than the belief that disease was due to corruption of the humors. He was more scientific and accurate when he taught that paralysis results from a defect in the nerves. ...
— Outlines of Greek and Roman Medicine • James Sands Elliott
... necessary, in these examples, to violate the laws of accent or emphasis, to give perfect rhythm, yet a careful and well-trained reader will be able to observe these laws and still give the rhythm in such a manner that the defect will ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... bestowed upon us the light of the knowledge of Himself, and hath redeemed us from the darkness of idolatrous madness, having espoused to Himself His holy Catholic Church without spot or defect, promised that He would so preserve her; and assured His holy disciples, saying, "I am with you always, even unto the end of the world" [Matt. 28:20], which promise He made, not only to them, but to us also who through ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... whose escutcheons would otherwise indicate the first order of their class: these often deceive the most practised eye. The only remedy is to become familiar with the infallible marks given by Guenon by which bastards may be known. This defect will account for the irregularity of many cows, and their suddenly going dry on becoming with calf, and often for the bad quality of their milk. They are distinguished by the lines of ascending and descending hair in ...
— Soil Culture • J. H. Walden
... to use adroitly, craftily. And he knew that the first thing was to close this interview without losing any ground. The longer she remained bound, the better for him. And with his craft against the country girl's simplicity it would have fared badly with Julia had it not been for one defect which always inheres, in a bad man's plots in such a case. A man like Humphreys never really understands a pure woman. Certain detached facts he may know, but he can not "put ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... more easily acquire a great reputation for piety than the superstitious and hypocritical. With regard to true virtues, these do not all proceed from true knowledge, for there are some that likewise spring from defect or error; thus, simplicity is frequently the source of goodness, fear of devotion, and despair of courage. The virtues that are thus accompanied with some imperfections differ from each other, and have received diverse appellations. But those ...
— The Principles of Philosophy • Rene Descartes
... discipline he was lenient to ordinary faults, and not careful to make curious inquiries into such things. He liked his men to enjoy themselves. Military mistakes in his officers too he always endeavored to excuse, never blaming them for misfortunes, unless there had been a defect of courage as well as judgment. Mutiny and desertion only he never overlooked. And thus no general was ever more loved by, or had greater power over, the army which served under him. He brought the insurgent 10th legion into ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... rooms with imperfect ceilings it is easy to disguise this by using a paper with a small design in the same tone. A perfectly plain ceiling paper will show every defect in the surface of ...
— The Art of Interior Decoration • Grace Wood
... large pupil into the anterior chamber of the eye. Day-blindness, or imperfect vision under a bright light, is inherited, as is night-blindness, or an incapacity to see except under a strong light: a case has been recorded, by M. Cunier, of this latter defect having affected eighty-five members of the same family during six generations. The singular incapacity of distinguishing colours, which has been called Daltonism, is notoriously hereditary, and has been traced through five generations, in which it was confined ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... personal appearance was, to say the least of it, extremely odd; he was low in stature; and this defect was enhanced by a distortion of the spine, so considerable as almost to amount to a hunch; his features, too, had all that sharpness and sickliness of hue which generally accompany deformity; he wore his hair, ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume I. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... wilful-blunt; And since your coming hither have done enough To put him quite beside his patience. You must needs learn, lord, to amend this fault: Though sometimes it show greatness, courage, blood— And that's the dearest grace it renders you,— Yet oftentimes it doth present harsh rage, Defect of manners, want of government, Pride, haughtiness, opinion, and disdain; The least of which haunting a nobleman Loseth men's hearts, and leaves behind a stain Upon the beauty of all parts besides, ...
— King Henry IV, The First Part • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]
... "Some radical defect in me, I suppose. The Pagan strain, perhaps, that comes out so strong in Michael. I believe I am incapable of les grandes passions. But that does not prevent me from being a good friend, and a constant one, as you will find, if you care to test me in that capacity. Now you may sit down here," ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... sure that the governor controls the machine with the throttle wide open. It might be that the main poppet valve has sustained some injury not evident on inspection, or was leaking badly. Should there be some such defect, steps should be taken to regrind the valve to its seat at the ...
— Steam Turbines - A Book of Instruction for the Adjustment and Operation of - the Principal Types of this Class of Prime Movers • Hubert E. Collins
... flourishing, and has a comparatively wide spread of branches and fair amount of foliage. It is evident, then, that pruning heavily will cause the tree to throw out new and vigorous shoots, but as this is a troublesome and expensive work, and as atti is certainly liable to the defect above alluded to, and is, besides, not a wide-spreading tree, it is evidently not so desirable as any of the first five I have named. Atti can be grown from cuttings, but these must not be large ones, i.e., they should be thinner than those commonly used when planting cuttings of ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... and walked in the spring morning, first to the bread shop to buy a pound of bread from the woman who wouldn't smile ... so serious and puzzling was this defect that Fanny had once asked her: "Would you rather I didn't buy my ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold
... clearly that Romanism, whatever good it may have done, is now many centuries behind the times. This is a very serious defect. It has the Bible, a Latin version called the Vulgate which it claims as its own. It has the New Testament and for that reason it is classed as a christian religion. It has however, opposed and suppressed the reading of the Bible by the people, lest the spread of intelligence, ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger
... we shall have an effective law. The present law stops just short of effectiveness, for it surrenders to the local authorities all control over the certification which establishes the prima facie right to a seat in the House of Representatives. This defect should be cured. Equality of representation and the parity of the electors must be maintained or everything that is valuable in our system of government is lost. The qualifications of an elector must be sought in the law, net in the opinions, ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... There is one deep defect in our extension of cosmopolitan and Imperial cultures. That is, that in most human things if you spread your butter far you spread it thin. But there is an odder fact yet: rooted in something dark and irrational in human nature. That is, that when you find your ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton
... small adjunct called love. She was wondering how it was that she saw Luke's faults and the thousand ways in which he was inferior to his brother, and yet that with all these to stay him up Fitz did not compare with Luke. After all, there must have been some small defect in the education which she had received, for instead of thinking these futile things she ought to have been attempting to discover—as was her mother at that moment—which of the two brothers seemed more likely to ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... made in heaven," what they mean is that, in the most fundamental of all social operations, the building up of the family, the issues involved in the nuptial contract, lie beyond the best exercise of human thought, and the unseen forces of providential government make good the defect in our imperfect capacity. Even so would it seem to have been in that curious marriage of competing influences and powers, which brings about the composite harmony of the British Constitution. More, it must be admitted, than any other, it leaves open doors which lead into ...
— Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists • James Anthony Froude, Edward A. Freeman, William Ewart Gladstone, John Henry Newman and Leslie Steph
... rapidly mixing some paint. "This last lesson very clearly explains that every thought has an influence, and that you help to make the body manifest whatever you think of it. If you think the real and true, you help to make that show forth, if you only think of the external or apparent trouble or defect, and regard it as the real, you ...
— The Right Knock - A Story • Helen Van-Anderson
... statues is that they are violent and want repose. The Vercingetorix, the Rouget de l'Isle, the Lafayette, all have this exaggerated stress of action. They have counterbalancing features of merit, no doubt, but none of so transcendent weight that we can afford to overlook this grave defect. ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 2, Issue 3, December, 1884 • Various
... to mortify and even to injure an opponent," said an old swindler to me, "reproach him with the very defect or vice of which you feel conscious in yourself.—Fly into a rage ...
— A Reckless Character - And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... exercise; for Peter was a very absolute and despotic Grand-Vizier, and if it had not been that he could neither read nor write, it would have been utterly impossible to have wrested from him a particle of power over the property. This happy defect in his education—happy so far as Kate's rule was concerned—gave her the one claim she could prefer to any superiority over him, and his obstinacy could never be effectually overcome, except by confronting him with a written document or a column of figures. Before ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... or showing any deference in his manner, answered with a scarcely veiled note of insolence in his voice: "Good-morning, Monsieur Peyrolles. You are not punctual. A defect. Sit down." ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... enough, To put him quite besides his patience. You must needes learne, Lord, to amend this fault: Though sometimes it shew Greatnesse, Courage, Blood, And that's the dearest grace it renders you; Yet oftentimes it doth present harsh Rage, Defect of Manners, want of Gouernment, Pride, Haughtinesse, Opinion, and Disdaine: The least of which, haunting a Nobleman, Loseth mens hearts, and leaues behinde a stayne Vpon the beautie of all parts ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... throat, and found the freckles as their fair mistress had said, but they called them beauty-spots, and mere tiny blemishes only, tending to enhance the whiteness of her delicate skin. Bertalda shook her head and asserted that a spot was always a defect. ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... it should be read distinctly to the house. We may otherwise waste our time in debates, to which only our own forgetfulness gives occasion; we may raise objections without reason, and propose amendments where there is no defect. [The address was accordingly read, and Mr. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11. - Parlimentary Debates II. • Samuel Johnson
... reports of the German agent Mont, who had told Henry that her beauty exceeded that of the Duchess of Milan "as the sun outshines the silver moon," she was found on her arrival in England to be "tall, bright, and graceful," her liveliness making amends for any defect as to regularity of feature. Comparing her claim to beauty with that of the other wives of Henry VIII., it does not appear that she contrasted unfavourably with any, not even with Katharine Howard, who was very generally admired. The king himself observed to Cromwell that Anne was "well and seemly, ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... not known, odd mixtures made up in a hurry at the moment of requirement, but no material or mixture has been found to excel that made with wood and glue. Many, perhaps the majority of instances in which this has been used, have also been failures; not from any inherent defect in the substance, but from lack of proper management. Different varieties of wood have been tried, a great drawback being the contraction when the glue dries; this is markedly the case when a hard wood, powdered by glass-paper, is used. The granulations and their hardness ...
— The Repairing & Restoration of Violins - 'The Strad' Library, No. XII. • Horace Petherick
... the primates is the character of their self-consciousness. This useful faculty, that can probe so deep, has one naive defect—it relies too readily on its own findings. It doesn't suspect enough its own unconfessed predilections. It assumes that it can be completely impartial—but isn't. To instance an obvious way in which it will betray them: beings that ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day
... is ordinarily concerned merely with finding an ore of as good a general grade as possible; but he often finds to his surprise that his efforts have been directed toward the discovery of something which, due to some minor defect in texture, in mineralogical composition, or in chemical composition, is difficult to introduce on the market. There is here a promising field, intermediate between geology (or mineralogy) and metallurgy, ...
— The Economic Aspect of Geology • C. K. Leith
... the congregation being unable to join in the melodies, he used to give out the anthem thus: "Sing ye to the praise and glory of God...." Five years before his death he had an attack of paralysis which slightly crippled his power of utterance, though this defect could scarcely be detected when he was engaged in the services of the church. Two days before his death he sang his "swan-song." Some colours were presented to the volunteers of the town, and were consecrated in the ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... air and motion it will be difficult to behold without contempt and laughter; but if he examine what are the appearances that thus powerfully excite his risibility, he will find among them neither poverty nor disease, nor any involuntary or painful defect. The disposition to derision and insult, is awakened by the softness of foppery, the swell of insolence, the liveliness of levity, or the solemnity of grandeur; by the sprightly trip, the stately stalk, the formal strut, and the lofty mien; ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... after which they earn the right to leave the world, and to seek salvation, leading an ascetic life in some jungle. If a member of some Hindu family happens to be afflicted from birth with some organic defect, this will not be an impediment to his marrying, on the condition that his wife should be also a cripple, if she belongs to the same caste. The defects of husband and wife must be different: if he is blind, she must be hump-backed or lame, and vice ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... sixty years—two generations—to accumulate a village fortune by saving fifty pounds a year, it does not occupy so long to reduce a farmer to poverty when half that sum is annually lost. There was no strongly marked and radical defect in his system of farming to amount for it; it was the muddling, and the muddling only, that did it. His work was blind. He would never miss giving the pigs their dinner, he rose at half-past three in the morning, and foddered the cattle in the grey dawn, or milked a ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... corruption &c (debasement) 659; knavery &c (improbity) 940 [Obs.]; profligacy; flagrancy, atrocity; cannibalism; lesbianism, Sadism. infirmity; weakness &c adj.; weakness of the flesh, frailty, imperfection; error; weak side; foible; failing, failure; crying sin, besetting sin; defect, deficiency; cloven foot. lowest dregs of vice, sink of iniquity, Alsatian den^; gusto picaresco [It]. fault, crime; criminality &c (guilt) 947. sinner &c 949. [Resorts] brothel &c 961; gambling house &c 621; joint [Slang], opium den, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... went farther out from the land, he got more breeze; and the result was entirely satisfactory. Indeed, he had been practically sure that he could remedy the defect in the working of the Goldwing before he bought her. If he failed to do so, he had thrown his money away; for parties would not employ him if he had an unsafe boat. He intended to invite two or three prominent boatmen to sail with him when he had put the boat in first-rate condition, ...
— All Adrift - or The Goldwing Club • Oliver Optic
... and the proximity of the enemy's frontier, behind which movements of troops would be "curtained"—to use a graphic military metaphor—gave the Boers particular facilities for striking unexpectedly the railroad between Ladysmith and Glencoe, upon which, in defect of other transportation, the two British posts must depend for communication between themselves, and with their base on ...
— Story of the War in South Africa - 1899-1900 • Alfred T. Mahan
... wealth ought to go to the manual laborers. One looks in vain for a single passage in all the writings of Marx which will justify this criticism. It may be conceded at once that if Marx taught anything of the kind, the defect in Marxian theory is fatal. But it must be proven that the defect exists—and the onus probandi rests upon Mr. Mallock. One need not be a trained economist or a learned philosopher to see how absurd such a theory must be. Suppose we take, for example, a man working in a factory, ...
— Socialism - A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles • John Spargo
... alphabet.—An alphabet may be both sufficient and consistent, accurate in its representation of the alliances between articulate sounds, and in no wise redundant; and yet, withal, it may be so wrongly applied as to be defective. Of defect in the use or application of the letters of an alphabet, the three main causes ...
— A Handbook of the English Language • Robert Gordon Latham
... place, we do not admit that there are any defects in the Boston girl, but if there are defects, as is alleged by the writer above, and by other scientific persons, we do not see how giving less prominence to her intellectuality is going to do away with them. For instance, there is a defect in the girl whereby she has a shin on both sides of her lower limb, or an indentation where there should be the customary calf—we say calf advisedly, because it is a calf, and no person need be ashamed of it, ...
— Peck's Sunshine - Being a Collection of Articles Written for Peck's Sun, - Milwaukee, Wis. - 1882 • George W. Peck
... regard him as the king's son; the more it fell into the habit of counting him the king's son, the less astonished and unwilling would it be if fate should place him on the king's seat. Where birth is beyond reproach, dignity may be above display; a defect in the first demands an ample exhibition of the second. It was a small matter, this journey to Dover, yet, that he might not go in the train of his father and the Duke of York, but make men talk of his own going, he chose to start beforehand and alone; lest even thus he should ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... wish he may conceive, every effort he can make, shall be little better than vain. Even to every talent and virtuous impulse which he may feel working in his bosom, obstacles stand in impracticable array; not from a defect of essential title to success, but from a positive external law, unreasoning and irreversible.' * * 'The elevation of a degraded class of beings to the privileges of freemen, which, though free, ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... revelation granted to him respecting the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper. Not having been amongst the number of His Apostles in the days when He was on earth, S. Paul had received no instructions from His own mouth. But the defect was supplied by direct revelation. He says, "I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus, the same night in which He was betrayed, took bread," ...
— The Kingdom of Heaven; What is it? • Edward Burbidge
... acknowledged right extinguishes the hopes of faction; and the conscious security disarms the cruelty of the monarch. To the firm establishment of this idea we owe the peaceful succession and mild administration of European monarchies. To the defect of it we must attribute the frequent civil wars through which an Asiatic despot is obliged to cut his way to the throne of his fathers. Yet, even in the East, the sphere of contention is usually limited to the princes of the reigning ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... so as to cut off what is called the ragged edge of the field of view (which includes all the part not reached by full pencils of light from the object-glass), there is no means of remedying the corresponding defect in the Galilean Telescope. It would be a very annoying defect in a telescope intended for astronomical observation, since in general the edge of the field of view is not perceptible at night. The unpleasant nature of the defect may ...
— Half-hours with the Telescope - Being a Popular Guide to the Use of the Telescope as a - Means of Amusement and Instruction. • Richard A. Proctor
... interrupted; it was so rare in London, especially at that season, that people got a good talk. But luckily now, of a fine Sunday, half the world went out of town, and that made it better for those who didn't go, when these others were in sympathy. It was the defect of London—one of two or three, the very short list of those she recognised in the teeming world-city she adored—that there were too few good chances for talk; you never had time to ...
— The Lesson of the Master • Henry James
... when it was fresh from his easel. Rubens could not have laid on the colors with more solidity and with truer feeling for the hues of life. But the trouble with Thompson was that he had never learned how to draw correctly; and this defect appeared to some extent in his portraits as well as in his figures. The latter were graceful, significant, full of feeling and character; but they betrayed a weakness of anatomical knowledge and of perspective. They had ...
— Hawthorne and His Circle • Julian Hawthorne
... adorned with precious stones; the other with ivory carvings of Michael Angelo's Last Judgment, and of the frescos of Raphael's Loggie. The world has ceased to be so magnificent as it once was. Men make no such marvels nowadays. The only defect that I remember in this hall was in the marble steps that ascend to the elevated apartment at the end of it; a large piece had been broken out of one of them, leaving a rough irregular gap in the polished marble ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... choice of the clay—or that it is frequently spoiled in the baking; by an excess of which a husband may turn out too crusty (you know) on one hand—or not enough so, through defect of heat, on the other—or whether this great Artificer is not so attentive to the little Platonic exigences of that part of the species, for whose use she is fabricating this—or that her Ladyship sometimes scarce knows what sort of a husband will do—I know not: we will ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... walnut, the Chase, is growing in a dooryard at Oberlin, Ohio. It is larger than any of the others, with good shell conformation. It has the reputation of not always filling out the kernels, a condition which may be seasonal or possibly an inherent defect. Grafts of all four of these walnuts are growing at Ithaca and at Geneva and will be available after ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Twenty-Fifth Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... please her master, Olive, though now a woman grown, wore her hair still in childish fashion, falling in most artistic confusion over her neck and shoulders. It seemed that nature had bestowed on her this great beauty, in order to veil that defect which, though made far less apparent by her maturer growth, and a certain art in dress, could never be removed. Still there was an inexpressible charm in her purely-outlined features to which the complexion always accompanying pale-gold hair imparted such a delicate, spiritual colouring. ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... attire under all circumstances in warm weather was a long linen duster, and it is a defect of ursine perception to confound a man with his clothes. When the napping skirt of Foster's duster seemed to be within reach, the over-eager bear made a grab for it, and released his grasp of the tree. The backward spring of the tough sapling nearly dislodged the ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly
... if I venture to advance an invention of my own to supply the manifest defect of our new writers? I am sufficiently sensible of my weakness, and it is not very probable that I should succeed in such a project, whereof I have not had the least hint from any of my predecessors the poets, or any of their seconds or coadjutors ...
— Discourses on Satire and Epic Poetry • John Dryden
... of all taste in matters of ornamental cultivation is lamentably evident in the country dwellings of rich and poor alike, as far as I have yet seen in this neighborhood. No natural beauty seems to be perceived and taken advantage of, no defect hidden or adorned; proximity to the road, for obvious purposes of mere convenience, seems to have been the one idea in the selection of building sites; and straight, ungraveled paths, straight rows of trees, straight strips of coarse grass, ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... a waste of time and energy, the overhaul having already been made, all defective or doubtful gear replaced, and the sails loosed and aired once every week since. Still, I did not in the least object, for it was all to my personal advantage that if perchance any trifling defect had been thus far overlooked, it should now be made good. While the rest of the hands, under Polson and Tudsbery, were going systematically to work upon the overhauling process I set the cook and steward to work to take careful stock of the contents of the lazarette, ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood
... were supposed to supply ourselves from a cistern in the yard which had contracted the bad habit of running dry and for inconvenient periods remaining so. We were therefore compelled to carry all our water from a neighbor's spring at least a quarter of a mile away. We tried to remedy this defect by boring an artesian well, but all our attempts were unsuccessful. Country life was distasteful to cooks as they preferred to live in a city where they could make and mingle with friends, and I soon learned that if I wanted to keep a servant I must hire one who had a baby, and that is ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... the Governor, now addressing me, "it would be improper for me to indicate what course I shall pursue in regard to it if it should come to me for my signature. Yet I may go so far as to say that the defect it seeks to remedy seems to me a real one. Come in and see me, Mr. Paret, when you are in town, and give my ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... perfect feather, must be procured, if possible, for the loss of feathers can seldom be made good; and where the deficiency is great all the skill of the artist will avail him little in his attempt to conceal the defect; because, in order to hide it, he must contract the skin, bring down the upper feathers and shove in the lower ones, which would throw all the ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... Dark), Discord or Strife also had her say in the union. Thus the nature and character in every creature was the resultant of two antagonistic forces, and depended for its particular excellence or defect on the proportions in which these two elements—the {39} light and the dark, the fiery and ...
— A Short History of Greek Philosophy • John Marshall
... for their absence, and it is equally certain, I think, that a translator of an Augustan poet ought not to suffer them to be a prominent feature of his style. I have, perhaps, indulged in them too often myself to note them as a defect in others; but it seems to me that they contribute, along with the Tennysonian metre, to diminish the pleasure with which we read such a version as that of which I have already spoken by "C. S. C." of "Justum et tenacem." I may add, too, that I have occasionally allowed ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace
... represent as being the principal defect in the Shetland character?-It is one of the ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... even of those who are their nearest friends and relatives. For the same reason, they can never amuse themselves with reading, because their memory will not serve to carry them from the beginning of a sentence to the end; and by this defect they are deprived of the only entertainment whereof they might ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... fiddle strings with his thumb, and screwing up the keys. His sense of melody was in a mood to overlook many a defect, and he presently thrust the fiddle under his chin and began to saw it. Then he led off ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post
... tongues no rhet'rick we expect Nor yet a sweet Consort from broken strings, Nor perfect beauty, where's a main defect; My foolish, broken, blemish'd Muse so sings And this to mend, alas, no Art is able, 'Cause ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... is better than cure—piety from childhood is better than reformation in manhood. The judgment of the Apostle upon him "who neglects to provide for his own house," even in temporal matters, is well known; and must there not be a radical defect and wrong in any religious organization which loses the great majority of its own youth, and depends largely on infusions from without for the recruit of its numbers? Such an organization may do much good, and widely extend in many places for the time being, especially in a new ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... pleasure and pain, and say, not as before, that a man does what is evil knowingly, but that he does what is painful knowingly, and because he is overcome by pleasure, which is unworthy to overcome. And what measure is there of the relations of pleasure to pain other than excess and defect, which means that they become greater and smaller, and more and fewer, and differ in degree? For if any one says, Yes, Socrates, but immediate pleasure differs widely from future pleasure and pain, to which I should reply: And do they ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to prose. Volume I (of X) - Greece • Various
... of the legal mind is not a bad fault at the worst, and the quality in which this defect inheres is of the greatest moment in any project of constructive engineering on the legal and political plane. But it is less to the purpose, indeed it is at cross purposes, in such a conjuncture as the present; when the nations are held up in their ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... in this place some defect in the manuscripts, which critics have endeavored to supply in different manners. Brotier seems to prefer, though he does not adopt in the text, "nos Mauricum Rusticumque divisimus," "we parted Mauricus and Rusticus," by the death of one and the banishment of the ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus
... soft with the sunlight, a faint touch of color in her cheeks, he suddenly realized the significance of her words. Her bosom was rising and falling quickly. Her plain black dress, simply made though it was, showed no defect of figure. Her throat was soft and white. The curve of her body was even graceful. The revelation of these things came as a shock to Arnold, yet it was curious that he found a certain pleasure ...
— The Lighted Way • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the substance of his thoughts was that this little girl, who bore his name, had her seamy side. Up to now, if he noticed a defect, he instantly and chivalrously put it out of his mind, but now certain doubts had knocked so long that by sheer persistence they forced an entrance. Lena, who began by being a sweet, innocent, much-enduring little thing, now that he knew her more ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... admiration; worth What's dearest to the world! Full many a lady I have ey'd with best regard, and many a time The harmony of their tongues hath into bondage Brought my too diligent ear: for several virtues Have I lik'd several women; never any With so full soul but some defect in her Did quarrel with the noblest grace she ow'd, And put it to the foil: but you, O you! So perfect and so peerless, are ...
— The Tempest • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... there were moments when I detested Mr. B- exceedingly. From the way he used to glare sometimes, I fancy that more than once he paid me back with interest. It so happened that we both loved the little barque very much. And it was just the defect of Mr. B-'s inestimable qualities that he would never persuade himself to believe that the ship was safe in my hands. To begin with, he was more than five years older than myself at a time of life when five years really do count, I being ...
— The Mirror of the Sea • Joseph Conrad
... was to clean up some armour that had belonged to his great-grandfather, and had been for ages lying forgotten in a corner eaten with rust and covered with mildew. He scoured and polished it as best he could, but he perceived one great defect in it, that it had no closed helmet, nothing but a simple morion. This deficiency, however, his ingenuity supplied, for he contrived a kind of half-helmet of pasteboard which, fitted on to the morion, looked like a whole one. It is true that, in order to see ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... may say so deep a puss—that she had furnished more notes than there was original matter. Another peculiarity which distinguished her labours was the obscurity of her style; I call it a peculiarity, and not a defect, because I am not quite certain whether the difficulty of getting at her meaning lay in her mode of expressing herself or my deficiency in the delicacies of her language. I think myself a tolerable linguist, ...
— The Adventures of a Dog, and a Good Dog Too • Alfred Elwes
... aspergere quid alicui, but also re aliquem, conspergere, perspergere, respergere quem. "Why should not this be allowed to the Jews also,"—remarks Koecher—"who have to make up for the defect of compound verbs by the varied use of simple verbs?" But the Prophet had a special reason, in the liberty specially afforded by the higher style, for deviating from the ordinary connection. The [Hebrew: el] had to be avoided, because, had it been put, the perception of the correspondence ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 • Ernst Hengstenberg
... the children have made me see the dissolving of character which comes from all forms of acting, even the primary defect of the novel as a vehicle, and the inevitable breaking down in good time of every artificial form of expression. It is true now, that an important message can be carried to the many more effectively in a play or a novel than through the straight white expression of its truth. This is so because ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... fragrance of this spray of azalea beside me, what a wonder would it seem!—and yet one ought to be able, by the mere use of language, to supply to every reader the total of that white, honeyed, trailing sweetness, which summer insects haunt and the Spirit of the Universe loves. The defect is not in language, but in men. There is no conceivable beauty of blossom so beautiful as words,—none so graceful, none so perfumed. It is possible to dream of combinations of syllables so delicious that all the dawning and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... most striking defect of this modern American literature is the fact that the production of anything at all resembling literature is scarcely anywhere apparent. Innumerable printing-presses, instead, are turning out a vast quantity of reading-matter, the candidly recognized purpose of which is to ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... time which shows his method of thrashing out the moral matrix of a scenario himself. It is called "Old Dry Ink." Howard's irony slayed the vulgar, but, because in some quarters his irony was not liked, he was criticized for his vulgarities. Archer, for example, early laid this defect to the influence of the Wyndham policy, in London, of courting blatant immorality in plays ...
— Shenandoah - Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911 • Bronson Howard
... not comprehend her husband's state of mind. She felt painfully the change in his manner, but failed in reaching the true cause. Sometimes she attributed his coldness to resentment; sometimes to defect of love; and sometimes to a settled determination on his part to inflict punishment. Sometimes she spent hours alone, weeping over these sad ruins of her peace, and sometimes, in a spirit of revolt, she laid down for herself a line of conduct intended to react against her ...
— After the Storm • T. S. Arthur
... certainly a very small business, Herbert. I think some men become meaner by indulgence of their defect." ...
— Do and Dare - A Brave Boy's Fight for Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... circuit. It has been found that a complete metallic circuit (two wires) is practically free from interference, though where a number of wires are hung on the same poles, speech-sounds may be faintly induced in one circuit from another. This defect is, however, minimized by crossing the wires about among themselves, so that any one line does not pass round the corresponding insulator ...
— How it Works • Archibald Williams
... counsel to his officials in Canada and with tactful patience rebuked their faults. He did everything for the colonists—gave them not merely land, but muskets, farm implements, even chickens, pigs, and sometimes wives. The defect of his government was that it tended to be too paternal. The vital needs of a colony struggling with the problems of barbarism could hardly be read correctly and provided for at Versailles. Colonies, like men, are strong only when they learn to take ...
— The Conquest of New France - A Chronicle of the Colonial Wars, Volume 10 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • George M. Wrong
... is, that from the Wabache to the sea, no rain falls but in sudden gusts; which defect is compensated by the abundant dews, so that the plants lose nothing by that means. The Wabache has a course of three hundred {112} leagues, and the Ohio has its source a hundred ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... master any personal defect," I inquired, "which might have made it distressing to him to see his own ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens
... serious. Let me see: he admits that he is unable to recognize his own son in face, features, manner, or speech. Good! If I could pick up some rascal whose—er—irregularities didn't quite fill the bill, and could say—Ged!—that he was reforming. Reforming! Ged, Star! That very defect would show the hereditary taint, demn me! I must think of this seriously. Ged, Star! the idea is—an inspiration of humanity and virtue. Who knows? it might be the saving of the vagabond,—a crown of glory to the old man's age. Inspiration, did I say? Ged, Star, ...
— Two Men of Sandy Bar - A Drama • Bret Harte
... hospital Miriam's defect was one of the deadly sins, and many were the admonitions which she received from Miss Dashwood. One evening, after a day in which they had been more frequent than usual, she went to bed, but lay awake. She was obliged to confess to herself that the light of three ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford
... fruit.[1189] Faith with respect to Brahma is the daughter of Surya, O regenerate one. She is the protectress and she is the giver of good birth. Faith is superior to the merit born of (Vedic) recitations and meditation.[1190] An act vitiated by defect of speech is saved by Faith. An act vitiated by defect of mind is saved by Faith. But neither speech nor mind can save an act that is vitiated by want of Faith.[1191] Men conversant with the occurrences of the past recite in this connection the following ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... by an unknown brook, and are deputed to catch the necessary trout for breakfast, it is wiser to choose the surest bait. The crackle of the fish in the frying-pan will atone for any theoretical defect in your method. But to choose the surest bait, and then to bring back no fish, is unforgivable. Forsake Plato if you must,—but you may do so only at the price of justifying yourself in the terms of Aristotelian arithmetic. The college president who abandoned his college in order to run a cotton ...
— Fishing with a Worm • Bliss Perry
... had been lying neglected for generations and was now covered with mould and eaten with rust. He cleaned the pieces and repaired them as well as he could; and observing that the helmet was a simple morion, wanting a protection for the face, he made a vizor of pasteboard to supply the defect. Then, wishing to prove the strength of his vizor, he drew his sword and with one stroke destroyed what had cost him the labor of a week. He was considerably shocked by the ease with which he had demolished his handiwork; but having made a second vizor ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... unto the publick good of the Common-wealth of Israel in the Communion of Saints. But how far this Principle of acting is now wanting amongst us all, I shall not need to mention: you have considered it long ago, and wee have together lamented that defect, and the doleful effects thereof: our endevor must bee to seek out the best means of a Reformation therein, and to make use of them as God shall give us opportunities. And truly somthing of this kinde might bee don, without anie great ...
— The Reformed Librarie-Keeper (1650) • John Dury
... microscope of criticism, and employ their whole attention upon minute elegance, or faults scarcely visible to common observation. The dissonance of a syllable, the recurrence of the same sound, the repetition of a particle, the smallest deviation from propriety, the slightest defect in construction or arrangement, swell before their eyes into enormities. As they discern with great exactness, they comprehend but a narrow compass, and know nothing of the justness of the design, the general spirit of the performance, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... well-bred reader against a common fault, much of the same nature; which is, mentioning any particular quality as absolutely essential to either man or woman, and exploding all those who want it. This renders every one uneasy who is in the least self-conscious of the defect. I have heard a boor of fashion declare in the presence of women remarkably plain, that beauty was the chief perfection of that sex, and an essential without which no woman was worth regarding; a certain method of putting ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... M. Delacroix, Rue Croix-des Petits Augustins, to remedy the defect of nature by a gymnastic process, is unique in France. I shall give the prospectus a place here; and feeling my inability to do it justice, shall not attempt to ...
— A tour through some parts of France, Switzerland, Savoy, Germany and Belgium • Richard Boyle Bernard
... rise. But here it may be objected, why instead of eating his pie in a corner, did he not share it with his companions? The remark is pertinent, but the circumstance only evinces the admirable management of the poet; to represent his hero without a defect would be to outrage nature, and to render imitation hopeless. Horner, it must be admitted, with all his excellence, was too fond of good eating; it is in vain to deny it; his deliberately pulling out a plum with his finger ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 545, May 5, 1832 • Various
... that I should have any occasion for a change of linen, I had brought none with me, but she soon found a cure for this defect; for after having undressed me she dried me lovingly, gave me one of her smocks, and I ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... it rained. When the Heir was complimented on his apartment, he called it his den. The provincial took care not to say that Grindot, the architect, had bestowed his best capacity upon it, as did Stidmann on the carvings, and Leon de Lora on the paintings, for Fabien's crowning defect was the vanity which condescends to lie for the sake ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac |
