"Defect" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... but of superior quality, because they are fresher. Soon after our men had sailed from Thedori, the larger of the two ships [the Trinidad] sprang a leak, which let in so much water, that they were obliged to return to Thedori. The Spaniards seeing that this defect could not be put right except with much labor and loss of time, agreed that the other ship [the Victoria] should sail to the Cape of Cattigara, thence across the ocean as far as possible from the Indian coast, lest they ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 • Emma Helen Blair
... Charles. Not that he ever said anything to justify fear of him—he was more silent at home than elsewhere; but he was imperious, fastidious, and sarcastic with me by a look, a gesture, an inflection of his voice. My perception of any defect in myself was instantaneous with his discovery of it. I fell into the habit of guessing each day whether I was to offend or please him, and then into that of intending to please. An intangible, silent, magnetic feeling existed between us, changing and developing ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... filled the room, which was ventilated only by a low door, with smoke, and there the whole crew lived, eighteen men and one woman. Some had undergone various terms of imprisonment, and nobody knew what the others were, but though they were all, more or less, suffering from some physical defect and were nearly old men, they were still all strong enough for hauling. For the "Chamber of Commerce" tolerated them there, and allowed them that hovel to live in, on condition that they should be ready to haul, by ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... it looks all purity and spirituality; it seems to breathe poetry and a Higher Culture. It goes through life like a rose leaf floating upon a placid stream. It is precious to look at, pleasant to live with, and it has only one defect—it has no heart. ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... the table. He was a strikingly handsome man, with a strong, forceful face, dark, lean and cleanly shaven. He was one of those men whom a stranger would instinctively pick out of a crowd as worthy of note. His only defect was that his heavy eyebrows gave him at times an expression which was a little forbidding. Women, however, had never been repelled by it. He was very popular with women, not quite so popular with men—always excepting Freddie Rooke, who worshipped him. They had been at school together, though ...
— The Little Warrior - (U.K. Title: Jill the Reckless) • P. G. Wodehouse
... impossible, but Mary ran out in the midst to suggest that mayhap the defect was in the French measure. Each piece might not have been the true number of whatever they called them ...
— The Carbonels • Charlotte M. Yonge
... 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 months ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford
... youth, especially as his mind opens, is impatient of this defect of mind, even though, as being a youth, he be partially under its influence. He shrinks from a vague subject, as spontaneously as a slovenly mind takes to it; and he will often show at disadvantage, and seem ignorant and stupid, from seeing more ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... case of the general theory of relativity. As a consequence, I am guilty of a certain slovenliness of treatment, which, as we know from the special theory of relativity, is far from being unimportant and pardonable. It is now high time that we remedy this defect; but I would mention at the outset, that this matter lays no small claims on the patience and on the power ...
— Relativity: The Special and General Theory • Albert Einstein
... statesman, however, is in many cases an advantage rather than a defect, and Falieri was young in vigor and character, and still full of life and strength. He was married a second time to presumably a beautiful wife much younger than himself, though the chroniclers are not agreed even on the subject of her name, whether she was a Gradenigo or a Contarini. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... different ways both the manner of the Presence and the manner of partaking,—each of these, indeed, in a mysterious sense and one very difficult to be defined. Luther could scarcely have failed to observe the difference, which still remained between them, and the defect from which, according to his own convictions, the doctrine of the South Germans still suffered. The question was, whether he could look beyond this, and whether in the doctrine for which he had fought so keenly, he should be able and willing to distinguish ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... subjects." He wrote with serenity and dignity, with fine balance and proportion. Some of the Spanish documents upon which he relied have been proved less trustworthy than he thought, but this unsuspected defect in his materials scarcely impaired the skill with which this unhasting, unresting painter filled his great canvases. They need retouching, perhaps, but the younger historians are incompetent for the task. Prescott died in 1859, in the same year as Irving, and he already ...
— The American Spirit in Literature, - A Chronicle of Great Interpreters, Volume 34 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Bliss Perry
... taught me that most of my impressions are from within out rather than the other way about. For instance, obsession at one time a few years ago of a shadowy figure on my right, just beyond the field of vision, was later exposed as the result of a defect in my glasses. In the same way Maggie, my old servant, was during one entire summer haunted by church-bells and considered it a personal summons to eternity until it was shown to ...
— The Confession • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... or the only one of the kind that fell into my hands, but because it revealed to me at the outset a trait of the American character—especially of the women—which confronted me at every turn of the road afterward; namely, a want of repose—a defect which would seem to be largely accountable for the insensibility manifested by a great portion of the American young women of the middle classes to the fact that they have advantages at school such as their ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... unpleasant to me, for there is so little in a country to recommend it when the people disgrace it, that no beauties of the creation can make up for the want of those excellencies which suitable society procure the defect of. This made Italy a very unpleasant country to me; the people were the foil to the place, all manner of hateful vices reigning in their ...
— Memoirs of a Cavalier • Daniel Defoe
... must be kept Christians, educated and civilized. Here is the crucial point. In reading criticisms upon the Mission system of dealing with the Indians, one constantly meets with such passages as the following: "The fatal defect of this whole Spanish system was that no effort was made to educate the Indians, or teach them to read, and think, ...
— The Old Franciscan Missions Of California • George Wharton James
... fingers of an artist who understood. And there were her lashes, dark and long, and curled up at the ends; and her cheek, with its changing, come-and-go coloring; her mouth, with its upper lip creased deeply in the middle—so deeply that a bit more would have been a defect—and with an odd little dimple at one corner; luckily, it was on the side toward him, so that he might look at it all he wanted to for once; for it was always there, only growing deeper and wickeder when she spoke ...
— Her Prairie Knight • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B. M. Bower
... conscientious connoisseur in the Duchy of Hesse. But, as may be imagined, her musical appreciation is entirely negative; if you sing with expression, and play with ability, she will remain cold and impassible. But let your execution exhibit the slightest defect, and you will have her instantly showing her teeth, whisking her tail, yelping, barking, and growling. At the present time, there is not a concert or an opera at Darmstadt to which Mr. S—— and his ...
— Anecdotes of Dogs • Edward Jesse
... familiarizing yourself with these expressions and what they mean, you will still have to bear in mind the limitations of the photoplay stage (see Chapter XIII). A lack of knowledge of the latter is directly responsible for more rejected scripts than almost any other one defect. Do not write blindly. Do not "take a chance" of getting your material into proper shape. Master the little details of the work, and thus give yourself the chance to compete on even terms with those who successfully write the ...
— Writing the Photoplay • J. Berg Esenwein and Arthur Leeds
... first two, which begin with the famous introductory chapter and continue the story through the revolution of 1688 to the accession of William and Mary, seem to me models of historical composition so far as arrangement, orderly method, and liveliness of narration go. Another defect of Macaulay is that, while he was an omnivorous reader and had a prodigious memory, he was not given to long-continued and profound reflection. He read and rehearsed his reading in memory, but he did not give himself to "deep, ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... 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 just ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... the thought, if not the exact words are found, that the proverb was derived from another and an earlier source. The object of mimic exhibitions is to impress the mind by imitation. Human life is burlesqued, personal defect heightened and ridiculed; character is never represented in degree, but in extremes. The dialogue of satirical comedy assumes naturally the form of the apophthegm—it is epigrammatic and compressed that it may be pungent and striking. Hence, no species of writing is more allied to or more likely ...
— Notes and Queries 1850.03.23 • Various
... nine tenths of the world would call a handsome face. In height I am five feet eleven. My hair is black and curling. My nose is sufficiently good. My eyes are large and gray; and although, in fact they are weak a very inconvenient degree, still no defect in this regard would be suspected from their appearance. The weakness itself, however, has always much annoyed me, and I have resorted to every remedy—short of wearing glasses. Being youthful and good-looking, I naturally dislike these, ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... members of a group whose consumption is related harmoniously. In foods we have the relations between bread, butter, and cheese; the relation in which sugar and salt stand to a large number of consumables. Some of these are natural relations in the sense that one supplies a corrective to some defect of the other, or that the combination enhances the satisfaction or advantage which would accrue from the consumption of each severally. In other cases the connection is more conventional, as that between alcohol and tobacco. The sporting tastes of ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... castle, of which we had a tolerable view, was long and narrow in shape, consisting of two towers connected by walls, The nearer tower, through which lay the entrance, was roofless, and in every way seemed to be more ruinous than the inner one, which appeared to be perfect in both its stories. This defect notwithstanding, the place was so strong that my heart sank lower the longer I looked; and a glance at Maignan's face assured me that his experience was also at fault. For M. d'Agen, I clearly saw, when I turned to him, that he had never until this moment realised what we had to ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... of Albrecht Duerer," are the only other works on my subject to which I feel bound to acknowledge my indebtedness. Lastly, I must express deep gratitude to my learned friend, Mr. Campbell Dodgson, for having so generously consented, by reading the proofs, to mitigate my defect in scholarship. ...
— Albert Durer • T. Sturge Moore
... the blacksmith shop at Watertown for some of the hardest welding, and Job Western did most of the carpentering in the first place, so I know where to go for my trusses and girders. Examine every bolt and nut—nothing is to be used that shows the slightest strain or defect. ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Air on Lost Island • Gordon Stuart
... well balanced, who is not cursed with some little defect or weakness which cripples his usefulness and neutralizes his powers. Wanted, a man of courage, who is not a coward in any part of ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... 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 butter thin, you begin to spread it. ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton
... from the larger society. Every patriot hates foreigners; they are only men, and nothing to him.[Footnote: Thus the wars of republics are more cruel than those of monarchies. But if the wars of kings are less cruel, their peace is terrible; better be their foe than their subject.] This defect is inevitable, but of little importance. The great thing is to be kind to our neighbours. Among strangers the Spartan was selfish, grasping, and unjust, but unselfishness, justice, and harmony ruled his home life. Distrust those cosmopolitans who search out remote duties in their books ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... the duels, as I spake before, were hastened to hanging with their wounds bleeding. For the State found it had been neglected so long, as nothing could be thought cruelty which tended to the putting of it down. As for the second defect, pretended in our law, that it hath provided no remedy for lies and fillips, it may receive like answer. It would have been thought a madness amongst the ancient lawgivers to have set a punishment upon ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... much corn in the villages; but on the day following, the march was continued through the plain (of the Tigris), and Tissaphernes still hung on their skirts with his skirmishers. And now it was that the Hellenes discovered the defect of marching in a square with an enemy following. As a matter of necessity, whenever the wings of an army so disposed draw together, either where a road narrows, or hills close in, or a bridge has to be crossed, the heavy infantry cannot help being squeezed out of ...
— Anabasis • Xenophon
... no digestive or assimilative apparatus. Such education produces no more nourishment or growth than would result from forcing sweetmeats down the throat of an alligator. Of education in its true sense the Negro has had very little. The great defect of the Negro's nature is his lack of individual initiative, growing out of his feeble energy of will. To overcome this difficulty, his training should be judiciously adapted and sensibly applied to his needs. Industrial training will supply ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... defects of the tenth year become vices in the thirtieth? When quite a child Lydia invented falsehoods as naturally as her brother spoke the truth.... Whosoever observed her would have perceived that those lies were all told to paint herself in a favorable light. The germ, too, of another defect was springing up within her—a jealousy instinctive, irrational, almost wicked. She could not see a new plaything in Florent's hands without sulking immediately. She could not bear to see her brother embrace her father without casting herself between them, nor could she ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... of jewels in the leathern case which had been made to contain it, strapped and locked it, and handed it to him together with its key. He was profuse in his compliments and thanks—almost obsequious, in truth—and I discovered another defect in his character—a defect which, as his friend in former days, I had guessed nothing of. I saw that very little encouragement would make him a toady—a fawning servitor on the wealthy—and in our old time of friendship I had believed him to be far above all such meanness, but rather of a manly, ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... becomes the object of fervent worship and bitter enmity. But the bare record of what he did and endured reveals him sufficiently. His qualities speak through his actions, so that he who runs may read. His most conspicuous defect was a want of suppleness—a certain rigidity of spirit which, when he succeeded, was called firmness, and when he failed, obstinacy. Yet the charge so often brought against him, that he allowed himself to be misled by evil counsellors, shows that this persistence ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
... no honeymoon was bad. He went further and declared the omission of such an institution to be unprincipled. He even said that had he known of this serious defect in the ceremonies he should certainly have abstained from lending the brightness of his bunting to them. Then he went to eye the flags from different points of view, while Sally, in a minority of one, ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... the hatchet-nosed man who (as though involuntarily) had pointed out an obvious defect in the manipulations. Seeming to be encouraged by this initial success, he bent forward with sudden interest. "Don't mind if I do have half-a-quid on it just once," ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, June 3, 1914 • Various
... was deeply lamented by his parents and tutors, was in fact, in the best opinions, an advantage to him; for it often happens that apparent superiority does us damage, and that from apparent defect springs ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... therefore remain seated; your highness will continue to kneel!" After her devotions were concluded, instead of expressing any resentment, she observed to an attendant, "This is just the director I have long sought!" The friar became archbishop of Granada. Her only defect—yet it is surely great enough—is her approval of the infernal tribunal which consigned to torture, imprisonment, or death, so many thousands of her subjects. Strange that this very lady, whom sufferings so exquisite could not move, should have ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 553, June 23, 1832 • Various
... now, if you load with them properly; formerly they would do so at times, but that defect is now rectified—with the blue and red cartridges at least—the green, which are only fit for wild-fowl, or deer-shooting, will do so sometimes, but very rarely; and they will execute surprisingly. ...
— Warwick Woodlands - Things as they Were There Twenty Years Ago • Henry William Herbert (AKA Frank Forester)
... always fresh and vigorous, and his dress and appearance would, at any time, have done honour to the queen's drawing-room. Maitland was, withal, rather a little easy-going, and it occurred to me that, knowing his defect in this way, he contrived always to get a tolerable tartar of a first lieutenant, so that between the captain's good nature and the lieutenant's severity, which he occasionally checked and tempered when he thought the lieutenant was likely to exceed bounds, the ship ...
— The Surrender of Napoleon • Sir Frederick Lewis Maitland
... has no passions. "O noble privilege of age! if indeed it takes from us that which is in youth our greatest defect." But the higher feelings of our nature are not necessarily weakened; or rather, they may become all the brighter, being purified from the grosser elements ...
— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock
... enable the reader better to appreciate the true state of the case than many instances of ferocity I could enumerate. It shows that the natives occupy a wrong position in the minds of the whites; and that a radical defect exists in their original conception of their character, and of the mode in which they ought ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... resistance of the great bodies of the nation, to sharing authority with a permanent assembly. The separation of the orders favoured its views; it reckoned on fomenting their differences, and thus preventing them from acting. The states-general had never achieved any result, owing to the defect of their organization; the court hoped that it would still be the same, since the two first orders were less disposed to yield to the reforms solicited by the last. The clergy wished to preserve its privileges and its ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... an electric bath, or if a magnet is placed on his head, it looks at first sight as though a complete physical cure had been effected. All paralysis, all defect of sensibility, has disappeared. His movements are light and active, his expression gentle and timid, but ask him where he is, and you will find that he has gone back to a boy of fourteen, that he is at St. Urbain, his first reformatory, ...
— Real Ghost Stories • William T. Stead
... eastward, we find the Roman Catholic Pro-Cathedral, almost hidden behind houses. It is of dark-red brick, and was designed by Mr. Goldie, but the effect of the north porch is lost, owing to the buildings which hem it in; this defect will doubtless be remedied in time as leases expire. The interior of the cathedral is of great height, and the light stone arches are supported by pillars of polished ...
— The Kensington District - The Fascination of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... in this world who cannot rest; who are so constituted that they can only take their leisure in the shape of a change of work. To this fairly numerous class belonged Mr. J. Preston Peters, father of Freddie's Aline. And to this merit—or defect—is to be attributed his almost maniacal devotion to that rather unattractive species of curio, ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... 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 ...
— The Nervous Child • Hector Charles Cameron
... teeth, affirming that should they be found and gnawed by any animal, the child's new tooth 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
... Crop to soften their Meat, but a Stomach furnish'd with thick strong Mucles, whose use is to grind the Grains of Corn, or any hard Meat swallow'd whole, which they perform by the help of little Stones, which Birds and Fowls swallow now and then, and which supply the defect of Teeth. It is observable, that Fowls, for the most part, lay a greater number of Eggs than Birds, even many more than they can sit upon at one time. I have known about thirty Eggs lay'd by one common Poultry-Hen, but it is seldom that any Bird lays more ...
— The Country Housewife and Lady's Director - In the Management of a House, and the Delights and Profits of a Farm • Richard Bradley
... suffering? You probably set some value on your dainty figure and graceful appearance, and may perhaps wish to avoid the disfigurements of maternity. Is not this one of your strongest reasons for refusing a too importunate love? Some natural defect perhaps makes you insusceptible in spite of yourself? Do not be angry; my study, my inquiry is absolutely dispassionate. Some are born blind, and nature may easily have formed women who in like manner are blind, deaf, ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... prosecutions, he never evinced the slightest sensibility, and never seemed to be aware that anybody else had any. It was not absolute cruelty, but the absence of what may be regarded as a natural sense. It was not a positive wickedness, but a negative defect. He seemed to be surprised that other people had sentiments, and could not understand why Tarbell and Nurse felt so badly about the execution of their mother. He told them to their faces, without dreaming of giving them offence, that, while they thought she was innocent, and he thought she was guilty ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... deep-seated objection to the unintelligibility of the text. It does not require profound consideration to bring us to the opinion that the method of Vecchi was in part an attempt to overcome the innate defect of the polyphonic style in this matter of intelligibility. The resort to the spoken text on the stage while the music was sung behind the scenes appears on the face of it to have been compelled by a wish for some method of conveying the meaning of ...
— Some Forerunners of Italian Opera • William James Henderson
... and Harper's Ferry! In any number of things he's as gentle as a woman; in a few others he—isn't. In some things he's like iron. He's rigid in his discipline, and he'll tolerate no shade of insubordination, or disobedience, or neglect of duty. He's got the defect of his quality, and sometimes he'll see those things where they are not. He doesn't understand making allowances or forgiving. He'll rebuke a man in general orders, hold him up—if he's an officer—before the troops, and all for something that another general ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston
... another great defect in dress, quite apart from the question of their harmony. A multiplicity of colours, though not in themselves inharmonious, is never pleasing. It fatigues the eye, which cannot find any repose where it is disturbed by so many colours. A bonnet of one colour, a gown of another, ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... such a statement is a fact, because such and such a scientist has claimed to have demonstrated it. "We are not responsible for the fact," says Krauth, "that under the conditions of knowledge we know, or in defect of them do not know; we are responsible if, under the conditions of a ...
— Was Man Created? • Henry A. Mott
... agricultural equality the Americans of the Middle West are far in advance of the English of the twentieth century. It is not their fault if they are still some centuries behind the English of the twelfth century. But the defect by which they fall short of being a true peasantry is that they do not produce their own spiritual food, in the same sense as their own material food. They do not, like some peasantries, create other kinds of culture besides ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... needed in entomology. Without a good dose of this quality, a mental defect in the eyes of practical folk, who would busy himself with the lesser creatures? Yes, let us be simple, without being childishly credulous. Before making insects reason, let us reason a little ourselves; let us, above all, consult the experimental ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... was begun early in the morning, a number of men from Portsmouth dockyard going on board to assist the ship's carpenters. It was found necessary, it is said, to strip off more of the sheathing than had been intended; and the men, eager to reach the defect in the ship's bottom, were induced to heel her too much. Then indeed "the land-breeze shook her shrouds," throwing her wholly on one side; the cannon rolled over to the side depressed; the water rushed in; and the gallant ship met her doom. Such ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... This defect no longer operates, for the above-mentioned ordinances have arrived duly authenticated, in the body of the [records of the] visit; and the officials, in a letter in which they set forth the objections to those ordinances, have ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 27 of 55) • Various
... was truly immense; but if so, it argues with fatal effect against his claims to the highest order of intellect; if the weight of his body was too great for his wings, there lurked somewhere a sad defect. In the vast plurality of cases success lies in, and is graduated by, the intensity of mental reaction upon that which has been acquired from others. The achievements of the past are stepping stones to the conquests of the present. New truths, new discoveries, ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... did God, Creator wise, that peopled highest heaven With spirits masculine, create at last This novelty on earth, this fair defect Of nature, and not fill the world at once With men, ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... Girondin, and the Girondins, perhaps through that defect in realism which ruined them at home, were not good diplomatists. It is likely enough that the warmth of his reception deranged his judgment; at any rate he misread its significance. He failed to take due account of that sensitiveness of national feeling in a democracy which, as a Frenchman of ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton
... painful to her feelings as a mother, but she had serious doubts of the safety of such a companion. The extreme silliness of Theresa's vanity and exclusiveness had long been visible, and as it was the young lady's fashion to imagine the defect anywhere but in her own judgment, there were symptoms of the mischief having been by her attributed to the Church of England. As if to console herself for the shock she had sustained, she was turning to a new fancy, for when a woman once begins to live ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... they were old acquaintances. Unless when talking to his father, everything in his manner, tone, conversation was free, unfettered by convention, fresh, if at times startling. This was his great charm, and at the same time his great defect, for it revealed his want of qualities no less than ...
— The Ghost Girl • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... caused by the animal gorging itself with feed, and arises more from the animal's voracious appetite than from any defect in the quality of the feed supplied to it. The condition is, however, more severe if the feed consumed is especially concentrated or difficult of digestion. In cases of this kind there is comparatively no great formation of gas, and the gas ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... promises, furthermore, to remedy the defect common to these two doctrines, the very besetting problem of this whole type of philosophy. That problem, as has been seen, is to provide for the imperfect within the perfect, for the temporal incidents of nature and history within the eternal ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry
... a new peril of American life. It is the gory horn of the snapdragon. Added to our genius for boastfulness and impiety, it is a crowning defect. Ye would think that our chief aim was the cuspidor. Showers of expectoration and thunder claps o' profanity and braggart gales o' Yankee dialect!—that's the moral weather report that she sends back to England. We have faults enough, God knows, but we have ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller
... which I imagine my opinion on such a subject can possess, that, having had occasion to name the illustrious author of the 'Origin of Species,' I desire to preface my criticism on what appears to me to be a grave defect in his theory, by intimating my hearty concurrence in its leading principles. That inasmuch as, owing to the exceeding fecundity of the generality of organic beings, more individuals of almost every ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... is, as a French scientist has shown, partly caused by pure morbidness, partly through some defect in the conception. It is due to an empty space, a dead point in memory, or in consciousness, that produces a defective idea or gives one no idea at all of what has happened. In the affairs of everyday life the adults are often mistaken as to ...
— The Education of the Child • Ellen Key
... smiling at the immigrant's sudden magnanimity, "its positive blemishes; do they all spring from one main defect?" ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... mn. stain, spot, disgrace, defect, defilement, sin, evil, crime: injury, loss, hurt, ...
— A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary - For the Use of Students • John R. Clark Hall
... sight seemed promising. But in Lincoln's eyes it had this great defect: during the time McClellan was moving round by water and disembarking his troops—and this, so few were the transports, would take at least a month—Johnston might make a dash at Washington. The city had been fortified. A cordon of detached forts surrounded it on a circumference of thirty ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... mar one's enjoyment of Beethoven, as well as the admiration gladly accorded to him." For our Master is a favourite of the Graces, and these have informed him that they only accompanied Beethoven part of the way, and that he then lost sight of them. "This is a defect," he cries, "but can you believe that it may also appear as an advantage?" "He who is painfully and breathlessly rolling the musical idea along will seem to be moving the weightier one, and thus appear to be the stronger" (pp. 423-24). This is a confession, and ...
— Thoughts out of Season (Part One) • Friedrich Nietzsche
... this discussion. The administrative officials, having in mind an average child, prepare a course of study which will meet that average child's needs. Theoretically, the plan is admirable. It suffers from one practical defect,—there is no such thing ...
— The New Education - A Review of Progressive Educational Movements of the Day (1915) • Scott Nearing
... by its rapid development in the hands of Herschel, its unpretending rival was slowly making its way towards the position which the future had in store for it. The great obstacle which long stood in the way of the improvement of refractors was the defect known as "chromatic aberration." This is due to no other cause than that which produces the rainbow and the spectrum—the separation, or "dispersion" in their passage through a refracting medium, of the variously coloured rays ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... is not for those latter qualities, though," pointed out Enderby. "On questions where it conflicts with your enterprises, it's straight enough. That's it's defect. Upright equals dangerous. ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... friends who protested most loudly against religion were quite untrustworthy in their morals as well. Moreover he attributed several errata of his own early life to lack of religious principles, and to remedy this defect he now undertook—deliberately if we may credit his later confessions—to build up a religion of his own. There is, one must acknowledge, something grotesque in this endeavor to supply the warmth of the emotional imagination by the use of ...
— Benjamin Franklin • Paul Elmer More
... the returning officer declared the poll against the protests of the defeated candidates. Many fictitious votes had swollen the numbers of their antagonists. The commissioners sat for some months, and gave exemplary attention to their duties; but when the time came for rating the city, the defect of their election appalled them. This objection was long foreseen. An election without a scrutiny might not be founded on one valid vote. The government, unwilling to admit the defect of the bill, did not attempt to reform its details, and at length ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... sacrifices of the same Body were different. Therefore the Sacrifice of the Mass was a repetition of the Sacrifice on the Cross for a distinct object and a distinct purpose. It was supplementary, and supplied a defect which the Sacrifice on the ...
— The Life of the Waiting Soul - in the Intermediate State • R. E. Sanderson
... brought the John Collinses—four tall glasses of pale liquid and ice, some stuff red as blood floating on the top. No sooner had Diana tasted hers than she set up a loud wail that there was not enough Angostura in it. One of the men hurried away to have this grave defect remedied, and the moment he was out of sight Diana took up his as yet untouched glass, and with two long straws between her lips, skilfully sucked all the red stuff from the top of the drink and replaced ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... a young Lover is? Or is it so long since you were one your self, you have forgot it? 'Tis well he wanted Words. [Enter Euphemia and Lovis.] But yonder's Euphemia, whose Beauty is sufficient to excuse every Defect in the whole Family, tho each were a mortal sin; and now 'tis impossible to guard my self longer from ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... Froebel in his mistake of trying to systematise the material for spontaneous education. Carefully planned, as were Froebel's own "gifts," the new apparatus presents a series of exercises in sense discrimination, satisfying no doubt while unfamiliar, but suffering from the defect of the "too finished and complex plaything," in which Froebel saw a danger "which slumbers like a viper under the roses." The danger is that "the child can begin no new thing with it, cannot produce enough variety ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith
... what we call the Heart. Now considering the great expence of Moisture, which must needs be where there is so much Heat, 'twas absolutely necessary, that there should be some part form'd, whose Office it should be continually to supply this defect; Otherwise it would have been impossible to have subsisted long. 'Twas also necessary that [this forming Spirit] should have a Sense both of what was convenient for him, and what was hurtful, and accordingly attract the one ...
— The Improvement of Human Reason - Exhibited in the Life of Hai Ebn Yokdhan • Ibn Tufail
... to him was the concealing himself, and disguising his Thoughts. In this there ought a Latitude to be given; it is a Defect not to have it at all, and a Fault to have it too much. Human Nature will not allow the Mean: like all other things, as soon as ever Men get to do them well, they cannot easily hold from doing them too much. 'Tis the case even in the least things, ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various
... discrepancy, but only looked forth alternately with his reading, which was pointed enough. I said long ago that the beauty of Hohenfels' character, like that of the precious opal, was owing to a defect in his organization. The baron retains his girlish expression, his blue eye, and his light hair of the kind that never turns gray: he is still slender, but much bent. He went over to the fireplace and crouched ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... many of the backgrounds to his pictures demonstrate. He grew peevish and irritable. He took to abusing the old masters, and cried out at the neglect of living men. Examining a modern work, he would say: 'Ay, it's a noble picture, but it has one damning defect—it's a thing of to-day. Prove it to be but two hundred years old, and from the brush of a famous man, and here's two thousand guineas for it.' Northcote tells of him: 'I once went with him to the hustings, to vote for ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... superior children are also physically superior, so statistics will probably prove that the number of the "sick superior" among the working classes is very small, while the danger of inefficiency that comes from physical defect is very great. ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen
... were soon educated to the office, and it was then that character-divers of marvellous powers sprang up, whose knowledge of the human mind, and skill in diving into the hidden currents of character, became so great that no incipient quality, or defect however minute, could ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)
... suggestions. . . . You will perhaps (after what I have said) think it best not to set my mind running in a new path, lest I should take to re- writing." Note, by the way, the slovenliness of this epistle, as coming from so great a master of style; that defect characterizes all his correspondence. He wrote for the Press "with all his singing robes about him"; his letters were unrevised and brief. Mrs. Simpson, in her pleasant "Memories," ascribes to him the eloquence du billet in a supreme degree. I must confess that of ...
— Biographical Study of A. W. Kinglake • Rev. W. Tuckwell
... and working one round, taking up the chain of both. Work on the cord with black wool and white silk, two stitches of each alternately; draw in the end of twine. Take care in placing the two parts of the cap together, to make that part which begins every round at the same place in both, as a small defect in the pattern is inevitable, and must be covered by the tassel. Draw the string of the tassel through the centre of the crown, and fasten it in its place. The cap may be lined ...
— The Ladies' Work-Book - Containing Instructions In Knitting, Crochet, Point-Lace, etc. • Unknown
... the whole, myself could have wished it, but neither with the honourable Company, nor elsewhere, could I learn of it; the worthy knight himself being now employed in like honourable embassage from his majesty to the Great Turk. Yet, to supply the defect of the journal, I have given thee the chorography of the country, together with certain letters of his, written from India to honourable lords, and his friends in England; out of all which may be hewed and framed ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... and which luxurious invention the Campanians arrogated to themselves: it was woven of the whitest Apulian wool, and variegated with broad stripes of crimson. Owing either to some inexperience on the part of the workmen, or to some defect in the machinery, the awning, however, was not arranged that day so happily as usual; indeed, from the immense space of the circumference, the task was always one of great difficulty and art—so much so, that it could seldom be adventured in rough or windy ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... curled, Like shoots of all the Green Things, the God of this bright World Shall see the Boy's desire to pay his debt of praise. The Boy turns round about, seeking with careful gaze An altar meet and worthy, but each table and chair Has some defect, each piece is needing some repair To perfect it; the chairs have broken legs and backs, The tables are uneven, and every highboy lacks A handle or a drawer, the desks are bruised and worn, And even ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... Memory of that great Man, whose indefatigable Application to his Business, and deep Study in that occult Science, rendred him Poreblind; to remedy which Misfortune, he had always a 'Squire follow'd him, bearing a huge Pair of Spectacles to saddle his Honour's Nose, and supply his much-lamented Defect of Sight. But whether such an Unhappiness did not deserve rather Pity than Ridicule, I leave to the Determination of all good Christians: I cannot but say, it raises my Indignation, when I see these Paunch-gutted Fellows usurping the Title ...
— A Learned Dissertation on Dumpling (1726) • Anonymous
... is equine and what part human. Judging from the smell which pervades the lower quarters, and, alas, also too frequently the upper rooms, one would be inclined to say that the horses had the best of it. The defect had been pointed out to Madame Faragon more than once; but that lady, though in most of the affairs of life her temper is gentle and kindly, cannot hear with equanimity an insinuation that any portion of her house is either ...
— The Golden Lion of Granpere • Anthony Trollope
... engines, the rotation of the big wheels, the spinning ball-valves, the occasional spittings of the steam, and over all the deep, unceasing, surging note of the big dynamo. This last noise was from an engineering point of view a defect, but Azuma-zi accounted it unto the monster ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... business to meet this defect of protection by adequate dispositions; and this he failed to do. Numerically his force was the same as Nelson's; but, while the latter had only seventy-fours, there were in the French fleet one ship of ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... dead? My spirit's rival more than rivalled is If, far from sin, it unassailed may sail, If thither tending, it may waiting, wait, And up with that high object rising, rise, And if my good alone, alone I take, For which I sure remove of each defect effect, And so at last may come to enjoy with joy, As he who ...
— The Heroic Enthusiasts,(1 of 2) (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno
... age to age descends unchecked The sad bequest of sire to son, The body's taint, the mind's defect; Through every web of life the dark ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... respected Committee. Assure them that in whatever I have done or left undone, I have been influenced by a desire to promote the glory of the Trinity and to give my employers ultimate and permanent satisfaction. If I have erred, it has been from a defect of judgment, and I ask pardon of ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... or style," Reynolds continues a little later, "or we may call it the language in which he expressed his ideas, has been considered by many as his greatest defect.... A novelty and peculiarity of manner, as it is often a cause of our approbation, so likewise it is often a ground of censure, as being contrary to the practice of other painters, in whose manner we have been initiated, and in whose favour ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies
... well as the poetic sense, is missing. His skies are disappointing. Those curly-cue clouds are meaningless, and the artist succeeds better when he leaves a blank. At least some can fill it with the imagination. Another grave defect is the absence of modulation in his treatment of a landscape and its linear perspective. Everything seems to be on the same plane of interest, nor does he vary the values of his blacks—in foreground, middle distance, and the upper planes the inking is often in the same ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... have, in the pot-houses and low inns resorted to by seamen, no accommodation of the kind. There is barely room for Jack to foot it in a reel, the tap-room is so small; and as Jack is soon reeling after he is once on shore, it is a very great defect. Now, the Lust Haus is a room as large as an assembly-room in a country town, well lighted up with lamps and chandeliers, well warmed with stoves, where you have room to dance fifty reels at once, and still have plenty of accommodation at the chairs and tables ranged round on each side. ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat
... intelligence to fall into them: since persons, even of considerable mental endowments, often give themselves so little trouble to understand the bearings of any opinion against which they entertain a prejudice, and men are in general so little conscious of this voluntary ignorance as a defect, that the vulgarest misunderstandings of ethical doctrines are continually met with in the deliberate writings of persons of the greatest pretensions both to high principle and to philosophy. We not uncommonly hear the ...
— Utilitarianism • John Stuart Mill
... absolutely no pattern that he, Boyd, or anyone else could find. The list of thefts and recoveries had been fed into an electronic calculator, which had neatly regurgitated them without being in the least helpful. It had remarked that the square of seven was forty-nine, but this was traced to a defect ...
— The Impossibles • Gordon Randall Garrett
... things of which I was ignorant, and in this they certainly were wiser than I was. But I observed that even the good artisans fell into the same error as the poets;—because they were good workmen they thought that they also knew all sorts of high matters, and this defect in them overshadowed their wisdom; and therefore I asked myself on behalf of the oracle, whether I would like to be as I was, neither having their knowledge nor their ignorance, or like them in both; and ...
— Apology - Also known as "The Death of Socrates" • Plato
... of this work should not be confined to male pupils. It has long been considered a striking defect in our system of education, that females are not more generally instructed in the principles of civil government, and in matters of business. Although they take no active part in public affairs, the knowledge here commended would enable them to exert a far more ...
— The Government Class Book • Andrew W. Young
... the prize. The magician explains to the king that the young man is in reality the son of a powerful monarch, but was stolen away in infancy and brought up as a peasant, and the king accepts him as his son-in-law. His indolence was not an inherent defect, but had been imposed upon him by the witch who had stolen him. On Sunday he appeared before the people in his golden armour and mounted on his golden horse, but his reputed brothers ...
— The Hero of Esthonia and Other Studies in the Romantic Literature of That Country • William Forsell Kirby
... to be the will of God that a peculiar festival should be held annually in honor of the real presence of Christ in the holy sacrament. She said that as often as she addressed herself to God or to the saints in prayer she saw a full moon with a small defect, and the spirit informed her that this defect was the want of this annual festival. This festival was established by ...
— The Gospel Day • Charles Ebert Orr
... the top of admiration; worth What's dearest to the world! Full many a lady I've eyed 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 liked several women; never any With so full soul, but some defect in her Did quarrel with the noblest grace she owed, And put it to the foil:[420-5] but you, O you, So perfect and so peerless, are created Of ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... into Willoughbury.{HORIZONTAL ELLIPSIS} There is scarcely a name in our Indian maps that does not afford proof of extreme indifference to accuracy in nomenclature, and of an incorrectness in estimating sounds, which is, in some degree, perhaps, a national defect." ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... professor, "that there is not even an exhortation" in the writings of the apostles "to masters to liberate their slaves, much less is it urged as an imperative and immediate duty."[B] It would be remarkable, indeed, if they were chargeable with a defect so great and glaring. And so they have nothing to say upon the subject? That not even the Princeton professor has the assurance to affirm. He admits that KINDNESS, MERCY, AND JUSTICE, were enjoined with a distinct reference to the government ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... inserted in the tube 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 be seen by looking through an opera-glass, and ...
— 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
... of this effect, Or rather say, the cause of this defect, For this effect defective ...
— Familiar Quotations • John Bartlett
... degree of immortal glory and happiness which they confidently promised to those who were so fortunate as to shed their blood in the cause of religion. They inculcated with becoming diligence, that the fire of martyrdom supplied every defect and expiated every sin; that while the souls of ordinary Christians were obliged to pass through a slow and painful purification, the triumphant sufferers entered into the immediate fruition of eternal bliss, where, in the society of the patriarchs, the apostles, and the prophets, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... golden buckles, and studded with precious stones, around him; two golden net-work sandals with golden buckles upon him; two spears with golden sockets, and many red bronze rivets in his hand; while he stood in the full glow of beauty, without defect or blemish. You would think it was a shower of pearls that were set in his mouth; his lips were rubies; his symmetrical body was as white as snow; his cheek was like the mountain ash-berry; his eyes were like the sloe; his brows ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... blemish which the son can recollect in the father's character, is a want of firmness in blaming when blame was due, and an incapacity of refusing a request or rejecting a proposal strongly urged by others. The latter defect was, in his son's judgment, the cause of the greatest disasters which he experienced as a man of business. Both defects were closely allied to virtues—extreme tenderness of heart and consideration for ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... are of Presburg descent. The family is connected, in some way, with Maelzel, of Automaton-chess-player memory. In person, he is short and stout, with large, fat, blue eyes, sandy hair and whiskers, a wide but pleasing mouth, fine teeth, and I think a Roman nose. There is some defect in one of his feet. His address is frank, and his whole manner noticeable for bonhomie. Altogether, he looks, speaks, and acts as little like 'a misanthrope' as any man I ever saw. We were fellow-sojouners for a week about six years ago, at Earl's Hotel, in Providence, ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... can possibly be consistent with any idea of moral evil; neither do we see how, starting from such a dogma, he can ever vindicate and uphold his own theory of human liberty. On such theistic principles all sin must be simply defect, and all defect must be absolutely fatuitous.' Eclecticism was a beautiful but frail levee, opposed to the swollen tide of skepticism, and, as in every other crevasse when swept away, it only caused the stream to rush ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... its first foundation, would probably continue; and would diminish the intensity of the power in the same proportion as it promoted its extension. This monarchy would be absolute only by the personal presence of the monarch; elsewhere, from mere defect of organization, it would and must betray the total imperfections of an elementary state, and of a first experiment. More by the weakness inherent in such a constitution, than by its own strength, did the Persian spear prevail against the Assyrian. ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... yourself away," said Nesta. "Or you've some mental twist or defect which prevents you from seeing things straight. It's not how you got your knowledge, but the use you're making of it that's the important thing! You're using it ...
— The Talleyrand Maxim • J. S. Fletcher
... usually closeted a long time together. Perhaps his sable-faced guardian on those occasions told him news of his relatives; perhaps he gave him good advice. Which, I know not. The man, known as Mr. Makhana, was always very pleasant towards me, but never communicative. Yet he made up for that defect by once or twice leaving half-a-sovereign within my ready palm. He appeared suddenly without warning, and left again, even Omar himself ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... Life, which he is writing. There is one curious fact revealed in these letters, which accounts for much of Cowper's morbid state of mind and fits of depression, as well as for the circumstance of his running away from his place in the House of Lords. It relates to some defect in his physical conformation; some body found out his secret, and probably ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... the ordinary lessons. I do not object to places being taken, or any other means employed, which a teacher may consider necessary to secure attention during a Scripture lesson; but divine truth should always be communicated with solemnity.' Now, such is the general defect of the religious teaching of the schoolroom. Nor is it to be obviated, we fear, by any expression of extra solemnity thrown into the pedagogical face, or even by the taking of places or the taws. And there seems reason to dread ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... like a man at sight of a forest conflagration. Giving up dry disputation, have recourse to Sruti and Smriti, and seek thou, with the aid of thy reason, the knowledge of the Undecaying One that is without a second. One's search (after this knowledge) becometh futile from defect of means. Therefore, should one carefully strive to obtain that knowledge by aid of the Vedas. The Vedas are the Supreme Soul; they are His body; they are the Truth. The soul that is bounded by the animal organism is incompetent to know Him in whom all the Vedas ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... certain that in many cases the blind have, by constant exercise of their other organs, learned to overcome a defect which one would think incapable of being supplied. Every reader must remember the celebrated Blind Jack of Knaresborough, who lived by laying ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... satiate man's desires, Propell'd by hope's unconquerable fires? Vain, each bright bauble by ambition priz'd; Unwon, 'tis worshipp'd—but possess'd, despis'd: Yet, all defect with virtue shines allied, His mightiest impulse, Genius owes to pride; From conquer'd science grac'd with glorious spoils, He still dares on, demands sublimer toils, And, had not nature check'd his vent'rous wing, His eye had pierc'd ...
— Poetic Sketches • Thomas Gent
... the just and the unjust through her jewelled lorgnon. Mrs. Hilliard rejoiced in her lorgnon. It compensated fully for her defect of vision, and lent her a distinction which she felt to be wholly cosmopolitan. She aspired ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... and the doctor himself so weary and taken by surprise—that he found it almost impossible to observe accurately, or to recall afterwards precisely what it was he had seen or in what order the incidents had taken place. He never could understand what defect of vision on his part made it seem as though the cat had duplicated itself at first, and then increased indefinitely, so that there were at least a dozen of them darting silently about the floor, leaping softly on to chairs and tables, passing ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various
... his own disgrace; He knows the compass, sail, and oar, Or never launches from the shore; Before he builds, computes the cost; And in no proud pursuit is lost: 10 He learns the bounds of human sense, And safely walks within the fence. Thus, conscious of his own defect, Are pride and self-importance check'd. If then, self-knowledge to pursue, Direct our life in every view, Of all the fools that pride can boast, A coxcomb claims distinction most. Coxcombs are of all ranks ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... So-and-so and family spent a fortnight here. The lady complained that the town was dull, which we (who would have the best reason to complain of such a defect) do not admit. She announced her opinion in the street, at the top of her voice; and expressed annoyance that there should be no band to play of an evening. She should have brought one. Her husband carried about a note-book and asked us questions about our private concerns. ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... I 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
... honour her fair station less, Who, with a woman's errors, still Preserves a woman's gentleness; For thus I think, if one I see Who disappoints my high desire, 'How admirable would she be, Could she but know how I admire!' Or fail she, though from blemish clear, To charm, I call it my defect; And so my thought, with reverent fear To err by doltish disrespect, Imputes love's great regard, and says, 'Though unapparent 'tis to me, Be sure this Queen some other sways With well-perceiv'd supremacy.' Behold ...
— The Angel in the House • Coventry Patmore
... roads and kept the enemy in sight. The thickets which surrounded this position were almost impenetrable, so that an advance against the enemy's lines became exceedingly difficult and manoeuvring nearly impracticable, nor was this the only defect. Batteries could be established on the high ground to the east, which commanded the front facing in that direction, while our own artillery had but little scope; and last, but most important of all, the right of Howard's corps as "in the air," that ...
— Chancellorsville and Gettysburg - Campaigns of the Civil War - VI • Abner Doubleday
... distance in space makes things look small, and therefore free from defect. This is why a landscape looks so much better in a contracting mirror or in a camera obscura, than it is in reality. The same effect is produced by distance in time. The scenes and events of long ago, and the persons ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Studies in Pessimism • Arthur Schopenhauer
... all sought to please the reigning power, or timidly concealed themselves. They had been trained in the schools which Samuel had established, and were probably teachers of the people on theological subjects, and hence an antagonistic force to idolatrous kings. Their great defect in the time of Ahab was timidity. There was needed some one who under all circumstances would be undaunted, and would not hesitate to tell the truth even to the king and queen, however unpleasant it might be. So this rough, fierce, unlettered man of few words ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume II • John Lord
... debating society. And the great writers, like the great orators, have been, in many instances, men doomed in some important respect to lead frustrated lives. Mr Beerbohm recently said that he has never known a man of genius whose life was not marred by some obvious defect. People have talked for two thousand years of the desirability of mens sana in corpore sano, but if everybody possessed this—possessed it from birth and without effort—there would probably soon be a shortage of genius. The sanity of genius is not the sanity of the healthy minded ...
— The Pleasures of Ignorance • Robert Lynd
... wicked at the early age of one, And then reforms—and dies at thirty-six a spotless son, Is never, never saddled with his babyhood's defect, But earns from worthy men consideration ...
— Fifty Bab Ballads • William S. Gilbert
... immediately upon arrival at the farm, so that the conditions are favorable for rapid fermentation. Many of the taints that bother factories are directly traceable to such a cause. A few dirty patrons will thus seriously infect the whole supply. The responsibility for this defect should, however, not be laid entirely upon the shoulders of the producer. The factory operator should see that the refuse material does not accumulate in the waste vats from day to day and is not transformed into a more or less ...
— Outlines of Dairy Bacteriology, 8th edition - A Concise Manual for the Use of Students in Dairying • H. L. Russell
... mighty king that has come into the whole world. He is the mildest and gentlest and most perfect king that has come to it, even Conaire son of Eterscel. 'Tis he that is overking of all Erin. There is no defect in that man, whether in form or shape or vesture: whether in size or fitness or proportion, whether in eye or hair or brightness, whether in wisdom or skill or eloquence, whether in weapon or dress or appearance, whether in splendour or abundance or dignity, whether in knowledge ...
— The Harvard Classics, Volume 49, Epic and Saga - With Introductions And Notes • Various
... for trial for alleged offenses committed elsewhere, and not to residents or temporary sojourners abroad. The Constitution can have no operation in another country." (In re Ross, 140 U.S. 463, 465.) (In this case the prisoner insisted that the refusal to allow him a trial by jury was a fatal defect in the jurisdiction exercised by the court, and rendered its judgment ...
— Problems of Expansion - As Considered In Papers and Addresses • Whitelaw Reid
... want of trying to remedy the defect, expert at bridge, razor-edged of tongue, but still youthful enough to allow the lid of Pandora's casket to lift on occasions, also to be described by those who feared the razor-edge as petulant instead of peevish, and cendree instead of sandy, passed ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... order; for otherwise I have such a rumbling in my guts, you'd think an ox bellowed; and therefore if any of you has a mind, he need not blush for the matter; there's not one of us born without some defect or other, and I think no torment greater than wanting the benefit of going to stool, which is the only thing even Jupiter himself cannot prevent: And do you laugh, Fortunata, you that break me so often of my sleep by nights; I never denyed any man do that ...
— The Satyricon • Petronius Arbiter
... not long remain in ignorance with respect to the natural history of this earth, a subject on which hitherto opinion only, and not evidence, has decided: For in no subject, perhaps, is there naturally less defect of evidence, although philosophers, led by prejudice, or misguided by false theory, may have neglected to employ that light by which they should have seen the ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 1 (of 4) • James Hutton
... but an ungracious thing for the most part, to— Sir Fret. With most authors it is just so, indeed; they are in general strangely tenacious! But, for my part, I am never so well pleased as when a judicious critic points out any defect to me; for what is the purpose of showing a work to a friend, if you don't mean to profit by his opinion? Sneer. Very true.—Why, then, though I seriously admire the piece upon the whole, yet there ...
— Scarborough and the Critic • Sheridan
... 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 cordial regards to ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... performer on a musical instrument approaches perfection, the larger is that part of his execution which is unconscious. Consciousness arises with defect, or sense of something to be overcome. How conscious we are when striving to think and ...
— More Pages from a Journal • Mark Rutherford
... gave her more money than she asked for; who designed for her the most elaborate and enviable dresses—yes, her mother certainly had reasons for declaring him a paragon! But still Eve was vaguely conscious of a defect, a shortcoming. It was all very well so far as it went, but the prospect was by no means unbounded. And, then, had he not also designed gowns for Mrs. Dollond, and succeeded (there was a sting in this) where success was somewhat ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... this might mean, what was called among his circle of acquaintance, "a game eye;" and, with a view to this defect, inquired whether the ...
— The Lamplighter • Charles Dickens
... one side to the other of him marvelling. Not a defect, not even a blemish could I discover. The animal was fairly a perfect specimen of horseflesh. And I could not help speculating as to its use. Old Man Hooper had certainly never appeared with it in public; the fame of ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... punishments for which untutored human nature looks, and thus he lost one great aid to crude dramatic effect. As to his poems, they are intimately personal in his happiest moments: he deals with separate moods and sentiments, and scarcely ever touches those of a type alien to his own. The defect of his child poems is distinctly that he is everywhere strictly recalling and reproducing his own quaint and wholly exceptional childhood; and children, ordinary, normal, healthy children, will not take to these poems (though grown-ups largely do so), ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp
... collected, to be disposed of by mere derision. There could be no doubt that he firmly believed he had seen something or somebody, and whatever might be the explanation of that belief it had enabled him not only to recognise his mother's photograph but to criticise, and criticise correctly, a certain defect in the portrait. She could not deny that what he said was true. "Can such things really be?" she ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour |
