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Infirmity   Listen
noun
Infirmity  n.  (pl. infirmities)  
1.
The state of being infirm; feebleness; an imperfection or weakness; esp., an unsound, unhealthy, or debilitated state; a disease; a malady; as, infirmity of body or mind. "'T is the infirmity of his age."
2.
A personal frailty or failing; foible; eccentricity; a weakness or defect. "Will you be cured of your infirmity?" "A friend should bear his friend's infirmities." "The house has also its infirmities."
Synonyms: Debility; imbecility; weakness; feebleness; failing; foible; defect; disease; malady. See Debility.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Infirmity" Quotes from Famous Books



... his successor, was translated from Chichester, and held the see for twenty years, when, owing to advanced age and increasing infirmity, he resigned in 1856. ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Durham - A Description of Its Fabric and A Brief History of the Episcopal See • J. E. Bygate

... occasion of farther trouble to him. For in the month of May following, he was charged to compear before the council on the 26th, and answer for the same, and was by the king committed prisoner to the castle of Edinburgh; but, on account of bodily infirmity, this place of confinement was changed to his own dwelling house; after which he obtained liberty to exercise his office in his own parish. When the king was going for England anno 1603, as he was passing through Preston-pans, the ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie

... Geography and history furnished great attractions, and they developed ability to master them. In mathematics they did not do so well, on account of the lack of training to think consecutively and methodically. It is a mistake to believe this a mental infirmity of the race; for a very large number of the students in college at the present time do as well in mathematics, geometry, trigonometry, mensuration, and conic sections as the white students of the same age; and some ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams

... have produced effects so decisive as would result from a similar disorganization in Broadway or Washington Street; for the charioteers still "drave them heavily." Hence we may infer that the wheels were of rude workmanship, making the chariots little less liable to the infirmity of friction than those Western vehicles called mud-boats, used to navigate semi-fluid regions which pass on ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various

... me." Hence no very great gravity attaches to the movement of pride while creeping in secretly, and before it is discovered by the judgment of reason: but once discovered by reason, it is easily avoided, both by considering one's own infirmity, according to Ecclus. 10:9, "Why is earth and ashes proud?" and by considering God's greatness, according to Job 15:13, "Why doth thy spirit swell against God?" as well as by considering the imperfection of the goods on which man prides ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... known in her country than either Miss Darragh or Mrs. Patrick Campbell, lent her art to the performance of Cathleen ni Houlihan. "Miss Maud Gonne played very finely," writes Mr. Yeats in recording the incident, "and her great height made Cathleen seem a divine being fallen into our mortal infirmity." With these three exceptions, so far as I have been able to find out, no actors or actresses outside of the company have, since 1902, essayed any other than a subordinate part. Yet such is the versatility of the company, men and women both, within the range of plays the company ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt

... how great is the infirmity of our flesh which lusts after these present things with eager desire but fails to rejoice in the certainties of the life to come. How is it possible that a fact should not be most certain which has for witnesses not only Abel and Enoch and Elijah, but also Christ himself, the head and the first ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther

... defence!' Was that a 'petty affair,' which drove families from their homes; which assembled women and children in crowds, without shelter, at places of common refuge, in every condition of weakness and infirmity, under every suffering which want and terror could inflict, yet willing to endure all, willing to meet death from famine, death from climate, death from hardships, preferring any thing rather than the horrors of meeting it from a domestic assassin? Was that a ...
— An Account of Some of the Principal Slave Insurrections, • Joshua Coffin

... forever. But he can exercise no political privilege, or aspire to any political distinction. It is said that, of necessity, society must exclude from some civil and political privileges those who are unfitted to exercise them, by infirmity, unsuitableness of character, or defect of discretion; that of necessity there must be some general rule on the subject, and that any rule which can be devised will operate with hardship and injustice on individuals. ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various

... Macbeth continued to see the ghost, and gave no heed to all they could say, while he addressed it with distracted words, yet so significant, that his queen, fearing the dreadful secret would be disclosed, in great haste dismissed the guests, excusing the infirmity of Macbeth as a disorder ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb

... on account of his age and infirmity had been left to vegetate on the estate, waited ...
— Self-Raised • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth

... little act, and never knew that she had it, and I suppose she does not know to-day that, everywhere throughout the whole world where the Gospel is preached, 'this that she hath done is spoken of as a memorial to her.' Is the love of fame worthy of being called 'the last infirmity of noble minds'? Or is it the delusion of ignoble ones? Why need we care whether anybody ever hears of us after we are dead and buried, so long as God knows about us? The 'damsel named Rhoda' was little the better for the immortality ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren

... a Diocese, by reason of old age or other permanent cause of infirmity, or by reason of extent of territory, is unable to discharge his Episcopal duties, one Bishop may be elected by and for the Diocese to assist him in his work. The title of such assistant is "Bishop Coadjutor." In case of the death ...
— The American Church Dictionary and Cyclopedia • William James Miller

... affects us like a sudden puff of icy-cold air—the revelation of a singular and powerful personality. Yet she was only a poor old broken-down woman in a Wiltshire village, held fast in her chair by a hopeless infirmity. With her legs paralysed she was like that prince in the Eastern tale on whom an evil spell had been cast, turning the lower half of his body into marble. But she did not, like the prince, shed incessant tears and lament her miserable destiny with a loud voice. She was patient and cheerful ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson

... to take the night train for New York, and the time of its departure was near at hand. At last Mr. Sidney bade the host good-night, saying he should see him again before many days, but hoped he would soon recover from the infirmity in his eyes. Mr. Malcolm was the last ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 2 • Various

... plague-struck dwelling. If plagues do not kill, they will mar—yes, even against the three charms of Island! and that, too, makes heavier their terror, for a man mutilated even by so little as the loss of a hand is an object of pity to every hale member of his clan. He may have won his infirmity in a noble hour, but they will pity him, and pity to the proud is worse than the ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro

... the Christ were decisively established by the Divine power which He manifested. It had been foretold that certain extraordinary recoveries from disease and infirmity would be witnessed in the days of the Messiah; and these predictions were now literally fulfilled. The eyes of the blind were opened, and the ears of the deaf were unstopped; the lame man leaped as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sang. [23:2] Not a ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen

... your temporary infirmity," she said calmly. But her cheeks reddened and she bent lower over her work. A dull colour stained his face, too, but ...
— In Secret • Robert W. Chambers

... Mr. Augustus Mortimer had begun to show a degree of infirmity which sometimes made his son uncomfortable that he should have to live alone. To bring those joyous urchins and little, laughing, dancing, playful girls into his house was not to be thought of. What was wanted was some young relative to live with him, who would drive him into the town and home ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow

... world In human guise, In this vale of many fears And sullen tears Thy great glory hast unfurled Before our eyes; 90 And thy Son most delicate By His natural majesty Of divine birth, Ah, in blood and wounds prostrate Is now his state For our vile infirmity And little worth. 91 O Thou ruler of the sky, High God of power divine, Enduring might, Who for thy creature, man, to die Didst not deny Thy Godhead, and madest Thine Our mortal plight. 92 And thy daughter, mother, ...
— Four Plays of Gil Vicente • Gil Vicente

... been taken to show the unity and symmetry of his character. As a man, a Christian, a missionary, a philanthropist, and a scientist, Livingstone ranks with the greatest of our race, and shows the minimum of infirmity in connection with the maximum of goodness. Nothing can be more telling than his life as an evidence of the truth and power of Christianity, as a plea for Christian Missions and civilization, or as a demonstration of the true connection ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie

... tempted, he is able also to succor those who are tempted. For we have not a High Priest who cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, BUT WAS IN ALL POINTS TEMPTED AS WE ARE, yet without sin; who can have compassion on the ignorant, as he also himself is compassed with infirmity, and though a Son, yet learned obedience by ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke

... Yorktown, at this time. The Ex-Presidents Jefferson and Madison, were also invited to attend, but they both declined. Mr. Madison's want of health prevented; and Mr. Jefferson declined on account of age and infirmity. We give his letter in ...
— Memoirs of General Lafayette • Lafayette

... might be done for other ages and states of the body. As a consequence, when the physician once knew what the weight of water that represented the number of expirations of a healthy boy or youth, and then of an individual of the same age ill of some infirmity or other, there is no doubt that, by this observation, he will come to a knowledge of the health or illness and something about the case, and, perhaps, also with more certainty would be able to choose the remedy and the dose required. If ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh

... natural interpretation, however, of chapter 4:13-16 leads to the conclusion that it was after his second visit. The course of the events seems to have been as follows: He was suffering from an infirmity of the flesh when he preached the gospel to the Galatians "at the first," that is, upon the first visit (verse 13). Then they received him "as an angel of God, even as Jesus Christ," and were filled with holy joy through simple faith in Christ's ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows

... as conceiting already that whatever thou readest, must either by thee be understood, or of itself fall to the ground as a senseless error. But God is wiser than man, wherefore fear thou him, and tremble at his word, saying still, with godly suspicion of thine own infirmity, what I see not, teach thou me, and thou art God only wise; but as for me, 'I was as a ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... ancient Romans or the Greeks wore breeches, trews, or trowsers, which they despised as barbarian articles of dress. The coverings here mentioned were swathings for the legs and thighs, used mostly in cases of sickness or infirmity, and when otherwise worn, reckoned effeminate. But soon after the Romans became acquainted with the German and Celtic nations, the habit of covering the lower extremities, barbarous as it had been held, was ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus

... depravity which they shared equally with the inescapable and cherished enemy And it was the youngest who, beneath the languishing and the softness and the invitation deceitful and irresistible, gazed outmost triumphantly to the enemy: "You are the victims. We have tried our strength and your infirmity." They were heroic. There was a feeling in the bright air of melancholy and doom as the two hostile forces, inseparable, inextricably involved together, surveyed the opponent in the everlasting conflict. George felt its influence ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett

... sentiments!" Of course, everyone added that they excused her toilette. Then when she tried to escape such remarks by wearing a new gown, Dolly, who was always a little fool (there is no cure for that infirmity) cried out in a tone such as she never would have dared to use in the days when Jacqueline was a model of elegance: "Oh, how fine you are!" Then again, Madame d'Avrigny, notwithstanding the good manners on which she prided herself, could not conceal that the obligation ...
— Jacqueline, v3 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)

... try it with Thy true refiner's fire. As our snows are pure, so let us be pure. As our waters are deep yet clear, let our minds be clear of evil, and rid of all offence; and for all who by reason of sin, or pain, or sickness, or any other infirmity either of body or of mind cannot be with us at this time, we pray that Thou wilt comfort, uplift, forgive and relieve them. All—for ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison

... of their minds like their betters, and to me their fierce and tender little passions, their loves and hates, their envies and jealousies, and their small vanities beget a sense of fellow-feeling which makes their presence society. The touch of Nature which makes the whole world kin is infirmity. A man without a weakness is insupportable company, and so is a man who does not feel the heat. There is a large grey ring-dove that sits in the blazing sun all through the hottest hours of the day, and ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)

... and beauty and fragrance, in the music of the fountains or the murmuring voices of the pines, in the sunset's glory, or the moonlight's mystical radiance,—above all, deeper than all, pervading all, was their joy in each other. Hers was a nature essentially childlike; his very infirmity rendered him in experience less than a child; and so, devoid of worldly wisdom,—like Earth's first pair of lovers, without knowledge of good or evil,—all unconsciously ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour

... in obedience to this suggestion, I rose for the purpose of ordering a light, that I might instantly make this confession in a letter. A second thought showed me the rashness of this scheme, and I wondered by what infirmity of mind I could be betrayed into a momentary approbation of it. I saw with the utmost clearness that a confession like that would be the most remediless and unpardonable outrage upon the dignity of my sex, and utterly unworthy of that passion which ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne

... by the baptism we received together at Rome, that thou tell me whether it was man or angel said that to thee. And Amis answered again, So truly as an angel hath spoken to me this night, so may God deliver me from my infirmity! ...
— The Renaissance: Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Horatio Pater

... dress, and stayed with him about two months, watching the order of his life, and the purity of his manner; how frequent he was in prayers, how humble in receiving brethren, severe in reproving them, eager in exhorting them; and how no infirmity ever broke through his continence, and the coarseness of his food. But, unable to bear longer the crowd which assembled round Antony, for various diseases and attacks of devils, he said that it was not consistent to endure in the desert the crowds of cities, but that he must rather begin ...
— The Hermits • Charles Kingsley

... mind in the pulpit at the end of May or early in June, rebuking backsliders, and denouncing the Queen's rumoured marriage with any infidel, "and all Papists are infidels." Papists and Protestants were both offended. There was a scene with Mary, in which she wept profusely, an infirmity of hers; we constantly hear of her weeping in public. She wished the Lords of the Articles to see whether Knox's "manner of speaking" was not punishable, but nothing could be done. Elizabeth would have found out ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang

... interposition of the judgment, and sent home, by the delightful process of criticism, to the memory, there to exercise the mind to the last of life, to be the amusement of our declining years, and, when all the other faculties for receiving pleasure are impaired by old age and infirmity, to cast the sunshine of delight over the ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter

... much both on the Mr. and the Simon, was an upright man, a very upright man indeed, literally so as well as metaphorically. He was not tall certainly, but what there was of him stood bolt upright. Many fancied that his neck was possessed of some natural infirmity, or rather firmity, of unbendableness, some little-to-be-envied property of being a perpetual stiff-neck; and they were the more countenanced in this theory, from the fact that, within a few days past, Mr. Jennings ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... anything to do with an unlucky man or place." That is to say, never have anything to do with a man or place which never succeeds, because, although a man may appear to be honest and intelligent, yet if he tries this or that thing and always fails, it is on account of some fault or infirmity that you may not be able to discover, but nevertheless which ...
— A Unique Story of a Marvellous Career. Life of Hon. Phineas T. • Joel Benton

... a distortion of the reasoning faculty itself, unworthy of a sensible person, and is generally exhibited only by those who, while boasting of exemption for themselves, have really little or nothing else to boast of. It is the infirmity of small minds, not a peculiarity of great ones. Prejudices are like household vermin, and the human mind is like the traps we set for them. They get in with the greatest facility, but find it impossible to get out. Beware of entertaining them yourself, Lizzie. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 89, March, 1865 • Various

... blind scholar, father of Romola. She is his colaborer in the studies he pursues despite his infirmity.—George Eliot, Romola. ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.

... suffer from the low ideal which leads us to worship success. From his earliest years a boy learns from his surroundings, if not by actual precept, to strive not so much to be something as somebody. The love of power rather than fame may be the "last infirmity of noble minds," but it is probably the first infirmity of many ignoble ones. Herein lies the justification of the criticism of a friendly alien. "You pride yourselves on your incorruptibility, and quite rightly; for in England there is probably less ...
— Cambridge Essays on Education • Various

... and rascality generally may be tolerated, but feebleness of mind or infirmity of body never! All through our penal administration and prison discipline this principle prevails, and is strictly ...
— London's Underworld • Thomas Holmes

... also represented in the Scripture as one who prays. We read in Rom. viii. 26, R. V., "And in like manner the Spirit also helpeth our infirmity; for we know not how to pray as we ought; but the Spirit Himself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered." It is plain from this passage that the Holy Spirit is not merely an influence that moves ...
— The Person and Work of The Holy Spirit • R. A. Torrey

... Vain man! I am laughing at you, and at every one else, at everything except myself. Will you go to Unorna? You need not trust her any more than the natural infirmity of ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford

... is unfortunate. He stutters. You should apologize. To jeer at the infirmity of others is the depth of ill-breeding," interposed Miss Maitland, hastily crossing the room and laying a reproving hand upon the girl's shoulder. Then she continued, smiling affectionately upon the lad: "But we who all know and love Montgomery are sure ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond

... these commonwealths, as being less perfect in their polity than others, have been more seditious, it is not more an argument of the infirmity of this or that commonwealth in particular, than of the excellency of that kind of polity in general, which if they, that have not altogether reached, have nevertheless had greater prosperity, what would befall them that ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington

... display of passion he had shown. "My advantages are not such as to make it easy for me to support myself. It would be simply impossible for me to undertake the care of any girl, least of all of one with a manifest infirmity." ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green

... picture. Turn round a little, if you please. You could not find anything better anywhere. Let me see you walk. You have a well-shaped body, free and easy, as it should be, and one which gives no sign of infirmity. ...
— The Miser (L'Avare) • Moliere

... for all the fact that Toussaint stuttered. May we be permitted to dispense with it for the future. The musical notation of an infirmity is ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... called him "an errant mountebank"—though Evelyn sought his society, and was grateful for its stimulus. Lady Fanshawe, who met him at Calais, at the Governor's table, says he "enlarged somewhat more in extraordinary stories than might be averred.... That was his infirmity, though otherwise a person of most excellent parts, and a very fine bred gentleman." "A certain eccentricity and unsteadiness perhaps inseparable from a mind of such vanity," is Lodge's criticism. "The Pliny of our age for lying," ...
— The Closet of Sir Kenelm Digby Knight Opened • Kenelm Digby

... pleasures Do we poor mortals cater for ourselves! To see him thus provoke her tenderness With tales of weakness and infirmity! I'd wager on his life ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth - Volume 1 of 8 • Edited by William Knight

... according to circumstances. In some instances the younger men and women were bound out to service for periods varying from three to twelve weeks. In others they were left free to maintain themselves by their own efforts, the state to provide for such as were incapable, through age or infirmity, of performing manual labour. Hundreds of those who were placed under control escaped and wandered, footsore and half clad, from town to town in the hope of meeting their relatives or of finding means to return to their former homes. Little record ...
— The Acadian Exiles - A Chronicle of the Land of Evangeline • Arthur G. Doughty

... the worse," said Fitzgerald despondingly. "Is there no family complaint; no respectable heir-loom of infirmity, you can lay claim to from ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 1 • Charles James Lever

... query always brought her back to the facts of her aunt's friendlessness and infirmity. For defy Time as she would, Ellen was old and was rapidly becoming older. Whether with the arrival of a younger and more energetic person she was voluntarily relinquishing her hold on her customary tasks, or whether a sudden collapse of her vitality forced her to do ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett

... fill and satisfy the heart. Even earth's friendships are priceless. Yet the best and truest of them are only fragments of the perfect friendship. They bring us only little cupfuls of blessing. Their gentleness is marred by human infirmity, and sometimes turns to harshness. Their helpfulness at best is impulsive and uncertain, and ofttimes is ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller

... fierce opposition to push doubt into error. When a drunkard died, he remembered that "his mother was an habitual drinker, and he was nursed on milk-punch, and the thirst was in his constitution"; so he hoped "that God saw it was a constitutional infirmity, like any other disease." He reduced the dogma of Total Depravity to the simple proposition, "that men by nature do not love God supremely, and their neighbor as themselves." He stoutly resisted the attempt to overawe belief, either his ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various

... along in heelless woollen slippers, made the most of her infirmity, and hung on the arm of her tall companion. In silence they passed through the baize door at the end of the corridor, so into the addition at the back of the house, which contained Mrs. Ellsworth's room and bath, with another small room suitable for a maid, and occupied by Annesley. This addition ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... scholars proper have, in truth, lost all patience with the etymological objection. 'Save us from such champions!' says Professor Whitney: 'they may be allowed to speak for themselves, since they know best their own infirmity of back and need of braces: the rest of the guild, however, will thank them for nothing.'" Again: "In conclusion, it may be observed that it is mainly among half-taught dabblers in filology that etymological ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, July 1880. • Various

... digestive functions; it is also believed that these months have an enervating effect on the system generally. In so far as the heat of summer produces disease, it at the same time tends to produce crime. Persons suffering from any kind of ailment or infirmity are far more liable to become criminals than are healthy members of the community. The intimate connection between disease and crime is a matter which must never be forgotten. In the present instance, however, the closeness ...
— Crime and Its Causes • William Douglas Morrison

... abideth in Me ... the same bringeth forth much fruit." That is the gift I seek. For the keeping of His commandments the Lord provides Himself. I am not called upon to raise fruits out of the soil of my own will, out of my own infirmity of aspiration or desire. I can rest everything in God! I can "abide in Him," and I may have the holy energies of the Godhead to produce in me the fruits of a holy and obedient life. The good Lord provides both ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett

... school he so despotically drilled into passive servility and pedantic scholarship, I have less than no reverence, for he worked so upon an over-sensitive nature to force a boy beyond his powers, as to fix for many years the infirmity of stammering, which was my affliction until past middle life. As for tuition, it must all have grown of itself by dint of private hard grinding with dictionaries and grammars, for the exercises, themes, and other lessons were notoriously ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper

... being deprived of taking a part any longer in the doings of the great world. The Country Mouse—even if the creature were able to scuttle back into the cellars of the great—would still be out of all communion with the mighty, owing to physical infirmity. And now comes the kind Town Mouse and tells him all that he ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse

... religion. He would speak just what he thought, and as he felt. He somehow got the name of being an eccentric preacher, as every man, I believe, does who never prevaricates, and always acts and speaks as he thinks. Somehow or other, Elder Blunt had heard of Sister Scrub, and that infirmity of hers, and he resolved to cure her. On his first round he stopped at "Squire Scrub's," as all other itinerants had done before him. John, the young man, took the elder's horse and put him in the stable, and the preacher entered the ...
— How To Behave: A Pocket Manual Of Republican Etiquette, And Guide To Correct Personal Habits • Samuel R Wells

... spent, from day to day, at least among the waving trees, and not in the midst of dreadful engines which make young children old before they know what childhood is, and give them the exhaustion and infirmity of age, without, like age, the privilege to die. God send that old nursery tales were true, and that gypsies stole such children ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens

... positively committed to an undertaking that would end most likely in his death, if not in terrible difficulties; he determined, under the circumstances, to make himself as disagreeable as possible to all parties. With this amiable resolution Mahomet adopted a physical infirmity in the shape of deafness; in reality, no one was more acute in hearing, but as there are no bells where there are no houses, he of course could not answer such a summons, and he was compelled to attend to the call of ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker

... man of wit makes us laugh, it is by betraying some oddness or infirmity in his own character," and at the present day, not only do those who indulge much in humour often say things approaching nonsense, and make themselves in other ways ridiculous, but their object, being entirely idle diversion and pleasantry, ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange

... better." Her attention was attracted at length by voices below; she looked down, and saw there, in one of the yards, a poor deformed child, whom she had often noticed before, and always with sorrowful interest. Besides his bodily infirmity, he had a further claim on her sympathy, in having lost his mother within a few months. Ellen's heart was easily touched this morning; she felt for him very much. "Poor, poor little fellow!" she thought; "he's a great deal worse off than I am. His mother ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Susan Warner

... obscure period in which he lived, and which is for no other reason worthy of our knowledge,'—all proclaim his supremacy. Like many great men,—like Julius Caesar, with his epilepsy—or Sir Walter Scott and Byron, with their lameness—or Schleiermacher, with his deformed appearance,—a physical infirmity beset Alfred most of his life, and at last carried him off at a comparatively early age. This was a disease in his bowels, which had long afflicted him, 'without interrupting his designs, or souring his temper.' Nay, who can say that the constant presence of such a memento of weakness and mortality ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan

... that he is more affected or stirred by one emotion than by another. For the strength of every emotion is defined by a comparison of our own power with the power of an external cause. Now the power of the mind is defined by knowledge only, and its infirmity or passion is defined by the privation of knowledge only: it therefore follows, that that mind is most passive, whose greatest part is made up of inadequate ideas, so that it may be characterized more readily by its passive states than by its activities: ...
— Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata - Part I: Concerning God • Benedict de Spinoza

... and mother, however, are now dead. Since then he has become the favorite of his uncle, who detained him in England after the emperor had departed—and, as this uncle is now in the last stage of infirmity, Mr. Wyndham's succession to the vast family estates is inevitable, and probably near at hand. Meantime, he is anxious for some assistance in his studies. Intellectually he stands in the very first rank of men, as I am sure ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.

... good-nature engages everybody to him, so that when he is pleasant upon[36] any of them, all his family are in good humour, and none so much as the person whom he diverts himself with: on the contrary, if he coughs, or betrays any infirmity of old age, it is easy for a stander-by to observe a secret concern in the looks ...
— The De Coverley Papers - From 'The Spectator' • Joseph Addison and Others

... any one who exerted such influence as Mr. Mill did over his contemporaries, to view his own share in it with such discrimination and equity as marks every page of his book, and as used to mark every word of his conversation. Knowing as we all do the last infirmity of even noble minds, and how deep the desire to erect himself Pope and Sir Oracle lies in the spirit of a man with strong convictions, we may value the more highly, as well for its rarity as for its intrinsic worth, Mr. Mill's quality of self-effacement, and his steadfast care ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 3 (of 3) - Essay 2: The Death of Mr Mill - Essay 3: Mr Mill's Autobiography • John Morley

... treat the poor soul's want of memory as a common infirmity; pretended he was himself very often troubled in the same way, and advised him to read the newspapers. "My good wife," said he, "has brought me a whole file of the Cape Gazette. I'd read them if I was you. The deuce is in it, if you don't rake ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade

... Reason are the guide of Faith, and by night the ear of Faith is the guide of Reason. As is wont with those who labour under these privations respectively Reason is apt to be eager, impetuous, impatient of that instruction which his infirmity will not permit him readily to apprehend; while Faith, gentle and docile, is ever willing to listen to the voice by which alone truth and ...
— Reason and Faith; Their Claims and Conflicts • Henry Rogers

... for an eye and a tooth for a tooth and revenging bloodshed with bloodshed. For one who is second in doing unrighteousness acts no less unrighteously, when the difference is only one of order, doing the self-same work. But such a precept was, and is, in other respects just, because of the infirmity of those to whom the law was given, and it was given in violation of the pure law, and was not consonant with the nature and goodness of the Father of all; it was to a degree appropriate, but yet given under a certain compulsion. For he who forbids the commission ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.

... of becoming a mother, when she consulted the priest of her parish, confessing to him her weakness, and entreating his aid to enable her to propitiate offended Heaven. The virtuous and holy man, shocked at the infirmity and want of propriety exhibited by the unfortunate girl, was very severe in his censures, and informed her that there was no way left for her but by penance and mortification to endeavour to wipe away her sin. He condemned her, therefore, to take up ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello

... which prompt the desire of dominion, and excite the ambitious to aim at the mastery of their fellow creatures; so they inspire the ordinary race of men with a sense of infirmity and meanness, that prepares them to suffer indignities, and to become the property of persons, whom they consider as of a rank and a nature so much superior to their own. The chains of perpetual slavery, accordingly, appear to be riveted in the east, no less ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.

... the investigation; running, like the hypercritick's, altogether upon the ringing of the bell and the rap upon the door,—measuring their distance, and keeping his mind so intent upon the operation, as to have power to think of nothing else,—common-place infirmity of the greatest mathematicians! working with might and main at the demonstration, and so wasting all their strength upon it, that they have none left in them to draw the ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne

... it did much dash and abash my spirit, yet being still by them desired and entreated, I consented to their request, and did twice, at two several assemblies in private, though with much weakness and infirmity, discover my gift amongst them; at which they did solemnly protest, as in the sight of the great God, they were both affected and comforted, and gave thanks to the Father of mercies for the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... how-come-you-so, drinking bumpers to the success of what they called "the Yankee expedition," even at the moment they were indulging in constant side hits at the failings and habits of the people. These marks of neighbourly infirmity are not peculiar to the people of the adjacent provinces of New York and of New England. I have often remarked that the English think and talk very much of the French, as the Yankees speak of us; while the ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper

... passion torment me * and the extremes of languor and sickness have sheet me * Yet may my life be a ransom for thee * albeit thy pleasure be to slay her who loveth thee * and Allah prolong the life of thee * and preserve thee from all infirmity!" And after these cadences she wrote ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

... are you doing? How are your people, your country, your art? you are unjustly severe upon me, for you know my infirmity in the matter of letter-writing. I have thought of you much, and on reading the other day that there was a disturbance at Heidelberg, I tried some thirty rough draughts [brouillons] in order to send you a line, the end of them all being to be thrown ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks

... pursuits she has herself ascribed to the extreme delicacy of her health in childhood; to the infirmity of deafness, which, while not so complete as to debar her from all social intercourse, yet compelled her to seek occupations and pleasures not dependent upon others; and to the affection which subsisted ...
— Celebrated Women Travellers of the Nineteenth Century • W. H. Davenport Adams

... real name and the various aliases he had assumed, had appeared in the French journals, had been partially copied into the English; and Morton had expected to have been saved the painful narrative of that fearful death; but the utter seclusion of the old man, his infirmity, and his estranged habits, had shut him out from the intelligence that it now devolved on Philip to communicate. Morton hesitated a ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... general, the mere making of money, but the being known to have made it; not the accomplishment of any great aim, but the being seen to have accomplished it. In a word, we mean the gratification of our thirst for applause. That thirst, if the last infirmity of noble minds, is also the first infirmity of weak ones; and, on the whole, the strongest impulsive influence of average humanity: the greatest efforts of the race have always been traceable ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various

... try and make a fresh start in life. We had seen a good deal of each other in my early Dresden days, and he soon felt at home in my house, where my wife always gave him a warm welcome. I easily persuaded him to follow me shortly to Albisbrunnen to undergo a thorough treatment for an infirmity from which he was suffering. I established myself there as comfortably as I could, and I looked forward to excellent results. The cure itself was superintended in the usual superficial way by a Dr. Brunner, whom my wife, ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner

... procured a passage on board a freight steamer to America, which he paid for by working at painting. Landing at New York, he made his way to Norfolk, Va., where he procured work as a painter. Owing to his infirmity of temper he did not keep his place long, and after knocking about for a few months he took a freak to return to England—the last place of all for any man who has ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell

... about this person, and found that he was an elderly widower, a hatter by trade, who had retired from business after making a considerable fortune, and was living in Rathmines, a South Dublin suburb. The hatter was undoubtedly mad, a mental infirmity for which there is, of course, ample precedent in the case of gentlemen of ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton

... that when his little intervals of recreation occurred. During the day he would be out about the workshop and saw-mill, giving each in turn a poking and joking at times very tormenting to the recipients. If we had any little infirmity or weakness, he was sure to enlarge upon it and make us try to amend it, assuming the role and aspect of a drill-sergeant for the time being. He used to have the mid-finger of the right hand extended in such a way that he could nip and ...
— James Gilmour of Mongolia - His diaries, letters, and reports • James Gilmour

... pupils, and granted with a laugh to the governess's request to take it to her little niece; but never in its best days had the chair been so prized. It was introduced to Violetta as the reward of virtue for having controlled her fretfulness, and the repair of its infirmity was the first consideration that occupied all the three. After all, Violetta's sitting posture was, as Alison observed, an example of the inclined plane, but that was nothing to Rose, and the seance would have been indefinitely prolonged, but for ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge

... been surpassed. But to his great {105} gifts were joined great weaknesses, among which may be set down an abnormal sensitiveness. He was peculiarly susceptible to the daily annoyances which beset a public man. So marked was this infirmity that men without a tithe of his ability, but with a better adjusted nervous system, would sometimes presume to torment him just for the fun of the thing. While he was minister of Justice, political exigencies compelled Mackenzie to take into his Cabinet a man who, by reason of his ...
— The Day of Sir John Macdonald - A Chronicle of the First Prime Minister of the Dominion • Joseph Pope

... not be a vicious act. And accordingly, if a transcendent motive should arise in favour of drunkenness, as that it would enable you to face a degree of cold, or contagion, else menacing to life, a duty would arise, pro hac vice, of getting drunk. We had an amiable friend who suffered under the infirmity of cowardice; an awful coward he was when sober; but, when very drunk, he had courage enough for the Seven Champions of Christendom. Therefore, in an emergency, where he knew himself suddenly loaded with the responsibility of defending a family, we approved highly of his ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various

... by his ministers, the king sent for the Duke of Wellington, and commissioned him to reconstruct the cabinet. The new government was speedily constructed, and, with the exception of Lord Eldon, whom infirmity prevented from taking office, the Liverpool administration was reinstated. The Duke of Wellington relinquished the office of commander-in-chief to Lord Hill, and presided over the treasury; Mr. Peel succeeded to the home department; Lord Bathurst ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... inexperience. It became intolerable to him that a woman should be going about with no more knowledge of the world than a child, and entangling herself in relations with all sorts of people. It was shocking to think of that little sot, who had now made his infirmity known for all the ship's company, admitted to association with her which looked to common eyes like courtship. From the mate's insinuation that she ought to be warned, it was evident that they thought her interested in ...
— The Lady of the Aroostook • W. D. Howells

... enough, it attracted immediate attention from the church authorities. Galileo was summoned to appear at Rome to defend his conduct. The philosopher, who was now in his seventieth year, pleaded age and infirmity. He had no desire for personal experience of the tribunal of the Inquisition; but the mandate was repeated, and Galileo went to Rome. There, as every one knows, he disavowed any intention to oppose the ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... provocation, and most unmerited adversity, sometimes beguiled them into a hope that her troubles from within were over for ever; but a little reflection, and some slight experience, taught them that this was unreasonable. They remembered that the infirmity of a lifetime was not to be wholly cured in half-a-year; and that they must expect some recurrence of her old malady at times when there was no immediate appeal to her magnanimity, and no present cause for anxiety for those in whom ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau

... importance—"The lameness of Shakespeare—was it moral or physical?" He would not insult their intelligence by dwelling on the absurd and exploded hypothesis that this expression was allegorical, but would at once assume that the infirmity in question was physical. Then arose the question—In which leg? He was prepared, on the evidence of an early play, to prove to demonstration that the injured and interesting limb was the left. "This shoe is my father," says Launce in the Two Gentlemen of Verona; ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... needlessly, by speaking of her. Little Mila, the only personal attendant with whom she could converse, had been warned not to mention the arrival of Ada and her attendant; and for some time she kept the secret which was burning on her tongue; but as she suffered somewhat from that infirmity which is said, I suspect unjustly, to be peculiar to her sex, she at last began to think that she had kept it long enough. She did not, however, at once announce the information she had to communicate, but reserved to herself the pleasure of ...
— The Pirate of the Mediterranean - A Tale of the Sea • W.H.G. Kingston

... quantity, can be ascribed to the statement that Jesus healed those who were maimed from their birth ([Greek: tous ek genetaes paerous] [Endnote 280:2]). The word [Greek: paeros] is used specially for the blind, and the fourth Evangelist is the only one who mentions the healing of congenital infirmity, which he does under this same phrase [Greek: ek genetaes], and that of a case of blindness (John ix. 1). The possibility urged in 'Supernatural Religion,' that Justin may be merely drawing from tradition, may detract from the force of this but cannot altogether remove it, especially as we have ...
— The Gospels in the Second Century - An Examination of the Critical Part of a Work - Entitled 'Supernatural Religion' • William Sanday

... which was the grand spectacle of that age, felt as much interested as the half-starved citizen of Madrid, who has not a real left to buy provisions for his family, feels in the issue of a bull-feast. Neither duty nor infirmity could keep youth or age from such exhibitions. The Passage of Arms, as it was called, which was to take place at Ashby, in the county of Leicester, as champions of the first renown were to take the field in the presence of Prince John himself, who was expected to grace the lists, had attracted ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott

... consult him. The man was a bad case of nervous trouble. He walked with difficulty, and his head, arms and legs were afflicted with a continual tremor. He explained that if he encountered a stranger when walking in the street the idea that the latter would remark his infirmity completely paralysed him, and he had to cling to whatever support was at hand to save himself from falling. At Coue's invitation he rose from his seat and took a few steps across the floor. He walked slowly, leaning on a stick; his knees were half ...
— The Practice of Autosuggestion • C. Harry Brooks

... health continued it to him till the fifty-ninth year of his life: and then, in August 1630, being with his eldest daughter, Mrs. Harvey, at Abury Hatch, in Essex, he there fell into a fever, which, with the help of his constant infirmity—vapours from the spleen—hastened him into so visible a consumption that his beholders might say, as St. Paul of himself, "He dies daily;" and he might say with Job, "My welfare passeth away as a cloud, the days of my affliction have ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne

... the mental and moral characteristics, the lighter and more comic ones, of the Devil in popular stories. Among them might be reckoned a love of deception for its own sake, a shrewd eye and keen relish for human weakness and ridiculous infirmity, and the talent of petty fraud. Thus to this old man there would be pleasure even in the consciousness, so insupportable to some minds, that his whole life was a cheat upon the world, and that, so far as he was concerned with the public, his little cunning had the upper ...
— The Seven Vagabonds (From "Twice Told Tales") • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... whimsical; but a stranger would look with different eyes. Few, indeed, were the strangers or visitors who ever came to Chetwynde Castle; but when one did come he would naturally be an object of suspicion to this poor soul, conscious of her infirmity, and struggling desperately against it. Such thoughts as these succeeded to the others which had been passing through the General's mind, and he was just beginning to think of some plan by which he could soothe this poor creature, when he was aware of a movement on her ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille

... then, that bald, gray old man, his hands trembling with constitutional infirmity and age, upon whose consecrated head the vials of tyrannic wrath had been outpoured. Among the crowd of slaveholders who filled the galleries he could seek no friends, and but a few among those immediately around ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy

... marked the paternal pride and content that had made unwontedly placid the brow of the irate miller while the ovation was in progress. Nehemiah greatly preferred the adult specimen of the race, and looked upon youth as an infirmity which would mend only with time. He was easily confused by a stir; the gurglings, the ticklings, the loud laughter both in the deep bass of the hosts and the keen treble of the guest had a befuddling effect upon him; his powers of observation were numbed. As the great, burly ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)

... little thought, Or too much fealty to the bowl, A dim reward was all he got For sitting up with Old King Cole. "Though mine," the father mused aloud, "Are not the sons I would have chosen, Shall I, less evilly endowed, By their infirmity be frozen? ...
— The Second Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse

... needed her, as he had never felt the need of anyone before; his nature clamoured for her, imperiously, as it clamoured for light and air. He had no concern with anyone but her—her only—and he could not let her go. It was not love; it was a bodily weakness, a pitiable infirmity: he even felt it degrading that another person should be able to exercise such an influence over him, that there should be a part of himself over which he had no control. Not to see her, not to be able to gather fresh strength from each chance ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson

... near-sighted, and this infirmity had deterred him from an amusement which he would have enjoyed very much; but that day, however, he wished to make the attempt, and, having expressed this. wish, the Duke of Montebello handed him a gun, and M. de Beauterne had the honor ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant

... great-aunt kept an evening school in the village; that is to say, she was a ridiculous old woman of limited means and unlimited infirmity, who used to go to sleep from six to seven every evening, in the society of youth who paid two pence per week each, for the improving opportunity of seeing her do it. She rented a small cottage, and Mr. Wopsle had the room up stairs, where we students used to overhear him ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens

... said Damian. "That men grow old, I know; and if with infirmity of body comes infirmity of temper and mind, their case the more strongly claims the dutiful observance of those who are bound to them in blood ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott

... fighting for their beloved land," she said softly, her eyes fixed upon these obsolete pieces of ordnance. "He comes of a line of great warriors. However," she went on, in a more resolute tone, "Phil has his duties to fulfil, in spite of his infirmity. We all have our duties, thank God. Good-bye, Captain Nepcote. I am keeping you, and you ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees

... ignorant (in the darkness) that it bore the first gentleman's name. It was a mischance, sir, but so far as I can see one that might have happened to anybody. You say that even after apologising—for on reflection I am always willing to apologise for any conduct into which my infirmity of temper may have betrayed me—it is impossible for me to continue here as your assistant. I am glad, then, that prudence counselled me to provide two strings to my bow, and engage myself to Dr. Mathers of Bath, on the chance that you proved unsatisfactory; and I thank ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... years and infirmities from appearing in his seat, was seen coming to the assembly, supported and led by his sons and sons-in-law, who were making way for him in the passages and conducting him in. His name was Appius Claudius. He was blind and almost helpless through age and infirmity. He had heard in his chamber of the irresolution of the senate in respect to the further prosecution of the war with Pyrrhus, and had caused himself to be taken from his bed and borne through the streets by servants on a chair to the senate-house, ...
— Pyrrhus - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... space; our perception is partial, particular, local, limited by the horizon of our senses, determined by the geographical position of our bodies, riddled by the distractions of our intelligence, deceived by the illusions of our minds, and above all diminished by the infirmity of our intelligence, which is able to comprehend so little of what it perceives. This is what we all admit in practice; the smallest of our acts implies the belief in something perceptible which is wider and more durable than our astonished perceptions. I could ...
— The Mind and the Brain - Being the Authorised Translation of L'me et le Corps • Alfred Binet

... springs up exuberantly, as from a fountain, and runs on, its perpetual game to look with considerate good-nature at every object in existence, and dismiss it with a benison." While wit, the purely intellectual quality, sparkles and stings, humor, "touched with a feeling of our infirmity," would "gently scan thy brother man," ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson

... of false prayers are our regrets. Discontent is the want of self-reliance: it is infirmity of will. Regret calamities if you can thereby help the sufferer; if not, attend your own work and already the evil begins to be repaired. Our sympathy is just as base. We come to them who weep foolishly and sit down and cry for company, instead ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson

... Jacob was not free from the infirmity of human purpose—the imperfection of human nature. Yet from this time he walked with God, and all his deportment was marked by deep and humble piety. We doubt not that at this period he passed through that transforming change by which, in every age, and under every dispensation, the human soul ...
— Notable Women of Olden Time • Anonymous

... in Mr Sudberry's character, he was afflicted with a chronic tendency to dab his pen into the ink-bottle and split it to the feather, or double up its point so as to render it unserviceable. This infirmity, coupled with an uncommon capacity for upsetting ink-bottles, had induced him to hire a small clerk, whose principal duties were to mend pens, wipe up ink, and, generally, to attend to the ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne

... where the Portuguese gave her a fairly warm reception. Her young husband is tall and fair, with a pleasant, distinguished face; he loves his wife, and is only moderately beloved in return. Is she wrong or is she right? Now, I will tell you. The monarch is well-made, but a childish infirmity has left one whole side of him somewhat weak, and he limps. Mademoiselle d'Aumale, or to speak more correctly, the Queen of Portugal, writes letter upon letter to me, describing her situation. She believed herself pregnant, and had even announced the news to Madame de Vendome, as well as ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... dolorous straits, (4) when they have paid to the uttermost farthing of all, or may be more than the worth of all, that they possess, must drag on a miserable existence in want of the barest necessaries until death release them. Many also are they who gain an evil repute through infirmity of body, being thought to play the coward. Can it be that you despise these penalties affixed to an evil habit? Do you think you could lightly endure them? Far lighter, I imagine, nay, pleasant even by comparison, are the toils which he will undergo who duly cultivates a healthy bodily ...
— The Memorabilia - Recollections of Socrates • Xenophon

... the report. Her only safety was in being known, to the few who did meet her, as the convent-bred maiden whose home had been destroyed, and who was content to gain a livelihood as the assistant whom his wife's infirmity made needful. As to Sir Leonard, the knight's own grace and gratitude had endeared him, as well as the professional pleasure of curing him, and for the lady's sake he ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge

... Separated, I say, in body, and not in spirit; and I know that in affection and spirit I shall be so much the more present by how much in body I am the more absent. I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of my flesh; my wish is, that I may lay down among you the tabernacle of my flesh, that I may breathe forth my spirit in your hands, that ye may close the eyes of your father, and that all my bones should be buried in your sight! Pray, therefore, ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various

... she should at once strive to subdue it. Much as one, whose face is marked by disease or accident, would fain conceal the blemish, so would she hide, even from a mother or sister, any experience of affection for a particular individual. Love is, in her view, a thing to be ashamed of, an infirmity, which, if one have not power wholly to escape, she should yet lock with eternal secrecy ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey

... intended—a company, or party, I should have said; but thus it is, friend Latimer, with the wisest men when they permit themselves to be perturbed with passion, and speak as in a fever, or as with the tongue of the foolish and the forward. And although thou hast been hasty to mark my infirmity, yet I grieve not that thou hast been a witness to it, seeing that the stumbles of the wise may be no less a caution to youth and inexperience, than is the fall ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott

... dear Alexandr Ivanovitch, thank you for your letter and friendly sympathy. Write to me for the sake of my infirmity, and don't blame me too much for ...
— Letters of Anton Chekhov • Anton Chekhov

... roaring waters, stretch to him thy hand;—the sins I have committed, have mercy upon them,—the misdeeds I have committed, scatter them to the winds—and my numerous faults, tear them to pieces like a garment." Sin in the eyes of the Chaldaean was not, as with us, an infirmity of the soul; it assaulted the body like an actual virus, and the fear of physical suffering or death engendered by it, inspired these complaints with a note of sincerity which ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... sometimes his Meditation was pure and free from any Mixture, and he beheld by it the necessarily self-existent Being: But then again the Corporeal Faculties would return upon him, and spoil his Contemplation, and bring him down to the lowest Degree where he was before. Now, when he had any Infirmity upon him which interrupted his Design, he took some kind of Meat, but still according to the aforemention'd Rules; and then remov'd again to that State of Imitation of the Heavenly Bodies, in these three Respects which we have mention'd; ...
— The Improvement of Human Reason - Exhibited in the Life of Hai Ebn Yokdhan • Ibn Tufail

... ever induce us to forget. If he confessed him, self-liable, like the rest of us, to mistakes and shortcomings, we must remember that the great officers of the government who decreed his downfall were not less the subjects of human infirmity. ...
— Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... priest taken from among men is ordained for men in things pertaining to God, that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins: who can have compassion on the ignorant, and on them that are out of the way; for that he himself also is compassed with infirmity' ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... elated with his victory at Camden, entered Charlotte, with the confident expectation of soon restoring North Carolina to the British Crown. Patrick Jack was then an old and infirm man, having given up the chief control of his public house to his son, Captain James Jack; but neither age nor infirmity could enlist the sympathies of the British soldiery. The patriotic character of the house had become extensively known through Tory information, and its destruction was consequently a "foregone conclusion." The British soldiers removed ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter

... the ol' man was trying to set an example,—that he meant well,"—and that they would yet be thankful for his zealous care and economy. A few, I think, suffered in noble silence, rather than bring the old man's infirmity to the public notice. ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte

... sang, or rather chanted, certain words in a peculiarly long-drawn, guttural manner, throwing back his head, and turning up his sightless eyeballs to the sky. His chant was a lamentation upon his infirmity; and at the time it produced the same effect upon me, that my first reading of Milton's Invocation to the Sun did, years afterward. I can not recall it all; but it was something like this, drawn out in an ...
— Redburn. His First Voyage • Herman Melville

... preserved, so far as it goes, uninterrupted, the dialogue is printed entire in the present number, despite its length. Of the writer, but little can be said. He was an artist; but ill health, almost amounting to infirmity—his portion from childhood—rendered him unequal to the bodily labour inseparable from his profession: and in the course of his short life, whose youth was scarcely consummated, he exhibited, from time to time, only a very few small pictures, and these, as regards ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various

... Naomi's condition in; the deep infirmity of her nature, Israel set himself to consider how he could reach her darkened and silent soul. And first he tried to learn what good gifts were left to her, that he might foster them to her advantage and nourish them to his own great comfort and joy. Yet no gift whatever could he find in her ...
— The Scapegoat • Hall Caine

... thought convinced Janetta that his choice of a wife had been partly determined by his liking for Tiny and Curly, to say nothing of the elder children. He had been a close friend of Mr. Colwyn, and it was not likely that Mrs. Colwyn's infirmity had remained a secret from him: he must have learned it from common town-talk long ago. Angry as Janetta was, and petrified with surprise, she could not but acknowledge in her heart that such a marriage was a very good ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... will-power to make a successful stand against the promptings of my bodily lusts; nor was I able, though not devoid of talent, to perform any arduous or enduring mental work. There ensued also at this early stage a great infirmity of purpose, from which I still suffer to this day. I would take up now one thing, now another, at first with fiery zeal, soon to cast it aside in favour of some new undertaking, to be ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll

... in the eye, a pearle, or any humour that comes out of the head. My father laboured under this infirmity, and our learned men of Salisbury could doe him no good. At last one goodwife Holly, a poore woman of Chalke, cured him in a little time. My father gave her a broad piece of gold for the receipt, which is this:-Take ...
— The Natural History of Wiltshire • John Aubrey

... believed their convictions to be sincere and their conduct upright, or the rare dignity and magnanimity with which, after 1866, he retired from a great position, of which he was neither unambitious nor unworthy, under no pressure from without, and before age or infirmity had made it necessary ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid

... myself excused. To borrow a little slang from the critics, he 'draws' uncommonly well, especially when he draws portraits. But I do not care to have my eye trained much by an artist who has such an infirmity of color that he does not ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 3, September 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... direct attention. Looking ever to the All-Wise Disposer of events, he relied on that Providence which helps men by giving them high hearts and hopes to help themselves with the means which their Creator has put at their service. There was no infirmity in his conduct over which charity must fling its veil; no taint of selfishness from which purity averts her gaze; no dark recess of intrigue that must be lit up with colored panegyric; no subterranean passage to be trod in trembling, lest ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various

... who carried olive branches in the processions of the Panathenaea. Those whose great age or infirmity forbade their being used for any other purpose ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al

... to Coleridge on February 13, 1797, "I attend the funeral of my poor old aunt, who died on Thursday. I own I am thankful that the good creature has ended all her days of suffering and infirmity. She was to me the 'cherisher of infancy.' ..." Lamb's Aunt Hetty was his father's sister. Her real name was Sarah Lamb. All that we know of her is found in this poem, in the Letters, in the passages in "Christ's Hospital Five and Thirty Years Ago," ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb IV - Poems and Plays • Charles and Mary Lamb

... allowance made to each in rations, blankets, clothes, fuel, Government buildings, medical treatment, and monthly visitation; they also have each year received from Congress special aid in an appropriation because of their age and infirmity, many of them being helpless as infants, and all too far spent in slavery ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... that was what they had been used for. Aunt Grace is still living, and must be between seventy and eighty years of age; she has, for the last forty years, been an exemplary Christian. When I was a youth I took some pains to learn her to read; this is now a great consolation to her. Since age and infirmity have rendered her of little value to her "owners," she is permitted to read as much as she pleases; this she can do, with the aid of glasses, in the old family Bible, which is almost the only book she has ever ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... the knuckling may be ascribed, it is always a severe infirmity, and there is but little room for hoping to overcome it unless it be during the very first stages of the trouble, and the hope dwindles to still smaller dimensions when it is secondary to other diseases below the fetlock. If it is caused by overworking the animal, ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture

... misfortunes and calamities of life, or the imperfections of nature, may become the objects of ridicule. Surely he hath a very ill-framed mind who can look on ugliness, infirmity, or poverty, as ridiculous in themselves: nor do I believe any man living, who meets a dirty fellow riding through the streets in a cart, is struck with an idea of the Ridiculous from it; but if he should see ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding

... from Knowl. I know a spell of it, only so far as the "Cat and Fiddle," near the Lunnon-road. Come up, will you? Would you like to come in first and talk a bit wi' the governor? Father, you know, he's a bit silly, he is, this while.' I found that the phrase meant only bodily infirmity. 'He took a pain o' Friday, newralgie—something or other he calls it—rheumatics it is when it takes old "Giblets" there; and he's sitting in his own room; or maybe you'd like better to come to your bedroom first, for it is dirty work ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu

... roll of martyrs. The worth of a man must be measured by his life, not by his failure under a single and peculiar peril. The Apostle, though forewarned, denied his Master on the first alarm of danger; yet that Master, who knew his nature in its strength and its infirmity, chose him for the rock on which he ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude

... them round him on any occasion or no occasion at all. As a fine specimen of the true English yeoman, I have met with few to equal, if any to surpass him, and he looked the character as well as he acted it, till within a few years, when the strong man was bowed by bodily infirmity. About twenty-six years ago, in his dress costume of a blue coat and yellow buckskins, a finer sample of John Bullism you would rarely see. It was the whole study of his long life to make the few who revolved round him in his little orbit as happy as he seemed ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie

... surprised, and rather disappointed, that Undine had so few to relate in return. She playfully accused her beautiful new friend of being cachottiere, and at the sight of Undine's blush cried out: "Ah, you funny Americans! Why do you all behave as if love were a secret infirmity?" ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton

... to her a short time before, had been the unkindest of all. At another time, even all this would not have moved her—she could have perceived that Mrs. Smith was not in a right state—that lassitude of body had produced a temporary infirmity of mind. But, being herself affected by the oppressive season almost as much as her mistress, she could not make these allowances. While still seated, the chamber bell was rung with ...
— Trials and Confessions of a Housekeeper • T. S. Arthur

... Cyrus commanded a long hawk-nosed fellow to marry a flat-nosed girl, for then they would very well agree. But a jest on any for his stinking breath or filthy nose is irksome; for baldness it may be borne, but for blindness or infirmity in the eyes it is intolerable. It is true, Antigonus would joke upon himself, and once, receiving a petition written in great letters, he said, This a man may read if he were stark blind. But he killed Theocritus ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch



Words linked to "Infirmity" :   softness, asthenia, unfitness, debility, valetudinarianism, infirm, cachexy, frailness, feebleness, astheny, wasting, frailty



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