"Defect" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... objected, why instead of eating his pie in a corner, did he not share it with his companions? The remark is pertinent, but the circumstance only evinces the admirable management of the poet; to represent his hero without a defect would be to outrage nature, and to render imitation hopeless. Horner, it must be admitted, with all his excellence, was too fond of good eating; it is in vain to deny it; his deliberately pulling out a plum with his finger and thumb, shows the epicure, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 545, May 5, 1832 • Various
... speaking of the personal characteristics of Bonaparte in youth and manhood, says, "Saveria told me that Napoleon was never a pretty boy, as Joseph was, for example: his head always appeared too large for his body, a defect common to the Bonaparte family. When Napoleon grew up, the peculiar charm of his countenance lay in his eye, especially in the mild expression it assumed in his moments of kindness. His anger, to be sure, was frightful, and though I ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... Pisistratus. The ancients did apply printing to records of silver and gold; to marble and many other substances cheaper than gold and silver, they did not, since each monument required a separate effort of inscription. Simply this defect it was of a cheap material for receiving impresses, which froze in its very fountains ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... looked haughtily at the old knight as one looks upon an inferior person. He was neither a very bad man, nor a very cruel one, but he had the defect common to all Knights of the Cross, who in spite of their being well-bred and even humane, looked with contempt upon those whom they conquered, neither could they suppress their great pride when they felt ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... him, he would return it with interest. At retaliation of merriment he was often happy; and frequently turned the laugh against his antagonist. He did not want docility; but either from the difficulty of acquiring our language, from the unskillfulness of his teachers, or from some natural defect, his progress in learning it was not equal to what we had expected. For the last three or four weeks of his life, hardly any restraint was laid upon his inclinations: so that had he meditated escape, he might ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... of slavery, so far as the supply of cotton is concerned. The English manufacturers are under the absolute necessity of procuring it; but as free labor is incapable of increasing its production, slave labor must be made to remedy the defect. ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... which we have, from time to time, chronicled. In her duties at the work room, in preparing the material contributed, she has had constant and reliable assistance, but very much less than was needed, a defect which we hope will be remedied. Surely many of our ladies have leisure to relieve her of a portion of her work, and we trust that some of our patriotic boys will give their aid, for we learn that even such duties as the sweeping of the ...
— Woman's Work in the Civil War - A Record of Heroism, Patriotism, and Patience • Linus Pierpont Brockett
... altogether. Some stumps of the black cherry were found, and a solitary pair of snow-shoes was hanging high and dry on a branch, but no further trace of human hands could we see. While we were resting here a couple of hermit thrushes, one of them with some sad defect in his vocal powers which barred him from uttering more than a few notes of his song, gave voice to the solitude of the place. This was the second instance in which I have observed a song-bird with apparently ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... even an approach to uniformity in criminal sentences is no doubt a very serious matter, and is due, not to any defect in the criminal law (much as I think that might be improved in many respects), but is owing to the great diversity of opinion, and therefore of action, which not unnaturally exists among criminal Judges, from the highest to the humblest, numbering, as they do, at least 5,000 personages, ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... God, but whether there is a God or not. The intelligence of Christendom to-day does not believe in an inspired art or an inspired literature. If there be an infinite God, inspiration in some particular regard would be a patch—it would be the puttying of a crack, the hiding of a defect —in other words, it would show that the ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll
... Kotul, or black pass. Our resting place afforded nothing remarkable; and indeed I feel that some apology is due to my readers for the unavoidable sameness of the details of this part of our journey; but I am in hopes that this very defect, though it render the perusal of my journal still heavier, will assist in conveying an accurate idea of the nature of the country; it is not my fault if we met with no adventures, no hairbreadth escapes, or perilous encounters. I must once more ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... his request, and while Lawton was endeavoring, from without, to remedy the defect of broken panes, Isabella was arranging a substitute for a ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... when the Duke de Broglie urged the same amendments on similar principles. In 1817 also, a new Concordat had been negotiated and concluded at Rome by M. de Blacas. It contained the double and contradictory defect of invading by some of its specifications the liberties of the old Gallican Church; while, by the abolition of the Concordat of 1801, it inspired the new French society with lively alarms for its civil liberties. Little versed in such matters, and almost entirely ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... her great pleasure. The coup d'etat took place early in December, but they felt no alarm. Mrs. Browning expressed her great faith in the French people, and declared the talk about "military despotism" to be all nonsense. The defect she saw in M. Thiers was "a lack of breadth of view, which helped to bring the situation to a dead lock, on which the French had no choice than to sweep the board ...
— The Brownings - Their Life and Art • Lilian Whiting
... know of how much dross this is the result. Would not an appeal from the State judicature to a federal court, in all cases where the act of Confederation controlled the question, be as effectual a remedy, and exactly commensurate to the defect? A British creditor, for example, sues for his debt in Virginia; the defendant pleads an act of the State, excluding him from their courts; the plaintiff urges the Confederation, and the treaty made under that, as controlling the State law; the judges are weak enough ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... the child be expected to come to its own through neglect. Indeed, although the will can not be trained by itself, its training is even more important than the training of the intellect. The great defect in our moral training has been that we have generally attempted to train our children too exclusively through precepts and mottoes and rules, and too little through activities that lead to the formation of habits. The will depends ...
— Your Child: Today and Tomorrow • Sidonie Matzner Gruenberg
... is literally translated from the MS which we follow; but there is evidently a defect or error in the text—probably arising from some mistake made by the first copyist, as the MS. is not the first original, but a copy made apparently by some ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, V7, 1588-1591 • Emma Helen Blair
... sea, and the plant was treated after the fashion of Madeira and Carniola (S. Austria). The latadas, or trellises, varied in height, some being so low that the peasant had to creep under them. All, however, had the same defect: the fruit got the shade and the leaves the sun, unless trimmed away by the cultivator, who was unwilling to remove these lungs in too great quantities. The French style, the pruned plant supported by a stake, was ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... Blenheim House her majesty kept in her palace, and gave her commands to issue money according to the direction of Mr. Travers, the queen's surveyor-general; that the lord treasurer appointed her majesty's own officers to supervise these works; that it was upon defect of money from the Treasury that the workmen grew uneasy; that the work was stopped, till further orders of money from the Treasury; that the queen then ordered enough to secure it from winter weather; that afterwards she ordered more for payment of the workmen; that they were ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... ten o'clock, the Simon-pure aristocracy appeared on the scene. This was a young lady who had a very handsome face and a beautiful figure. But she was very cross-eyed. In spite of this defect she was very attractive, and being a graceful dancer, had no lack of offers to dance. I received an introduction to her, and soon after, the Doctor was ...
— Twenty Years of Hus'ling • J. P. Johnston
... to any great foresight on the part of its founder—peace to his shade! It will for ever slumber in its bay, while commerce passes beyond its reach; it will for ever be malarious with the marshes of Sipontum at its edges. But this particular defect of the place is not Manfred's fault, since the city was razed to the ground by the Turks in 1620, and then built up anew; built up, says Lenormant, according to the design of the old city. Perhaps a fear of other Corsair raids induced the constructors to adhere ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... you'll give your man a drop, won't you?" I was agreeable to that, so we had it all round, and then my man and I took Tally-ho Thompson safe to the railroad, and I carried him to London that night. He was afterwards acquitted, on account of a defect in the evidence; and I understand he always praises me up to the skies, and says I'm one of ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... only one defect in the character of the Crown Prince and that is his fondness for war, his regard for war not as a horror, but as a necessity, an honourable and ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard
... Some letters get more worn than others, and some wear only on one side. Now, you remark in this note of yours, Mr. Windibank, that in every case there is some little slurring over the e, and a slight defect in the tail of the r. There are fourteen other characteristics, but those ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... embryology of the Amphioxus and the Ascidia has so much increased our knowledge of man's stem-history that, although our empirical information is still very incomplete, there is now no defect of any great consequence in it. We may now, therefore, approach our proper task, and reconstruct the phylogeny of man in its chief lines with the aid of this evidence of comparative anatomy and ontogeny. ...
— The Evolution of Man, V.2 • Ernst Haeckel
... ten do more without fatigue—and the Apemama labourers have holidays, when the singing begins early in the afternoon. The diet is hard; copra and a sweetmeat of pounded pandanus are the only dishes I observed outside the palace; but there seems no defect in quantity, and the king shares with them his turtles. Three came in a boat from Kuria during our stay; one was kept for the palace, one sent to us, one presented to the village. It is the habit of the islanders to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... discovered that she was wholly ignorant, and unprovided with any stock of mental or imaginative furniture; and that consequently her prophecies were without body, and too indefinite to be theologically available. This defect he remedied by instructing her in the Catholic legends, and by acquainting her with the revelations of St. Brigitt and St. Catherine of Sienna.[318] In these women she found an enlarged reflection of herself; the details of their visions enriched her imagery; and being provided with these ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... on his part, Walter did his best to respond to his father's love-courtesy. He was not of such as keep no rule over themselves; not willingly would he allow discomfort to wake temper; he did not brood over defect in those he loved; but it did comfort him that he was so soon to leave his uncongenial surroundings, and go where all would be as a gentleman desired to see it. No one needs find it hard to believe such snobbishness in a youth gifted like Walter Colman; ...
— Home Again • George MacDonald
... a 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 ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... extreme. Many of them originate in superstition; and altogether, in whatever the savage does, he sees but the immediate consequences of his acts; he cannot foresee their indirect and ulterior consequences— thus simply exaggerating a defect with which Bentham reproached civilized legislators. But, absurd or not, the savage obeys the prescriptions of the common law, however inconvenient they may be. He obeys them even more blindly than the civilized man obeys the prescriptions of the written law. His common law is his religion; ...
— Mutual Aid • P. Kropotkin
... shall mention is that universal defect which was in all their schemes, that they could not agree about their chief good, or wherein to place the happiness of mankind; nor had any of them a tolerable answer upon this difficulty to satisfy ...
— Three Sermons, Three Prayer • Jonathan Swift
... without." One of the most prominent defects—common to all the inns of Dauphiny—having been brought under the notice of the landlady, she replied, "C'est vrai, monsieur; mais—il laisse quelque chose a desirer!" How neatly evaded! The very defect was itself an advantage! What would life be—what would hotels be—if there were not "something left to ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles
... charming," exclaimed Paganel, "a thousand times too charming, and if I must tell you all, she would please me better if she were less so. I wish she had a defect!" ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... conduct of Parnell himself showed that he was not sure that it was not the genuine document until he saw it. Au fond the "Times" was right, and its accusation against Parnell was fully justified, but by one of those chances which occur to even the most prudent, there was a defect in the chain of evidence at ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... aera. The grand saloon appeared to me to be the largest room I had ever seen; the floor is of white marble, as are likewise two ranges of Corinthian pillars on each side of the apartment. Its height, however, is not proportioned to its length, a defect which, added to its narrowness, gives it the air of a gallery rather than of ...
— Travels through the South of France and the Interior of Provinces of Provence and Languedoc in the Years 1807 and 1808 • Lt-Col. Pinkney
... objections to your writing poetry with such an object in view; but to print and sell it about town was carrying the thing a little too far," replied Mr. Franklin. "It is not too late to begin now. I rather think you have discovered an important defect in your writing. John evidently has a better command of language than you have, hence his style is more polished. But you are at work, now, in the right way to improve. ...
— The Printer Boy. - Or How Benjamin Franklin Made His Mark. An Example for Youth. • William M. Thayer
... disease from them, cure them, and they are rendered most unfortunate, because they thus lose their sole means of living, they then become empty. Sometimes a man's life is so poor that he is involuntarily compelled to prize his defect and live by it. It may frankly be said that people are often depraved out of mere weariness. The soldier felt insulted, and besetting ...
— Twenty-six and One and Other Stories • Maksim Gorky
... bass; after doing his work perfectly he will often find that the treble fell somewhat while he was bringing up the bass; or, in a few cases, he may find that the treble sharpened, thus showing that there was yielding of the frame. Of course, this defect might be overcome by using an extremely heavy metal plate and wooden frame; but the commercial side of the question, in this day, calls for lightness in the instrument as a check to the expense of production, and, consequently, ...
— Piano Tuning - A Simple and Accurate Method for Amateurs • J. Cree Fischer
... Sherlock Holmes's defects—if, indeed, one may call it a defect—was that he was exceedingly loath to communicate his full plans to any other person until the instant of their fulfilment. Partly it came no doubt from his own masterful nature, which loved to dominate and surprise those who were around ...
— The Hound of the Baskervilles • A. Conan Doyle
... and walked in the spring morning, first to the bread shop to buy a pound of bread from the woman who wouldn't smile ... so serious and puzzling was this defect that Fanny had once asked her: "Would you rather I didn't buy my ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold
... Hephaestus personified the brightness of flame, and took shape as a god of ripe age, of muscular form, of serious countenance, but lame. Why lame? Why this physical defect as a drawback to so much physical beauty and strength? A Frenchman, Emerie, suggests—"attendu la marche inegale et vacillante de la flamme." Certainly fire, as compared with water and air, is dependent on sustenance, ...
— Nature Mysticism • J. Edward Mercer
... for the public. And, for 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 delightful commentary of the Mogul ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... one serious defect in the method of choosing the President. The system makes possible the election of an executive to whom a majority and even a large majority of the voters might be bitterly opposed. From the point of view of the framers of the Constitution the ...
— The Spirit of American Government - A Study Of The Constitution: Its Origin, Influence And - Relation To Democracy • J. Allen Smith
... defect in your policy. It is the existence of your system of slavery that makes you all this trouble." "As I told you of Miss Chandler, so it is with you, because you never lived in a slave State, and know nothing of their contented and happy condition. ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... rank his townsmen indulged this defect, and would not distress him by remarking on it, till another preacher of those parts, actuated by a private pique, came on one occasion to tantalize him, and said, "I have seen you in a dream; may it prove ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... to your opinion.—I know that I ought not to disturb myself with such trifles; but nothing is a trifle to me which concerns you. I confess I am too anxious to please; I know it's a fault, but I cannot cure myself of it now.—Too quick sensibility, I am conscious, is the defect of my disposition; it would be happier for me if I could be ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... use in the philosophical branches ought to be discouraged. The great weakness of the lecture method lies in its tendency to relieve the hearer of the necessity of doing his own thinking, to leave him passive, to feed him with predigested food; and this defect is augmented by providing him with "helps" which rob him of the benefit and pleasure of putting the pieces of the puzzle-picture ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... qualities flowing from his peculiar fatalism:— (1) Contempt for excess of moral nicety 182 (2) Defect of sympathy with ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. I - Essay 2: Carlyle • John Morley
... no rhet'rick we expect Nor yet a sweet Consort from broken strings, Nor perfect beauty, where's a main defect; My foolish, broken, blemish'd Muse so sings And this to mend, alas, no Art is able, 'Cause nature, ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... necessary to return to the process of the fourteenth century, hooping, and to encircle the piece on the outside with a series of unwelded steel bands, from the breech to the trunnions. In the meantime, they remedy this defect as best they may; they manage to discover where the holes are located in the vent of a cannon, by means of a searcher. But there is a better method, with Gribeauval's ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... at from a study of Sir Lambert Playfair's researches are painful to English self-respect. It is possible that our consuls were not always wisely chosen, and it was a vital defect in our early consular system that our agents were allowed to trade. Mercantile interests, especially in a Corsair state, are likely to clash with the duties of a consul. Some consuls, moreover, were clearly unfitted for their posts. Of one it is recorded that he drank ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... there is nothing that can give happiness to the parents of Godless, wayward children. Some one has said, "Every drunkard, every gambler, every lost woman once sat in a mother's lap, and the downfall of the most of them may be traced to some defect in home life." ...
— And Judas Iscariot - Together with other evangelistic addresses • J. Wilbur Chapman
... be few things indeed which la Garda resent more than meagre hospitality in the matter of drink, and with all their wits striving to cope with this vicious defect in Rodriguez, as they rightly or wrongly regarded it, how should they have any to spare for obvious precautions? As the third man drank, Rodriguez turned to speak to Morano; and the representative of the law took such advantage ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany
... of which we are unable to give an account; but which we feel to be instantly destroyed by the jarring sound of a different note, or the discordant effect of a foreign expression. It is in the neglect of this great principle that the defect of many of the first pictures of modern times is to be found—in the confused multitude of unnecessary figures—in the contradictory expression of separate parts—in the distracting brilliancy of gorgeous colours; in the laboured display, in short, ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... this," says Erigena; "for we read, God saw all things; and not, lo, they were, but, lo, they were very good." All things are, in so far as they are good. "But the things that are not are also called good, and are far better than those which are." Being, in fact, is a defect, "since it separates from the superessential Good." The feeling which prompts this strange expression is that since time and space are themselves onesided appearances, a fixed limit must be set to the amount of goodness ...
— Christian Mysticism • William Ralph Inge
... with very good reason, suspects that there is no small defect in our present copies of Josephus, just before the beginning of this section, and that chiefly as to that distinct account which he had given us reason to expect in the first section, and to which he seems to refer, ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... did was to clean up some armor that had belonged to his great-grandfather, and had been for ages lying forgotten in a corner, eaten with rust and covered with mildew. He scoured and polished it as best he could, but he perceived one great defect in it; that it had no closed helmet, nothing but a simple morion. This deficiency, however, his ingenuity supplied, for he contrived a kind of half-helmet of pasteboard which, fitted on to the morion, looked like a whole one. It is true that in order to see if it was strong and fit to stand a ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VIII (of X) - Continental Europe II. • Various
... only one instance of the greatest defect in our volunteer system: the broad and almost impassable gulf of demarcation between commissioned officers and enlisted men. The character of the army requires that this should be eradicated as soon as possible. Enthusiastic patriotism might make men willing to bear ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... own son in face, features, manner, or speech. Good! If I could pick up some rascal whose—er—irregularities didn't quite fill the bill, and could say—Ged!—that he was reforming. Reforming! Ged, Star! That very defect would show the hereditary taint, demn me! I must think of this seriously. Ged, Star! the idea is—an inspiration of humanity and virtue. Who knows? it might be the saving of the vagabond,—a crown of glory to the old man's age. Inspiration, did ...
— Two Men of Sandy Bar - A Drama • Bret Harte
... right, however, to warn our readers that this conclusion has been controverted, and that by an authority not lightly to be put aside, on the ground of certain views taken by Olbers as to a defect of perfect transparency in the celestial spaces, in virtue of which the light of the more distant stars is enfeebled more than in proportion to their distance. The extinction of light thus originating proceeding in geometrical ratio, while the distance increases in arithmetical, ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various
... ever since that talk with the master about Linty, he could not bear to kill anything, and was now and then haunted by the dying eyes of the pigeon he shot the first time he handled a gun. The grandmother thought it a defect in his manhood that he did not like shooting; but, woman, and old woman as she was, his heart was larger and tenderer than hers, and got in the ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... the youth of the other sex. Never before has he caught so accurately the speech of our daily feelings, plots, and passions. He has a habit of writing which is almost a style; its principal charm is a certain tendency to quaintness; its principal defect is an excess of words. But we suspect this manner makes easy writing; in Mr. Trollope's books it certainly ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... "unless the girlish boy has lost the charm of his sex, that is manliness; and the tom-boy has lost the defect of hers—a kind ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... show, 'Tis to their changes half their charms we owe; Fine by defect, and delicately weak, Their happy spots the nice admirer take. 'Twas thus Calypso once each heart alarm'd, Awed without virtue, without beauty charm'd; Her tongue bewitch'd as oddly as her eyes, Less wit than mimic, more a wit than wise; Strange graces still, and stranger flights she had, Was ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... defect in the new King was the absence of executive ability. Following the example of Henry (S135), he issued two charters or pledges of good government; but without power to carry them out, they ...
— The Leading Facts of English History • D.H. Montgomery
... bright auburn, brilliant and rich in tint, the shade that is highly esteemed in civilization, but is considered a defect by the mountain folk. Frank thought it the most beautiful ...
— Frank Merriwell Down South • Burt L. Standish
... are deficient, if their friends are somewhat blind or deaf, as the flatterers of Dionysius, who was rather short-sighted, jostled one another at a dinner party, and knocked the dishes off the table, as if from defect of vision.[382] And some to make their cases more similar wind themselves in closer, and dive even into family secrets for parallels. For seeing that their friends are unfortunate in marriage, or suspicious about the behaviour of their sons or relations, they do not spare themselves, ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... to whatever tends to overthrow or greatly modify the ancient order of things, they are unalterably opposed. If occasionally one of them becomes desirous of keeping up with the times, or is forced along momentarily by the stream of events, some defect of mental or moral constitution prevents his progress; and you are sure to find him soon or late returning to the point from which he started, like those bits of drift-wood which are always bobbing up and down close under the fall or circling round and round ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... discarded, and the sense frequently overflows from couplet to couplet, giving the romantic poet a greater latitude for expression than was possible in the old models. "Vacation" is not distinguished by any strikingly novel idea, but is in general a very clever piece of light work. The only substantial defect is in the eighth line, where the word "resort" is so placed, that the accent must fall wrongfully upon the ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... had the eyes of a slave, and that the queen had in three ways shown the behaviour of a bondmaid. Thus he reviled with insulting invective not so much the feast as its givers. And presently his companions, taunting him with his old defect of wits, began to flout him with many saucy jeers, because he blamed and cavilled at seemly and worthy things, and because he attacked thus ignobly an illustrious king and a lady of so refined a behaviour, bespattering ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... was the car. It was a large car, a defect in one of the tyres enabled me to determine that by a steel rule. It was obviously heavily laden and the near back-wheel was out of track. This fact, of course, was of no help on the high-road, where other cars ...
— Malcolm Sage, Detective • Herbert George Jenkins
... sedatives in various forms. It relieved her indeed, but she felt it a wickedness to be glad of the calm, and she was aware that the habit was making inroads on her father's powers. Between that and his defect of eyesight, he was often much confused, especially about money matters, and was more and ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... defect in the Ordnance Survey, that neither the Island nor Monmouth Close is indicated upon it ...
— Notes And Queries,(Series 1, Vol. 2, Issue 1), - Saturday, November 3, 1849. • Various
... Cavalry picketed the 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 ...
— Chancellorsville and Gettysburg - Campaigns of the Civil War - VI • Abner Doubleday
... 613), but either shivers them, or cuts a groove down the stem to the ground. These and other such like inaccuracies must be set down partly to conventional language used without meaning, the vice of Latin versification enforced as a task, but they are partly due to real defect of natural knowledge. ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... great part within the Tropics, and consists of a high mountain range on the west, and a long plain with minor ranges extending therefrom eastward; the coast is but little indented, but the Amazon and the Plate Rivers make up for the defect of seaboard; abounds in extensive plains, which go under the names of Llanos, Selvas, and Pampas, while the river system is the vastest and most serviceable in the globe; the vegetable and mineral wealth of the continent is great, and it can match the world for ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... on the turbine, to be sure that the governor controls the machine with the throttle wide open. It might be that the main poppet valve has sustained some injury not evident on inspection, or was leaking badly. Should there be some such defect, steps should be taken to regrind the valve to its ...
— Steam Turbines - A Book of Instruction for the Adjustment and Operation of - the Principal Types of this Class of Prime Movers • Hubert E. Collins
... defect of the system of government provided by the soon obsolete Articles of Confederation lay in the fact that it operated not upon the individual citizens of the United States but upon the States in their corporate capacities. As a consequence the prescribed duties of any law passed by Congress ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin
... should be held once every year, or more frequently if necessary: but as no provision had been made in case of failure, and no precise method pointed out for execution, this statute had been considered merely as a general declaration, and was dispensed with at pleasure. The defect was supplied by those vigilant patriots who now assumed the reins of government. It was enacted, that if the chancellor, who was first bound under severe penalties, failed to issue writs by the third of September in every third ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... our heirs and successors, ordaining and declaring that all and every person and persons therein concerned shall and may have, receive, and enjoy the benefit thereof, in such and the same manner as if the said words had been inserted in their proper place in the said second article, any omission, defect, or mistake in the said second article in any wise notwithstanding. Provided always, and our will and pleasure is, that these our letters patent shall be enrolled in our Court of Chancery, in our said kingdom of Ireland, within the space of one ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... one cause have generally had so little sympathy with the other, that they have neglected to defend their own on the grounds common to both. There is hardly a Catholic writer who has penetrated to the common source from which they spring. And this is the greatest defect in Catholic literature, even ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... them with joy. It was merely a winter-road they followed, used by farmers for bringing out their logs and fire-wood. It was very crooked, too, and rough, but in a short time the deep snow would cover up the latter defect, and the jingle of bells would echo among the trees. Now it was the talk and laughter of the boys which alone disturbed the ...
— Rod of the Lone Patrol • H. A. Cody
... it pride, Which out of daily fortune ever taints The happy man? whether defect of judgment, To fail in the disposing of those chances Which he was lord of? or whether nature, Not to be other than one thing, not moving From the casque to the cushion, but commanding peace Even with the same austerity and garb ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... violets,—books, music, drawings, bits of old drapery and lace were so disposed as to hide all sharp corners and forbidding angles,—and where the frescoes on the wall were too damaged to be worth showing even in outline, some fine old Flemish tapestry covered the defect. Sylvie herself, in the exquisite clothing which she always made it her business to wear, was the brilliant completion of the general picturesqueness,—and Florian Varillo seemed to think so as he looked at her with the practised underglance of admiration which is a trick common ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... Itinerary of the late Mr. Smart Lethiullier, I met the very tomb of Gainsborough this winter that you mention; and, to be secure, sent to Lincoln for an exact draught of it. But what vexed me then, and does still, is, that by the defect at the end of the inscription, one cannot be certain whether he lived in CCC. or CCCC. as another C might have been there. Have you any corroborating circumstance, Sir, to affix his existence to 1300 more than 1400? Besides, ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... 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, as ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... 'The defect of the system,' said Miss Crofton, 'is that none of them has gone, or seems in a hurry to go. The first—that was Mr. ...
— The Disentanglers • Andrew Lang
... conclusion, which is lacking in poetic justice and cannot be considered satisfactory, for the heroine Rebecca who loves her knightly succourer Ivanhoe, is only pitied by him, and so the difficulty of the situation is not solved to our liking. Apart from this defect, the opera {324} is most interesting and we are won by its beautiful music, which may be called essentially chivalrous and therefore particularly ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... mistress; a movement that seemed to denote a reluctance to interrupt or even a perception of ominous conditions. Then he advanced, with his English address, in which a vague shyness seemed to offer itself as an element of good-breeding; in which the only defect was a difficulty in achieving transitions. Osmond was embarrassed; he found nothing to say; but Isabel remarked, promptly enough, that they had been in the act of talking about their visitor. Upon ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 2 (of 2) • Henry James
... so drunk that he would not interfere with her escape had the merit of simplicity, and also of endorsement by such excellent authority as melodrama and the novel. It had the defect of being entirely theoretical. Nan's innocence of the matter in hand had not taken into account the intermediate stages of drunkenness, nor did she realize the strength inherent in the association of ideas. As she leaned forward to fill the glasses, Sansome's eyes brightened. He had seen ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... as the other—and my wife agrees with me. She is of a literary turn, and has helped me in the composition of this, but we both fear that the story having no moral you will not admit it into your Owlhoots. But if your wisdom could supply this, or your kindness overlook the defect, it would afford great consolation to a bereaved family to have printed a biography of the dear deceased. For we were greatly attached to him, though he preferred the cook. I can at any rate give you my word as a man of honour that these incidents are true, though, out ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... Egotism is a minor defect in English literature. To some it may even seem to be a virtue. A more serious weakness, which our literature shares with other modern literatures, is one-sidedness or incompleteness of view, which reveals itself by a series of reactions, and in England has ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... and reason alike resent the defect of patriotism as stoutly as its immoral or unintellectual extravagance. A total lack of the instinct implies an abnormal development of moral sentiment or intellect which must be left to the tender mercies of the mental pathologist. The man who is the friend of every country ...
— Shakespeare and the Modern Stage - with Other Essays • Sir Sidney Lee
... Whewell's sketch of the contributions to science made by Cuvier: "I may observe, that he is allowed by all to have established on an indestructible basis many of the most important generalizations which zooelogy now contains; and the principal defect which his critics have pointed out has been that he did not generalize still more widely and boldly. It appears, therefore, that he cannot but be placed among the great discoverers in the studies which he pursued; and this being ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... that emerges from the water without a single drop remaining upon its burnished wing, or as the harp string, which may be struck by a rude or clumsy hand and gives forth a discordant sound, not from any defect of the harp, but because of the hand that touches it. But let the Master hand play upon it, and it is a chord of melody and a ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson
... The first defect of the texts is in the distribution and arrangement of the matter, as I have noticed in the case of Sindbad the Seaman (vol. vi. 77). Moreover, many of the earlier Nights are overlong and not a few of the others ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... manual labor" is capable of producing wealth, and that, therefore, all wealth ought to go to the manual laborers. One looks in vain for a single passage in all the writings of Marx which will justify this criticism. It may be conceded at once that if Marx taught anything of the kind, the defect in Marxian theory is fatal. But it must be proven that the defect exists—and the onus probandi rests upon Mr. Mallock. One need not be a trained economist or a learned philosopher to see how absurd such a theory must be. Suppose we take, for example, a man working in a factory, ...
— Socialism - A Summary and Interpretation of Socialist Principles • John Spargo
... and clamps in the lower chords, to prevent their elongation, and iron socket bearings instead of wooden for the braces and bolts, to avoid compression and shrinkage of the timber, which was the great defect in the original invention, and the adoption of single instead of double intersection in the arrangement of the braces, the latter being the ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... or showing any deference in his manner, answered with a scarcely veiled note of insolence in his voice: "Good-morning, Monsieur Peyrolles. You are not punctual. A defect. Sit down." ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... long as she had waited for the result of every youthful union, and so coarsely as she had been reproached with her misfortune! Now came her triumph. She could now prove to the world, like all the descendants of the house of Austria, that there was no defect with her. The satirists and the malevolent were silenced. Louis XVI., from the cold, insensible bridegroom, became the infatuated admirer of his long-neglected wife. The enthusiasm with which the event was hailed by all France atoned for the partial insults she had received before it. ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... on the highway," said Emerson, and the first and only lasting success is that of character. It may not be, for the moment, exhilarating to realize that one's ill fortune is usually the result of some defect in his selection, or error in his judgment, but, on the other hand, if the cause of his unhappiness lies in himself, the cause of his happiness may also lie with himself, and thus it is in his power to so transform his attitude ...
— The Life Radiant • Lilian Whiting
... that a man is not working to advantage because of some defect in his physical make-up. He may have defective vision or some peculiarity of hearing that renders him unable to respond as quickly as he should to the demands made upon him. If these defects are ascertained, it is usually a simple matter to correct the ...
— Initiative Psychic Energy • Warren Hilton
... a warrant in his hand," mine host whispers in his ear, shrugging his shoulders, and giving his face a quizzical expression. "You appreciated the mental of the property then; but now you view it as a decided defect." ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... was indeed anonymous; but Mr. Guthrie was reputed the author by the whole country, and was therefore obliged to take notice of it. He was equally displeased at the vanity of the title, and the defect of the work itself, which consisted of some broken notes of his sermons, confusedly huddled together, by an injudicious hand.——He saw that the only method to remedy this, was to review his own sermons; from which he soon composed that admirable treatise, The Christian's great interest; ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... should discommend The gratis, charitable, jail-endeavor! When all persuasions in your praises blend— The Methodist's creed and cry are, Fry forever! No—I will be your friend—and, like a friend, Point out your very worst defect—Nay, never Start at that word! But I must ask you why You keep your school in Newgate, ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... us that it was the custom for the priest to whom the service pertained, having selected a lamb from the flock, to inspect it with the most minute scrutiny, in order to discover if it was without physical defect, and then to seal it with the temple seal, thus certifying that it was fit for sacrifice and for food. Behold the Lamb of God presenting himself for inspection at the Jordan! Under the Father's omniscient scrutiny he is found to be "a lamb without blemish ...
— The Ministry of the Spirit • A. J. Gordon
... who is kept at his studies as assiduously as was young Mill has little time for play or association with other boys. This lack of contact with companions is a grave defect in the education of Mill. "I constantly remained long," writes Mill, "and in a less degree have always remained, inexpert in anything requiring manual dexterity; my mind, as well as my hands, did its work very lamely when it was applied, or ought to have been applied, ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... Anglesey a dog, who accidentally had lost his tail, and whose whole progeny bore the same defect. It is wonderful that nature should, as it were, conform itself in this particular to the accident of the father. We saw also a knight, named Earthbald, born in Devonshire, whose father, denying the ...
— The Itinerary of Archibishop Baldwin through Wales • Giraldus Cambrensis
... inimical to pleasingness of aspect, than might have been looked for. Be this as it may, I was afterwards when I came to see the picture, highly struck with the resemblance it bore to him at the period of this interview. If there was any defect on the wrong side it was, that the eyes were not fine enough; not sufficiently deep and full of meaning. And yet they are not vulgar eyes, in Lely's picture. The forehead, and the open flow of hair on either side, as if he was looking out upon the realm ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 534 - 18 Feb 1832 • Various
... him, in that matter, there could ever be an acceptable pis-aller. He congratulated Miss Blanchard upon her engagement, and she received his compliment with a touch of primness. But she was always a trifle prim, even when she was quoting Mrs. Browning and George Sand, and this harmless defect did not prevent her responding on this occasion that Mr. Leavenworth had a "glorious heart." Rowland wished to manifest an extreme regard, but toward the end of the talk his zeal relaxed, and he fell a-thinking that a certain natural ease ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... wanted to marry a Princess, but she must be a true Princess. So he travelled through the whole world to find one, but there was always something against each. There were plenty of Princesses, but he could not find out if they were true Princesses. In every case there was some little defect, which showed the genuine article was not yet found. So he came home again in very low spirits, for he had wanted very much to have a true Princess. One night there was a dreadful storm; it thundered and lightened and the rain streamed ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various
... would otherwise indicate the first order of their class: these often deceive the most practised eye. The only remedy is to become familiar with the infallible marks given by Guenon by which bastards may be known. This defect will account for the irregularity of many cows, and their suddenly going dry on becoming with calf, and often for the bad quality of their milk. They are distinguished by the lines of ascending and descending hair ...
— Soil Culture • J. H. Walden
... know that there is substantial reason for the offence we feel at defect in any of these ways. A woman who wants purity, modesty and harmony, in her dress and manners, is insufferable; one who wants them in the arrangements of her house, disagreeable to everybody. She neglects the ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... be both sufficient and consistent, accurate in its representation of the alliances between articulate sounds, and in no wise redundant; and yet, withal, it may be so wrongly applied as to be defective. Of defect in the use or application of the letters of an alphabet, the three main causes are ...
— A Handbook of the English Language • Robert Gordon Latham
... they become so from the natural coldness of night and of snow, not remedied by art, the painter ought to correct the fault in the manner I have previously hinted at." In the following remark, we can see the great defect in the colouring of Murillo's pictures, especially in his backgrounds, who appears always to have painted on a wet and dingy day. "But nothing can correct the cold of a sky concealed by the kind of clouds last mentioned, or rendered totally invisible by mist." He rescues the clear-obscure ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... the tube against the flame by the action of the muscles of the cheeks, while he continues to breathe without interruption through the nostrils. Having become acquainted with this process, it only requires some practice to produce a steady jet of flame. A defect in the nature of the combustible used, as bad oil, such as fish oil, or oil thickened by long standing or by dirt, dirty cotton wick, or an untrimmed one, or a dirty wickholder, or a want of steadiness ...
— A System of Instruction in the Practical Use of the Blowpipe • Anonymous
... not choose to concede it, you must accept the blame of your blunder. Your vision is not acute, sir, a defect that is as unbecoming in an architect as in a war minister. You have been equally blind to the monstrous size of yonder window, and to the great genius of my kinsman, Eugene of Savoy. Unhappily, your want of judgment, as regards ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... cause of miscarriage consists in abnormalities in the lining of the uterus. Through inherent defect or acquired disease this tissue may become unsuited for anchoring or nourishing an ovum. In either event, a surgical procedure, known as curettage, affords the most likely means of restoring it to a healthful ...
— The Prospective Mother - A Handbook for Women During Pregnancy • J. Morris Slemons
... ultra phases. "An extreme jealousy of power," he said, "is the attendant of all popular revolutions, and has seldom been without its evils. It is to this source we are to trace many of the fatal mistakes which have so deeply endangered the common cause; particularly that defect—a ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... mind; every avenue led thitherward; and he took it for an indication that nature had intended, by innumerable ways, to point out to us the great truth that death was an alien misfortune, a prodigy, a monstrosity, into which man had only fallen by defect; and that even now, if a man had a reasonable portion of his original strength in him, he might ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... 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 ...
— More Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... fidelity when his parents sent him on an errand; for he could hardly make shift to saunter a mile in an hour, and when he arrived at the place of his destination, he usually forgot three fourths of his message, and endeavoured to supply the defect by some blundering tale of his own invention. He was once dispatched by his father, in great haste, to a gentleman who lived not a quarter of a mile off, to request the favour of his company, in half an hour's ...
— Vice in its Proper Shape • Anonymous
... gradually,—but she had supposed that Mathilde would be too sensitive to expose Pete to further criticism. Indeed, there seemed something obtuse, if not actually indelicate, in being willing to create a situation in which every one was bound to suffer. Obtuseness was not a defect with ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller
... ladies; and on the second, their slaves behind them, but without any distinction of rank by their dress, all being in the state of nature, that is, in plain English, stark naked, without any beauty or defect concealed. Yet there was not the least wanton smile or immodest gesture amongst them. They walked and moved with the same majestic grace which Milton describes of our general mother. There were many amongst them as ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... appeared that no battle had occurred, and that the death of Gomez was a fiction. The grand defect of Gomez consisted in not knowing how to take advantage of circumstances: after defeating Lopez, he might have marched to Madrid and proclaimed Don Carlos there, and after sacking Cordova he ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... like the "Vita Nuova" of Dante, is sufficiently intelligible to a certain class of readers without a matter-of-fact history of the circumstances to which it relates and to a certain other class it must ever remain incomprehensible, from a defect of a common organ of perception for the ideas of which it treats. Not but that gran vergogna sarebbe a colui, che rimasse cosa sotto veste di figura, o di colore rettorico: e domandato non sapesse denudare le sue parole da cotal veste, in guisa che ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... was simple, but he had great qualities of mind and heart; and his simplicity was a perfection in him—not a defect. If it induced him to do things of which human prudence disapproves, it was because he was guided by Divine light; it was because he sought to be despised by the world, to render himself more conformable to Jesus Christ. Men of his age were ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... left, in the broad province of Otago. Like General Grant in his last campaign, they had to keep on "pegging away," and they did. They stood stoutly by their kirk, and gave it a valuable endowment of land. Their leaders felt keenly the difficulty of getting good school teaching for the children, a defect so well repaired later on that the primary schools of Otago are now, perhaps, the best in New Zealand, while Dunedin was the seat of the Colony's first university college. They had a gaol, the prisoners ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... keeper of the royal granaries, a dependable accountant; a good enough man in his lowly station, but one who could never rise. His laxness in the manner of dress was seen to be ingrained, an incurable defect of soul. In the time of Ram-tah he had doubtless worn the Egyptian equivalent for detached cuffs, and he would be doing the like for a thousand incarnations to come. All too plainly Breede's Karmic future promised little of interest. His ...
— Bunker Bean • Harry Leon Wilson
... uncertainty in regard to the definition of aggression, the too wide discretion and powers conferred upon the Council and the evils attendant on the system of "complementary agreements" sanctioned by the Treaty. The first defect might now be remedied by the extension of the system of arbitration, which would simplify the definition of aggression. As regards the "complementary agreements," even those who recognized their ...
— The Geneva Protocol • David Hunter Miller
... preserved their fidelity. And then the substituted religion, while it came with a great diminution of the pomp which is always the delight of the ignorant, acknowledged,—proclaimed as one of its chief merits,—a still more fatal defect for attracting converts from among beings whose ignorance had never been suffered to doubt, till then, that men in ecclesiastical garb could modify, or suspend, or defeat for them the justice of God; it proclaimed itself unable to give any exemptions ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster |
