"Defect" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... she is a staggerer. That is to say, she has begun to assert the independence of her little brown legs, and progresses, even when on shore, with all the uncertainty of a drunken woman. Of course, the ship's motion does not tend to remedy this defect. Sally's chief delight is wallowing. No matter what part of the ship's deck she may select for her operations—whether the scuppers, the quarter-deck, or the forecastle—she lays her down straightway for a luxurious wallow. If the spot be dirty, she wallows ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne
... had to be cut from his foot; within were the words "J. Wilkes." The doctor says he did not notice these, but that visual defect may cost him his neck. The two men waited around the house all day, but toward evening they slipped their horses from the stable and rode away in ...
— The Life, Crime and Capture of John Wilkes Booth • George Alfred Townsend
... which effected the law of settlement would of themselves justify the house in throwing out the bill. His great objection, however, was to the board of commissioners. The board was unnecessary, for the principal existing defect consisted in the ratepayers not having sufficient control over the expenditure. If they were only vested with complete control over the poor-law management, the evils of the present system would soon disappear. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... door, with smoke, and there the whole crew lived, eighteen men and one woman. Some had undergone various terms of imprisonment, and nobody knew what the others were, but though they were all, more or less, suffering from some physical defect and were nearly old men, they were still all strong enough for hauling. For the "Chamber of Commerce" tolerated them there, and allowed them that hovel to live in, on condition that they should be ready to haul, by day ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... decision to stay with Highmore rather than defect was probably made because "two women—Mrs. Wilks, the widow of her [Kitty's] old theatrical idol, and Mrs. Booth—were in he direction of the theater.[10] But in light of Fielding's words and her actions and statements in regard to the welfare of Drury Lane and its actors throughout ...
— The Case of Mrs. Clive • Catherine Clive
... heads from the different bales of the batch takes place in this first selection of the heads of jute, the faulty handling may affect subsequent operations in such a way that no chance of correcting the defect can occur; it should be noted at this stage that if there are slight variations of any kind in the fibres, it is advisable to make special efforts to obtain a good average mixture; as a matter of fact, it is wise to insist ...
— The Jute Industry: From Seed to Finished Cloth • T. Woodhouse and P. Kilgour
... am not readily accessible to fear; and if there is one defect to which I must plead guilty, it is that of a curious disposition. You go the wrong way about to make me leave this house, in which I play the part of your entertainer; and, suffer me to add, young man, if any peril threaten us, it was of your ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... 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 angels, ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... 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, as Heracleitus so well realised, as also ...
— Nature Mysticism • J. Edward Mercer
... personal influence which cannot emanate from gloom and depression. "Everything good is 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 ...
— The Life Radiant • Lilian Whiting
... everything wrong," said Mlle. Cadet to Caesar, "what have you to say of that woman? I have been looking at her ever since she came in, and I don't find the slightest defect." ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja
... curious information relative to the life and writings of this great poet, which has not as yet been collected even by the Italians; but the celebrated Ugo Foscolo meditates to supply this defect, and it is not to be regretted that this national work has been reserved for one so devoted to his country and ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... does not damage her at all. Step down, Maria, and walk.' The woman gets down, and steps off eight or ten paces, and returns with a slight limp, evidently with some pain, but doing her best to conceal her defect of gait. The auctioneer is a Frenchman, and announces everything alternately in French and English. 'Now, gentlemen, what is bid? she is warranted, elle est gurantie, and sold by a very respectable citizen. 250 dollars, ...
— Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... first sight seemed promising. But in Lincoln's eyes it had this great defect: during the time McClellan was moving round by water and disembarking his troops—and this, so few were the transports, would take at least a month—Johnston might make a dash at Washington. The city had ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... in 1857, "was a Book of Translations, not of my suggesting or desiring, but of my executing as honest journey-work in defect of better. The pieces selected were the suitablest discoverable on such terms: not quite of less than no worth (I considered) any piece of them; nor, alas, of a very high worth any, except one only. Four of these lots, or quotas to the adventure, Musaeus's, Tieck's, ...
— On the Choice of Books • Thomas Carlyle
... it ought to be, and supplying the rest;—the other is to copy what is, and as it is,—at best a tolerable, but most frequently a blundering, copy. In the former the difference was an essential element; in the latter an involuntary defect. We should think it strange, if a tale in dance were announced, and the actors did not dance at all;—and ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... defect in the human character is selfishness, and to remove or lessen this is the great desideratum of moral culture. How happy were mankind, if, instead of each one living for himself, they lived really for one another! The perfection of moral ...
— The Infant System - For Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of all Children, - from One to Seven years of Age • Samuel Wilderspin
... bank director with his poem! He had mistaken the throbbing of an abscess for the beating of the heart. What he called "a wonderful piece of mechanism" was an imperfect device to remedy an unnecessary defect, the clumsy crutch of ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... Another defect of the Negro church is her neglect of rural communities. From eighty to eighty-five per cent of the race is to be found in our small towns where ignorance and superstition prevail to an alarming extent. Among the causes of ...
— The Defects of the Negro Church - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 10 • Orishatukeh Faduma
... writers in the modern time, particularly by specialists, the clearer has it become that they lacked nearly all originality. Especially were they faulty in their observations; besides, they had a definite tendency to replace observation by theory, a fatal defect in medicine. The fine development of surgery that came at the end of the Arabian period of medicine in Europe could never have come from the Arabs themselves. Gurlt has brought this out particularly, but it will not be difficult to cite many other good ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... noon: yet I tell all young men, and tell them with great sincerity, that nobody who does not rise early will ever do any good." But, however that may be, he is plainly right in the broad issue. Practice is the only absolute proof of sincerity: but defect in practice is no proof of insincerity. Certainly, no Christian can doubt that the struggling, even though falling, sinner is in at least as hopeful a condition as the complacent person whose principles and ...
— Dr. Johnson and His Circle • John Bailey
... awakens a love in her husband which is blind to every defect. He is gallantry itself, and at the same time the happiest and most hilarious of lovers. Since she insists on building her nest herself, and having everything to her own mind, he does not shrug his blue shoulders and stand ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... of his household who would accompany him. My preparations did not require much time; for I was delighted with the idea of being attached to the personal service of so great a man, and in imagination saw myself already beyond the Alps. But the First Consul set out without me. Pfister, by a defect of memory, perhaps intentional, had forgotten to place my name on the list. I was in despair, and went to relate, with tears, my misfortune to my excellent mistress, who was good enough to endeavor to console me, saying, "Well, ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... peculiar nature and demands of naval warfare, but few dispatches, corresponding to those describing the work and achievements of our great armies, were issued during the progress of the war. In a former volume I attempted to supply this defect in the historical records, which will be available for future generations, so far as the Grand Fleet was concerned, during my period as its Commander-in-Chief. The present volume, which was commenced and nearly completed in 1918, was to have been published ...
— The Crisis of the Naval War • John Rushworth Jellicoe
... noble and generous spirit into the students, or they will tend to become cunning rather than wise. This may be proved by the example of the Egyptians and Phoenicians, who, notwithstanding their knowledge of arithmetic, are degraded in their general character; whether this defect in them is due to some natural cause or to a bad legislator. For it is clear that there are great differences in the power of regions to produce good men: heat and cold, and water and food, have ...
— Laws • Plato
... of that imagination, continues even after its root has been cut, is mere nonsense. The instance of some one seeing the moon double is not analogous. For in his case the non-cessation of wrong knowledge explains itself from the circumstance that the cause of wrong knowledge, viz. the real defect of the eye which does not admit of being sublated by knowledge, is not removed, although that which would sublate wrong knowledge is near. On the other hand, effects, such as fear and the like, may come to an end because they can be sublated by means of knowledge of superior force. Moreover, if ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... it would have been an advantage for your son, whom you destine for the Navy, to have had relations in that service. But it is not too late to remedy this defect. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 22, 1920 • Various
... place in his country's love and destined for him the fairest page in the volume of faithful history, I ask so much confidence only as may give firmness and effect to the legal administration of your affairs. I shall often go wrong through defect of judgment. When right, I shall often be thought wrong by those whose positions will not command a view of the whole ground. I ask your indulgence for my own errors, which will never be intentional, and your support against ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 4) of Volume 1: Thomas Jefferson • Edited by James D. Richardson
... some day. Would it not be well, by the way, to print it in the meanwhile as a fragment confessed ... sowing asterisks at the end. Because as a poem of yours it stands there and wants unity, and people can't be expected to understand the difference between incompleteness and defect, unless you make a sign. For the new poems—they are full of beauty. You throw largesses out on all sides without counting the coins: how beautiful that 'Night and Morning' ... and the 'Earth's Immortalities' ... and the 'Song' too. And for your ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett
... between the repudiation and the approbation of Luther is not discreditable to him. It is the tragic defect running through his whole personality: his refusal or inability ever to draw ultimate conclusions. Had he only been a calculating and selfish nature, afraid of losing his life, he would long since have altogether ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... the usual stature of young men of his age, with a slight defect of curvature of the shoulders that does but confirm his ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... is well balanced, who is not cursed with some little defect or weakness which cripples his usefulness and neutralizes his powers. Wanted, a man of courage, who is not a coward in any ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... choice of the clay—or that it is frequently spoiled in the baking; by an excess of which a husband may turn out too crusty (you know) on one hand—or not enough so, through defect of heat, on the other—or whether this great Artificer is not so attentive to the little Platonic exigences of that part of the species, for whose use she is fabricating this—or that her Ladyship sometimes scarce knows what sort of a husband will do—I know not: we will ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... exceptions to this remark. One of the most memorable of these is the judgment which Robert Hall(229) pronounces concerning the solution of this difficulty by the "Wonderful Howe." This solution, as we have seen, labours under the same defect with those of its predecessors, in that it rejects the truth that a necessary holiness is a contradiction in terms. Instead of following the guidance of this truth, he wanders amid the obscurities of the subject, ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe
... 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 ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... delight: As indeed how should I be touched with the misfortunes of the Queen of Gundaya, and of the King of Astrobacia, whenas I know their very Kingdoms are not in the universal Mapp, or, to say better, in the being of things? But this is not the only defect which may carry us from the true resemblance, for we have at other times seen Romanzes, which set before us monsters, in thinking to let us see Miracles; their Authors by adhering too much to wonders have made Grotesques, which have not a little of the visions of a burning Feaver; and one ...
— Prefaces to Fiction • Various
... "That defect makes him dangerous to men; perhaps not less so to women. Could it be possible, if he obtained any interview with the signora, that he could win her affections?" Jackeymo crossed himself rapidly and made ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... 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 most obvious ways of expressing what we desire ...
— Woman in the Ninteenth Century - and Kindred Papers Relating to the Sphere, Condition - and Duties, of Woman. • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... the primates is the character of their self-consciousness. This useful faculty, that can probe so deep, has one naive defect—it relies too readily on its own findings. It doesn't suspect enough its own unconfessed predilections. It assumes that it can be completely impartial—but isn't. To instance an obvious way in which it will betray ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day
... need be done to secure good seed. If peanuts are fully cured when picked off, and are not kept too close, they will prove good seed, unless there is some radical defect of the germ or vital powers. Keep them from heating, and they will germinate and grow as readily as corn. Every planter may, and should, save his own seed. According to the number of acres that ...
— The Peanut Plant - Its Cultivation And Uses • B. W. Jones
... interfere with the appreciation and enjoyment of the picture. It has what I conceive to be that most rare merit,—it has the same universal hue of nature and truth in both the shadows and the lights which Nature has, but Art almost never, and which is the great cross to the artist. The great defect and the great difficulty, in imitating the hues of flesh, lies in the shadows and the half-shadows. You will often observe in otherwise excellent works of the most admirable masters, that, the moment their pencil passes to the shadows ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... this reason, in part, his fame has been so cosmopolitan. In France especially his writings have been favorites. Charles Baudelaire, the author of the Fleurs du Mal, translated them into French, and his own impressive but unhealthy poetry shows evidence of Poe's influence. The defect in Poe was in character—a defect which will make itself felt in art as in life. If he had had the sweet home feeling of Longfellow or the moral fervor of Whittier he might have been ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... the AUTHOR; who, I am convinc'd, has one of the best, and most generous Hearts, of Mankind: because, mis-measuring other Minds, by His Own, he can draw Every thing, to Perfection, but Wickedness.——I became inextricably in Love with this delightful Defect of his Malice;—for, I found it owing to an Excess in his Honesty. Only observe, Sir, with what virtuous Reluctance he complies with the Demands of his Story, when he stands in need of some blameable Characters. Tho' his Judgment compels him to mark 'em with disagreeable Colourings, ...
— Samuel Richardson's Introduction to Pamela • Samuel Richardson
... in which a charitable judgment will impute no positive betrayal of trusts, but a defect of vision to recognize the claim of the higher ideal. Tory or Revolutionist a man might be, according to his temperament and conviction; but where a man begins with protests against tyranny and ends with subservience to it, we ...
— The Americanism of Washington • Henry Van Dyke
... seek and enjoy the widest circulation. It is difficult not to believe that fundamentally sins of education are to blame for it. The school may bring much to the children, but no mere information can be a substitute for a training in thorough thinking. Here lies the greatest defect of our average schools. The looseness of the spelling and figuring draws its consequences. Whoever becomes accustomed to inaccuracy in the elements remains inaccurate in his thinking his life long. If the American public loses a hundred million dollars ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... in one of the most pleasant spots I believe in the kingdom, and were regaled with our beans and bacon, in which there was nothing deficient but the quantity. This defect was however so deplorable that we had consumed our whole dish before we had visibly lessened our hunger. We now waited with impatience the arrival of our second course, which necessity, and not luxury, had dictated. This was a joint of mutton ...
— Journal of A Voyage to Lisbon • Henry Fielding
... imperceptible. If the movement becomes perceptible, on the contrary, and multiplied by the number of times that the gesture is repeated, it ends by throwing the conductor behind in the time he is beating, and by giving to his conducting a tardiness that proves injurious. This defect, moreover, has the result of needlessly fatiguing the conductor, and of producing exaggerated evolutions, verging on the ridiculous, which attract the spectators' attention, and ...
— The Orchestral Conductor - Theory of His Art • Hector Berlioz
... aperture, composed of a pair of movable ridges of tissue, has almost a sphincteric action, in addition to a tilting movement. The ventricular bands can approximate under powerful stimuli. The vocal cords act similarly. The one defect in the efficiency of this barrier, is the tendency to take a deep inspiration preparatory to the cough excited by the contact of ...
— Bronchoscopy and Esophagoscopy - A Manual of Peroral Endoscopy and Laryngeal Surgery • Chevalier Jackson
... that it was impossible for him to bring together the few fragments of teeth which still remained, or to speak a whole sentence in an intelligible voice. Eating and talking, occupations to which he was always much addicted, were becoming daily more arduous, in consequence of this original defect, which now seemed hardly human, but rather ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... not a bad looking woman and in fact it was difficult to see how she expected to be improved by cosmetics that would lighten her complexion, bleaches that would flaxen her hair, tortures for this, that, and the other defect, ...
— Constance Dunlap • Arthur B. Reeve
... apprehension was quick, his imagination fine, and his memory remarkably strong; though his greatest commendations were a very genteel address, a ready wit and an excellent elocution, which shewed him to advantage wherever he went. There was, notwithstanding, one principal defect in his disposition, and this was an infinite vanity, which gave him so insufferable a presumption, as led him to think that nothing was too much for his capacity, nor any preferment, or favour, beyond his deserts. Mr. Addison's fondness for him perhaps increased this ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753),Vol. V. • Theophilus Cibber
... And so to-day, whilst I was at prayer, God sent him to me, and he told me of his desire for the marriage, whereupon, knowing his lineage and kindred and notable descent, I promised him to speak to you on the matter. There is, indeed, one defect in him, of which I alone have knowledge, and it is this. Wishing to save one of his friends whom another man was striving to slay, he drew his sword in order to separate them; but it chanced that his friend slew the other, and thus, although he himself ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. V. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... encouragement. Happily, those cold heights of philosophy on which every man is loved as a brother and every nationality held in equal honour and esteem are unattainable by human nature; for without the stimulus of Patriotism National Life would be impracticable.[8] It's chief defect is that like most of the emotions it is sometimes hasty ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... p. 314. This defect, if it really existed, must have stimulated the ingenuity of the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... mining camp, or the Pennsylvania oil fields. * * * Then there was a pause in the work, for the experts decided that the new oil which spouted forth in such vast quantities was too heavy and malodorous to serve as an illuminant. Presently, however, it was discovered that this defect was a virtue, for here was a non-explosive petroleum that could be utilized in great quantities as a fuel, and work was hastened with renewed vigor, for now California possessed the monopoly of the one great need, not only of herself, but of all ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various
... inhabitants do celebrate the actes of their ancestours, and of their times, with songs, and they graue them in rocks and promontories, that they may not decay with posterity, but onely by the defect of nature. ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation, v. 1, Northern Europe • Richard Hakluyt
... souls to shape and characters to mold in a new environment, under influences subtler than we guess. "I make it my business to extract from Nature whatever nutriment she can furnish me, though at the risk of endless iteration. I milk the sky and the earth." And again: "Surely it is a defect in our Bible that it is not truly ours, but a Hebrew Bible. The most pertinent illustrations for us are to be drawn not from Egypt or Babylonia, but from New England. Natural objects and phenomena are the original symbols or types which ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... a rule intoxication. As a matter of fact HANKIN would not be a bad servant if his zeal was distributed over him rather more evenly. It is always either excessive or defective. It comes out in lumps. In neglecting to have the chimney swept HANKIN had shown defect; in the way that he had piled up the fire he had shown excess. In subsequently absenting himself from the flat he had shown a certain amount of wisdom, for GIDLING ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 10, 1891 • Various
... buildings, religious pictures, religious conventions of all kinds very soon pall on my particular temperament. It is possibly a defect in my development, like my inability to appreciate classical music. On the other hand, like Mark Twain, I enjoy an ancient mummy just because he is ancient; and were it not for the irritation of seeing so ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... second is reduced to a quiescent state only by referring conceptions to the facts of experience. In short, stupidity cannot rise above reality, nor the intelligence descend below truth. Thus, in as far as the want of reality and attachment to the real are only the consequence of a want and a defect, indifference to the real and an interest taken in appearances are a real enlargement of humanity and a decisive step towards culture. In the first place it is the proof of an exterior liberty, for as long as necessity commands and want solicits, the fancy is strictly ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... I make her more sport then she makes me? Shall I conclude her simple, that has her time to begin or refuse sportivenesse as freely as I my self have? Nay, who knows but that our agreeing no better, is the defect of my not understanding her language? (for doubtlesse Cats talk and reason with one another) and that shee laughs at, and censures my folly, for making her sport, and pities mee for understanding her no better? To this ...
— The Compleat Angler - Facsimile of the First Edition • Izaak Walton
... respected Committee. Assure them that in whatever I have done or left undone, I have been influenced by a desire to promote the glory of the Trinity and to give my employers ultimate and permanent satisfaction. If I have erred, it has been from a defect of judgment, and I ask pardon of God ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... studied and worked out. Nor is there any reason why Mr. Irving or any other foreigner should have a monopoly of either intelligence or pains. They are common property and one man's money can buy them as well as another's. The defect in the American manager's policy heretofore has been that he has squandered his money upon high salaries for a few of his actors; and in costly, because unintelligent, expenditure ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol 31, No 2, June 1908 • Various
... Aristotle's dry but exact definition seems like the words of soberness after some nightmare. The man is not assaulting the air; his feet are on firm ground. This is how he proceeds. "Virtue is a mean between excess and defect." In fact, his object appears to have been to teach something, not to mystify everybody and to cover the honourable name ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... interested men who met her by accident (and sometimes even women), if they happened to be walking behind her. When they quickened their steps, and, passing on, looked back at her face, they lost all interest in Fanny from that moment. Painters would have described the defect in her face as "want of colour." She was one of the whitest of fair female human beings. Light flaxen hair, faint blue eyes with no expression in them, and a complexion which looked as if it had never been stirred by a circulation of blood, produced ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... that it has no passions. "O noble privilege of age! if indeed it takes from us that which is in youth our greatest defect." But the higher feelings of our nature are not necessarily weakened; or rather, they may become all the brighter, being purified from the grosser elements of ...
— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock
... Susini was coming now—a little fiery man, with the walk of one who was slightly bow-legged, though his cassock naturally concealed this defect. He was small and not too broad, with a narrow face and clean, straight features—something of the Spaniard, something of the Greek, nothing Italian, nothing French. In a word, this was a Corsican, which is to say ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... an opponent thoroughly, and even to harm him,' said a crafty old knave to me, 'you reproach him with the very defect or vice you are conscious of in yourself. Be indignant ... and ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev
... hands. She looked below the surface, and knew that a kindly heart beat beneath the ungainly habit; and being but plain herself, Keziah would have taken shame to herself for thinking scorn of another for a like defect. ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... to dress himself in his usual plain way, only taking a little more care in his arrangements than was needed in the latitude of Oxbow Village. But Gifted must be looked after, that he should not provoke the unamiable comments of the city youth by any defect or extravagance of costume. The young gentleman had bought a light sky-blue neckerchief, and a very large breast-pin containing a gem which he was assured by the vender was a genuine stone. He considered that both these would be eminently effective articles of dress, and Mr. ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... who hath bestowed upon us the light of the knowledge of Himself, and hath redeemed us from the darkness of idolatrous madness, having espoused to Himself His holy Catholic Church without spot or defect, promised that He would so preserve her; and assured His holy disciples, saying, "I am with you always, even unto the end of the world" [Matt. 28:20], which promise He made, not only to them, but to us also who through them should believe in His name. ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... defects. It is true that some objects of his literary admiration—Goethe and Byron and George Sand—could scarcely be regarded as moral exemplars; but, while he praised the genius, he marked his disapproval of the moral defect. In writing of George Sand, who had so profoundly influenced his early life, he did not deny or extenuate "her passions and her errors." Byron, though he thought him "the greatest natural force, the greatest elementary power, which has appeared in our literature since Shakespeare," he roundly ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... previous methods have failed. This contact should be absolute and positive, for if it is not, the receiver will not work in unison. The contact could often be doubled by the jarring of the instrument, thus making the receiver jump twice. Clarke has overcome this defect by so arranging his mechanism that the faintest contact in the primary instrument closes two platinum points in multiple arc with it, thus making a firm and positive contact, which is not disturbed by any jar on the primary contact. This gives the instruments a positive ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 620, November 19,1887 • Various
... throughout the heat and drought of summer. The soil is a Jurassic limestone: the rain penetrates the porous rock, and sinks through cracks and fissures, to reappear above the base of the mountain in a full-grown stream. This is a defect in the Generoso, as much to be regretted as the want of shade upon its higher pastures. Here, as elsewhere in Piedmont, the forests are cut for charcoal; the beech-scrub, which covers large tracts of the ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... The one defect acknowledged by his biographer was his partiality for women. Early in life he married Tisbe, of the noble house of the Brescian Martinenghi, who bore him one daughter, Caterina, wedded to Gasparre ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... generally sound and of good quality. The hemlock trees are not so good, being subject to decay at the butts. This often causes fluted trunks. The butt logs from such trees usually are inferior. This defect in the hemlock reduces its market value to about one-half that of the spruce for paper making. Some of the paper mills in British Columbia are now using these species of pulpwood and report ...
— The School Book of Forestry • Charles Lathrop Pack
... some of the characteristic attributes or traits which a masterful and inspiring teacher should possess? In the first place he should be physically sound. It may seem like a lack of charity to say, and yet it is true, that any serious physical defect should militate against, if not bar, one from the schoolroom. Any serious blemish or noticeable defect becomes to pupils an ever-present suggestive picture, and to some extent must work against, rather ...
— Rural Life and the Rural School • Joseph Kennedy
... recollect, when I was about the age of nine. Her vehicle was a little blue-eyed girl of eight or so, one of a family of eleven, with flaxen hair about her shoulders, which attempted to curl, but ignominiously failed, hanging like chimney-crooks only. This defect used rather to trouble me; and was, I believe, one of the main reasons of my Beloved's departure from that tenement. I cannot remember with any exactness when the departure occurred. I know it was after I had kissed my little friend in a garden-seat ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... of themselves; till they cease to make something within them their standard, till they oblige their will to perfect what reason leaves sufficient, indeed, but incomplete. And when they shall recognize this defect in themselves, and try to remedy it, then they will recognize much more;—they will be on the road very ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... as in many respects the best elements of Jewish life. They were earnest, patriotic, religious, many of them wise and holy men; but their judgment was held in bondage by the influence of tradition, and in this lies the cardinal defect of their life. They had set up between their souls and the spirit of God a sort of graven image of ritualistic observances, and traditional usages and interpretations. They depended on externals, or what came to them from the past or from the outer world, ...
— Sermons at Rugby • John Percival
... back to his comrade. "This is amusing madness," I thought to myself, "and not quite so devoid of common sense as it appears. This young man, though only playing has sharply touched the defect ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... the pages, that we determined at once to pour out our hearts to Maga, and turn over page after page once more. The illustrations are thirty-two in number; one to head each chapter, though, and which we think a defect, the subject of the illustration is not always in the chapter at the head of which it is. The first is the choice of a wife—"and chose my wife as she did her wedding-gown." The intended bride is a very beautiful graceful figure, with a most sweet simplicity ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... perspicuous and graphic language. Thence, in a great measure, the popularity and interest of their works. Michaud indulges more in lengthened quotations in his text from the old chronicles, or their mere paraphrases into his own language; their frequency is the great defect of his valuable history. But the variety and interest of the subjects render this mosaic species of composition more excusable, and less repugnant to good taste, in the account of the Crusades, than it would be, perhaps, in the annals ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... 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 ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Leonora Blanche Alleyne Lang
... that, where others worshipped with open devotion, he did not so much as bend the knee. And, over and above this serious defect, he was critical of her actions and inclined to ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... golden FLEURS DE LIS, the point upwards: next came the Queen, in the sixty-fifth year of her age, as we were told, very majestic; her face oblong, fair, but wrinkled; her eyes small, yet black and pleasant; her nose a little hooked; her lips narrow, and her teeth black (a defect the English seem subject to, from their too great use of sugar); she had in her ears two pearls, with very rich drops; she wore false hair, and that red; upon her head she had a small crown, reported ...
— Travels in England and Fragmenta Regalia • Paul Hentzner and Sir Robert Naunton
... according to the tenor of the clear and truthful petition that had been presented to him, without taking into consideration the ulterior meaning that through deceit and malice had been introduced into the report and the subsequent decree thereon. Nor should so important a defect be glozed over with the assertion that the said paper bore the signatures of the president and the members of your Council (whereof there is no evidence) while the very contrary is evident in the acts. [Let it be noted] that considerable time has passed, while, moreover, the proceedings have ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXXVI, 1649-1666 • Various
... of the penal code of any civilized country, or in the abolition of slavery. Punishment is, in all very early stages of society, capricious, mostly unregulated by any definite customs or enactments, and, consequently, often disproportioned, either in the way of excess or defect, to the character of the offence. As the community advances in complexity and intelligence, successive reformers arise who attempt, by definite enactment, to regulate the amount of punishment due to each description of offence, and, from time to time, to increase or diminish, ...
— Progressive Morality - An Essay in Ethics • Thomas Fowler
... or passion, which misleads one becomes a part of his judging faculty, and cannot condemn itself. The miser cannot realize the baseness of his avarice, nor the mercenary soldier the enormity of war. Nor can a defective faculty assist in realizing the defect. The color-blind cannot appreciate painting, the thief cannot appreciate integrity, the brutal wife-beater cannot appreciate love, and a Napoleon cannot ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, August 1887 - Volume 1, Number 7 • Various
... calculation. What is ignorance? Defect in calculation. What is poverty, disgrace, and all the misfortunes to which fools ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... variously drawn out from one Verse into another, not in the jingling sound of like endings, a fault avoyded by the learned Ancients both in Poetry and all good Oratory This neglect then of Rime so little is to be taken for a defect though it may seem so perhaps to vulgar Readers, that it rather is to be esteem'd an example set, the first in English, of ancient liberty recover'd to Heroic Poem from the troublesom and modern ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... given that every man must look well to himself personally—to his uniform, his belongings, and his weapons. All gas masks were tested, and those in use for some time, or which showed the least defect, were thrown away and new ones issued. There must be no holding up of the advance once it had begun, because of poison gas. And it could not be doubted but what the Germans ...
— Ned, Bob and Jerry on the Firing Line - The Motor Boys Fighting for Uncle Sam • Clarence Young
... will not require another. Ah, the Comtesse de Montluisant, my friend, there is a precious soul! What a misfortune that she is a little over-ripe! It is all the same to you, and if you are wise, you will pass over that defect, which she amply atones for by her amiable qualities. She has the complete mastery of Monseigneur. She is the Maintenon of that old Louis XIV. Be to her what she is to him, and have the mastery of her in your turn. I was talking to you a little while ago about scruples; for once you must leave ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France
... at every part, over and over again," was my response to this, "and can find a defect nowhere. None ...
— Trials and Confessions of a Housekeeper • T. S. Arthur
... now grown about New Orleans is as sweet, if not sweeter, than that imported from South Carolina, but it is deficient in hardness and brightness when ready for market, a defect owing entirely to two causes, neither of which is beyond the control of the planter. The one cause is the mode of culture, it being generally grown without due attention to the seed—seeded at too late a period of the season, ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... said that the one only thing I could wish different about you is, that your nose should not turn up quite so much. But you see, my darling boy, we can't alter our noses. Nevertheless, look here! you can incline your head in such a manner as almost to hide the little defect. See—this way—there—let me put it as I mean—a little down and on one side. It was the way I used to carry my head before I married, or I doubt very much whether your father would have looked my way. Think of this when you're in company. It's a graceful ...
— Aunt Judy's Tales • Mrs Alfred Gatty
... very first, however. The plan, which was not definitely approved by the War Department until a month before the opening of the colleges, was naturally not carefully worked out in detail. But this was a minor matter compared with a more serious defect in the general scheme. This was the lack of competent military officers, men with sufficient vision to co-operate effectively with the universities. The officers detailed were for the most part retired from active service, or recent recruits from training ...
— The University of Michigan • Wilfred Shaw
... as a corresponding member from the Synod of the Presbyterian Church of England, supported the appointment, gave voice to the universal feeling when he described him as "a man of thought and labour and love and God, who had one defect which endeared him to them all—that he was the only man who did not know what a rare and noble ...
— Principal Cairns • John Cairns
... better half held strong opinions upon the sculptor's models—"abandoned hussies, with whom she had no patience"; and Miss Coleman having ventured to visit the scene of her early labours in a carriage and pair, the wrath of the virtuous Mrs. Nollekens became unbounded. Words indeed (perhaps a rare defect with the good lady) seem to have failed her at this crisis; in a later interview with ...
— The Eighteenth Century in English Caricature • Selwyn Brinton
... deliberately, the only defect in the greatness of Mr. Shaw, the only answer to his claim to be a great man, that he is not easily pleased. He is an almost solitary exception to the general and essential maxim, that little things please great minds. And from this absence of that most ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... Gabriel, young Chapman found the padres having trouble to keep the flour which they ground in their new stone mill from being dampened by water from the mill wheel. Knowing something of machinery, the American remedied the defect by means of a flutter wheel, and ...
— History of California • Helen Elliott Bandini
... orders are generally defective in a matter pertaining to the instruction; it is a most serious defect, and demands your Majesty's interference. I fear that at times it occurs through ignorance or want of reflection; and I am not sure if there be not mixed with it, now and then, a lack of affection for the Indians. They are wont to maintain certain mission villages, where they have ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XII, 1601-1604 • Edited by Blair and Robertson
... death he obtained a share and by his vigour and abilities he made himself the most powerful of the successors of Alexander. It is said that Apelles, who painted the portrait of Antigonus, placed him in profile in order to hide the defect of the one eye. Antigonus closed his long career at the battle of Ipsus B.C. 301, where he was defeated and killed. He was then eighty-one years ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... were not limited to the person of a Pope, who could only be the representative, the bearer, the enactor, for the world of this idea in its fullest meaning. If here and there a particular personality seemed unequal to the carrying out such a charge, the force of the idea did not suffer any defect through him. Most papal governments were very short in their duration. This itself was a challenge to those whose life was absorbed in that of the Church to place at its head a man whose ability, enlightened and guided by strength of will, ...
— The Formation of Christendom, Volume VI - The Holy See and the Wandering of the Nations, from St. Leo I to St. Gregory I • Thomas W. (Thomas William) Allies
... sons. The rest of the Hindus must remain in matrimony till the age of forty; after which they earn the right to leave the world, and to seek salvation, leading an ascetic life in some jungle. If a member of some Hindu family happens to be afflicted from birth with some organic defect, this will not be an impediment to his marrying, on the condition that his wife should be also a cripple, if she belongs to the same caste. The defects of husband and wife must be different: if he is blind, she must be hump-backed or lame, and vice versa. But if the young man in question ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... glad that Snookums had pinpointed the trouble first and then had gone on to show why the defect was causing the observed result. He could just as easily have started with the offending oscillation and reached the bit about the faulty lead at the end of his speech, except that he had been built to do it the other way around. Snookums made the deduction in his superfast ...
— Unwise Child • Gordon Randall Garrett
... is usual in polygamous households, was filled with envy of her, bribed a female buffoon to remove her golden headgear in public at the great assembly of Tailltiu (Telltown, Co. Meath), so as to expose the poor queen's defect to the eyes of the mob. The messenger accomplished her purpose, but Muireann cried out, "God and Saint Ciaran help me in this need!" and forthwith a shower of glossy curling golden hair flowed from her head over her shoulders, before a single eye of the assembly had rested upon her. Compare ...
— The Latin & Irish Lives of Ciaran - Translations Of Christian Literature. Series V. Lives Of - The Celtic Saints • Anonymous
... displayed his wit, and to which the Comte d'Artois—[Afterwards Charles X.]—gave life by the vivacity of youth, gradually softened that ruggedness of manner in Louis XVI. which a better-conducted education might have prevented. Still, this defect often showed itself, and, in spite of his extreme simplicity, the King inspired those who had occasion to speak to him with diffidence. Courtiers, submissive in the presence of their sovereign, are only the more ready to caricature ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... that feeble-mindedness is passed on from parent to child to an enormous extent. Some years ago Ashby, speaking from a large experience in the North of England, estimated that at least seventy-five per cent of feeble-minded children are born with an inherited tendency to mental defect. More precise investigation has since shown that this estimate was under the mark. Tredgold, who in England has most carefully studied the heredity of the feeble-minded,[29] found that in over eighty-two ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... farces and novels (above all, the "Simple Story") testify; she was not an actress of any special merit, but of respectable mediocrity. She stuttered habitually, but her delivery was never impeded by this defect on the stage; a curious circumstance, not uncommon to persons who have that infirmity, and who can read and recite without suffering from it, though quite unable to speak fluently. Mrs. Inchbald was a person of a very remarkable character, lovely, poor, with unusual ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... such are perhaps still used in rude and remote parts; but they are said not to last above two days. Where life is somewhat improved, they are now made of leather tanned with oak bark, as in other places, or with the bark of birch, or roots of tormentil, a substance recommended in defect of bark, about forty years ago, to the Irish tanners, by one to whom the parliament of that kingdom voted a reward. The leather of Sky is not completely penetrated by vegetable matter, and therefore cannot ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... properly. She had to a certain extent picked up the accent of the vulgar. It was impossible, considering her surroundings and associations, to be otherwise. But proper treatment and proper companions would soon rid her of this defect. ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... several improvements upon his fire balloon. The reason of its failure formerly was its being made of porous linen, through which the air made its escape. To remedy this defect, Mr. Tytler has got it covered with a varnish to retain the inflammable air ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... literature. I have long felt that while the magazine literature of the day had much to recommend it, it yet lacked stability, solidity, weight. It seemed plain to me that too much space was given to poetry and romance, and not enough to statistics and agriculture. This defect it shall be my earnest endeavour to remedy. If I succeed, the simple consciousness that I have done a good deed will be ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... hirundines and the larger bats are supported by some sorts of high-flying gnats, scarabs, or phaloenae, that are of short continuance, and that the short stay of these strangers is regulated by the defect of their food. ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1 • Gilbert White
... verse of Shakespeare, broken lines and redundant syllables are numerous, but under his hand they become things of beauty, and "the irregularity is the foundation of the larger and nobler rule." To quote the historian of English prosody—"These are quite deliberate indulgences in excess or defect, over or under a regular norm, which is so pervading and so thoroughly marked that it carries them off on its wings."(44) Heine in his unrhymed "Nordseebilder," has many irregular lines—irregularities suitable to the variety of the subjects ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... 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 ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... ships for the furnishing of his enterprise, his wit and policie found a shift to supplie that defect: for choosing out a piked number of such Britains as he had there with him in aid, which knew the foords and shallow places of the streames there, and withall were verie skilfull in swimming (as the maner of the countrie then was) he appointed them to passe ouer on the sudden into the ...
— Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (4 of 8) - The Fovrth Booke Of The Historie Of England • Raphael Holinshed
... due course for confirmation. These were the grant of eleven leagues, known as New Helvetia, and the grant of twenty-two leagues, known as the Sobrante. The land commissioners found these grants perfect. Not a flaw or defect could be discovered in either of them, and they were confirmed by the board, under the provisions of ...
— History of the Donner Party • C.F. McGlashan
... possesses from liberty of invention, and correcting thereby the inequalities of life; and having also the additional fault of laying its scenes for the most part in a foreign country. The characters of Tragedy are always selected from high life; here is a great defect, for it is by no means a true observation, that men are inclined greatly to pity the misfortunes of their superiors; on the contrary, they are secretly rejoiced at seeing them fall from a situation so much above their own; whereas they sympathize more with their equals, and take ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 20, Issue 561, August 11, 1832 • Various
... to convince me that any attempt upon it would be worse than fruitless, for it was secured upon the outside by a strong lock, besides two bars, all which I was enabled to ascertain by means of the same defect in the joining of the planks which I have mentioned as belonging ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume III. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... him from Paris to Havre. It is true he had spent the difference that morning on an eye-glass that he never used, or when he did it was only to obscure his vision; but the money was not lost, as it aided in persuading the world he was a colonel and was afflicted with that genteel defect, an imperfect vision. These extremes of extravagance and meanness were not unusual in his practice. The one, in truth, being a ...
— Autobiography of a Pocket-Hankerchief • James Fenimore Cooper
... stand are these. First, that there are nowhere latent in society any powers by which it can effectually operate on war for its extermination. The machinery is not there. The game is not within the compass of the cards. Secondly, that this defect of power is, though sincerely I grieve in avowing such a sentiment, and perhaps (if an infirm reader had his eye upon me) I might seem, in sympathy with his weakness, to blush —not a curse, no not at all, but on the whole a blessing from century ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... the long trapeze. Not only must the thin wire ropes of this be strong enough to hold Joe's weight, but an added pressure, caused by the momentum of his jump. And not only must the cables be strong, but there must be no defect in the wooden bar and in the place where the upper ends of the ropes were fastened to the ...
— Joe Strong The Boy Fire-Eater - The Most Dangerous Performance on Record • Vance Barnum
... to 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
... different things. It was the same Body of Christ which was offered in each case, but the sacrifices of the same Body were different. Therefore the Sacrifice of the Mass was a repetition of the Sacrifice on the Cross for a distinct object and a distinct purpose. It was supplementary, and supplied a defect which the Sacrifice on the Cross ...
— The Life of the Waiting Soul - in the Intermediate State • R. E. Sanderson
... but also why he is sick, what organs are involved, what course the illness will run, and what physical work the patient can safely undertake, so in the case of a retarded child, we need to know the exact degree of intellectual deficiency, what mental functions are chiefly concerned in the defect, whether the deficiency is due to innate endowment, to physical illness, or to faults of education, and what lines of mental activity the child will be able to pursue with reasonable hope of success. In the diagnosis of a case of malnutrition, the up-to-date ...
— The Measurement of Intelligence • Lewis Madison Terman
... form which is oftener seen among women of foreign races than among women of English birth. She was unquestionably a handsome person—with the one serious drawback of her ghastly complexion, and with the less noticeable defect of a total want of tenderness in the expression of her eyes. Apart from his first emotion of surprise, the feeling she produced in the Doctor may be described as an overpowering feeling of professional curiosity. The case might prove to be something entirely new in his professional experience. ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins
... very few of you ever lack pupils when you give your hearts to the work; and if they prove less apt or less capable learners because they have been taught reading, writing, grammar, geography and arithmetic in secular schools, it argues some defect in your theology or its teachers. If you really wanted the children taught Religious truth, you would be right glad to have them taught letters and other rudimental lessons elsewhere, so as to be fitted to ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... know—I am only too conscious of that defect." As indeed he was—conscious of the defect of it in herself. But he had many reasons for not wishing to quarrel with Donna Tullia, and he swallowed his artistic convictions in a rash resolve to make her look like an inspired prophetess ...
— Saracinesca • F. Marion Crawford
... No. 1,—consisting of sponge-cake and claret-cup, partaken of while gazing across at Cheyenne Mountain, which was at one of its most beautiful moments, all aerial blue streaked with sharp sunshine at the summit. It was the one defect of the High Valley, Clover thought, that it gave ...
— In the High Valley - Being the fifth and last volume of the Katy Did series • Susan Coolidge |
