"Fault" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... was, according to General Ople's version of the interview on his estate, when he stood before her in his gardening costume, she put him at his ease, or she exerted herself to do so; and if he underwent considerable anguish, it was the fault of his excessive scrupulousness regarding dress, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... a simple sermon: among other things, reproaching the imperfection of humane learning, he cried, 'All our physicians cannot tell what an ague is, and all our arithmetique is not able to number the days of a man'—which, God knows, is not the fault of arithmetique, but that our understandings reach not the thing." "The blockhead Albemarle hath strange luck to be loved, though he be, and every man must know it, the heaviest man in the world, but stout and honest to his country." ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... of scientific investigation, is scarcely worth the trouble; so when Sir Reginald was good enough to furnish me with the means to materialise, as it were, in this ship, the fancies and longings that had haunted me, day and night, for years, I determined that it should not be my fault if we did not, all of us, completely eclipse all previous achievements in diving. The great difficulty that I had to contend with was the enormous water-pressure of which I had spoken. Could I but contrive to encase our bodies in some garment that would receive and ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... little paregol down its throat, or my name aint Hannah," and with a sigh of relief at her escape from "Miss Ruggles," she finished her story and resumed her accustomed duties, which for many weeks she faithfully performed, finding but little fault with the frequent suggestions of Mrs. Janet Blodgett, whose rule in the household was for ...
— Cousin Maude • Mary J. Holmes
... experiences were the comment of the camp and gave rise to many differences, but, since placidity and fat have been known among so-called civilised peoples to blend in the individual, Maria's demeanour called for no comment. It was not her fault, but the flightiness and whimsicality of Nature which had contrived to make her the belle of the camp. And why not enjoy the obvious admiration of the stalwart youths as well as the discomfort of the sisters who had not ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... Southey ever did get at the secret history of that affair. The story as I heard it was, that Southey visited Winterbottom in prison, and just as a token of kindness, gave him the M.S. of 'Wat Tyler.' It was no fault of Winterbottom that it was published. On a visit to some friends at Worcester, he had the piece with him; meaning I suppose, to afford them a little amusement, at Southey's expense, he being held in great reproach, even contempt, as a turn-coat. At the house where Winterbottom was ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... house; they all are. But they are so horribly shaky. The minarets are top-heavy, I fear. That's the fault of the makers of these bricks. They ought to make the solid ones in proper proportion. But they ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... recovery than they all began to extol his memory and deplore his loss. They admitted that he had been fierce and cruel, but then he had been brave; he had, to be sure, pulled this war upon their heads, but he had likewise been crushed by it. In a word, he was dead, and his death atoned or every fault; for a king recently dead is generally either a hero ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... they suppress their intermediate ideas, and give only the result of their thoughts. This may be inconvenient to those who teach them; but this habit sufficiently proves that these children are not deficient in attention. To cure them of the fault which they have, we should not accuse them falsely of another. But it may be questioned whether this be a fault; it is absolutely necessary, in many processes of the mind, to suppress a number of intermediate ...
— Practical Education, Volume I • Maria Edgeworth
... your theory is at fault, Webb," said Leonard. "How is it that some plants are able to endure such violent alternations ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... more than you do why some early ancestor laid his ban upon this room. But from my earliest years I was given to understand that there was one latch in the house which was never to be lifted; that any fault would be forgiven sooner than that; that the honour of the whole family stood in the way of disobedience, and that I was to preserve that honour to my dying day. You will say that all this is fantastic, and wonder that sane people in these ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... Now, Nettie, don't find fault with your history because your Uncle is not mentioned in its lines. In the histories of great events, such as our Civil War, it is an honor to be, even though hidden, "between the lines." Thousands who are mentioned in written history to-day will not be there when it ...
— Between the Lines - Secret Service Stories Told Fifty Years After • Henry Bascom Smith
... born in 1481, and died in 1559. He passed from the early school of Ferrara to that of Raphael. His conception was apt to be fantastic, while his colouring was vivid to abruptness, and he was deficient in charm of expression. He fell into the fault of monotonous ideality. At the same time his heads are beautiful, and his drapery is classic. His finest work is an 'Entombment' in the Borghese Palace, Rome. There is an altar-piece by Garofalo, a Madonna and Child with angels, in ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... at her. Emma was reading his face; the characters had become all at once a little puzzling; her own fault, of course, but the significance she sought ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... neurasthenia, but relatives must not forget, in their indignation at these laxities, that the patient really is ill; it is unkind, unjust and useless to tell an ailing man the unpalatable truth that it is his own fault. ...
— Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia • Isaac G. Briggs
... know any one who has better opportunities for making himself unpopular than an assistant, for the clerks are apt to cuss him for all the manager's meanness, and the manager is likely to find fault with him for all the clerks' cussedness. But if he explains his orders to the clerks he loses his authority, and if he excuses himself to the manager he loses his usefulness. A manager needs an assistant to take trouble from him, not to bring it ...
— Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... burning folk like you, but we still keep a hangman, and, by George! if any man in this college meets his death while you are here, I'll have you up, and if you don't swing for it, it won't be my fault. You'll find that your filthy Egyptian tricks won't ...
— Round the Red Lamp - Being Facts and Fancies of Medical Life • Arthur Conan Doyle
... That were a fault in a lady, rather than him: no, they say he puts off the calves of his legs, with ...
— Cynthia's Revels • Ben Jonson
... faithfully, who give honest measure and seek no unfair advantage. But that business is no brotherhood is an old story, and poor human nature finds itself forced by necessity and competition into ways that are devious and not strictly honest. It's the system that is at fault, for men have formed a scheme of creating and distributing values that severely tries and often ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... Socialism proceeds on the principle that all moral and even physical evil arises from unjust laws. If the cause be remedied, the effect will be good. But Christianity throws aside all that as merely chimerical. It proves that the fault is not in outward circumstances, but in ourselves. Like the wise physician, who, instead of busying himself with transcendental theories to improve the climate, and the outward circumstances of man, endeavours to relieve and get rid of the tendencies ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... Captain Boyson as he lay watching her, only to be received with an inward mockery, half bitter, half amused. This girl was always awakening in him these violent or desperate images. Was it her fault that she possessed those brilliant eyes—eyes, as it seemed, of the typical, essential woman?—and that downy brunette skin, with the tinge in it of damask red?—and that instinctive art of lovely ...
— Marriage a la mode • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... 'I told you so,' Jack, but I did," said Percival. "If anything happens, the fault ...
— The Hilltop Boys on the River • Cyril Burleigh
... quick, he was a man to slip a trail easily. He travelled around the block and disappeared among the many open doors that blazed along Hill Street. Less alert trailers than the two behind him would have been at fault; but when he entered the place he was looking for, Kennedy was so close that Du Sang could have spoken to him had he ...
— Whispering Smith • Frank H. Spearman
... impossible for him to indulge his private partialities. It was absolutely necessary, he said, that those who had the chief direction of his affairs should partake his opinions and feelings. He owned that he had very great personal obligations to Rochester, and that no fault could be found with the way in which the financial business had lately been done: but the office of Lord Treasurer was of such high importance that, in general, it ought not to be entrusted to a single ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... John Bull he will contrive to argue every fault into a merit, and will frankly convict himself of being the ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... regarded him scornfully. "It's pretty hard to remember which IS that partic'lar day with you around," she said. "I'd told Comfort she'd ought to take a nap and if she wan't takin' it 'twan't my fault. I wan't goin' to have her seein' her granddad's ghost in every corner. But, anyhow, Matildy made a little call on me, and, amongst the million other things she said, was somethin' about Cap'n Jed hearin' that Mr. Colton was cal'latin' to shut off that Lane. Matildy ...
— The Rise of Roscoe Paine • Joseph C. Lincoln
... physician of well-known skill in the treatment of chronic diseases. If such a one is not accessible for personal consultation, a careful statement of all the prominent symptoms, in writing, may be forwarded to a specialist of large experience in this disease, who will readily detect the real fault, in which the ailment has its foundation. Particularly easy will it be for him to do so, if he be an expert in the analysis of urine. A vial of that which is first passed in the morning, should be ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... rupture with Austria. It seems that in the month of May in that eventful year the Rascians sent a deputation to Pesth, to the Diet, setting forth certain grievances and demanding redress. The Magyars rejected their petition with haughty contempt, "a grievous fault," says General Klapka in his history. The result was that the Rascian deputies returned home in a state of great disgust at their reception, and immediately took up arms against the Hungarians. This was before ...
— Round About the Carpathians • Andrew F. Crosse
... stretched herself out on the soft, mossy turf, and half closed her eyes, purring gently. She was a young cat, and got into much trouble at home, for she was constantly quarrelling with her brothers and sisters. She said it was their fault, and they said it was hers. And Mrs. Grimalkin, the old cat, said that there were faults on ...
— Little Folks (July 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... neck that you don't get her. At the very least you must start with "Whereas" or "Inasmuch." You must realize, Master Antonius, that you have to do with a learned man, who spends his days and nights in reading political works, till he's on the verge of madness. The one thing that he's found fault with lately about the people in the house is that we have such vulgar ways with us all, and myself especially—he never mentions me without calling me "You low, dirty rascal." A week or so ago he swore by the devil that Mother Geske should wear an Adrienne; still, he didn't make any headway, because ...
— Comedies • Ludvig Holberg
... her side who would fold his arms and give her his countenance without looking ridiculous. Certainly, with all her perspicacity, and all the reading which seemed to her mamma dangerously instructive, her judgment was consciously a little at fault before Grandcourt. He was adorably quiet and free from absurdities—he would be a husband to suit with the best appearance a woman could make. But what else was he? He had been everywhere, and seen everything. ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... kept at a distance from her; and she respected him, and coaxed him sedulously whenever they met. But Harry was much more easily appeased, because he was fonder of the child: and when she made mischief, used cutting speeches, or caused her friends pain, she excused herself for her fault, not by admitting and deploring it, but by pleading not guilty, and asserting innocence so constantly, and with such seeming artlessness, that it was impossible to question her plea. In her childhood, they were but mischiefs then which she did; but her power became more fatal as she ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... buy him with the bridle on. Then I takes off the bridle, and they sees this little bile, and there's an end to it. I suppose it's the same with you. Well, good day, gentlemen. You're losin' a darned good trade, but it ain't my fault. Here's an animal I paid a cool hundred for, and I'm offering him for ninety. I'm ten dollars ...
— 'Doc.' Gordon • Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman
... here. But he proceeded to Ireland in the course of the week, and suddenly called a meeting of the Committee of the Association, before which he arraigned us of discourtesy to him in London, found fault with the meeting at Liverpool, accused the Nation of attacking him, and, finally, expressed his unequivocal disapprobation of my resistance to the order of the chairman in the Hall. The deputation explained their conduct in London, and the motives that governed them, ...
— The Felon's Track • Michael Doheny
... If one's life only concerned oneself.... But it's only partly one's own from first to last." . . . Then his thoughts turned again to the man who was playing "Pagliacci." "I have a greater right to do it than Byng, and I'd have a greater joy in doing it; but whatever he is, it is not all his fault." Again he shuddered. "No man makes love like that to a woman unless she lets him, . . . until she lets him." Then he looked at the fire where the cruel testimony had shrivelled into smoke. "If it had been read to a jury . . . Ah, my God! How many he must have ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... like votive offerings on some shrine. Here Maggie used to come and sit and dream in any scarce half-hour of leisure. Here she came to cry, when her little heart was overfull at her mother's sharp fault-finding, or when bidden to keep out of the way, and not be troublesome. She used to look over the swelling expanse of moor, and the tears were dried up by the soft low-blowing wind which came sighing along it. She forgot her little home griefs to ...
— The Moorland Cottage • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... several times when I was passing backwards and forwards, and he looked to me as if the beef was a little too thick on the outside of his forehead, for the brains to be active inside. Still, the Colonels have no fault to find with him, except that between times he would talk about drinking to Little Mac, and brag about the prospect, as the papers seem to say, of Fitz John Porter's being cleared. But then most of the Court did as much at that ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... cataract of sound, Dash'd into noise by countless echoes round. Pass on—it follows—all the jarring notes Blend in celestial harmony, that floats Above, below, around: the ravish'd ear Finds all the fault its ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 16, February 16, 1850 • Various
... the collision had been no fault of hers. The man with whom she had collided had been striding along with bent head, completely absorbed in his own thoughts, and had awakened too late to the fact that some one was coming towards ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... know what I would have done if he had died. It would have been all my fault. I had no business to tell him the names of you boys that rode in the raid, and afterward to tell you that I told ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine
... to blame," said Mary Louise. "She seems an honest little thing, resolved to do her duty. It is all Mrs. Morrison's fault." ...
— Mary Louise • Edith van Dyne (one of L. Frank Baum's pen names)
... my fault, gentlemen," he whispered, bending towards the others over the little table at which they were all seated. "But the truth is—I've been baulked! At the last moment as you may term it. Just when things ...
— The Rayner-Slade Amalgamation • J. S. Fletcher
... whom he professed to believe possibly innocent of complicity in sin: "You have been brought here because I did not wish to deliver you to the stern justice of the law. Your offence is grave, but the fault lies with your accomplice, and his ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... As to Lucy, I may be mistaken, and I may not. I don't want to condemn nothin' 'less I'm on the survey and kin look the craft over; that's why I'm partic'lar. Maybe Bart was right in sayin' it warn't all his fault, whelp as he was to say it, and maybe he warn't. It ain't up before me and I ain't passin' on it,—but one thing is certain, when a ship's made as many voyages as Lucy has and ain't been home for repairs nigh on to seven years—ain't it?" and he looked at Jane for confirmation—"she gits ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... Carthaginians together, we should make atonement to the state by our blood and wounds, in the same manner as, within the memory of our fathers, those who were taken prisoners by Pyrrhus at Heraclea, made atonement by fighting against the same Pyrrhus. And yet, for what fault of ours, conscript fathers, did you then, or do you now, feel displeasure towards us; for when I look upon you, Marcus Marcellus, I seem to behold both the consuls and the whole body of the senate; and had you been our consul at Cannae, a better fate would have attended the state as well ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... It wasn't Archie's fault really. Its true he went to America and fell in love with Lucille, the daughter of a millionaire hotel proprietor and if he did marry her—well, what else ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse
... must furnish the most abhorrent examples is not the fault of the gifts and blessings, but of those to whom they are intrusted. God is a dialectician and judges the person by the thing,[1] meting out destruction to the thing or gift as well ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... manual labour, there are some powers for better things: some tardy imagination, torpid capacity of emotion, tottering steps of thought, there are, even at the worst; and in most cases it is all our own fault that they are tardy or torpid. But they cannot be strengthened, unless we are content to take them in their feebleness, and unless we prize and honour them in their imperfection above the best and most perfect manual skill. And this is what we have to do with all our labourers; to look ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... ingenuity was never at fault in the face of a difficulty. Mr. Pickwick was to be got to Nupkins' in a sedan chair, a grotesque incident; but then, what to do with Tupman, also arrested? As both would not fit in an ordinary sedan, the sedan was made to fit them, and thus it was done. "It was recollected ...
— Pickwickian Studies • Percy Fitzgerald
... forbid you to do that again," and as I spoke I saw her little fingers twitch on her whip, but she dared not raise it. She laughed as a child will who knows she is at fault and is scared by her consciousness of guilt and would conceal it by a bravado of merriment; then she said in the sweetest, wheedling tone that I had ever heard from her, and I had known her ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins
... general, and of the English-speaking races in particular; for they strove to prop up savagery, and to bar the westward march of the settler-folk whose destiny it was to make ready the continent for civilization. But the British cannot be seriously blamed because they failed to see this. Their fault lay in their aiding and encouraging savages in a warfare which was necessarily horrible; and still more in their repeated breaches of faith. The horror and the treachery were the inevitable outcome of the policy on which they ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Four - Louisiana and the Northwest, 1791-1807 • Theodore Roosevelt
... scarcely sunned by a ray of what more cultivated natures would deem happiness, takes in as fully as the sublimest philosopher the idea of a God who sees and cares for all, who keeps account of the work well done or the kind act, marks the secret fault, and will hereafter make up to duty for the hardness of its present lot. But a vivid interest—such an interest as will act both as a restraint and as a comfort—in the condition and future of humanity can surely exist only in those who have a knowledge of history sufficient ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... those questions yourself almost immediately, sweetheart! Let's not worry about that now. Let me finish. Something happened to Movaine couple of hours ago. Nobody's fault. And something else happened to Marras Cooms just now. That puts me in charge of the operation here. Nice, isn't it? When we found Cooms lying in the hall with a hole through his stupid head, I told Baldy Perk it looked like Bad News had thrown in with the Star boys and ...
— Lion Loose • James H. Schmitz
... a pretty long one it will be, I suspect," she remarked, as I got up to go off to my room. "When it is ready, bring it to me. I will do my best, and if it does not reach its destination, that is no fault of mine." ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... of Romeo and Juliet, by the inherent fault of stage representation, sullied and turned from their very nature by being exposed to a large assembly! How can the profound sorrows of Hamlet be depicted by a gesticulating actor? So, to see Lear acted, to see an old man tottering about the stage ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... almost exclusively employed until Bacon's time is commonly called the deductive method; that is, some principle or premise was assumed to be true, and reasoning was made from this assumption. No especial fault was found with the reasoning of the great masters of logic like Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, for it never has been surpassed in acuteness and severity. If their premises were admitted, their conclusions would follow as a certainty. What was wanted was to establish the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord
... sense that one gives to this word in love. It was by an act of her will, after nights of sorrowful meditation, that she said to him—"I wish what thou wishest, because we have come to that point where the fault to be committed is the inevitable reparation of a series of committed faults. I have been guilty towards thee in not having the egotistical prudence to shun thee; it is better that I should be guilty towards myself in remaining thy companion and consolation at the expense of my ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... of my favorite song. I'll walk off as often as she sings it. Can her temper be perfectly good? And yet, one could not expect—I ought not to be surprised. Yet I can't help thinking, suppose—just suppose I had a right to find fault,—suppose I were a near friend,—would she bear it then? Supposing she were my companion for life—Humph! that startles one,—was I near thinking of it in earnest? She is beautiful; I should be proud of her abroad. But at home,—at home, where there should be confidence, would there not be constraint? ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... emphatically. "I'd rather keep them a week than to have you slight Elinor. We'll have time to take the edge off our tongues, anyhow, before she gets here, and get more settled down, I hope. I haven't felt so flighty in a blue moon, and it's all your fault, Patricia Louise Kendall, with your tales about theaters and parties and the like! We'll have to put a muzzle on her, won't we, Judith?—like poor old Nero after he nipped Georgie Smith when Georgie tried to make ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... shook his head in good-natured refusal. "I dare say it's the fault of my bringing-up, but—I don't think there's any such thing. I'm an outdoor person. I'm one of the rough-necks who salts your sluice-boxes. I think I'd better stick to the hills. It's mighty nice of you, though, and ...
— The Winds of Chance • Rex Beach
... instructions, and his letter of the 30th, after detailing the terrible riot which had just happened, ends with the expression of regret that the instructions which he asked for were not sent. It is not the fault or the error or the omission of the President that this military commander was left without instructions; but for all omissions, for all errors, for all failures to instruct when instruction might have averted this calamity, the President was openly and ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 6: Andrew Johnson • James D. Richardson
... manner of expressing himself. He says in a flowing confidential voice, and without punctuation, 'I ask your pardon sir but if you would excuse the liberty of being so addressed upon the public Iway by one who is almost reduced to rags though it as not always been so and by no fault of his own but through ill elth in his family and many unmerited sufferings it would be a great obligation sir to know the time.' You give the well-spoken young man the time. The well-spoken young man, keeping well up with you, resumes: 'I am aware sir ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... chief of the Mandans, now addressed them at some length, explaining the pacific intentions of his nation; the Chayennes observed that both the Ricaras and Mandans seemed to be in fault; but at the end of the council the Mandan chief was treated with great civility, and the greatest harmony prevailed among them. The great chief, however, informed us that none of the Ricaras could be prevailed on to go with us till the return of the other chief; and that the Chayennes were ...
— First Across the Continent • Noah Brooks
... Deserve it! What have I ever done wrong! Wasn't my fault the firm went bankrupt and I couldn't get another job. I've a first-rate character—I'm respectable—what's the use? I want ...
— Five Little Plays • Alfred Sutro
... only in his last year had no conception of him in his prime. In his later years he fell into the fault, so common with public speakers and actors, of running words together and failing to articulate clearly. I have known a fine speech and a superior sermon and a great part in a play ruined because of the failure to ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew
... of the taking of the Bastille, the effacement of royalty, the suspension of the ministerial office, was the rising of the cottage against the castle, of the injured peasant against the privileged landlord, who, apart from any fault of his own, by immemorial process of history and by the actual letter of the law, was his perpetual and inevitable enemy. The events of the week between July 11 and 17 proclaimed that the authorised way to obtain what you wanted was to employ the necessary violence. If it was thorough and quick enough, ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... restored Messene, and made Arcadia one state, against the will of the Thebans, they would not pass sentence upon him, but admired his heroism, and with rejoicing and smiles set him free. So too we must not altogether find fault with Sthenelus ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... coming to church,—for they attend only occasionally,— and in this they promised to do better. I then questioned until I reached their inmost souls. I asked one, 'What is the distance between you and God?' 'My teacher, there is a very great distance between us.' 'Is it God's fault, or yours?' 'It is mine.' I then looked on another, noted for his wickedness, and said, 'Beloved, did not Christ come for you? His stripes, his anguish, his crucifixion,—were they not for you? Why, then, treat him so ill? ...
— Woman And Her Saviour In Persia • A Returned Missionary
... me fault! I swear it was me fault! Mais, here is five hondred dollar'; I wish you shall take it. Here! I don't got no use for money.—Oh, my faith! Posson Jone', you must not ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... escort I thought necessary, but that, whatever happened, I must be back by daybreak, as he had signalled to Outram that the force would advance on the morrow. Sir Colin desired that the Ordnance officer, whose fault it was that sufficient ammunition had not been brought, should go back with me and be left ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... a brand-new pendant flying from the main-truck and large White Ensign flapping lazily from its staff on the poop, the Puffin looked more like a yacht than a man-o'-war. But Commander Potvin also had a reputation to keep up, and he would not be Commander Potvin if he could not find fault somewhere. ...
— Stand By! - Naval Sketches and Stories • Henry Taprell Dorling
... said the boy. "Would to God you had left me where you found me![Endnote: 4] It was not my fault that you took me from the alms-house. But it will be my fault if I ever eat another bit of your bread, or stay under your ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... their voyages, though presenting numerous exaggerations and assertions altogether incredible, exhibit a superiority over the productions of the Greeks and Romans. To avoid the fault of dulness, both the latter were accustomed to enliven their topographical itineraries, not so much by "moving accidents," and "hair-breadth 'scapes," as by mingling fanciful descriptions of monsters and natural phenomena, with romantic accounts of the gems and splendours of the East. ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... he cried, excitedly, "it's my own fault, of course, but I'm afraid I've seen the last of my watch. It's one that father carried for a good many years, and at last gave me. The works are not very expensive, but the ...
— The High School Freshmen - Dick & Co.'s First Year Pranks and Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... pity! I am sorry," protested the Commodore. "It's my fault! There's nothing else to be said. I am to blame ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... Udo," said Hyacinth earnestly, "it is so good of you to have come. I feel that this—this little accident is really my fault ...
— Once on a Time • A. A. Milne
... judgment those books were not books at all in the usually understood sense. Unless I am at fault, the parcel contained three big ledgers glued together, the contents being hollowed out and that hollow filled with thermite, a clockwork detonator, or the necessary electric apparatus to start a ...
— The Daffodil Mystery • Edgar Wallace
... says, and it would be a more considerable achievement for him to sit quietly all night by a sick man than for a good many other people. I tell you this odd thing: there are a good many persons, who, through the habit of making other folks uncomfortable, by finding fault with all their cheerful enjoyments, at last get up a kind of hostility to comfort in general, even in their own persons. The correlative to loving our neighbors as ourselves is hating ourselves as we hate our neighbors. ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... eyelids, he arose in his bed, and after performing the usual operation of a diligent friction on his organs of vision, he turned sternly to his man, and remarked with an ill-humor that seemed to implicate the innocent servant in the fault which his ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... critics, not only of pictures but of literature itself, and the critical spirit is a good one to cultivate, if it is not allowed to fall into captious fault-finding. On the whole, however, it is far better to point out the good things in a picture than to call attention to poor execution or poor conception. Leave criticism generally to those infrequent cases in which the artist has actually blundered because he has ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 10 - The Guide • Charles Herbert Sylvester
... You can't find much fault with a man who is so well liked that even the dogs will not bark at him. You are reminded of Irving himself, who for so many years was so idle; and yet who, out of his very idleness, produced ...
— Four Famous American Writers: Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, • Sherwin Cody
... his sole preoccupation. If anything had happened to her,—it was through his fault alone; for he began to feel sure she must have come to the Mill House in his absence. What then had become of her? The blood-stained toque pointed to foul play. But if they had murdered her, what had they ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams
... meetings, and, when at her mother's, she often sat in her old place by the Bible. Her comeliness increased, and her manner became more self-possessed, her dress also was improved; not that it was too conspicuous, for the most austere of the Haugians would not have been able to find fault with it; but the woman-folk, who understood such things, noticed that her linen was of the finest that could be procured, that the woollen stuffs she used were almost as costly as silk, and that when she wore a white collar round her neck, it was of real lace, ...
— Skipper Worse • Alexander Lange Kielland
... The fault lies with England, and in these days while an effort is being made (interrupted, it is true, by cannon) to found a better understanding between the two nations it is well that England should recognize what she has done to Ireland, and should try at least to atone for it. The situation can be explained ...
— The Insurrection in Dublin • James Stephens
... the matter for a century, and no less than five islands of the Bahama group have had their advocates. This is not the fault of Columbus, albeit we only have an abstract of his journal. The island is there fully and clearly described, and courses and distances are given thence to Cuba, which furnish data for fixing the landfall with precision. Here it is not a case ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... upon which I had made up my mind. What did I want with other people's opinions, when I knew my own were ever so much better? But I was a little crestfallen on the present occasion—I will say that. And it was my own fault for going down to Tom's—I will say that too. What did I want with country air? I had not been ailing anything. I had always considered a fortnight in Tom Brisket's company a frightful waste of time. I was never without an excellent appetite, and I measured ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... mentioned the above subject in "N. & Q.," I admit that my meaning may have taken too wide a signification. I, however, wrote advisedly, my object being to draw the attention of those schools that were in fault, and in the hope of benefiting those that desired to do more. I suppose I must exonerate Tonbridge, therefore, from any aspersion; and as it appears they are well provided, from Bacon and Newton to Punch and the Family Friend, I am at a loss to know ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 218, December 31, 1853 • Various
... the house. We gave our maid-of-all-work fifteen shillings a week; we thought we had found a real treasure, and for a month everything went on wheels. But at the end of that time, just when she was getting accustomed to our ways and we to hers, Sarah gives a week's notice; she had no fault to find with her mistress, but the place was too dull. We offered two shillings a week extra but in vain. Our next stayed six weeks; her reason for leaving was that she did not approve of the back-yard. Number ...
— Town Life in Australia - 1883 • R. E. N. (Richard) Twopeny
... accepts the verdict an independent woman renders on herself by not marrying, either through losing suitors or rejecting them. Everybody supposed that these rejections were founded on secret reasons, always ill interpreted. One said she was deformed; another suggested some hidden fault; but the poor girl was really as pure as a saint, as healthy as an infant, and full of loving kindness; Nature had intended her for all the pleasures, all the joys, and ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac
... eat when Gorman ordered his dinner for him on the Cunard steamer. With the help of the head waiter I chose a couple of wines and hoped that Ascher would drink them. As it turned out he preferred Perrier water. But that was not my fault. No restaurant in London could have supplied the delicate Italian white wines which Ascher ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham
... Praetorian rank, who was his legatus, Albinus[184] by name, an outrage which Sulla overlooked, and made no inquiry about: he went so far as to say, with apparent seriousness, that the soldiers would bestir themselves the more in the war and make amends for their fault by their courage. As to any blame that was imputed to him, he cared not for it; but having already formed the design of overthrowing the power of Marius and of getting himself appointed to the command against Mithridates, as the Social War was now considered ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... more apparelled in clouds than was desirable; yet so disappointed were they, and so disgusted with the sun in particular, that they unanimously hissed him; though, of course, it was useless to cry "Off! off!" Here, however, the fault was in their own erroneous expectations, and not in the sun, who, doubtless, did his best. For, generally, a sunrise and a sunset ought to be seen from the valley, or at most horizontally. [3] But as to Cape Horn, ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... had felt from the very beginning that my intimacy with Pauli was only superficial, and I also perceived more and more that I bored him.... He liked society and I hated it. Moreover, he was at times very irritable and would find continual fault with me; often, I have no doubt, justly, but often, as it seemed to me, unreasonably. Devoted to him as I continued to be for many years, those years were very unhappy as well ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry
... Chick, with solemn patience, 'I have not expressed myself with clearness, Lucretia, the fault of course is mine. There is, perhaps, no reason why I should express myself at all, except the intimacy that has subsisted between us, and which I very much hope, Lucretia—confidently hope—nothing will occur to disturb. Because, ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... at Fort Sumter. And it's all my fault," he answered. "I forgot all about you until we were nearly here. But one of my men is going to sail you safely home. What's this?" he added, as Estralla appeared by ...
— Yankee Girl at Fort Sumter • Alice Turner Curtis
... go on. See, one of the horses has fallen; he kicks—he will hit you! Oh, how dark it is! And the snow covers your lantern, and you cannot see the edge. Now the horse is up again, but he cannot go on. Do not beat him, Luis; it is not his fault, poor beast; the snow is too thick, and you are on rough ground. Now he rears—he backs—the other one backs also—the wheel of the ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... his merits as a ship-carpenter," answered Grandfather; "but, as a governor, a great deal of fault was found with him. Almost as soon as he assumed the government, he became engaged in a very frightful business, which might have perplexed a wiser and better cultivated head than his. This was ...
— True Stories from History and Biography • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the adjustment of the several parts—neatly sew up the skin with a fine needle and thread by an under stitch on the edges of the skin, drawing it tight after two or three stitches; and thus proceed until the bottom is reached, avoiding the common fault of sewing the ...
— Practical Taxidermy • Montagu Browne
... doubtless, will permit your wife to have a dressing-room, a bath-room, and a room for her chambermaid. Think then on Susanne, and never commit the fault of arranging this little room below that of madame's, but place it always above, and do not shrink from disfiguring your mansion by hideous divisions ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac
... so spotless in their cleanness that they had rather a cold effect on a January day, and were apt to inspire in the vulgar mind the fancy that a little dirt or smoke would look warmer and more comfortable. Certainly, if the Reindeer had a fault, it was that it was too clean. Everything was actually slippery with cleanness, from the newly-calendered chintz that covered the sofa and the chair-cushions to the copper coal-scuttle that glittered by the side of the dazzling brass fender. There were faint odours of soft ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... joyful over getting my hands on you again, you poor old time-keeper!" he exclaimed, as he snatched the silver watch up and shook it, as though any fault could be attached to the article in question. "A fine chase you've given me to-night; and playing the part of sneak-thief in the bargain; but then, of course, you believe what I told you, now, Hugh, since you've seen that the watch was ...
— The Chums of Scranton High on the Cinder Path • Donald Ferguson
... table.] {45}In spite of all the sneers, prints, and paragraphs, that have been published to render the ladies' headdresses ridiculous, sure, when fancy prompts a fine woman to lead the fashion, how can any man be so Hottentotish as to find fault with it? I hope here to be acquitted from any design of rendering the ladies ridiculous; all I aim at is to amuse. Here is a rich dressed lady without elegance.—Here is an elegant dressed lady without riches; for riches can no more give grace than they can beget understanding. A multiplicity ...
— A Lecture On Heads • Geo. Alex. Stevens
... to give proper notice of a service was as follows; but on this occasion it was not really his fault. Some large reservoirs were being made in the parish, and nearly a thousand navvies were employed on the works. These men were constantly coming and going, and very often they brought some infectious disorder which spread ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... particular fault. When I asked you, here, in this room, on this very spot, whether it was possible that you should love me—why did you say ...
— Framley Parsonage • Anthony Trollope
... those comets. Thus Louis the Debonair did not die in 837, but in 840. This, however, is a matter of very little importance. If some men, after their comet has called for them, are 'an unconscionable time in dying,' as Charles II. said of himself, it surely must not be considered the fault of the comet. Louis himself regarded the comet of 837 as his death-warrant; the astrologers admitted as much: what more could be desired? The account of the matter given in a chronicle of the time, by a writer who called himself 'The Astronomer,' is curious enough: 'During the holy ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... right, will admit of no departure from established usage, to its prejudice; and may be expected, if possessing the power, to endeavour, by retaliating injuries, to compel the observance of a more just and humane system. But they participate in the fault imputable to their adversaries, by manifesting a disposition to punish those whom they deem traitors, with the same severity of which they so loudly and justly complain, when they ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall
... fault is in your selves, ye noble mens sonnes, and therfore ye deserve the greater blame, that commonlie the meaner mens children cum to be the wisest councellours, and greatest doers, in the weightie affaires of this realme." —Scholemaster, ed. ...
— Early English Meals and Manners • Various
... co-operating in a general scheme of strategy. Perhaps he had not much confidence in those who directed the campaign of defence. He did not act in accordance with the instructions he had received from the Krijgsraad; but who could find fault with a leader who was ever sending in batches of prisoners of war? Many critics say that he was wanting in the true military instinct and spirit, and that he lost the greatest opportunity in his career when he allowed himself to be attracted away from the British ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... back. Confused and embarrassed, with a dread of something impending, the boy tried to avert it by a hurried account of his meeting with Susy, and his hopes of Father Sobriente's counsel and assistance. Taking upon himself the idea of suggesting Susy's escapade, he confessed the fault. The old man gazed into his frank eyes with a thoughtful, half-compassionate smile. "I was just thinking of giving you a holiday with—with Don Juan Robinson." The unusual substitution of this final title for the habitual "your cousin" struck Clarence uneasily. "But we will ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte
... with me and whom I conquered by the might and magic of this sword. He fought bravely and well; worthily did he uphold the finest traditions of the Mashona warriors: but against this sword he had no chance; he could not conquer me. Therefore, because it is not his fault that he has been beaten—your soldiers and indunas, to a man, will admit that—I ask you to give the man his life, free from all stigma or disgrace of defeat; and to repeal your sentence that, if conquered, he should ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... found them to be based in a petty spirit of fault-finding, uncandid, illiberal, and without wit, science, or learning. It is said in a book, which my critics did not seem to have caught the spirit of—"Should not the multitude of words be answered, and should a man fall if talk be justified? Should thy lies make men hold their peace, and when ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... greed and pelf; whether they become weak, stooping, blear-eyed, bald-headed, bow-legged, thin-shanked, or gross, coarse, barbaric, and bestial, the more they lose the power to lead woman or to arouse her nature, which is essentially passive. Thus her perversions are his fault. Man, before he lost the soil and piety, was not only her protector and provider, but her priest. He not only supported and defended, but inspired the souls of women, so admirably calculated to receive and elaborate suggestions, but not to originate them. In their inmost souls ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... in butter's dearth, The fault of waxing fat, Calmly I view my modest girth And take no praise for that; Not mine the glory when my soul Abjures its ruling passion; 'Tis his, the lord of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 31, 1920 • Various
... his abominable old father abandoned himself completely to rum-and-water, and the odious society of the Horrocks family. Pitt's success rendered the Rector's family furious, and Mrs. Bute regretted more (though she confessed less) than ever her monstrous fault in so insulting Miss Briggs, and in being so haughty and parsimonious to Bowls and Firkin, that she had not a single person left in Miss Crawley's household to give her information of what took place there. "It was all Bute's collar-bone," she persisted ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... the time that they were being watched, yet they saw no human being save themselves. Boone's scouts found the trail of Indians several times, but never an Indian himself. Yet they continued their patient scouting. They did not intend that the army should fall into an ambush through any fault of theirs. Thus they proceeded day after day, slowly up the river, replenishing their supplies with game which was ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... about the outer boulevards and about Paris. Indeed, I have just seen a drunken couple full of wine and friendship, strongly reminding one of a duel ending in a jolly breakfast. And who is to blame for this? Nobody knows. All agree that it is a bungle,—the fault of maladministration and want of tact. Certainly the National Guards at Montmartre had no right to hold the cannons belonging to the National Guards, as a body, or to menace the reviving trade and ...
— Paris under the Commune • John Leighton
... that the Government may meet its full obligation toward our countrymen in distress through no fault of their own, I recommend that an appropriation should be made to the Department of Agriculture to be loaned for the purpose of seed and feed for animals. Its application should as hitherto in such loans be limited to a gross amount to ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Herbert Hoover • Herbert Hoover
... grotesque a denouement; no novel of Veron, of Belot, of Montepin had ever come to so sordid an ending; no Mimi, no Musette could have ever followed a line of conduct so little spirituel as that taken by Sophie Leppin. What, then; were the books wrong, and only life true? No; it was the fault of America itself. "Quel pays!" reflected Truesdale; "equally without the atmosphere of art and the atmosphere of intrigue!" This observation pleased him; he felt that he had pierced the marrow of a complicated question, ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller
... too clearly marks opposition; however transient it is displeasing; but this intimate comprehension shows a perfect fusion of souls. The hapless Emilio was touched by the unspoken divination which led the Duchess to pity a fault unknown to her. ...
— Massimilla Doni • Honore de Balzac
... and almost frozen. The Sioux, who was plainly marked by a horrid scar across his face, desired to dispose of the child to the trapper, and the latter, as was every one of that class now vanished forever, full of pity and kind-hearted to a fault, did not hesitate a moment, but traded a knife for the helpless baby—all the savage asked for the little ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... "No, it wasn't Rad's fault at all," said Tom. "The trouble was, as I guess I'll find when I investigate, that I put too much power into the motor, and the muffler didn't give any chance for the accumulated exhaust gases to expand and ...
— Tom Swift and his Air Scout - or, Uncle Sam's Mastery of the Sky • Victor Appleton
... two sons, and a daughter, paid us a visit in the morning. The little girl, a lovely child about seven years of age, was already engaged, as well as the two boys, aged nine and ten respectively, both handsome, intelligent lads. It reminded Sir Moses of what he had once found fault with when at Haifa. Certain allowances, however, must be made for the peculiarities of the East. Turkey would certainly not yield in this respect to any remonstrances. We called on the British Consul General, and in the evening Sir Moses received a deputation from the European ...
— Diaries of Sir Moses and Lady Montefiore, Volume I • Sir Moses Montefiore
... and more Christian man scarcely ever breathed than Joseph Addison. If he had not that little weakness for wine—why we could scarcely have found a fault with him, and could not have liked him as we do.' Thackery's English ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... on his feet. He was speaking urgently. By every rule of self-esteem, he had to prove to her, and to himself, that it was her fault. ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... to go anywhere else to-night. I say, old chap, you're a better and cleaner man than I am, but it ain't your fault. That woman ought to make a saint ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... our fault, certainly! Only two years patient be! But if we ourselves please here, Will pa-pa-papas appear? Know that thou'lt more kindness do us, More thou'lt prophesy unto us. One! cuck-oo! Two! cuck-oo! Ever, ever, ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... was my fault, but he had been delirious for a day and night; and in the afternoon, when he was calmer, I went to sleep. One is apt to sleep too long when one is tired. When I wakened he was not in bed and a whisky bottle I had taken from him was nearly empty. I ...
— The Lure of the North • Harold Bindloss
... that dreadful stick of a Casaubon,—and think of poor Dorothea dashing like a warm, sunny wave against so cold and repulsive a rock! He is a little too dreadful for anything: there does not seem to be a drop of warm blood in him, and so, as it is his misfortune and not his fault, to be cold-blooded, one must not get angry with him. It is the scene in the garden, after the interview with the doctor, that rests on our mind at this present. There was such a man as he over in Boston, high in literary circles, but I fancy his wife wasn't like Dorothea, ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... for these infernal pains. Have you told the family what happened? Go do it." The speaker's tone grew lofty. "I want them to know it was all my fault! This girl can stay with me till you come back, and you can take your time. I shan't need you for an hour. Go, Jule, my brother. Oh don't harry me with ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... uncombed, unwashed, unshaven, and with the Russian's paint still thick upon us. Afterward we went down to the canal and endeavoured to knock the worst of it off. All danger was past now. We seemed to walk on air. We were once again British soldiers. And so fell to abuse of one another, finding fault and grousing; as all good British soldiers do when they are well off. I made out to shave Simmons. The terrible razor had never been sharp and lately had rusted from its travels. Simmons swore lustily and threatened me, ordering me at the same time and in no uncertain terms; ...
— The Escape of a Princess Pat • George Pearson
... "rightly charged with a profusion of double epithets and a general turgidness," and adds that he has "pruned the double epithets with no sparing hand," and used his best efforts to tame the swell and glitter both of thought and diction. "The latter fault, however, had," he continues, "so insinuated itself into my Religious Musings with such intricacy of union that sometimes I have omitted to disentangle the weed from fear of snapping the flower." This is plain- spoken criticism, ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill |
