"Weak spot" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... moment with the idea that perhaps Jo was not going to regard their offence as particularly heinous after all; but his better judgment scouted the idea, and he returned to his scrutiny of the wall. There was a weak spot near where Hector, Peterson's billy-goat, had butted his way through on a memorable occasion, and escape was still a ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... the music had stopped, stalked to Lorry and eyed him with an expression which said plainly: "It's his weak spot—this music. You will have to overlook it. He's really a ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert
... shaken, no doubt, by loss of Officers (complete); by heavy losses of men (not replaced, or replaceable, under a month) and by sheer physical exertion. Small wonder then that one weak spot in our barrier gave way before the solid mass of the attacking Turks, who came on with the bayonet like true Ghazis. The first part of the rifle fire last night was entirely from our own men. The break by one battalion gave ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... love you. I loved you always. I loved you invulnerable, wise, fortified beyond the wiles of men. How much more do I love you now with your one weak spot—so weak, so absurd that it can only be kissed, and laughed at ...
— Balloons • Elizabeth Bibesco
... one, as I am to have an independent command and am so actually named in the general orders for battle. I went over the plan of battle carefully with Captain Jones, R.N., and our Commander, who thought Pontoon No. 3 was the weak spot. ...
— With the Naval Brigade in Natal (1899-1900) - Journal of Active Service • Charles Richard Newdigate Burne
... has a weak spot. I began gaming by playing marbles, and the passion grew on me. When I had money, I gambled for cents and nickels. As I grew older, I learned to play cards, and I gambled for larger sums. If I knew that a game was going on I would ...
— Frank Merriwell's Chums • Burt L. Standish
... that that is the weak spot in our armor,—a very weak spot, too; for it is quite clear, that, if M. de Boiscoran had given this explanation on the day of his arrest, he would have been released instantly. But what better can be found? What else can be found? However, this is only a rough sketch of ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... that admiration which is the delight of serious plays" and to which "a bare imitation" will not suffice. [Footnote: Essay of Dramatic Poesy: ib. 582] Both grounds of defence will seem to the modern reader questionable enough. Howard at once laid his finger upon the weak spot of the first. "It is", he said, "no argument for the matter in hand. For the dispute is not what way a man may write best in; but which is most proper for the subject he writes upon. And, if this were let pass, the argument is yet unsolved in itself; for he that wants ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... level with those with whom I had to deal. I may occasionally even have left the other party to make this needful adjustment, and I have never known him fail to do so. I felt, therefore, very little scruple in making use of the one weak spot discoverable in the defenses of our redoubtable opponent, his Excellency the President of Aureataland. No doubt the reader's eye has before now detected the joint in that great man's armor at which we directed our missile. ...
— A Man of Mark • Anthony Hope
... a large handkerchief and passed it across his face. "It's only the fear of physical violence," he said. "That's the only weak spot. Fear was formerly distributed over a wide variety of possibilities, but now it's all concentrated in ...
— The Blue Germ • Martin Swayne
... within him as he remembered the weak spot in his tracing; but he answered, "I don't think so, sir; though it does look as if something ...
— Derrick Sterling - A Story of the Mines • Kirk Munroe
... looked forty-three and a half. And yet he had recently had an idea of shaving off his beard, partly to defy time, but partly also (I must admit) because a friend had suggested to him, wildly, perhaps—that if he dispensed with a beard his hair might grow more sturdily ... Yes, there was one weak spot in the middle of the top of his head, where the crop had of late disconcertingly thinned! The hairdresser had informed him that the symptom would vanish under electric massage, and that, if he doubted the bona-fides of hairdressers, ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... he, as they joined hands on the banquette beside the doctor's gig, to say good-day, "if you think there's a chance for you, why stickle upon such fine-drawn points as I reckon you are making? Why, sir, as I understand it, this is the only weak spot your action has shown; you have taken an inoculation of Quixotic conscience from our transcendental apothecary and perpetrated a lot of heroic behavior that would have done honor to four-and-twenty Brutuses; and now that you have a chance to do ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... the farmers found some additional weak spot in the Grain Act and suggested remedial legislation. Records are lacking to show in what order the various changes came; but step by step the farmers were gaining their rights. It all seemed so wonderful—to get ...
— Deep Furrows • Hopkins Moorhouse
... clung to us long. In Paris it snowed heavily, and I was constrained to betake myself in a cab—"chauffe," it is needless to remark—to seek out a kindly dentist, the bitter east wind having sought out and found a weak spot wherein to ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... hosts would tell him about England and the fogs, wherein he was greatly interested; or Septimus would discourse to him of inventions, the weak spot in which his shrewd intelligence generally managed to strike, and then Septimus would run his fingers through this hair and say, "God bless my soul, I never thought of that," and Emmy would laugh; or else ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... comes a life of dull routine, foolish happenings seek out the sentimentalist, sordid events seek the sordid and on the mystic dawns the mysterious. Calamities wait there, too, until Fate points out a weak spot in character on which they may pounce relentless with the temptation that pierces it. As there are certain things that would scarcely dare to happen to certain people, so other greater events would hardly condescend to those whom they recognize as ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... a barbarous notion and a savage method. A thrust with small forces at a weak spot to bring the enemy to their knees by loss of provinces, resources and prestige is an artistic idea and a scientific stroke: the one stands for a cudgel blow, the other for ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton
... with a kind of settled intention that made Margaret shrink as if from a danger she was not able to meet. There was something bright and hard and daring in Rosa's eyes as she stared unwinkingly, as if she had come to search out a weak spot for her evil purposes, and Margaret was so tired she wanted to lay her head down on her desk and cry. She drew some comfort from the reflection that if she should do so childish a thing she would be at once surrounded ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... to cross over to where the other stood, looking so forlorn that had any observing fellow come along just then and noticed the expression on his face, he might have spread an alarm to the effect that the big fullback was ill, and consequently there would be a weak spot in the line-up that afternoon, as sure ...
— Jack Winters' Gridiron Chums • Mark Overton
... in driving her thus recklessly in a strong breeze against a heavy sea; but he had perfect faith in her; he had driven every bolt and nail in her with his own hands, and was confident that there was not a weak spot anywhere about her; and the excitement and tension of the last few hours had wrought him into a condition of desperate impatience that would brook nothing savouring of delay. And, being completely ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... Gullet.—A diverticulum consists in the protrusion of the mucous and submucous coats through a defect or weak part in the muscular tunic; it is therefore of the nature of a hernia and not a localised dilatation of the tube as a whole. Anatomically, there is such a weak spot in the posterior wall opposite the cricoid cartilage, known as the pharyngeal dimple, between the circular and oblique fibres of the crico-pharyngeus muscle. As the pouch increases in size by pressure ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... man who does not live with his wife; for ten years he had for his mistress a Mademoiselle de Bellefeuille, who bore him illegitimate children—didn't she? Well, such a magistrate is no saint; he is a man like any other; he can be won over; he must give a hold somewhere; you must discover the weak spot and flatter him; ask his advice, point out the dangers of attending the case; in short, try to get him into the same boat, and ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... Fyodor Pavlovitch knew where to look for the weak spot. There had been at one time malicious rumors which had even reached the Archbishop (not only regarding our monastery, but in others where the institution of elders existed) that too much respect was paid ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... with caustic replies. He even defended American newspapers, which he had himself more than once violently assailed for misreporting him and for other journalistic shortcomings, and he bitterly denounced every shaky British institution, touched upon every weak spot in hereditary rule. He did not print—not then—[An article on the American press, probably the best of those prepared at this time, was used, in part, in The American Claimant, as the paper read before the Mechanics' Club, by "Parker," assistant editor of the 'Democrat'.]—he ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... "Of hopeful signs for the future none are more remarkable than the health and spirit of our people. It would be impossible to imagine a more vigorous community, and there does not seem to be a single weak spot in the twelve good men and true who are chosen for the Southern advance. All are now experienced sledge travellers, knit together with a bond of friendship that has never been equalled under such circumstances. Thanks to these people, and more especially to Bowers and Petty Officer ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... her books, one on the open face of another, in her lap. For once she was grateful that an ENGAGED sign shielded them from interruptions, for Latin was her shakiest subject, especially the rules of indirect discourse. The instructor had warned the class that this weak spot was to be the point of attack. If Robbie Belle should not succeed in drumming the rules into her head before the ideas in it began to spin around and around in their usual dizzy fashion when she waxed sleepy, she might just as well stay away from the recitation room. ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... by their eyes; but human nature has its ingrained likes and dislikes, and I for one couldn't question Amos, because I hate a hunchback, and I wouldn't trust one of they humped people—man or woman—with anything that belonged to me. The broadest-minded of us have got a weak spot like that somewhere and hate some harmless thing if 'tis only ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... to his goal line to punt. Thursby, at centre, passed low, and Freer was hurried, with the result that the ball went almost straight into the air, was caught by the wind and landed out of bounds at Brimfield's eighteen yards. Cherry Valley started in again with grim determination. A weak spot was discovered at right guard, where Gafferty was in Hall's place, and two gains were made there, bringing the pigskin to the twelve yards. Another attempt, this time on Tyler, produced two more. With two to go on fourth down, ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour
... the attack, training his guns upon the citadel; but it was not until a week later that, having found a weak spot in the walls on the side commanding the town, he opened a breach through which his men were able to force a passage, and so possess themselves of a half-moon. Seeing the enemy practically within his outworks, and being himself severely wounded in the head, Naldo accounted it time to parley. ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... be a weak spot in her heart for Dalberg; and, such is the peculiarly inconsistent nature of the female, a hatred that fed itself ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott
... he brushes up against the world." Jeff added his own criticism thoughtfully. "The weak spot in him is a sort of flatness of mind. This makes him afraid of new ideas. He wants to be respectable, and respectability is the most damning ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... at it, and now Roxley tried again to force the center by a rush. But to their surprise Brill shifted to the left—that one weak spot—and got the ball on a fumble by the Roxley half-back. There was more quick action by four of the Brill players, and when the scrimmage came to an end the leather was found just three yards ...
— The Rover Boys at College • Edward Stratemeyer
... fall into rank on the top of the mountain, giving the command to Ravanel and Catinat, and with a pair of pistols in his belt and his carbine on his shoulder, he glided from bush to bush and rock to rock, determined, if any weak spot existed, to discover it; but the information he had received was perfectly correct, every issue ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... he slowly said, "is always liable to attack. Why should two sharp old fellows like you and me, whose interests are identical, quarrel?"—and instantly Frankl took note of that surrender, that weak spot, and knew that the ...
— The Lord of the Sea • M. P. Shiel
... nothing but talk to me all the way over the mountains, except when they were out taking what I have reason to believe was an occasional drink, Daddy mine. Jess had Mr. Loomis to herself. They have found your weak spot, Daddy. They know you love to talk of your daughter. You have only known Major Burleigh a little ...
— Warrior Gap - A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. • Charles King
... that Sir James rode back from his reconnaissance. He had fetched a circuit of Steens without discovering a weak spot, and his temper had steadily risen with the increase of the crowd. His dignity now stood fairly at stake. He moved his soldiers up the road and gave ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... solely with the duty of a choice group of intellectuals. The questions at issue affect the people at large, those to whose service these young men have devoted themselves. A new spirit, an active faith, are requisite. The war has brought to light the weak spot in the Swiss character. Touching is the shame felt by these truehearted youths owing to the attitude of their country at the outset of the war. They are personally hurt by such surrenders of principle. In the strongest terms ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland
... criticising the acting, which is all that it should be. My time was fully employed on the first night, in laughing, an occupation shared by the entire audience. The play was never in danger. There was not a weak spot. No, not even the space covered by Mr. DARNLEY'S moustache. It may be said that an earnest Barrister should be clean shaven, but the remark would only emanate from those who are bachelors. The married advocate has not only to consider his ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 93, September 24, 1887 • Various
... the centre. However, that was a minor detail, as it made little difference where I succeeded in penetrating the cordon of pickets, so long as I returned with the information sought. If I had, through mere chance, discovered a weak spot, ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... that there had been spirited fighting for the last week along that portion of the front. The men were of the opinion that the attacks and counter-attacks thus far had been in the nature of feelers and that both sides were searching for a weak spot in their opponent's line. They all seemed to feel that a general offensive was about to be undertaken and every man was convinced that the dispatches the three young friends had brought were in some way connected ...
— Fighting in France • Ross Kay
... "I mean this. The weak spot in your idea, as I told you, is that you and George Chandos have the same body. Now, if you could manage to provide George with separate flesh and blood of ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... the weak spot; he had felt it from the first! But he still hoped to convince McCarren that his case was strong enough without it; and he urged the reporter to come back to his rooms and sum up the ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 1 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... with a wink, snugging up to the lady, I did; For she'd found a weak spot in my 'art, this cold classical gal, and no kid. I'd been 'aving a pull at my flask, up that tree, and her pluck and blue eyes Made me feel a bit spoony; in fact I was mashed. But, O ...
— Punch Among the Planets • Various
... more than Harry, because as cooking was one of George's accomplishments, and as honey was the weak spot in Red Angel, the kitchen was an attraction, and the reward for service in the kitchen ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Exploring the Island • Roger Thompson Finlay
... got to do our level best in the second half. Once let us develop a weak spot, and they'll aim for that every rush. There's Frank calling to me again. Five minutes more, and we'll be at it, hammer and tongs," and Lanky hurried away to where the captain stood, with the very last word in ...
— The Boys of Columbia High on the Gridiron • Graham B. Forbes
... different matter," the former continued fiercely. "That's just where the weak spot in her brain remains. If you ask me, I believe it's pandered to by Mrs. Unthank. Come to think of it," he went on, "the Domineys were never cowards. If you've got your courage back, send Mrs. Unthank away, sleep with your ...
— The Great Impersonation • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the weak spot, and they quickly burnt through. In half an hour they crashed from their hinges, and the lynx-eyed foe beheld the breach thus open before them. They charged to the assault, while inside the defenders stood ready for them just beyond the ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... I made a better connection. Degrading manual labor or not, I intended to sell as many local people as possible on the strength of having found a weak spot in the wall of salesresistance before the effects of the Metamorphizer became apparent. For, in strict confidence, and despite its being an undesirable negative attitude, I was a little dubious that those effects—or lack of ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... having a man in mind for any vacancy that may occur, you want to make sure that there are two men in the office who understand the work of each position in it. Every business should be bigger than any one man. If it isn't, there's a weak spot in it that will kill it in the end. And every job needs an understudy. Sooner or later the star is bound to fall sick, or get the sulks or the swelled head, and then, if there's no one in the wings ...
— Old Gorgon Graham - More Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... to man the weakness of the devil. The devil can do nothing with the man who is calmly set in his loyalty to God. This new Leader of the race was led up to the dreaded devil that men might know for all time his weak spot. The poison of those fangs is completely neutralized by simple, steady loyalty to God. But the rattles do make a big ...
— Quiet Talks about Jesus • S. D. Gordon
... I am afraid that the borrowed handkerchief to which you applied the match really did get burnt, and you will probably have to offer the owner one of your own instead. That is the only weak spot in one of the most baffling tricks ever practised by the amateur prestidigitator (to use the word for the last time). It will make a fitting climax to your evening's entertainment—an entertainment ...
— The Sunny Side • A. A. Milne
... Townsend Ripley, with rather more quiet shrewdness than any of them had given him credit for, had gently stabbed Mr. Trimmer in a weak spot. It was the scow that old Trimmer wanted. How he had come by it had been only faintly suggested by Townsend. How it had chanced to be moored in that secluded spot under the projecting land after the big dredge had gone away, ...
— Pee-Wee Harris Adrift • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... build, it was Jim who led the way and held the place at the head of the line of men, piling up sacks of sand lest the water take out a full half mile of the road. He dreamed of the road at night, waking again and again at the thought of some weak spot he had left unprotected. ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow
... thorny brushwood, are in great demand among a host of Hymenoptera who have families to settle. The stump, when dry, offers to any one that knows how to use it a hygienic dwelling, where there is no fear of damp from the sap; its soft and abundant pith lends itself to easy work; and the top offers a weak spot which makes it possible for the insect to reach the vein of least resistance at once, without cutting away through the hard ligneous wall. To many, therefore, of the Bee and Wasp tribe, whether honey-gatherers or hunters, one of these dry stalks is a valuable ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre
... that if Mr. Jellicoe had murdered John Bellingham and disposed of the body in the mummy-case, he would have been absolutely safe for the time being. But there would be a weak spot in his armour. For a month or more the disappearance of his client would occasion no remark. But presently, when he failed to return, inquiries would be set on foot; and then it would appear that no ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... nature could give success to such an experiment. The slightest tincture of affectation, or false sentiment, would ruin the whole. We always distrust the man who would play upon our emotions, and are glad to take refuge in the ludicrous, to save ourselves from the pathetic. If a single weak spot can be detected in the magic chain which he would throw around our feelings, if every link does not ring with the sound of genuine metal, the charm is at once broken, and we laugh to scorn the writer who would fain have opened the fountain of tears. It is no mean proof of the skill of the ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... body of which Christ is the head, and you and I are "members in particular." Let us see to it that we are not the weak spot in the body, crippling and maiming the whole. The church is the city of God among men, and we are its citizens, bound by its laws, loyal servants of the Great King, sworn to obey his commands and enlarge his kingdom, and repel all the assaults of his adversaries. ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler
... in Charteris's mind, and which had continued to rankle ever since, was that in which the use of the word 'buffoon' had occurred. Everybody who has a gift of humour and (very naturally) enjoys exercising it, hates to be called a buffoon. It was Charteris's one weak spot. Every other abusive epithet in the language slid off him without penetrating or causing him the least discomfort. The word 'buffoon' went home, right up to the hilt. And, to borrow from Mr Jabberjee for positively the very last time, he had observed (mentally): 'Henceforward ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... Station effect that time!' thought Caffyn. 'I begin to believe my dear uncle touched a weak spot after all. If he has a secret, it's ten to one Holroyd knew it—knows ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... Allan was chiefly responsible. The one weak spot in the armor of austerity in which John Allan clothed himself was his love for his wife, and it was often against what he felt to be his better judgment that he acquiesced in her system of child-spoiling. ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... his brigade in person, had rushed upon this portion of the Northern army which was standing upon another low hill and struck it with great violence. It was wavering and would give way soon. But Thomas, showing the singular calm that always marked him in battle, noticed the weak spot. The general was then near Major Hertford. He quickly wrote a dispatch and beckoned ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Alfonso VIII. of Castile, who married Alfonso II. of Aragon in 1174. With the common sense in political matters which is so strangely conjoined with the whimsicality of his actions, he puts his finger upon the weak spot in Spanish politics when he refers to the disunion between the four kings, Alfonso II. of Aragon, Alfonso IX. of Leon, Alfonso VIII. of Castile and Sancho Garces of Navarre: "little honour is due to the four kings of Spain for that they cannot keep peace ...
— The Troubadours • H.J. Chaytor
... spontaneously charges itself with electricity. If the glass has a weak spot, a scratch say, an electric spark is produced at that point and the vessel crumbles, just like a Leyden jar ...
— Marvels of Modern Science • Paul Severing
... nothing to be done in that direction, she had discovered another weak spot in Christophe, one more easy of access: his moral faith. In spite of his squabble with the Vogels, and in spite of the intoxication of his adolescence, Christophe had preserved an instinctive modesty, a need of purity, of which he was entirely unconscious. At first it struck ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... meanwhile, was growing more and more exasperated. He was happening upon every weak spot in the crust, and floundering at almost every step. All at once, as the surface broke there came to his nostrils the familiar smell of a partridge. It was a fresh scent. The fox forgot his indignation. He poked his narrow ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... or somebody has queered us here and if you can find out who or what it is you can do more than I've been able to do. Haven't you got some powerful enemy? Is there any weak spot in the proposition? Rack your brains and let ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... camp, or was a day too late with his last requisition for cartridges? No doubt it is a trying ordeal to have some young regular-army lieutenant ride up to your tent at an hour's notice, and leisurely devote a day to probing every weak spot in your command,—to stand by while he smells at every camp-kettle, detects every delinquent gun-sling, ferrets out old shoes from behind the mess-bunks, spies out every tent-pole not labelled with the sergeant's name, asks to see the cash-balance of each company-fund, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... tells him that duty consists in revenge alone? and does it need superhuman effort to recognise that revenge never can be a duty? I say again that Hamlet thinks much, but that he is by no means wise. He cannot conceive where to look for the weak spot in destiny's armour. Lofty thoughts suffice not always to overcome destiny; for against these destiny can oppose thoughts that are loftier still; but what destiny has ever withstood thoughts that ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck
... money from her wealthy aunt, what would that have mattered? She had been proud. She was criminally proud. That was her vice. She admitted it frankly. But she could not alter her pride. Everybody had some weak spot. Her reputation for sagacity, for commonsense, was, she knew, enormous; she always felt, when people were talking to her, that they regarded her as a very unusually wise woman. And yet she had been guilty of the capital folly of cutting ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett
... passed the sheltering fern and came right up to Old Rattler. Rattler opened his sleepy eyes, threw himself on guard with a snap and a buzz, and shook his bony clappers savagely. But the King of Snakes was not afraid. Every snake has a weak spot somewhere, and that is the place to strike him. If he hadn't a weak spot no one else could live about him, and then, perhaps he would starve to death at last. If he had not some strong points, where no one could harm ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... first attempt, Marchmont sought other means of information, for there is always a weak spot in every defence, and a man of far less keen perception than the reporter would have had little difficulty in finding the most favourable point of attack. So it is not surprising that after a little ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells
... carefully till he found a discolored crack in the marble tracery showing a weak spot, made two or three light taps with his head to get the distance, and then lifting up six feet of his body clear of the ground, sent home half a dozen full-power smashing blows, nose-first. The screen-work broke and fell away in a cloud of dust and rubbish, and Mowgli leaped through the opening ...
— The Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... glad to see you back. Between you and me, Cateye, left guard has been the weak spot on our team since you were laid up. Besides, Benz hasn't been playing up to standard and although we've been trimming the seconds we haven't got that old fighting spirit. The boys are due to ...
— Over the Line • Harold M. Sherman
... space there," he reported, as they let the board settle silently down into position. "The back part of this building must be set up on piles. I reckon we could pry that plank up with the bench, Neb, but it's liable to make considerable racket. Let's hunt about first for some other weak spot." ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... know. Besides," the man smiled his diabolical grin again, "there was a reason for going light on the details. At the time I held you up I hadn't any more idea than you had where John Massey was, nor whether he was even alive. It was the weak spot in my armor. But you were so panic stricken at the thought of having to give up your gentleman's fortune that you never looked at the hollowness of the thing. You could have bowled over my whole scheme in ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... too strong for their convictions. An aristocrat of aristocrats, Scipio was a reformer only so far as he thought reform might prolong the reign of his order. From any more radical measures he shrank with dislike, if not with fear. The weak spot often to be found in those cultured aristocrats who coquet with liberalism was fatal to his chance of being a hero. He was a trimmer to the core, who, without intentional dishonesty, stood facing both ways till the hour came when he was forced to range himself on ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley
... lives day and night. Knock at that door and you will find him at home. Touch upon some vital need in his business— some defect or tangle that is worrying him—some weak spot that he wants to remedy—some cherished ambition that haunts him—and you will have rung the bell of his interest. A few openings that are designed to get the reader's attention and induce him to read farther, are ...
— Business Correspondence • Anonymous
... said impulsively. "There must have been a weak spot somewhere, or he wouldn't be lying here like that!" Somehow his impassiveness surprised me. I had expected that he would find a valid argument in my phrase; but it did not move him, at least not in the way I thought. Something ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... said gently, "Octavius wouldn't have hurt him. No, take my word for it, he never was the right man for the place. He seemed to be, no doubt, but he wasn't. When pressure was put on him, it found out his weak spot like a shot, and pushed on it, and—well, it came ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... yourself at me because I grumbled!" says a quick-witted darling not ten years old. Ah! never shall any weak spot in our armor escape the keen ...
— Bits About Home Matters • Helen Hunt Jackson
... The weak spot in his leadership was that he did not realize the humanity which still burned in their lost souls. But at what point would they revolt? I could not let little Jimmie go through ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... the shield of every man a weak spot. There was one in the shield of Maclin's brutal villainy. For a moment he felt positively virtuous; perhaps the sensation proved the ...
— At the Crossroads • Harriet T. Comstock
... don't think she eloped with your Jap or stole the spoons, do you?" snapped Carson. He had been interrupted at the crucial point in a game of cribbage with Poker Face and the cattleman's weak spot was cribbage. He glared ...
— Judith of Blue Lake Ranch • Jackson Gregory
... for some fifteen or twenty minutes stood hesitating: but never could I have dreamed, my good God, of such a noise, so passionate, so dominant, so divulgent, and, O Heaven, so long-lasting: for I seemed to have struck upon the weak spot of some planet, which came suddenly tumbling, with protracted bellowing and debacle, about my ears. It was a good hour before I would climb in; but then quickly found what I wanted, and some big oil-cans; and till one or two in the morning, the innovating flicker of ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... perforated copper cup, heated to redness by burning alcohol, and is thus vaporized—first passes through several convolutions of pipe within the burner, and then issues from a hole so fine that some people would not call it a hole at all but an orifice or something like that. That little hole is the weak spot of the primus stove. Sometimes it gets clogged, and then a fine wire mounted upon some sort of handle must be used to dislodge the obstruction. Now, the worst thing that can happen to a primus stove is to get the wire pricker broken off in the burner ...
— The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) - A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest - Peak in North America • Hudson Stuck
... Danube—that an artificial frontier will be inevitable, if the Serb districts of Hungary are to be included in the new State and if the Serb capital is to be rendered immune from the dangers of future bombardment. The weak spot in so drastic a solution is the inclusion of the Slovene districts, which—in view of their geographical position, cutting off the German provinces of Austria from the sea—is unthinkable, save in the event of a complete ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... The only weak spot in this good german woman's conduct was the way she spoiled her boy, who was not honest and who was very hard ...
— Three Lives - Stories of The Good Anna, Melanctha and The Gentle Lena • Gertrude Stein
... said slowly. "I admit it. You have found the weak spot in my armor. Proceed! For ...
— A Maker of History • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... factory a pillar with a defective core had passed careless inspectors. In technical language the core had 'floated' an eighth of an inch from its position. The weak spot in the too thin wall of the pillar had bided its time, and yielded. The roof, the walls, the machinery fell upon seven hundred and fifty living men and women, and buried them. Most of these were rescued, but eighty-eight were killed. As ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... men to the present political situation was peculiar, and, as it turned out, was to constitute the weak spot in the Cowperwood-McKenty campaign. Tiernan and Kerrigan, to begin with, being neighbors and friends, worked together in politics and business, on occasions pooling their issues and doing each other favors. The enterprises in which they were engaged being low ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... him that they would, and a moment later Tarzan had traced upon the map the location of three that had been bothering the English. "There is a weak spot here," he said, placing a finger upon the map. "It is held by blacks; but the machine guns out in front are manned by whites. If—wait! I have a plan. You can fill that trench with your own men and enfilade the trenches to its right with ...
— Tarzan the Untamed • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... and his weak spot," her uncle observed didactically. "Joyce's price is the Presidency. His weak spot is popular adulation. I agree with Fischer. He ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... found to fit in with the time when his master must find that he had betrayed him. He had, as he saw it, to gain time for Katharine Howard so she might finally enslave the King's desires. That there was one weak spot in her armour he thought he knew, and that was her cousin that was said to be her lover. That Cromwell knew of her weak spot he knew too; that Cromwell through that would strike at her he knew too. All depended upon whether ...
— Privy Seal - His Last Venture • Ford Madox Ford
... these tests and the Government unquestionably breaks down on every one of them." If this was all that an apologist for the Government could say, no wonder that the attack went home. The opponents of Home Rule were of course delighted to find another weak spot in their adversary's defences; and the episode ...
— The History of the Fabian Society • Edward R. Pease
... books in Cook's place, and send Cook out to Crescent Ranch to help Sandy. Sandy, you know, cannot handle accounts. Poor lad—he had little opportunity for schooling in his youth, and the financial side of his work is his one weak spot. He realizes this himself, and it was only on the condition that I send him an assistant that he would undertake the management of the ranch at all. I expected, as I say, that Cook would go; evidently, however, Thornton is not going to be able to fill his place. ...
— The Story of Wool • Sara Ware Bassett
... I know his weak spot, too, which is more important for our purposes. If His Gracious Majesty went to bed to-night with as many guineas in his pocket as that"—he jingled his loose coin vigorously —"he'd sleep in ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... method of living does not contribute to building up and strengthening what is in the first place a weak structure, the structure itself will, during the first strain put upon it, give way, and naturally the weak spot will be the point of election for the invasion of disease. This strain may be one of the infantile diseases,—scarlet fever, or measles, or whooping cough, or it may be bronchitis. Instead of convalescing from these conditions, as ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol. 3 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... "I don't take no stock in the notion that the girl has got to put aside earthly love, and that kind of talk. We've all got our notions and our places—where we don't follow the spirit guides. Perhaps that's just Mrs. Markham's weak spot. Maybe her own love affairs was ashes in her mouth. Come to think of it, I never did know who Mr. Markham was. What I'm tryin' to tell you is that you've got your pig by the wrong ear, for you can't expose what's genuine. And ...
— The House of Mystery • William Henry Irwin
... be termed the physical evidence," continued Harley, "is complete, I admit: too complete. There lies the weak spot. But what I will call the psychological evidence points in a totally different direction. A man clever enough to have planned this crime, and Camber undoubtedly is such a man, could not—it is humanly impossible—have been fool enough, deliberately to lay such a train of damning facts. ...
— Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer
... its victim found, is pleased To fix itself upon a part diseased Till, its black hide distended with bad blood, It drops to die of surfeit in the mud, So the base sycophant with joy descries His neighbor's weak spot and his mouth applies, Gorges and prospers like the leech, although, Unlike that reptile, he will not let go. Gelasma, if it paid you to devote Your talent to the service of a goat, Showing by forceful logic ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... He gloried in his dandyism and in his skill as a fighter. His genius basked in the sunshine as he made high reliefs in the sand or charcoaled pictures on the cool, grey rocks hidden in the sound-sopping jungle. The one weak spot in his character was his faith in a sort of wizardry. Contemptuous alike of the open violence or stratagems of his fellows, he had the utmost horror of an implement which Yan-coo, who was medicine-man as well as chartered wit, reserved ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... mistrusted that ancient Lovelace as if he had been the plague, when they had plucked some rare and delicious fruit, and had sketched out some charming adventure, for he always managed to discover the weak spot, and to ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... the world, a telephone repeating all men's wants. I open it, and where my eye first falls—well, no, not Morrison's Pills—but here, sure enough, and but a little above, I find the joint that I was seeking; here is the weak spot in the armour of society. Here is a want, a plaint, an offer of substantial gratitude: 'Two Hundred Pounds Reward.—The above reward will be paid to any person giving information as to the identity and whereabouts of a man observed ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... weak spot in his insane armor, some way by which he could be reached and destroyed—and Bentley swore to himself that it would be he who would find ...
— The Mind Master • Arthur J. Burks
... he'll run us very close indeed," said Blair with an anxious look. "However I've unlimited confidence in your husband, Lady May. If Mildmay is to be beaten Quisante'll beat him; if there is a weak spot he'll find it out." ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope
... imagined him all-powerful; and the first person to whom she mentioned his name dismissed the subject indifferently. Her own entire sincerity had enabled her to detect the insincerity of her ally. She had purposely made mention of the weak spot which she had discovered, in order that her observation might be corroborated. And this Maggie ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... has his weak spot, and I know thine to be dread of a Turk's arm. Thy native hills have their soft as well as their hard ground, but it is said the Tunisian chooses a board knotty as his own heart, when he amuses himself with ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... "The third weak spot was our pilot-house. You see that it is built a little more than three feet above the deck, of bars of iron, ten by twelve inches square, built up like a log-house, bolted with very large bolts at the corners where the bars interlock. The pilot stands upon a platform ...
— The Monitor and the Merrimac - Both sides of the story • J. L. Worden et al.
... had been decided thus that the faults in the school attack did not lie with the halves, forwards, or centres, it was more or less evident that they must be attributable to the wings. And the search for the weak spot was even further narrowed down by the general verdict that Clowes, on the left wing, had played well. With a beautiful unanimity the six occupants of the first fifteen room came to the conclusion that the man who had let ...
— The Gold Bat • P. G. Wodehouse
... instantly changing his heart with his change of sky, and learning to wave his stars and stripes with the best of the native-born, must seem miraculous to the ordinary patriot. And here we touch the weak spot in Mr. ZANGWILL'S paean of the Melting Pot. For those who migrate to America for the sake of its democratic freedom are the few; and those who go there for the sake of its dollars are the many; and into the Melting Pot—or, to use an image more apposite to indigenous tastes, its ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 18, 1914 • Various
... were hastily bracing up a weak spot with what material lay close at hand, kept for an emergency of this sort, a freight train that happened to be on a siding at the station, was pushed out on the trestle to discover ...
— The Outdoor Chums After Big Game - Or, Perilous Adventures in the Wilderness • Captain Quincy Allen
... father of Gretel and Hans, had for years been employed upon the dikes. It was at the time of a threatened inundation, when in the midst of a terrible storm, in darkness and sleet, the men were laboring at a weak spot near the Veermyk sluice, that he fell from the scaffolding and became insensible. From that hour he never worked again; though he lived on, mind ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge
... inability to go on. The intellectual machine was not shattered; it simply ran down. To this fact the phenomenon owes its peculiar interest. For we behold here in the case of man the same spectacle that we see cosmically in the case of the moon, the spectacle of a world that has died of old age. No weak spot in their social organism destroyed them from within; no epidemic, in the shape of foreign hordes, fell upon them from without. For in spite of the fact that China offers the unique example of a country that has simply lived to be conquered, mentally ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell
... so," acquiesced the coach. "There's only one weak spot in the back field, and that's at left half. Martin, for some reason, isn't playing his game. He's too slow in starting, and he doesn't tackle as hard and fast as he ought to. Then, too, he's a little bit thick when it comes to the signals. He got mixed up twice ...
— Bert Wilson on the Gridiron • J. W. Duffield
... enough. I grasped the situation instantly. The one weak spot in my control of my state was my having left the city bosses their local power, instead of myself ruling the cities from the state capital. Why had I done this? Perhaps the bottom reason was that I shrank from permitting any ...
— The Plum Tree • David Graham Phillips
... very jubilant; all difficulties seemed to be vanishing; but unfortunately our history was not repeated with the other parties. Bowers came up half an hour after us. They also had done well at the last, and I'm pretty sure they will get on all right. Keohane is the only weak spot, and he only, I think, because temporarily blind. But Evans' party didn't get up till 10. They started quite well, but got into difficulties, did just the wrong thing by straining again and again, and so, tiring themselves, went ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... my mind haven't been quite smart enough," he declared at length. "They should have put up a sounder man. As it happens, I know a little about the one they fixed upon. Mr. Hames is what you could call a professional claim-jumper, and it's fortunate that there's a weak spot or two in ...
— The Greater Power • Harold Bindloss
... touched the only weak spot in Selina's resistance to his proposal—the good of the boy. To promote that there were other men she might have married offhand without loving them if they had asked her to; but though she had known the worthy speaker from her youth, she could not for the moment fancy ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... that the weak spot in this deal of Rattlesnake's, after all, is right on the question of my ability ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... very just," answered Denham, pleasantly, though the blood mounted to his face. "You have found out my weak spot. I confess I am not ambitious. I aspire to ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... and your opponent gives you no direct answer or reply, but evades it by a counter-question or an indirect answer, or some assertion which has no bearing on the matter, and, generally, tries to turn the subject, it is a sure sign that you have touched a weak spot, sometimes without knowing it. You have, as it were, reduced him to silence. You must, therefore, urge the point all the more, and not let your opponent evade it, even when you do not know where the weakness which you have hit upon ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; The Art of Controversy • Arthur Schopenhauer
... coughing, I cleared away the smothering rubbish, to find myself a fixture—jambed fast between walls of granite. Deceptive ferns had masked the crevice. I had walked along a treacherous track until at a weak spot it had given way as the gallows' trap beneath ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... not consider it wise to take any European territory, but will make minor corrections of frontiers for military purposes by occupying such frontier territory as has proved a weak spot in the ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... informed Pompey of a weak spot in Caesar's line. At this point Pompey made a sudden attack. For once Caesar's troops were surprised and panic-stricken. Even his own presence did not cause them to rally. Nearly one thousand of his ...
— History of Rome from the Earliest times down to 476 AD • Robert F. Pennell
... Every man has a lance and a sword. The LANCE is a stout weapon with a solid wooden butt, about six feet long in all. It is really too heavy to use as a javelin. It is most effective as a pike thrust fairly into a foeman's face, or past his shield into a weak spot in his cuirass. The sword is usually kept as a reserve weapon in case the lance gets broken. It is not over 25 inches in length, making rather a huge double-edged vicious knife than a saber; but it is ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... water! Get busy!" he ordered. "I don't think he's done for, not unless he has some mighty weak spot he should have had labelled before ...
— The Treasure Trail - A Romance of the Land of Gold and Sunshine • Marah Ellis Ryan
... only one weak spot in the programme, the Black Stallion, the cause of the hunt, seemed made of iron, that ceaseless swinging pace seemed as swift and vigorous now as on the morning when the chase began. Up and down he went rounding up the herd and urging them on by voice and example to escape. But they were played ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton
... during the preceding nights, and long scrutiny by day through telescopes and field glasses left no doubt as to the weak spot in the Hun armour. He had placed low wire in front of the copse but had no protection on the flanks. A track leading from the front line showed how his men moved up to occupy this outpost position and also the probable route taken by patrols. As it also seemed evident that the copse was held at ...
— The Seventh Manchesters - July 1916 to March 1919 • S. J. Wilson
... bluff him and you can't beat his system," continued the Tennessee Shad. "If you guess don't hesitate; jump at it. The only thing you can do is to wait for his jokes, and then grab the desk and weep for salvation—it's his one weak spot." ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... replenished corps, largely of Saxons, which had been General von Hausen's army, lay next to General von Buelow, a little north of Vitry, and as it proved, a weak spot in the German line. The left center of the attacking force was under the command of the Duke of Wuerttemberg and extended across the whole southern end of the plain of Champagne to the upper streams of the ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12) - The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... working themselves up into a state of frenzy. Let this man show himself, and the success of his coup was assured. It was unpardonable hesitation. He trembled with rage. In the King's palace, in his own chamber, he had lost for the moment his hold upon this man. It was the one weak spot in his carefully thought-out scheme. It was the one contingency against ...
— The Traitors • E. Phillips (Edward Phillips) Oppenheim
... the day when they did make it! For four consecutive days their output equalled the best ever done by the factory, and then just as every woman was beginning to thrill with that jubilation which only comes of a hard task well done, a weak spot developed in ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston
... dishonoured a colleague, who was holy in virtue of his office and had been made sacrosanct by the laws. The proposal was received by the senators with loud cries of acclamation. A glance at Tiberius would probably have shown that Annius had found the weak spot, not merely in his defensive armour, but in his very soul. The deposition of Octavius was proving a very nemesis; it was a democratic act that was in the highest degree undemocratic, an assertion and yet a gross violation of popular liberty.[386] The superstitious masses were in the habit of washing ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... His drive is a lethal weapon that spreads destruction among his opponents. His backhand is a severe "poke," none too accurate, but very deadly when it goes in. His service overhead and high volley are all severe and reliable. His low volley is the weak spot in an otherwise great game. Kumagae cannot handle a chop, and dislikes grass-court play, as the ball bounds too low for his peculiar "loop" drive. He is one of the greatest hard-court players in the world, and one of the most dangerous opponents at any ...
— The Art of Lawn Tennis • William T. Tilden, 2D
... Zee, was now sprinkled thickly with forts, hastily thrown up, but strong enough to serve the temporary purpose of the stadholder. In vain the fleet-footed and audacious Spinola moved stealthily or fiercely to and fro, from one point to another, seeking an opening through which to creep, or a weak spot where he might dash himself against the chain. The whole line was securely guarded. The swollen river, the redoubts, and the musketeers of Maurice, protected the heart of the republic from ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Muysen, our road lay for a mile or so along a canal with open fields on either side. Uhlan patrols had been reported in this part of the country, which was in a weak spot in the Belgian lines, and the Colonel told the staff officer to keep a sharp lookout and be ready with his revolver and prepared for a burst of speed. That military genius replied with an air of assurance: "Oh, that's all right. They cannot ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson |
