"Inaccuracy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and in the morning—only think!—nearly all the shields had changed places. In some places the inscriptions were so malicious, that grandfather would not speak of them at all; but I saw that he was chuckling secretly, and there may have been some inaccuracy ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... him led me into injustice to his Socialist foes in those early days, and often made me ascribe to them calculated malignity instead of hasty and prejudiced assertion. Added to this, their uncurbed violence in discussion, their constant interruptions during the speeches of opponents, their reckless inaccuracy in matters of fact, were all bars standing in the way of the thoughtful. When I came to know them better, I found that the bulk of their speakers were very young men, overworked and underpaid, who spent their scanty leisure ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... to Nurse Freeman that evening, but it is doubtful if she were the better for it. She was a very good woman in most things, but she could not bear that the children should be under anyone but herself; and just as Henry lost the truth by inaccuracy, she ...
— The Stokesley Secret • Charlotte M. Yonge
... be ranked under this name 'NATURE.' In enumerating the values of Nature and casting up their sum, I shall use the word in both senses—in its common and in its philosophical import. In inquiries so general as our present one, the inaccuracy is not material; no confusion of thought will occur. Nature, in the common sense, refers to essences unchanged by man: space, the air, the river, the leaf. Art is applied to the mixture of his will with the same things, as in a house, a canal, a picture, a statue. ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)
... as to its authorship, which they have circulated with complete assurance; but they have not felt it incumbent upon them to support their own views or to combat those of other people. It has, moreover, been frequently stated with equal confidence and inaccuracy that the authorship has never been settled. An early and persistent version of the genesis of the travels was that they took their origin from the rivalry in fabulous tales of three accomplished ...
— The Surprising Adventures of Baron Munchausen • Rudolph Erich Raspe
... EDITION.—I have discussed several of the vexed questions of the Waterloo Campaign in an Essay, "The Prussian Co-operation at Waterloo," in my volume entitled "Napoleonic Studies" (George Bell and Sons, 1904). In that Essay I have pointed out the inaccuracy or exaggeration of the claims put forward by some German writers to the effect that (1) Wellington played Bluecher false at Ligny, (2) that he did not expect Prussian help until late in the day at Waterloo, (3) that the share of credit for the victory rested in ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... which extended to 12 vols., the last of which appeared in 1870. As literature this work has a place among the greatest productions of the century; but in its treatment it is much more dramatic, ethical, and polemical than historical in the strict sense; and indeed the inaccuracy in matters of fact to which F. was liable, combined with his tendency to idealise and to colour with his own prejudices the characters who figure in his narrative, are serious deductions from the value of his work considered as history. The English in Ireland in ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... of the mind, inaccuracy brings a partial deviation from the truth, and it does not take long for this slight error to generalize itself, if not corrected by its natural ...
— Common Sense - - Subtitle: How To Exercise It • Yoritomo-Tashi
... attainder, Swift, as Dean of St. Patrick's, received orders from government to remove the scutcheon from the church. He obeyed, but he placed the shield in the great aisle, where he himself and Stella lie buried, and where the arms still remain. The verses have suffered much by the inaccuracy of the noble ...
— Poems (Volume II.) • Jonathan Swift
... the worst opinion of his work, saying distinctly that it is a complete guide to happiness in this world and the next. He is particularly copious in his warnings to copyists and translators, cautioning them against the slightest negligence or inaccuracy, and promising them for faithfulness a passport to the glories of heaven. This shows that the author at least took the work seriously. That there is not a trace of humor in the book would doubtless recommend it to the dignified and lethargic orientals ...
— Malayan Literature • Various Authors
... Inaccuracy, provincialism, and a too hasty rushing to conclusions, were the rocks that he had split on, but he got his revenge when he said:—"How would I play with you? From all the poppycock Anglice bosh you talked about poker, I'd ha' played a straight game, and skinned you. I wouldn't have taken ...
— American Notes • Rudyard Kipling
... the talk at lunch—except that it turned on Ruskin and his art views, with which latter, it seemed to me, Browning had not much sympathy. He told me two anecdotes designed to prove Ruskin's technical inaccuracy; one relating to Michael Angelo, the other to Browning's own exquisite poem, Andrea del Sarto. 'But never mind,' said Browning, 'he writes like ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... much more probable that he would overlook real analogies than be led astray by merely imaginary ones—which is rather a modern form of error. In textual matters the ancients were not apt to go wrong through over-subtlety, and Eusebius himself does not, I believe, deserve the charge of 'inaccuracy and haste' that is made ...
— The Gospels in the Second Century - An Examination of the Critical Part of a Work - Entitled 'Supernatural Religion' • William Sanday
... criticism, which seizes on a slight inaccuracy in one passage, and totally ignores an important statement in another—as, for instance, that of the "great beast" seen in the woods—might be extended to other portions of the book, and Byron's entire narrative made to appear as purely a work of the imagination ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... At once he became an enigma. One side or the other of his nature was perfectly comprehensible; but both sides together were bewildering. I had already remarked that his language was excellent, marred with an occasional slight inaccuracy. Of course, in common speech with the sailors and hunters, it sometimes fairly bristled with errors, which was due to the vernacular itself; but in the few words he had held with me it had ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... said the newspaper man, as he took his leave, 'that our editor will write an editorial on this mine, and, in order that there may be no inaccuracy, I shall bring it to you to read, and shall be very much obliged if ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr
... was a masterly tracing of current evils to their remote causes. He may have erred in some of his minor statements; this will happen to anyone who writes much, but attempts to discredit Rizal on the score of historical inaccuracy really reflect upon the captious critics, just as a draftsman would expose himself to ridicule were he to complain of some famous historical painting that it had not been drawn to exact scale. Rizal's writings were intended to bring out in relief the evils of the Spanish system of the ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig
... with this margin of inaccuracy, that up to the very dawn of the twentieth-century scientific discovery was still rather a procession of happy accidents than an ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... also that of January 12? Unfortunately, we cannot in this case prove or disprove the point by internal evidence. There is, however, one factor we must be especially careful not to forget in our calculations—namely, George Sand's habitual unconscientious inaccuracy; but the nature of her narrative will indeed be a sufficient warning to the reader, for nobody can read it without at once perceiving that it is not a plain, unvarnished recital ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... paid. The other half may be exacted the day that the woman is repudiated. It would then be three half dowries that I should have to pay if I sent back three of my wives. I ought, however, to rectify one inaccuracy in what I said just now, that my four wives had never agreed together. Once, they were agreed among themselves in the feeling of a common hatred. In going through the market I had bought a young negress. In the evening, when I retired to rest, I perceived that my wives had prepared ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... governed by final purpose or adaptation. Geoffrey denied the evidence of design and contended for the principle which he called "unity of composition," as the law of organisation. Most of his illustrations were open to the demonstration of inaccuracy; and the language by which disciples of the kindred school of Schelling illustrated in the animal structure the transcendental idea of the whole in every part seemed little better than mystical jargon. With Cuvier, ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various
... may have been the faintest want of geniality in the Drumtochty manner, but it was simply the reticence of a subtle and conscientious people. Intellect with us had been brought to so fine an edge by the Shorter Catechism that it could detect endless distinctions, and was ever on the watch against inaccuracy. Farmers who could state the esoteric doctrine of "spiritual independence" between the stilts of the plough, and talked familiarly of "co-ordinate jurisdiction with mutual subordination," were not likely to fall into the vice ...
— Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush • Ian Maclaren
... in the pleasant position of being able to retain an historian of the eminence of Macaulay to write a large portion of his introduction, it would ill become him to alter and correct his statements wherever there was a petty inaccuracy; still it is necessary to say, once for all, that there are occasional errors in the passage,—as where Macaulay mentions that Chicksands is no longer the property of the Osbornes,—though happily not one of these errors is in itself important. To our thinking, ...
— The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, 1652-54 • Edward Abbott Parry
... triumphantly redeemed his promise of assistance. He could describe with a delightful accuracy—or inaccuracy— the lovely toilets and pretty accessories of the high English wedding feasts of the previous year. And in some subtle way he threw into these descriptions such a glamour of romance, such backgrounds of old castles and chiming bells, of noble dames glittering with ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... reach the Irish Government are very unsatisfactory. I presume that if the worst should happen which is predicted, the pressure would not be immediate. There is such a tendency to exaggeration and inaccuracy in Irish reports, that delay in acting upon them is always desirable; but I foresee the necessity that may be imposed upon us at an early period of considering whether there is not that well grounded apprehension of actual scarcity that justifies and compels ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... it has been the writer's endeavor, by consulting a large number of fishing captains of long experience upon these grounds, to reduce the margin of inaccuracy as much as possible. In case of conflict of their opinion, the greatest agreement as to the facts has ...
— Fishing Grounds of the Gulf of Maine • Walter H. Rich
... every traveler in China is, by the inaccuracy of the natives, and especially of the Chinese. Their ideas of distance are most extraordinary. One may ask a Chinaman how far it is to a certain village and he will blandly reply, "Fifteen li to go, but thirty li when you come back." After a short experience ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews
... of his Lordship's inaccuracy is surprising. Commenting upon Falstaff's threat, "Woe to my Lord Chief Justice!" (2d Henry IV., Act V., Sc. 4,) he remarks, (p. 73,) "Sir W. Gascoigne was continued as Lord Chief Justice in the new reign; but, according to law and custom, he was removable, and he no doubt expected ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 21, July, 1859 • Various
... acquirement of dead words, to the unavoidable exclusion of nearly every thing that is of value? First, we are told that we can not understand the English language without a knowledge of Latin, from which it is derived. The inaccuracy of this pretension is at once made manifest by reference to ...
— The Philosophy of Teaching - The Teacher, The Pupil, The School • Nathaniel Sands
... research is admitted. It seems to the writer that anyone who has become interested in the question would more wisely approach it with a tendency toward doubt than toward implicit belief; to doubt, however, that leads one directly to investigation. We need to remember, however, that inaccuracy by no means connotes inveracity. There is here no imputation against the honesty of any writer, even when carelessness, exaggeration and inaccuracy are not only alleged, but demonstrated to exist. A. L. Aurora, ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell
... you I would dedicate a small tale, crammed with historical inaccuracy. To-day, no doubt, you would recognise the story of Captain Seth Jermy and the Nightingale frigate, and point out that I have put it seventeen years too early. But in those days you would neither have known nor cared. And the rest of the ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... believe that liberty could be bought only with the one currency of eternal vigilance, and coupled with these others who were too busy to attend to the active processes by which the government is from time to time renewed; and they have concluded, with fatal inaccuracy of judgment, that this exceptional disposition of a small number of persons was a type of the whole population. Nothing could be more absurdly untrue. Outside of a very limited circle no such political ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... neither the one nor the other, but a man with the qualities and faults of a man,—fearless, resolute, enduring; boastful, sarcastic, often bitter and irritating; a vehement partisan; apt to see things, not as they were, but as he wished them to be; given to inaccuracy and exaggeration, yet no doubt sincere in opinions and genuine in zeal; hating the English more than he loved the Indians; calling himself their friend, yet using them as instruments of worldly policy, to their danger and final ruin. In considering the ascription of martyrdom, it is to be remembered ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman
... the trusting public is referred, without a word of qualification, "for the true proportion in which the cerebrum covers the cerebellum in the highest Apes," is exactly that unacknowledged copy of Schroeder van der Kolk and Vrolik's figure whose utter inaccuracy had been pointed out years before by Gratiolet, and had been brought to Professor Owen's knowledge by myself in the passage of my article in the 'Natural ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... officers, yet should stand on record against them. It is not probable that a French officer of De Villiers' rank would practise such a base perfidy, nor does the subsequent treatment experienced by Van Braam from the French corroborate the charge. It is more than probable the inaccuracy of translation originated in his ignorance of the precise weight and value of words in the two languages, neither of which was native to him, and between which he was the blundering ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... times has been made upon the inaccuracy of the printed Memoirs, but judging from a personal inspection of the original, there appear to be but few serious errors. [Footnote: "Turning" for "Trimming instruments" (in Lady Anne's will), and such ...
— Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe • Lady Fanshawe
... cheese, butter, yak milk, and tsamba, and they said they would sell us ponies if we required them. The description was too glowing; so, taking all things into consideration, and allowing for the inaccuracy of speech of my interlocutors as well as of Tibetans in general, I thanked them from the bottom of my heart and answered that I preferred to continue my way ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... depreciation correspondingly unjust and untrue. It has been so in the case of this great man. In the endeavour to depose him from the impossible position to which his panegyrists had exalted him, his detractors have gone to any length. The principal charges brought against his biological work have been inaccuracy and hasty generalization. In support of the charge of inaccuracy, some of the extraordinary statements which are met with in his works are adduced. "These," Professor Huxley says, "are not so much to be called errors as stupidities." Some, however, of the inaccuracies alleged against Aristotle ...
— Fathers of Biology • Charles McRae
... affirming that in the Lyons edition of Froissart, by Denys Saulvage, 1559: "Omnia qu Aul Gallic displicebant, deleta, vixque decimam histori partem relictam esse." Does Col. Johnes notice this inaccuracy in the edition generally procurable? And does he state whether he saw, or consulted, or received any benefit from the existence of the MS. copy of Froissart, once in the library ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 216, December 17, 1853 • Various
... read, to say, that 'the delineation was complete,' or words to this effect. It is no puerile vanity which induces me to publish this fact;—but Mr. Hazlitt accuses my inconsistency, and infers my inaccuracy. Perhaps he will admit that, with regard to the latter, one of the most intimate family connections of the Emperor may be equally capable of deciding on the subject. I tell Mr. Hazlitt that I never flattered Napoleon on the throne, nor maligned him since his fall. I wrote what I think are ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... companions beyond words. But he was an agreeable guide, ever keen to point out the beauties of his royal master's domain. He peopled the hills with anything thev had a mind to slay—thar, ibex, or markhor, and bear by Elisha's allowance. He discoursed of botany and ethnology with unimpeachable inaccuracy, and his store of local legends—he had been a trusted agent of the State ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... to Mrs. Meadows, saying gravely that Lucy must not be encouraged in her habit of gossiping and inaccuracy. Mrs. Meadows quite agreed with him, it was a very bad habit for a girl, she was very sorry for it, she wished she could have attended to the dear children better, but she was sure dear Mrs. Kendal would make them everything desirable. She only hoped that she would ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... less to my taste than the organisation of the Tono-Bungay factory. In the new field of enterprise there was a great deal of bluffing and gambling, of taking chances and concealing material facts—and these are hateful things to the scientific type of mind. It wasn't fear I felt so much as an uneasy inaccuracy. I didn't realise dangers, I simply disliked the sloppy, relaxing quality of this new sort of work. I was at last constantly making excuses not to come up to him in London. The latter part of his business career recedes therefore beyond the circle of any particular life. I lived more ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... frequency of false information, or enable any man to conceive, that so many groundless reports should be propagated, as every man of eminence may hear of himself. Some men relate what they think, as what they know; some men, of confused memories and habitual inaccuracy, ascribe to one man, what belongs to another; and some talk on, without thought or care. A few men are sufficient to broach falsehoods, which are afterwards ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... any inaccuracy is however made, except the general denial "that the German authorities with empty promises put off the American Minister" and also the equally general statement that no promise was given to our embassy to advise it of developments ...
— The Case of Edith Cavell - A Study of the Rights of Non-Combatants • James M. Beck
... the university, the bookseller was not allowed to expose his transcripts for sale, without first submitting them to the inspection of certain officers appointed by the university, and if an error was discovered, the copies were ordered to be burnt or a fine levied on them, proportionate to their inaccuracy. Harsh and stringent as this may appear at first sight, we shall modify our opinion, on recollecting that the student was in a great degree dependent upon the care of the transcribers for the fidelity of ...
— Bibliomania in the Middle Ages • Frederick Somner Merryweather
... these words thee and thou, and statements were made that the kind of speech which I put into David Claridge's mouth was not Quaker speech. For instance, they would not have it that a Quaker would say, "Thee will go with me"—as though they were ashamed of the sweet inaccuracy of the objective pronoun being used in the nominative; but hundreds of times I have myself heard Quakers use "thee" in just such a way in England and America. The facts are, however, that Quakers differ extensively in their habits, and there grew up in England ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... nature, and not of any special faculty; so that, when we find a man using words without any sense of their meaning, and assuming to be familiar with things of which he is wholly ignorant, we are justified in suspecting him of an habitual inaccuracy of mind, which to a greater or less degree disqualifies him both as observer and reporter. We say this with no intention of imputing any wilful misstatements to Mr. Russell, but as something to be borne in mind while reading his record of private ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... loose and jammed bearings in the machinery of her love-affair, already the property of Rumour. And as each brilliant visitor was fain to seem better informed than his or her neighbour, a very large allowance of inaccuracy and misapprehension was added to the usual stock-in-trade of tittle-tattle on ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... testimony—testimony from the nature of the subject more than ordinarily liable to be affected by prejudice, and by the limitations of each witness's powers of observation and opportunities of ascertaining the truth. But after all deductions for prejudice, mistake, inaccuracy and every other shortcoming, there is left a strong, an invincible consensus of testimony, honest, independent and full of undesigned corroborations, to the development of the mind of all races in the lower culture along the lines here indicated. Nay, more; the numerous remains ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... see a smile struggling around the sweet lips of that dear girl, after I had thus delivered myself, as I fancied, with a most accurate inaccuracy; but she succeeded in repressing it, though those provoking eyes of hers continued to laugh, much of ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... and useful of the many books designed to promote correctness in English composition by furnishing examples of inaccuracy, is the volume compiled by the late William B. Hodgson, under the title of 'Errors in the Use of English.' The American edition of this treatise, now published by the Appletons, has been revised, and in many respects ...
— English as She is Wrote - Showing Curious Ways in which the English Language may be - made to Convey Ideas or obscure them. • Anonymous
... refers to the great novelist as an impersonator of his more remarkable creations. Everybody who has seen him, who has heard him, who has carefully watched him, though it may be but at a single one of these memorable readings, will recognise at a glance the accuracy or the inaccuracy of the delineation. ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... been thus strict in our examination of these preliminary statements, if the question had been one of terms merely, or if the inaccuracy of thought had been confined to the Essay on Antagonism. If upon receiving a writer's terms of argument in the sense—however unusual or mistaken—which he chooses they should bear, we may without further error follow his course of thought, it is as unkind as unprofitable to lose the use ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... wide- mouthed, white-headed youngsters of the village heed this, but it troubled Jan's eyes; and when—in consequence of her rubbing her nose with her disengaged hand—the sallywithy slipped to Q as the Dame cried F, Jan brought the lore he had gained from Abel to bear upon her inaccuracy. ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... speak to him of them.—With regard to one or two of your remarks, I have not said that real lions were originally leopards. I have said that lions in arms, that is, painted lions, were leopards; and it is fact, and no inaccuracy. Paint a leopard yellow, and it becomes a lion.—YOU say, colours rightly prepared do not grow black. The art would be much obliged for such a preparation. I have not said that oil-colours would not endure with a glass; on the contrary, I believe ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... Trossachs. The objection is utterly futile, for there is not a single spire or pinnacle from one end of the Trossachs to the other. All their rocks are heavily rounded, and the introduction of the word "spire" is a piece of inaccuracy in description, ventured merely for the sake of the Gothic image. Farther: it has been said that if I had substituted the word "gable," it would have spoiled the line just as much as the word "pediment," though "gable" is a Gothic word. Of course it would; but ...
— Lectures on Architecture and Painting - Delivered at Edinburgh in November 1853 • John Ruskin
... beg the reader to bear it in mind that all this is literally as it was given by an old gypsy, and that I am not responsible for its accuracy or inaccuracy. ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... transactions for so many years, and possibly the mainstay of that declining household, died in 1494; but not, we may hope, before she had heard of the fame of her son Christopher. Domenico, in receipt of a pension from the famous Admiral of the Ocean, and no doubt talking with a deal of pride and inaccuracy about the discovery of the New World, lived on until 1498; when he died also, and vanished out of this world. He had fulfilled a noble destiny in being the father of ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... say also to all young ladies who are called to any particular vocation, qualify yourselves for it, as a man does for his work. Don't think you can undertake it otherwise. . . . If you are called to man's work, do not exact a woman's privileges—the privilege of inaccuracy, of weakness, ye muddle-heads. Submit yourselves to the rules of business, as men do, by which alone you can make God's business succeed; for He has never said that He will give His success and His blessing to inefficiency, to sketchy and ...
— Queen Victoria • E. Gordon Browne
... increased diligence. The morning professor entered, and passed from easel to easel, commending this, criticising that, rebuking something else, making a few touches of the brush upon several canvases, crossing others with a network of charcoal-lines to prove inaccuracy of drawing, distributed tres biens and pas mals judiciously, and then with a pleasant "Bon jour, mesdames," passed away, leaving behind him about an equal measure ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... of the work as it progresses should frequently be tested, and the eye should constantly be trained so that it can more and more be depended upon to detect inaccuracy, Fig. 107. As each surface is trued, it should be carefully smoothed with the cutter set ...
— Handwork in Wood • William Noyes
... pages of the article in the North American, is that I have misrepresented the part borne by Cotton Mather in the proceeding connected with the Witchcraft Delusion and prosecutions, in 1692. Various other complaints are made of inaccuracy and unfairness, particularly in reference to the position of Increase Mather and the course of the Boston Ministers of that period, generally. Although the discussion, to which I now ask attention, may appear, at first view, to relate to questions merely personal, it will be found, ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham
... rough and puzzling, bringing before us no familiar landmarks by which to guide our course. My map proved utterly useless, confusing me by its wrong location of streams, and its inaccuracy in the estimation of distances. We must have wandered far to the north from our direct course, led astray in the dark, and by our desire to advance swiftly. For there soon came to us warning signs that we were indeed being pursued; and some evidence also that we were even within Indian ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... obscured) fell into two contrary Mistakes; but equally injurious to his Reputation and his Writings. For some of them, observing a Darkness that pervaded his whole Expression, have censured him for Confusion of Ideas and Inaccuracy of reasoning. In the Neighing of a Horse (SAYS Rymer), or in the Growling of a Mastiff, there is a Meaning, there is a lively Expression, and, may I say, more Humanity than many times in the tragical Flights of SHAKESPEAR. ...
— Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare • D. Nichol Smith
... Mr. Ogilvie. He was able to detect mistakes that were made by the village boys who served that Sunday morning, and he vowed to himself that the Monday Mass for the Emperor Napoleon should not be disfigured by such inaccuracy or clumsiness. He declined the usual invitation to stay to supper after Evening Prayer that he might have time to make perfection more perfect in the seclusion of his own room, and when he set out about six o'clock of a sun-drowsed morning in early August, ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... to the children, but no mere information can be a substitute for a training in thorough thinking. Here lies the greatest defect of our average schools. The looseness of the spelling and figuring draws its consequences. Whoever becomes accustomed to inaccuracy in the elements remains inaccurate in his thinking his life long. If the American public loses a hundred million dollars a year by investments in worthless undertakings, surely not the smallest cause is the lack of concise reasoning. Wrong analogies control ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... error in the address, not to mention any mistake in the posting up, or if any item appeared which seemed unusual or excessive, the son received a sharp admonition, warning him that inaccuracy or extravagance were absolutely unpardonable ...
— Skipper Worse • Alexander Lange Kielland
... Garth exhibits no discrimination of characters; and that what any one says might, with equal propriety, have been said by another. The general design is, perhaps, open to criticism; but the composition can seldom be charged with inaccuracy or negligence. The author never slumbers in self-indulgence; his full vigour is always exerted; scarcely a line is left unfinished; nor is it easy to find an expression used by constraint, or a thought imperfectly expressed. It was remarked by Pope, that "The Dispensary" ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson
... account of Campanella and his disciple Adami. My reference is to the first edition of Mr. Hallam's work; but the passage stands unaltered in the second. I believe these to be rare instances of inaccuracy. ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 27. Saturday, May 4, 1850 • Various
... "honest, comely, and well-harnessed persons—four of them bowmen, and twelve billmen. They were arrayed in blue and red (after my Lord Norfolk's fashion), hats and hose red and blue, and with doublets of white fustian." This same year, the greedy despot Henry having discovered some slight inaccuracy in the assay, contrived to extort from the poor abject goldsmiths a mighty fine of 3,000 marks. The year this English Ahab died, the Goldsmiths resolved, in compliment to the Reformation, to break up the image of their patron saint, and also a great standing cup with an image of the same saint ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... forward by the President on account of the pretended nonfulfillment of the engagements entered into by the King's Government after the vote of the 1st of April are strange, not only from the total inaccuracy of the allegations on which they are based, but also because the explanations received by Mr. Livingston at Paris and those which the undersigned has given directly to the Cabinet of Washington seemed not to leave the slightest possibility ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson
... when Bottot, the confidential agent of Barras, came to Passeriano, after the 18th Fructidor, he declared to him that as soon as La Vallette should make him acquainted with the real state of things the money should be transmitted. The inaccuracy of these statements will be seen in the correspondence relative to the event. In thus distorting the truth Napoleon's only object could have been to proclaim his inclination for the principles he adopted and energetically supported from the year 1800, but which, previously to ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... but he expressed pleasure, and led me up the narrow, steep stairway, whose ceiling almost touched my head as I climbed up after him. On the first floor the landlord, in festal raiment, intercepted us, introduced himself in English (which he spoke with pretentious inaccuracy), and, barring my further ascent, took possession of me, and led the way to his best parlour, as if it were entirely unbecoming for his tenant to receive a gentleman in ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... found, similar in form to the others, but much smaller. Its smell showed that it had contained brandy. Then these two women had not been with the murderer, and therefore he could not have fought because the other men had insulted them. This discovery proved the inaccuracy of Lecoq's original suppositions. It was an unexpected check, and he was mourning over it in silence, when Father Absinthe, who had not ceased ferreting about, uttered ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... solemn inaccuracy, represents this poem as a consequence of the indifferent reception of his tragedy. But the fact is, that the poem was published on the 9th of January, and the tragedy was not acted till the 6th of the February following. BOSWELL. Hawkins ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... from 1/40 to 1/30 of an inch. This appears to have been subsequently forgotten, as we find later physicists questioning the possibility of the spark leaping over any interpolar distance. Mr. J. P. Gassiot, of Clapham, demonstrated the inaccuracy of this opinion by constructing a battery of 3,000 Leclanche cells, which gave a spark of 0.025 inch; a similar number of "de la Rue" cells gives an 0.0564 inch spark. This considerable increase in potential is chiefly due ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 275 • Various
... figures in the way suggested would fail to measure the domestic disadvantage arising from relatively higher overhead expenses. There are, however, two considerations, discussed in detail in this statement, which tend to compensate for any inaccuracy which the above findings might imply. They are (1) the method of sampling employed by the commission; and (2) the failure to consider certain of the Italian ...
— Men's Sewed Straw Hats - Report of the United Stated Tariff Commission to the - President of the United States (1926) • United States Tariff Commission
... Judgment due to: A. Faulty Concepts.—It may be seen from the foregoing that our judgments, when explicitly grasped by the mind and predicated in language, reflect the accuracy or inaccuracy of our concepts. Whatever relations are, as it were, wrapped up in a concept may merge at any time in the form of explicit judgments. If the fact that the only Chinamen seen by a child are engaged in laundry work causes this attribute to enter into his concept Chinaman, this will ...
— Ontario Normal School Manuals: Science of Education • Ontario Ministry of Education
... not so sure of that," said Undercliff. "I believe the reporters trundle off to the nearest public-house together and light their pipes with their notes, and settle something or other by memory. Indeed they have reached a pitch of inaccuracy that could not be attained without co-operation. Independent liars contradict each other; but these chaps follow one another in falsehood, like geese toddling after one another ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... never know which impresses me more—the rapidity with which you form opinions, or their inaccuracy when formed." ...
— The Farringdons • Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler
... the numbers of killed, wounded, and missing, after the three earlier battles, have been massed, and added to the total number of men known to have taken part in the battle of Magersfontein. The inaccuracy dependent on the fact that some of the men reported as wounded or missing in the earlier battles had already returned to their regiments, and are included in the total of ...
— Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 • George Henry Makins
... intellect, the difference between a Cooper Indian and the Indian that stands in front of the cigarshop is not spacious. The scow episode is really a sublime burst of invention; but it does not thrill, because the inaccuracy of the details throws a sort of air of fictitiousness and general improbability over it. This comes of Cooper's ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... to my last account, which lies buried amongst the ocean of my papers, and in stating that I retained in hand 123 roubles, I have merely trusted to memory and calculation; but I am sure the Committee and yourself will excuse my little inaccuracy, when I state my situation. My two compositors, whom I had instructed in all the mysteries of Mandchou composition, are in the hospital down with the brain fever, for every kind of sickness is at present raging in this place; and ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... or 80 deg. 40', west of Cadiz. In this observation there is an error of eighteen degrees, the true longitude of the island of Saona, where the observation was taken, being 62 deg. 20' west of Cadiz; and the error is accounted for partly by the inaccuracy of the tables of Regiomontanus and partly by the crudity and inexactness of the Admiral's methods. On the 24th of September they at last reached the easternmost point of Espanola, named by Columbus San Rafael. They ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... expressions, in relating the affairs of the East Indies, might easily say that such a thing was done by Governor Hastings; though, in truth, the thing had been done by him before his advancement to the station from which he received the name of governor. And this, as we contend, is precisely the inaccuracy which has produced the ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... civilisation. I don't mean a romantic view of it, with the pomps and shows and battles in the foreground; but a real view—how people lived, and what they were driving at. The thing could be done, if it were not for the bugbear of inaccuracy. To know a little perfectly isn't enough; of course, people ought to be able to write their own language accurately, and to do arithmetic. Outside of that, you want a lot of general ideas. It is no good teaching everything as if everyone was to ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... name was Harmonica Moore!" announced Alanna, who could be depended upon for unfailing inaccuracy in the matter of names. Teresa and the boys burst into joyous laughter, but the information was close enough ...
— Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby and Other Stories • Kathleen Norris
... unable to detect any such perversion or inaccuracy in the cautious course of reasoning which has assisted me to my ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... accidental chromatic alteration in the same bar, the neglect of a tie, or an enharmonic interval with a tie are all common faults which mark careless performances. After the piece has been read as a whole and you have determined upon the notes so that there is no opportunity for inaccuracy from that source you will find that the best way to proceed is to take a very small passage and study that passage first. For the inexperienced student I should suggest two measures or a phrase of similar length. Do not leave these two measures ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke
... mind," Mr. Mill bases his whole criticism on this tacit petitio principii. He is not aware that though Reid sometimes uses the term relative in this inaccurate sense, Hamilton expressly points out the inaccuracy and explains the proper sense.—(See Reid's Works, pp. ...
— The Philosophy of the Conditioned • H. L. Mansel
... recruit who failed to present himself in proper time were to be taken in his stead, even if these relatives happened to be heads of families. The official representatives of the communities were equally liable to being sent into the army if found convicted of any inaccuracy in carrying out ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... and clearer way of studying such questions, which is to challenge and analyze the assertion before us and seek its basis in human nature. Before this is done, we should run the risk of expanding a natural misconception or inaccuracy of thought into an inveterate and pernicious prejudice by making it the centre ...
— The Sense of Beauty - Being the Outlines of Aesthetic Theory • George Santayana
... North the judges decided that Dangerfield, having been previously convicted of perjury, was incompetent to be a witness of the plot. But this is one among many instances of Roger's inaccuracy. It appears, from the report of the trial of Lord Castlemaine in June 1680, that, after much altercation between counsel, and much consultation among the judges of the different courts in Westminster Hall, Dangerfield was sworn and suffered to tell his story; but the jury very ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... came to Thirlwall Hall, and had never looked up till she was handed over to Miss Vanhansen, who had given her "airings" and "outings" all very well for a baby, and much to Baby's taste as it seemed, but not exactly severe study. Yet in spite of it all, and in spite of the halting inaccuracy of the training in a private ladies'-school, May Millar knew more by sheer instinct, as it sounded, of Alcestis, and felt more with her and for her, than the best of those who professed to ...
— A Houseful of Girls • Sarah Tytler
... garreteer. He is utterly wrong both as to the place and as to the time of the battle of Killiecrankie. He says that it was fought on the banks of the Tummell, and on the 13th of June. It was fought on the banks of the Garry, and on the 27th of July. After giving such a specimen of inaccuracy as this, it would be idle ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... exquisite—nights passed in the misery of cold, and hunger preying upon him both night and day, in a degree which very many would not have survived,—he, when retracing his schoolboy annals, could have shown indecision even, far more dreaded inaccuracy, in identifying the house, not one syllable after that, which he could have said on any other subject, would have won any confidence, or deserved any, from a judicious reader. I may now mention—the Herod being dead whose persecutions I had reason to fear—that the house in question ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... . . ." Mrs. Madison's gentle voice was no more than just audible in the short intervals he permitted; a blind listener would have thought Mr. Trumble at the telephone. Hedrick was thankful when his mother finally gave up altogether the display of her ignorance, inaccuracy, and general misinformation, and Trumble talked alone. That must have been the young man's object; certainly he had struggled for it; and so it must have pleased him. He talked on and on and on; he passed from one topic to another with no pause; ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington
... despatch dated July 26th—the day after the Settlement debate in the House of Commons—Mr. Chamberlain replied at length to the arguments put forward by the Schreiner Ministry in favour of a general amnesty, and exposed in particular the historical inaccuracy of the appeal to the "Canadian precedent." At the same time he stated that Her Majesty's Government, while they could not be a consenting party to a policy condoning adhesion to the enemy in the field, had no doubt that ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... as thus understood, confine itself to mere description; it also assumes the office of judge. While it pulls down much that passion and inaccuracy have reared, and thus restores respect for the past, it does not turn that past into a fetish. It looks it boldly in the face and questions it, instead of prostrating itself before it and worshipping it with ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... What is thy crime? An inaccuracy. A mistake of judgment. A desire to do thyself right, without intentional wrong to me or any one. Yet for this mistake, differently circumstanced, thou mightest have lost thy life, and have been hanged like ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... should be very carefully tested for truth beforehand. Another reason against its use is that it has to be placed on the spars in a position between the struts, and that is just where the spars may have a little permanent set up or down, or some inaccuracy of surface which will, of course, throw out the accuracy of the adjustment. The method of ...
— The Aeroplane Speaks - Fifth Edition • H. Barber
... is characteristic of the punctilious inaccuracy of Mr. Cottle (Recollections, ii. 54) that he should insist that the assumed name was "Cumberbatch, not Comberback," though Coleridge has himself fixed the real name by the jest, "My habits were so little equestrian, that my horse, ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill
... Since the overwhelming majority of newspaper men believe in their calling, love it, rejoice in it, regret its defects, and honor its achievements, they begin consciously to try to show how good a newspaper can be made with nothing but the tuition of the office. Inaccuracy, carelessness, bad taste, and dubious ethics present themselves at a different angle when judged in the light of a calling for which colleges and universities furnish training. A corporate spirit and a corporate standard are felt more strongly, and men ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... verify a quotation. It was the great Jefferson, was it not, who laid into the foundations of American democracy the imperishable maxim that "That gardening is best which gardens the least"? My rendition of it may be more a parody than a quotation but, whatever its inaccuracy, to me it still sounds ...
— The Amateur Garden • George W. Cable
... who publishes an account of some distant and comparatively unimportant country. How warily will they compare the measurements of a pyramid, or the description of a ruin; and how sternly will they censure any inaccuracy in these contributions of merely curious knowledge, while they will receive, with eagerness and unhesitating faith, the gross misrepresentations of coarse and obscure writers, concerning a country with which their own is placed in the most important and delicate relations. ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... placed us in 66 degrees 1 minute 15 seconds longitude, we were not yet in the meridian of Margareta island; though according to the reduced chart of the Atlantic ocean, we ought to have passed the very lofty western cape of this island, which is laid down in longitude 66 degrees 0 minutes. The inaccuracy with which the coasts were delineated previously to the labours of Fidalgo, Noguera, and Tiscar, and I may venture to add, before the astronomical observations I made at Cumana, might have become dangerous to navigators, were not the sea uniformly ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... as a wife, and another is entitled a "Warning against Pride, being the Fall of Queen Eleanor, who for her pride sank into the earth at Charing Cross, and rose again at Queenhithe, after killing the Lady Mayoress." Unfortunately, popular inaccuracy has imputed her errors to the gentle Eleanor of Castile, her daughter-in-law, and thus the ballad calls her wife to Edward I., instead of Henry III. "A Spanish dame," was a term that might fairly be applied to the Provencal Eleanor, whose language was nearly akin to Spanish, and ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... be toothless, or prevented the little body from standing erect, because at first the characteristic of the infant is that it does not rise to its feet? Indeed, we do something of the same sort when we deliberately prolong the poverty and inaccuracy of childish speech; instead of helping the child by making him listen intently to the distinct enunciation of speech sounds, and watch the movements of the mouth, we adopt his rudimentary language, and repeat ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori
... statements in the text confirmed, and will have, moreover, the pleasure of becoming acquainted with one of the finest compositions in the world.) Really Mr Mitford has less reason to censure the carelessness of his predecessors than to reform his own. After this monstrous inaccuracy, with regard to facts, we may be able to judge what degree of credit ought to be given to the vague abuse of such a writer. "The cowardice of Demosthenes in the field afterwards became notorious." Demosthenes was a civil character; war was not his business. In his time ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... true artist, perfect alike in expression and execution, and the comparatively dull and undistinguished-looking one which represents the effort of the wooden and mechanical player. Anything like inaccuracy in rendering naturally leaves a corresponding defect in the form, so that the exact character of the performance shows itself just as clearly to the clairvoyant spectator as it ...
— Thought-Forms • Annie Besant
... Tabernacle (MILLS AND BOON) suddenly left his books at the bank in a state of regrettable inaccuracy and went off to borrow the wig and other equipment of his elderly maiden sister I thought I was to have one of those jolly, naive detective stories which the feminine hand can best weave. But I was deceived, nor do I consider quite fairly. For how was I to know that such an incident had no ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 23, 1914 • Various
... was that of Middleton's parliament, frequently called the "drunken parliament," from the excesses of its leading men, and which on the following year signalised itself by the Glasgow act,—that act which emptied nearly four hundred pulpits in one day. The inaccuracy of the statement made by the prelatic newspaper, asserting that he had formerly been minister at Kirkcaldy, will not surprise any person who is acquainted with the writings of the Prelatists of that period, who seem not to have been able to write ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... are required to have some approved means of firing lines to the shore. Cunningham rockets and the Hunt gun are largely used. The inaccuracy of the rocket is of less importance when fired from a ship ...
— Sinking of the Titanic - and Great Sea Disasters • Various
... against Lloyd George during his public life has been his inaccuracy in small things, his disregard of detail, and in some ways this is a justifiable charge. And yet the man has a perfect passion for detail when he is aroused and when he believes detail necessary. In instituting the Department of Munitions he made himself in the course ...
— Lloyd George - The Man and His Story • Frank Dilnot
... give rise to inaccuracy,—chiefly because the ear, quick and true as may be its operation, will occasionally break down under pressure, and, before a sentence be closed, will forget the nature of the composition with which it was commenced. A singular nominative will be disgraced by a plural verb, because other pluralities ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... readers as to the order in which I relate the events I witnessed during the Emperor's stay at Fontainebleau, and those connected with them which did not come to my knowledge until later. I must also apologize for any inaccuracy in dates of which I may be guilty, though I remember collectively, so to speak, all that occurred during the unhappy twenty days which ensued between the occupation of Paris and the departure of his Majesty for the Island of Elba; for I was so completely absorbed in the unhappy condition of ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... only in his choice of subjects, but in the possession of a picturesque and fascinating style, which has given his histories a remarkable vogue. Fault has been found with him on the ground of historical inaccuracy, but such criticism is, for the most part, unjustified. His thoroughness, his judgment, and his critical faculty stand unimpeached, and place him very near the head of ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... contradictions or inconsistencies, might have suggested doubts; hut Helen's general confidence in her friend's truth had never yet been seriously shaken. Lady Davenant she had always thought prejudiced on this point, and too severe. If there had been in early childhood a bad habit of inaccuracy in Cecilia, Helen thought it long since cured; and so perhaps it was, till she formed a friendship abroad with one who had no respect ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... and who ought to have a keen eye for the English version of his own book, after so much reading and study of it, has, however, overlooked several manifest errors. I do not mean to tax Mr. Davison with, general inaccuracy. On the contrary, he seems wary, and in most cases successful as a dealer with the peculiarities of the German. But several cases of error I detect without needing the original: they tell their own story. And one of these I here notice, not only for its own importance, ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... of the wheels used. It is stated that with three wheels practically useful results can be obtained, although in this case the error, if the instrument is consistently handled so as always to produce the greatest inaccuracy, may be as much ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... years psychologists have set themselves to getting some accurate facts as to this inaccuracy of human observation, and various experiments have been tried. Here is an ...
— The Making of Arguments • J. H. Gardiner
... led them to discover the period of 223 lunations or 18 years 10 days, after which eclipses—especially those of the the moon—recur again in the same order. Their acquaintance with this cycle would enable them to predict lunar eclipses with accuracy for many ages, and solar eclipses without much inaccuracy for the ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 4. (of 7): Babylon • George Rawlinson
... particular apply to the case. The second difficulty, however, remains, and even in the case of such goods as apples renders the common statement somewhat inaccurate, while in the case of most kinds of consumers' goods the inaccuracy is glaring. If the price of fine watches corresponded with the utility of the last one that a consumer uses, it would be many times greater than it is. Rather than go without watches altogether many a ...
— Essentials of Economic Theory - As Applied to Modern Problems of Industry and Public Policy • John Bates Clark
... The dangers of inaccuracy in this kind of study are numerous. First the individual statements must be carefully interpreted. A certain very intelligent ten-year-old girl studying arithmetic read the problem, "What is the interest on $500 at six per cent for one year?" Then, probably ...
— How To Study and Teaching How To Study • F. M. McMurry
... however, which have frequently been appealed to upon such occasions, the custom-house books and the course of exchange. The custom-house books, I think, it is now generally acknowledged, are a very uncertain criterion, on account of the inaccuracy of the valuation at which the greater part of goods are rated in them. The course of exchange is, perhaps, ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... the close of the second Punic War. It long remained the great quarry for subsequent historians; and though Polybius wrote the history of the first Punic War anew from dissatisfaction with Pictor's prejudice and inaccuracy, he is one of the chief authorities followed in the earlier decads of Livy. A younger contemporary of Pictor, Lucius Cincius Alimentus, who commanded a Roman army in the war against Hannibal, also used ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail
... but characteristic inaccuracy concerning the Peace Commission may as well be corrected before the subject is left. This is the statement, apparently originating from Malay sources, but promptly indorsed in this country by unfriendly critics, to the effect ...
— Problems of Expansion - As Considered In Papers and Addresses • Whitelaw Reid
... document. Many were even unable to write. A circle of ink with a cross in the centre marks their anonymous adhesion to the petition. Some female names are to be seen, and numerous names of children are discernible, from the inaccuracy of their hand, guided by another: poor babes, who professed the opinions of their parents, without comprehending them; and who signed the attestation of the passions of the people, ere their infant tongues ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... reading of the Beer Bill. I said a few words to show the inaccuracy of one of Lord Malmesbury's conclusions; but I must speak ...
— A Political Diary 1828-1830, Volume II • Edward Law (Lord Ellenborough)
... only 9 by 9 in., and square, and the stress referred to is calculated on the full section of the column instead of on the strength within the hooping, although the latter method is the general practice in a hooped column. The inaccuracy of this is shown by the fact that, with this small size of square column, more than half the area is outside the hooping and never taken into account in theoretical computations. A fair comparison, as far as longitudinal reinforcement is concerned, is always ...
— Some Mooted Questions in Reinforced Concrete Design • Edward Godfrey
... The proof of the superiority of American gunnery was demonstrated in every naval battle. The accurate aim of Dewey's gunners at Manilla, and Sampson and Schley's at Santiago, was nothing less than wonderful. No less wonderful, however, was the accuracy of the Americans than the inaccuracy of the Spaniards, who seemed almost unable to ...
— History of Negro Soldiers in the Spanish-American War, and Other Items of Interest • Edward A. Johnson
... genuine text of the history has only been published in 1826," says Mr. Hallam, who speaks of "inaccuracy as habitual to him;" and further, "as no one, who regards with attachment the present system of the English constitution, can look upon Lord Clarendon as an excellent minister, or a friend to the soundest principles of civil and religious liberty, so no man ...
— Notes & Queries 1850.01.12 • Various
... the atolls in the Low Archipelago, appears certain from the case already given of Matilda Island: with respect to Whitsunday and Gloucester Islands in this same group, we must either attribute great inaccuracy to their discoverer, the famous circumnavigator Wallis, or believe that they have undergone a considerable change in the period of fifty-nine years, between his voyage and that of Captain Beechey's. Whitsunday Island is described by Wallis as "about four miles ...
— Coral Reefs • Charles Darwin
... this grade of seventy-five is a fictitious thing with no basis in logic or reason, in short a mere habit that has no justification save in tradition, and that, in very truth, it is a concession to inaccuracy and ignorance. When we promote the boy for solving three out of four problems we virtually say to him that the fourth problem is negligible and he may as well forget all about it. Sometimes a teacher grieves over a grade of seventy-three, never realizing that another teacher might ...
— The Reconstructed School • Francis B. Pearson
... has laboured to show the "inaccuracy of this pretended narrative." Yet a similar blunder appears to have happened to Ash. Johnson, while composing his Dictionary, sent a note to the Gentleman's Magazine to inquire the etymology of the word curmudgeon. Having obtained ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... closer; and so long as a circumstance might as well have happened at one time as at another, I consider that the poet is justified in crowding prior events as near as he may please towards the goal of their catastrophe. If then any slight inaccuracy as to dates arrests your critical ken, believe that it is not ignorantly careless, but learnedly needful. One other objection, and I have done. No man is an utter inexcusable, irremediable villain; there is a spot of light, however hidden, somewhere; ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... between these calculations is remarkable; and in more considerable altitudes the discrepancy is still more considerable, being sometimes as much as from eight to nine hundred feet. I am inclined to believe that it is attributable less to inaccuracy of observation than to the very imperfect instrument made use of by Rivero. Maclean's observations, with some trifling exceptions, correspond with mine. He used one of Fortin's barometers, and I one ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... What cares these roarers. This grammatical inaccuracy, which escaped correction in the later folios, probably came from Shakespeare's pen. Similar cases occur frequently, especially when the verb precedes its nominative. For example, Tempest, IV. 1. 262, 'Lies at my mercy all mine enemies,' and ...
— The Tempest - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... soon as inaccuracy had done its baleful work, a spirit of infidelity and of hostility either to the essentials or the details of the new religion must have impelled such as were either imperfect Christians, or no Christians at all, to ...
— The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels • John Burgon
... able to find no inaccuracy in the 1888 edition, which is indeed stated in the introduction to be entirely by mechanical process, without hand intervention; but being reproduced by printer's ink in black only, not only do the colors not appear, ...
— Commentary Upon the Maya-Tzental Perez Codex - with a Concluding Note Upon the Linguistic Problem of the Maya Glyphs • William E. Gates
... Fielde, the Holborn oilman of 1779, in 1809 has become Francis Fielde, Esq., of New Cavendish Street. In the letter quoted above Lamb speaks of his purchaser as "Mr. Grig Junr.," more, I am inclined to think, from his desire to have his little joke than from mere inaccuracy, for he must have known the correct name of his purchaser. But Mr. Greg, Jun., was only just twenty-one when he bought the property, and the expression "as merry as a grig" running in Lamb's mind ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb
... the rain gauge is as follows: A, 8 in. diameter; C, 2.53 in. ; length of C, about 20 in. It should be placed in an exposed location, so that no inaccuracy will occur from wind currents. To find the fall of snow, pour a ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... about twenty miles. It is but justice, however, to the memory of Captain Middleton to add, that several miles of this error may have been occasioned by the imperfection of nautical instruments in his day, combined with the unavoidable inaccuracy of observations made by the horizon of the sea when encumbered with much ice. On this latter account, as well as from the extraordinary terrestrial refraction, no observation can be here depended upon, unless made with an ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... believe we have a more trustworthy historian than Dr. Hale, so far as giving us the motive and pith and essence of great transactions. He is sometimes criticised for inaccuracy in dates or matters that are trifling or incidental. I suppose that comes from the fact that while he stores away in his mind everything that is essential, and trusts to his memory for that, he has not the time, which less busy men have, to verify every ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... inaccuracy of Nennius; Maximus and Maximianus were one and the same person; or rather no such person as Maximianus ever reigned in Britain. (2) Geoffrey of Monmouth gives the title of consul to several British generals who lived after ...
— History Of The Britons (Historia Brittonum) • Nennius
... was not obliged to offer a full and detailed statement of the truth. If his father charged him with being kept in at school for not having done his work, and rebuked him for his laziness, he allowed it to go at that, and did not accuse his father of inaccuracy. When, however, a boy was by habit and repute a truant, his father learned by experience and was apt to watch him narrowly. If the boy had an extra touch of the sun on his face, and his clothing was disorderly beyond usual, and his ...
— Young Barbarians • Ian Maclaren
... talked so much of studying that it was her belief she had acquired it; Greek and Latin were beyond her scope, but from modern essayists who wrote in the flamboyant style she had gathered enough knowledge of these literatures to be able to discourse of them with a very fluent inaccuracy. With all schools of painting she was, of course, quite familiar; the great masters—vulgarly so known—interested her but moderately, and to praise them was, in her eyes, to incur a suspicion of philistinism. From her preceptors in this sphere, she ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... pretty nearly as I state it: if I have fallen into any error or inaccuracy, it is easily rectified; for here is the state of the transaction given by the parties themselves. On this inaccurate memory of Mr. Hastings, not venturing, however, to say positively that he was not the interpreter, or ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke |
