"Defect" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... served to convince me that any attempt upon it would be worse than fruitless, for it was secured upon the outside by a strong lock, besides two bars, all which I was enabled to ascertain by means of the same defect in the joining of the planks which I have mentioned as belonging ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume III. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... consumption. Money he always refused with gestures of intense disgust, and he would also decline cooked meat and broken bread. When hard biscuits were given him, he would carefully examine them, and if one was found chipped or cracked he would return it, pointing out the defect, and ask for a sound one in return. He had a small, sun-parched face, and silvery long hair; but his features were fine, his teeth white and even, his eyes clear grey and keen as a falcon's. There was always a set expression ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... want of trying to remedy the defect, expert at bridge, razor-edged of tongue, but still youthful enough to allow the lid of Pandora's casket to lift on occasions, also to be described by those who feared the razor-edge as petulant instead of peevish, and cendree instead of sandy, passed the tedious ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... the great white men of Ohio began to be born here, but in the meanwhile there were those born elsewhere who, like General Harrison, became Ohioans, and so did what they could to repair the defect of birth. There is no reason to think that such men were shaped by Ohio influences, but it is the habit of our generous Ohio state patriotism to claim as Ohioans not only those who were born here, and those who came to live here, ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... one parish; so that Christ was not out of his diocess when he was upon the earth, nor out of his temple when he was in our flesh. God, who saw that all that he made was good, came not so near seeing a defect in any of his works, as when he saw that it was not good for man to be alone, therefore he made him a helper; and one that should help him so as to increase the number, and give him her own, and more ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne
... much to say that, considering all the circumstances, it was the best form of government which could have been framed at that time. Its radical defect arose from its being a confederation of independent States, in which the central government had no direct recourse to the people. It required all grants of men or money to be obtained from the State governments, who were often, during the war, extremely dilatory ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... this pretext she filled the King with a bad opinion of the whole Court, solely that he might have no desire for any other company than that of herself and her creatures, who were alone perfect and without the slightest defect. What rendered her disclosures the more dangerous was that they were frequently followed by banishment, by 'lettres-de-cachet', and by imprisonment. When Montespan was in power, at least there was nothing of this sort. Provided she could amuse herself at the ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... Science may form just conclusions, we should not long remain in ignorance with respect to the natural history of this earth, a subject on which hitherto opinion only, and not evidence, has decided: For in no subject, perhaps, is there naturally less defect of evidence, although philosophers, led by prejudice, or misguided by false theory, may have neglected to employ that light by which they should have seen the system of ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 1 (of 4) • James Hutton
... your friend—and, like a friend, Point out your very worst defect—Nay, never Start at that word! But I must ask you why You keep your school in Newgate, ...
— Queen Victoria • E. Gordon Browne
... sympathises with a woman in childbed, cannot be said to put himself in her place. ("The Theory of the Moral Sentiments," Part vii. sec. iii. chap. i.) Perhaps there is more humour than force in the example; and, in spite of this and other observations of the same tenor, I think that the one defect of the remarkable work in which it occurs is that it lays too much stress on conscious substitution, too little on purely ...
— Evolution and Ethics and Other Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... Oxford, and Owen belong to a very curious type of humanity, with many excellent and even great qualities and one fatal defect—utter untrustworthiness. Peace be with two of them, and may the political death of the ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... able to walk? But did ever any father provide a tutor for his son to instruct him betimes in the nature and improvements of that land which he intended to leave him? That is at least a superfluity, and this a defect in our manner of education; and therefore I could wish, but cannot in these times much hope to see it, that one college in each university were erected, and appropriated to this study, as well as there are to medicine and the civil law. There would be no need of making ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley
... school that they have, in a career of some half-dozen years, established themselves as painters of noteworthy prominence. Their romanticism has always been free from exaggeration and from that morbidity of subject and treatment which is occasionally a defect in the work of young artists. They have kept their art wholesome and sincere, and they have cultivated judiciously those tendencies in it which justify most completely the development of the new Pre-Raphaelitism. They are, indeed, standing examples ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... long ago, and to give to the world the one splendid achievement of that time. It had triumphed over death and crime and revenge—but—He recalled those nights of conflict in his mind. Would will and spirit ever conquer that mechanical defect in his brain which ...
— What Dreams May Come • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... wings of the airplane standing the strain when Tom suddenly brought that volplane to a stop and tried to sail on an even keel again? Would they hold out? Or had some defect occurred in them which could also be charged to the spattering bullets ...
— Air Service Boys Over The Enemy's Lines - The German Spy's Secret • Charles Amory Beach
... the Duke. "Let me, in justice to myself, correct an inference you may have drawn. It is not by reason of any defect in myself, perceived or imagined, that Miss Dobson scorns me. She scorns me simply because I love her. All who love her she scorns. To see her is to love her. Therefore shut your eyes to her. Strictly exclude her from your horizon. ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... wickedness of sin and the defects of human life, will seem to be excessive whenever we are making light of {31} our faults. But in proportion as we realise the perfection of God's holiness, we shall find them suitable to every shade of defect ...
— The Prayer Book Explained • Percival Jackson
... pound of the liquid one degree in temperature. . . . It is perfectly manifest that by weakening the sun's action, either through a defect of emission or by the steeping of the entire solar system in space of a low temperature, we should be cutting off the glaciers at ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly
... hung with an exceedingly pretty gothic paper, in green, but over each window was a chasm in the upper border; and as this border supplied the arches, the unity of the entire design was broken in no less than four places, that being the precise number of the windows. The defect soon attracted the eye of Eve, and she was not slow in ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... manner in the twenty or thirty years which followed the death of Jesus, and imposed upon his biography the peculiarities of an ideal legend. Death adds perfection to the most perfect man; it frees him from all defect in the eyes of those who have loved him. With the wish to paint the Master, there was also the desire to explain him. Many anecdotes were conceived to prove that in him the prophecies regarded as Messianic had had their accomplishment. But this procedure, ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan
... connection with such plot as there was. Commonplace descriptions of scenery, also useless, were frequent. Many a time the thread of the story was lost. There were no distinguishing traits in any one of the characters—they all talked very much alike. But the supreme defect was the author's lack of humour. With all seriousness, she made her people say and do things which were absolutely ridiculous and not by any ...
— Threads of Grey and Gold • Myrtle Reed
... particular station. In your letter you did not propose any thing to be done, but objected to what had been done. You did not suggest any method of remedying what you were pleased to consider a defect, but stated what you thought to be reasons for fearing its consequences. You declared that there had been, in your opinion, an omission to assert American rights; to which omission you gave the department to understand that you would ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... when he gave three of his entertainments, or rather musical exhibitions, in the Merchants' Hall,—two during the day, and one in the evening. He is, without doubt, an extraordinary lad; born blind, though he is now able to distinguish light from darkness; and having a defect in some of his mental faculties, though what that defect is it is very difficult to say. Nature seems to have made up for these deficiencies by endowing him with a marvellously acute ear and a retentive memory. It is not uncommon ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... roads and kept the enemy in sight. The thickets which surrounded this position were almost impenetrable, so that an advance against the enemy's lines became exceedingly difficult and manoeuvring nearly impracticable, nor was this the only defect. Batteries could be established on the high ground to the east, which commanded the front facing in that direction, while our own artillery had but little scope; and last, but most important of all, the right of Howard's corps as "in the air," that is, ...
— Chancellorsville and Gettysburg - Campaigns of the Civil War - VI • Abner Doubleday
... agree—critics, public, friends, and opponents. Macaulay's was a life of purity, honour, courage, generosity, affection, and manly perseverance, almost without a stain or a defect. His life, it was true, was singularly fortunate, and he had but few trials, and no formidable obstacles. He was bred up in the comfortable egoism of the opulent middle classes; the religion of comfort, laisser-faire, and social ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... Or is it so long since you were one your self, you have forgot it? 'Tis well he wanted Words. [Enter Euphemia and Lovis.] But yonder's Euphemia, whose Beauty is sufficient to excuse every Defect in the whole Family, tho each were a mortal sin; and now 'tis impossible to guard my self longer from those ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... E. & S. stockholders who had come out on the first day began drifting back to Litchfield. Lester Dawes was the first to defect; there was nothing he could do at Force Command, and a great deal that needed his personal attention at the bank. Morgan Gatworth and Lorenzo Menardes and one or two others followed. Kurt Fawzi, however, refused to ...
— The Cosmic Computer • Henry Beam Piper
... lamented by his parents and tutors, was in fact, in the best opinions, an advantage to him; for it often happens that apparent superiority does us damage, and that from apparent defect springs the saving ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... of the great Democracy, and that it was impossible to have had an origin less distinguished than Tarrant himself. His birth, in some unheard-of place in Pennsylvania, was quite inexpressibly low, and Olive would have been much disappointed if it had been wanting in this defect. She liked to think that Verena, in her childhood, had known almost the extremity of poverty, and there was a kind of ferocity in the joy with which she reflected that there had been moments when this delicate creature ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... awkward and slightly annoying defect was discovered. It turned out that the Stock Corporation law of New York State specifically prohibited the bonded indebtedness of any corporation being more than the value of the capital stock. This discovery was not disconcerting; the obstacle could ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... counteract this great defect, but without much success. For several years afterwards Mr Pepys still complained that frigates were unable to stow a sufficient quantity of provisions, or to carry their guns high enough out of the ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... is the big bugbear of radio," answered Bob, pausing a moment in regulating his tuner and detector. "It is caused by stray waves moving in various directions through the atmosphere, and by electrical conditions. It is the defect all wireless people have to fight. Sometimes it is worse than others and unfortunately to-night it promises to be pretty bad. You see it has been a close, heavy day and no doubt thunderstorms are in the air. A thunderstorm will kick up no end of ...
— Walter and the Wireless • Sara Ware Bassett
... from the batteries is an evil that will have to be guarded against, to prevent the pernicious effects produced in several electro-plating establishments, where the health of the workmen has been seriously injured by the liberated gases. This defect being overcome, Professor Page's electro-magnetic engine may become highly valuable in engineering and manufacturing processes. To quote the conclusions of the report—'the cost will be less than that ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 425 - Volume 17, New Series, February 21, 1852 • Various
... only occasional defect, which I appear to myself to find in these poems is the inconstancy of the style. Under this name I refer to the sudden and unprepared transitions from lines or sentences of peculiar felicity ...
— Selections from Wordsworth and Tennyson • William Wordsworth and Alfred Lord Tennyson
... usually called Jean Paul simply, the greatest of German humourists, born at Wunsiedel, near Baireuth, in Bavaria, the son of a poor German pastor; had a scanty education, but his fine faculties and unwearied diligence supplied every defect; was an insatiable and universal reader; meant for the Church, took to poetry and philosophy, became an author, putting forth the strangest books with the strangest titles; considered for a time a strange, crack-brained ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... these four numbers a beauty and grace of language and sentiment, and not seldom a vigour of conception, altogether above the common run. Want of purpose may be easily charged against them as a fault, and with some justice, but it is a very common defect of youthful poetry, which is sure to disappear with time if there be anything real and manly in the poet. The best pieces are too long to extracted in entire, and are not to be judged of fairly except as wholes. There is a very fine poem called ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... her activity. With no less alacrity than she had displayed in the education of youth, did she now embark in the relief of misery. Her benevolence was unbounded, but it was discreet. There are charities which increase the wretchedness they are designed to diminish; which, from some fatal defect in their application, bribe to iniquity while they are relieving want, and make food and raiment and clothing to warm into life the most poisonous seeds of vice. But the charities of our departed friend ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... principal motive of all their actions? In the Grecian and Roman nations, they were wise enough to keep up this great incentive, and it was impossible to be in the fashion without being a patriot. All gallantry had its first source from hence; and to want a warmth for the public welfare, was a defect so scandalous, that he who was guilty of it had no pretence to honor or manhood. What makes the depravity among us, in this behalf, the more vexatious and irksome to reflect upon, is, that the contempt of life is carried ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... feeling, special to some certain set of circumstances. Rising from out the surface of daily experience, like the watery issuings of a fountain, it throws itself upward for a moment, then descends in a soft, glittering shower to the level whence it rose. Herein resides the chief defect of Bayly's songs; that they are too general and vague—a species of pattern songs—being embodiments of some general feeling, or reflection, but lacking that sufficient reference to some season or occurrence which would justify their appearing, and ...
— Poems • George P. Morris
... forest conflagration. Giving up dry disputation, have recourse to Sruti and Smriti, and seek thou, with the aid of thy reason, the knowledge of the Undecaying One that is without a second. One's search (after this knowledge) becometh futile from defect of means. Therefore, should one carefully strive to obtain that knowledge by aid of the Vedas. The Vedas are the Supreme Soul; they are His body; they are the Truth. The soul that is bounded by the animal organism is incompetent to ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... my own witnesses should be turned against me. I learned more of Mr. Cooke's great-uncle than I knew of Mr. Cooke himself, and to the credit of my client be it said that none of his relative's traits were apparent in him, with the possible exception of insanity; and that defect, if it existed in the grand-nephew, took in him a milder and less criminal turn. The old rascal, indeed, had so cleverly worded his deed of sale as to obtain payment without transfer. It was a trifle easier to avoid being specific in that ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... should take an Apprentice, unless he be a perfect youth having no maim or defect that may render him ...
— The Principles of Masonic Law - A Treatise on the Constitutional Laws, Usages And Landmarks of - Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... repair. Much of it had been little used of late, and looked dreary enough in its dismantled state. But all this was changed after a while, and they settled down very happily in it, without thinking about any defect it might have, ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... important reforms, no action was taken. The weak point of the Constitution (as to which see p. 152) was the power which the legislature apparently possessed of interfering with vested rights, and even with pending suits, by a resolution having the force of law. This was a defect due, not to any desire to do wrong, but to the inexperience of those who had originally framed the Constitution, and to the want of legal knowledge and skill among those who had worked it, and was aggravated ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... defect is, that the theory does not give any satisfactory account of the origin of the motions of rotation and revolution. Laplace does not attempt this. He simply assumes that a motion of rotation was set up somehow; but many of his followers, perceiving that the theory broke down ...
— The Story of Creation as told by Theology and by Science • T. S. Ackland
... receive them; when the military wish to unload a ship, they find that the naval authority has already ordered it away. Lord Raglan and Sir Edmund Lyons should be asked to concert between them the mode of remedying this defect. Neither can see with his own eyes to the performance of all the subordinate duties, but they can choose the best men to do it, and arm them with sufficient authority. For on the due performance of these subordinate ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid
... saddle like a sharp-fanged dragon. In his wrath he staineth the earth with blood, As he wieldeth his bright scimitar around him. And though his hair is as white as is a fawn's, In vain would the fault-finder seek another defect! Nay, the whiteness of his hair even becometh him; Thou wouldst say that he is born to ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... this impossibility of explaining ultimate principles should be esteemed a defect in the science of man, I will venture to affirm, that it is a defect common to it with all the sciences, and all the arts, in which we can employ ourselves, whether they be such as are cultivated in the schools of the ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley
... itself to the exquisite, but perhaps too delicate and limited, [15] literary instruments of the age of Queen Anne. Yet Mr. Saintsbury is certainly right in thinking that, as regards style, English literature has much to do. Well, the good quality of an age, the defect of which lies in the direction of intellectual anarchy and confusion, may well be eclecticism: in style, as in other things, it is well always to aim at the combination of as many excellences as possible—opposite ...
— Essays from 'The Guardian' • Walter Horatio Pater
... lame Jimmy, as he was often called, was a delicate-looking boy of ten, with a fair complexion and sweet face, but incurably lame, a defect which, added to his delicate constitution, was likely to interfere seriously with his success in life. But, as frequently happens, Jimmy was all the more endeared to his mother and brother by his misfortune and bodily weakness, and ...
— Paul the Peddler - The Fortunes of a Young Street Merchant • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... it does not follow that the mind and character of the African people have been impaired thereby beyond the life of each generation. The mental sloth in which the Western world lay steeped during the dark ages before the Reformation did not become a heritable defect. But apart from the question of the possibility of the transmission of acquired characters we have the fact that within the scope of his daily life the conservative and uncivilised African has to face and solve ...
— The Black Man's Place in South Africa • Peter Nielsen
... the smallness of its eyes, or to the horns on its nose being in the way, we cannot tell, but it is a fact that the black rhinoceros does not see well, and Mafuta, aware of this defect, had taken advantage of it in a way what is sometimes practised by bold men. Had he continued to run he would certainly have been overtaken and killed; but, standing perfectly still, he was no doubt taken for a tree stump by the animal. At all events it brushed past him, and Mafuta, doubling on ...
— Hunting the Lions • R.M. Ballantyne
... this page the fragrance of this spray of azalea beside me, what a wonder would it seem!—and yet one ought to be able, by the mere use of language, to supply to every reader the total of that white, honeyed, trailing sweetness, which summer insects haunt and the Spirit of the Universe loves. The defect is not in language, but in men. There is no conceivable beauty of blossom so beautiful as words,—none so graceful, none so perfumed. It is possible to dream of combinations of syllables so delicious ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 62, December, 1862 • Various
... air, as he spoke with his companion, was marked by that careless familiarity which denotes a conscious superiority of one kind or other, or which may be construed into a species of contempt; his comrade afforded to him in every respect a striking contrast. He was rather low in stature—a defect which was enhanced by a broad and square-built figure—his face was sallow, and his features had that prominence and sharpness which frequently accompany personal deformity—a remarkably wide mouth, with teeth white as the fangs of a wolf, and a pair of quick, ...
— The Purcell Papers - Volume II. (of III.) • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... omitted to mention the greatest phenomenon to which mortal eye has been witness since the creation of the globe. A distinct chapter of Pliny is designed for eclipses of an extraordinary nature and unusual duration; but he contents himself with describing the singular defect of light which followed the murder of Caesar, when, during the greatest part of the year, the orb of the sun appeared pale and without splendour. This season of obscurity, which surely cannot be compared ...
— God and my Neighbour • Robert Blatchford
... brood about the skies of poesy, Full bright ye shine, insuperable stars; Yet, if a man look hard upon you, none With total luster blazeth, no, not one But hath some heinous freckle of the flesh Upon his shining cheek, not one but winks His ray, opaqued with intermittent mist Of defect; yea, you masters all must ask Some sweet forgiveness, which we leap to give, We lovers of you, heavenly-glad to meet Your largess so with love, and interplight Your geniuses ...
— Poets of the South • F.V.N. Painter
... very fine five-year-old Hall variety on my side lawn that shows the neglect of proper pruning at the right time. The branches are entirely too long and drooping. In order to overcome this defect I will have to cut back to two-year-old wood and force the dormant buds for the ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting. Rochester, New York, September 1 and 2, 1915 • Various
... mouth, and all the graces that attend it, are lost amongst the great variety of beauties in her face and what is but indifferent in her, will not suffer us to consider what is most remarkable in others. The malice of my curiosity does not stop here. I proceed to spy out some defect in her shape; and I find I know not what graces of nature so happily and so liberally scattered in her person, that the genteelness of others only seems to be constraint ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... from any thing previously in use. Instead of being, as in ordinary cases, a large vessel closed on all sides, with the exception of the valves and steam conductors, which a high pressure or accidental defect may burst, it is composed of a succession of welded iron pipes, perhaps forty in number, screwed together in the manner of the common gas-pipes, at given distances, extending in a direct line, and in a row, at equal distances from a small reservoir ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, No. - 287, December 15, 1827 • Various
... were quashed on the ground of a defect in its substance, then the case falls. But this is only defective in form. Another grand jury can indict you again. Now if the District Attorney should be a little easy—and I think that, considering your age, and my influence with him, he would be—a new commitment might ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... it, and remain as pure as the sea-fowl that emerges from the water without a single drop remaining upon its burnished wing, or as the harp string, which may be struck by a rude or clumsy hand and gives forth a discordant sound, not from any defect of the harp, but because of the hand that touches it. But let the Master hand play upon it, and it is a chord of melody and a note ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson
... words: "Cimabue was a painter of Florence in the time of the author, very noble beyond the knowledge of man, and withal so arrogant and so disdainful that if there were found by anyone any failing or defect in his work, or if he himself had seen one (even as it comes to pass many times that the craftsman errs, through a defect in the material whereon he works, or through some lack in the instrument wherewith he labours), incontinently ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Volume 1, Cimabue to Agnolo Gaddi • Giorgio Vasari
... grasp the relation of the two apparently contradictory facts. 'He saved others,' that is certain. He did not 'save Himself,' that is as certain. Was the explanation 'cannot'? The priests by 'cannot' meant physical impossibility, defect of power, and they were wrong. But there is a profound sense in which the word 'cannot' is absolutely true. For this is in all time, and in all human relations, the law of service—sacrifice; and no man can truly help humanity, or an individual, unless he is prepared to surrender himself in the service. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... liberties taken in general included even those that might have been allowed to herself: he had not in the least, like the others in his case, married into the cousinship with us, and this apparently rather by his defect than by ours. His christian name, if certainly not for use, was scarce even for ornament—which consorted with the felt limits roundabout him of aids to mention and with the fact that no man could on his journey through ...
— A Small Boy and Others • Henry James
... narrative called forth admiration. One must admit Peter's great strength of character, his power of quick decision, and immediate achievement. Some held that his inability to retain the lady's affection in the first place argued a defect in his nature; but remembering the lady's youth and beauty (implied by the spirit of the whole poem), they could only reiterate their appreciation of the way he conquered circumstances, and proved himself master of his fate, and captain of his soul! Truly, the ...
— The Re-echo Club • Carolyn Wells
... supplementary evidence as to the real cause of distress. We go on now to present these three points of view. Loss of employment, 313; sickness or accident, 226; intemperance, 25; insufficient earnings, 52; physical defect or old age, 45; death of wage earner, 40; desertion, 40; other causes and uncertain, 103; total, 844. An attempt was made to follow the example of Mr. Booth and introduce supplementary causes as well as principal causes. About the only result, however, is that sickness often accompanies loss of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1157, March 5, 1898 • Various
... in his concluding scenes that we see Statius at his worst, but his capacity for irrelevance and digression is an almost equally serious defect. That he should use the conventional supernatural machinery is natural and permissible, though tedious to the modern reader, who finds it hard to sympathize with outworn literary conventions. But there are few epics where divine intervention is carried to a greater extent than in the Thebais.[551] ...
— Post-Augustan Poetry - From Seneca to Juvenal • H.E. Butler
... ingenuously declare he understands it not so well as other things, and desires to be informed in the nature of it before he attempts it, which I like well, and so I carried him to Mr. Gibson to discourse with him about it, and so home again to my accounts. Thus ends this month, with my mind oppressed by my defect in my duty of the Victualling, which lies upon me as a burden, till I get myself into a better posture therein, and hinders me and casts down my courage in every thing else that belongs to me, and the jealousy I have of Sir W. Coventry's being displeased with me about ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... with regular features, lofty forehead, and piercing eyes,—blond and gigantic as a viking. It was difficult, indeed, for a man so superlatively handsome not to be vain, and the endeavour upon his part to conceal the defect was not in evidence. Although an unpopular and unruly schoolboy, who refused to go to college, he had received a good education, learning much from a scholarly father, a college-bred man, and an ornament to the United States District Court for more than a quarter of a century. Moreover, from ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... which a pure Asiatic only could. To support your argument, you illustrated it by observing, that neither education, time, nor talent, could ever give to a foreigner, in any given country, so complete a possession of its language as to make him pass for a native; and that, do what he would, some defect in idiom, or even some too great precision in grammar, would detect him. 'But,' said you, 'if a native Oriental could ever be brought to understand so much of the taste of Europeans, in investigations of this nature, as to write a full and detailed history ...
— The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan • James Morier
... miscalculation about distance Made all their naval matters incorrect; Three fireships lost their amiable existence Before they reached a spot to take effect; The match was lit too soon, and no assistance Could remedy this lubberly defect; They blew up in the middle of the river, While, though 't was dawn, the ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... they so often find tedious and uninteresting.—Should the stories related inspire a love of virtue, and the lessons awaken a desire for the further acquisition of useful knowledge, the attempt, notwithstanding its defect, cannot, it is hoped, ...
— A Week of Instruction and Amusement, • Mrs. Harley
... (in case you are exceptionally lucky and have shuffled your cards very carefully) perhaps among them all a single genius. But most probably the genius will have died young of scarlet fever, or missed fire through some tiny defect of internal brain structure. Nature herself is trying this experiment unaided every day all around us, and, though she makes a great many misses, occasionally she makes a stray hit and then we get a ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... surveyed Laura with majestic glances through her eyeglass. She was pleased with the girl's artless looks, and gay innocent manner. Her manner is very good, her ladyship thought. Her arms are rather red, but that is a defect of her youth. Her tone is far better than that of the little pert Miss Amory, who is dancing ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... holidays. Now these two brothers were as different of nature as their sisters were, or more so; and unlike the gentler pair, each of these cherished lofty disdain for the other. Frank looked down upon the school-boy as an unlicked cub without two ideas; the bodily defect he endeavoured to cure by frequent outward applications, but the mental shortcoming was beneath his efforts. Johnny meanwhile, who was as hard as nails, no sooner recovered from a thumping than he renewed and redoubled his loud contempt ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... proportionable sum of out of a fund appropriated for that use; he likewise acquires the title of snillpall, or legal, which is added to his name, but doth not descend to his posterity. And these people thought it a prodigious defect of policy among us, when I told them that our laws were enforced only by penalties, without any mention of reward. It is upon this account that the image of Justice, in their courts of judicature, is formed with six eyes, two before, as many ...
— Gulliver's Travels - Into Several Remote Regions of the World • Jonathan Swift
... incurable antagonism to most of the ideas that Americans hold to be sound. Thus If all between two stools—but it is more comfortable there on the floor than sitting up tightly. I am wholly devoid of public spirit or moral purpose. This is incomprehensible to many men, and they seek to remedy the defect by crediting me with purposes of their own. The only thing I respect is intellectual honesty, of which, of course, intellectual courage is a necessary part. A Socialist who goes to jail for his opinions seems to me a much finer man than the judge who sends him ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... English King must answer. Of this deed I will now tell the story. When the army had had sufficient rest—and the King knew well that no army must have more than is sufficient, suffering more from excess than from defect in this matter—and it was now time to advance, there arose a great question touching the agreement made when the town was given up. There was much going to and fro of messengers and embassies between the English ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... Emerson a year prior to his own death, this defect of memory was very noticeable, and extended even to the names of common objects, so that in talking he would use quaint, roundabout expressions to supply the place of missing words. He would call a church, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... the Italian world, were natives of Bearn: one of these, Garat, surnamed "the musical Proteus," was born at Ustaritz. Nothing appeared impossible to this prodigious singer: his voice was splendid and his taste exquisite: his only defect was an inordinate vanity—by no means an uncommon fault in artists of this description. A person on one occasion, thinking to embarrass him, inquired how high in the scale he could go; "I can mount as ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello
... the present station, it would be peculiarly improper to omit in this first official act my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being who rules over the universe, who presides in the councils of nations, and whose providential aids can supply every human defect, that His benediction may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the people of the United States a Government instituted by themselves for these essential purposes, and may enable every instrument ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... Old Californian miners say they never saw such rich diggings. The average result per day to the man was fully 20 dollars, some much more. The gold is very fine; so much so, that it was impossible to save more than two-thirds of what went through the rockers. This defect in the rocker must be remedied by the use of quicksilver to 'amalgamate' the finer particles of gold. This remedy is at hand, for California produces quicksilver sufficient for the consumption of the 'whole' world in her mountains of Cinnabar. ...
— Handbook to the new Gold-fields • R. M. Ballantyne
... did God, Creator wise! that peopled highest heav'n With spirits masculine, create at last This novelty on earth, this fair defect Of nature? and not fill the world at once With men, as angels, without feminine? Or find some other way to generate Mankind? This mischief had not then befallen, And more that shall befall, innumerable Disturbances on earth through female snares, And strait conjunction with this ...
— The Coverley Papers • Various
... might give them a master. The duller of those who were the life-seekers of old would have told you how some chance, trivial, unlooked-for, foiled their grand hope at the very point of fruition; some doltish mistake, some improvident oversight, a defect in the sulphur, a wild overflow in the quicksilver, or a flaw in the bellows, or a pupil who failed to replenish the fuel, by falling asleep by the furnace. The invisible foes seldom vouchsafe to make themselves visible where they can frustrate the bungler as they mock at his toils from their ambush. ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... considered as prepared to engage in the coming struggle. And, at the best, the preparation could only be a partial one; for the craft was not only small, she was old, crazy, and miserably weak for the ordeal that lay before her; and it was not in my power to remedy so serious a defect as tint. All that I could do was to take in the great lateen sail and secure it, and substitute for it, if I could, some very much smaller piece of canvas, that, while sufficient to save her from being overrun by the furious sea, would not be too big for the felucca ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood
... repugnance with which a large portion of the people saw it go into operation. The duties on refined sugars, and manufactured tobacco, especially, were censured in terms which would authorize an opinion that a defect of power, rather than of will, to resist the execution of the law, confined some of its opponents to remonstrances. Nothing could be more unfriendly than this spirit, to the reduction of ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 5 (of 5) • John Marshall
... so strong hold of his mind; every avenue led thitherward; and he took it for an indication that nature had intended, by innumerable ways, to point out to us the great truth that death was an alien misfortune, a prodigy, a monstrosity, into which man had only fallen by defect; and that even now, if a man had a reasonable portion of his original strength in him, he might ...
— Septimius Felton - or, The Elixir of Life • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... said, "eugenics has more than remedied this defect of socialism, for the selection of men of superior mentality is much more rigid than it could have been under the capricious matings of capitalistic society. Why then this need ...
— City of Endless Night • Milo Hastings
... that Parliament was of "Kings, Lords, and Commons; that no two branches thereof could make a law," by the just and constitutional distinction between the two Houses making a law, and the providing or giving efficiency to the third executive branch of Legislature in cases of defect, whatever it may be. The report of the physicians being ordered to be printed, will be out to-morrow, when I will send it, with a few remarks. Our great days are to ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... whatever his name may be. This phenomenon reappears in the second childhood of old age, when the power of reflection is weakened, and there is a reversion to the primitive animal condition. The same phenomenon also occurs in idiots, in whom there is a morbid defect of reflective power. ...
— Myth and Science - An Essay • Tito Vignoli
... that defect of an ardent genius, carried above itself, and out of the air we breathe, both in its grotesque and in its gloomy imaginations. To force the note, to press fantasy too hard, to deepen the gloom with black over the indigo, that was the failing ...
— Letters to Dead Authors • Andrew Lang
... is the absence of water. There is scarcely a lake in the whole kingdom, and, with the exception of two or three, such as the Elbe, the Iser, the Bober, &c., the rivers hardly deserve to take rank with the larger class of our mountain streams. Such a defect is sorely felt by him who, looking down from the brow of a lofty hill over a wide plain, beholds perfection in every particular, except that there is no water there; and when from the narrower ravines you miss the lochs and tarns, which give to Cumberland and the Highlands ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... that which was only intended as a jest, and got myself exiled for my pains. But I saw my error. I overcame my vanity, and I obtained my recall, by making the amende honorable, and by promising myself to overcome this defect; and the consequence is, that I am so thoroughly cured, that I now laugh at the very thing which, three or four days ago, would have almost broken my heart. But Raoul is in love, and is loved in return; he cannot laugh at the reports which disturb ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... and re-printed without it, at his own expence. BOSWELL. In the second edition, published five years after Goldsmith's death, the story remains. In a foot-note the editor says, that 'he has been credibly informed that the professor had not the defect here mentioned.' The story is not quite as Boswell tells it. 'Maclaurin,' writes Goldsmith (ii. 91), 'was very subject to have his jaw dislocated; so that when he opened his mouth wider than ordinary, or when he yawned, he could not shut it again. In the midst ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... case, to occupy its mind with sexual thoughts, to the neglect of educational opportunities. I have seen cases which were regarded as instances of aprosexia,[105] the lack of the power of concentration being attributed to adenoid vegetations, but in which the defect might, with at least as much reason, have been referred to the play of sexual ideas. To the teacher, his pupil's inattentiveness is often an insoluble riddle, merely because he ignores in the child the play of erotic imagination, and, in fact, ignores the child's inner life in general. And yet, ...
— The Sexual Life of the Child • Albert Moll
... porcelain but without anything of Meredith's "rogue." Because Peter was strong and burly the contrast of her appealing fragility attracted him all the more. Had she not been so perfectly proportioned her size would have been a defect; but now it was simple that her delicacy of colour and feature demanded that slightness and slenderness of build. Her hair was of so burning a red-gold that its colour gave her precisely the setting that she required. ...
— Fortitude • Hugh Walpole
... suppleness, and said to herself, as she dragged him after her through the labyrinth of fancy, "He loves me!" Butscha, in common with the other spectators of what we must call a stage scene, was struck with the radiant defect of all egoists, which Canalis, like many men accustomed to perorate, allowed to be too plainly seen. Whether he understood beforehand what the person he was speaking to meant to say, whether he was not listening, or whether he ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... a horse at a low price? A good stylish-looking animal, close-ribbed, good loin, and good stifle, sound legs, with only the heaves and blind-staggers, and a slight defect in one of his eyes? If at any time he slips his bridle and gets away, you can always approach him by getting on his left side. I will also engage to give a written guarantee that he is sound and kind, signed by the brother ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IV. (of X.) • Various
... may commit the gravest of errors amid the hurry and confusion of a nisi prius term; and the wrong Miss Anthony has suffered ought to be charged to the vicious system which denies to those convicted of offenses against the laws of the United States a hearing before the court of last resort—a defect it is equally within the power and the duty of ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... rather pretty pink and white complexion, and aside from the defect of hairdressing might have been attractive. She possessed a thin and aquiline nose, however, the nostrils fairly ...
— Cap'n Abe, Storekeeper • James A. Cooper
... shots. They fire half a dozen shots at a target, then look at the target through a telescope. Those men know that they can hit the bull's eye every time, so that if the shots are wide of the mark, either there is a defect in the gun or the sights are not true. In nine cases out of ten it is the fault of the sights, and they ...
— The Boy With the U.S. Census • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... application, it is moreover indistinct by reason of the use of the word Ideas, a word to which so many different significations have been attached by different writers that its meaning is vague and undefined—to convey the impression of Laws or Principles. The same defect exists in the detailed exposition is perhaps the ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... courteous, but was sincere in his attachments, and munificent in rewarding his generals and friends. He was not envious nor cruel, but inordinately ambitious, and intent on aggrandizing his family. This was his characteristic defect, and this, in a man so prominent and so favored by circumstances, was enough to keep Europe in a turmoil for ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... these circumstances, and after having interrogated the lady herself, those who had witnessed her cure, and the physicians who had attended her, I remained fully convinced of the truth of the fact. I, I repeat, whose defect is not that of being too credulous, as it sufficiently appears ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... and Dark), Discord or Strife also had her say in the union. Thus the nature and character in every creature was the resultant of two antagonistic forces, and depended for its particular excellence or defect on the proportions in which these two elements—the {39} light and the dark, the fiery ...
— A Short History of Greek Philosophy • John Marshall
... these charities, they laboured under an essential defect in having substituted for educated physicians well-meaning but unskilful ecclesiastics. The destruction of the Asclepions was not attended by any suitably extensive measures for insuring professional education. The sick who were placed in the benevolent institutions were, at ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... Never before has he caught so accurately the speech of our daily feelings, plots, and passions. He has a habit of writing which is almost a style; its principal charm is a certain tendency to quaintness; its principal defect is an excess of words. But we suspect this manner makes easy writing; in Mr. Trollope's books it ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... water, which entered by the keel; and he complains of the caulkers at Palos, who caulked the vessels very badly, and ran away when they saw that the Admiral had detected the badness of their work, and intended to oblige them to repair the defect. But, notwithstanding that the caravels were making much water, he trusted in the favor and mercy of our Lord, for his high Majesty well knew how much controversy there was before the expedition could be despatched from Castile, that no one was in the Admiral's favor save Him ...
— The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 • Various
... though courteous, had just so much dryness in it as to mark a shade of annoyance, as well as to give to what was said the character of rebuke, "Mademoiselle does not spare me: I am not vain enough to fancy that it is my merits which attract her attention; it must then be some defect. Dare ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... Liturgy of the Church of England, and to make search, whether the original Book of the Liturgy annexed to the Act passed in the fifth and sixth years of the reign of King Edward the Sixth, be yet extant; and to bring in a compendious Bill to supply any defect in the former laws, and to provide for an effectual conformity to the Liturgy of the Church, for the time to ...
— The Acts of Uniformity - Their Scope and Effect • T.A. Lacey
... to acknowledged ignorance? Power? 'tis just the main assumption reason most revolts at! power Unavailing for bestowment on its creature of an hour, Man, of so much proper action rightly aimed and reaching aim, So much passion,—no defect there, no excess, but still the same,— As what constitutes existence, pure perfection bright as brief For yon worm, man's fellow-creature, on yon happier world—its leaf! No, as I am man, I mourn the poverty I must impute: Goodness, ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... upon entering," said she. "Do not blame the men; they did not want to use force against a woman." She had not a good voice and she knew it; but she covered up this defect by a choice of intonations that carried her lightest speech to the heart. Hard-visaged Amos Fenton gave a grunt, which was as near an expression of approval as he ever ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... must inquire what is the cause of the evils which beset us? The diagnosis of the disease must be stated before we are prepared to prescribe. Is it the fault of our legislation here? If so, then it devolves upon us to correct it, and we have the power. Is it the defect of the Federal organization, of the fundamental law of our Union? I hold that it is not. Our fathers, learning wisdom from the experiments of Rome and of Greece—the one a consolidated republic, and the other strictly a confederacy—and taught by the lessons of ...
— The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government • Jefferson Davis
... story as agreeable as its name, or as the pretty, if rather chocolate-box-school, picture on its wrapper. One small defect I find in the dissipation of its interest. Beginning with one hero, it goes on with another; and the result is some confusion for the reader who has backed the wrong horse. But Mr. E. M. SMITH-DAMPIER might very justly retort ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, May 3, 1916 • Various
... wisdom. Nevertheless, the little fellows showed thereby that they were not short of intelligence; for it is almost always in their own overflow that young poets are drowned. This superabundance seems to us the chief defect in "Sir Rohan's Ghost." The superabundance is all very fine, of the costliest kind; but was Clarence any the better for being done to death in ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... but little impeded the activity of his movements; and from this circumstance, as well as from the skill with which the foot was disguised by means of long trousers, it would be difficult to conceive a defect of this kind less obtruding itself as a deformity; while the diffidence which a constant consciousness of the infirmity gave to his first approach and address made, in him, even lameness a ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 474 - Vol. XVII. No. 474., Supplementary Number • Various
... slight hesitation, which procured him, among his enemies, the nickname of the Stutterer, yet, upon important occasions like the present, was so judiciously tuned and balanced in its sentences, that no such defect was at all visible—"Nicephorus Briennius," he said, "late Caesar, the lawful doom hath been spoken, that, having conspired against the life of thy rightful sovereign and affectionate father, Alexius Comnenus, thou shalt ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... fourth circle was expiated Lukewarmness, or defect of zeal for good. The sufferers came speeding and weeping round the mountain, making amends for the old indifference by the haste and fire of the new love that was in them. "Blessed Mary made haste," cried one, "to salute Elizabeth." "And Caesar," cried another, ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 • Leigh Hunt
... are in this respect weak, scandalised by the ceremonies. But I say, moreover, that his description is imperfect; for there are some who know the truth, and that certainly, who are, notwithstanding, to be accounted weak, in regard of the defect of that prudence which should guide, and that stability which should accompany all their actions, in the particular usage of such things as they know certainly, in their general kind, to be agreeable to truth and righteousness. ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... of a sheet of crown glass just where a lump of hot glass was attached so the blower could whirl or spin it from the middle and make it into a flat disc. But, as you can readily understand, a sheet of glass with this mark or defect right in the center will never cut to advantage, and therefore only comparatively small pieces can be got out of it; there is much waste. Yet, as the man says, it has a wonderfully brilliant surface. Now I am not going to let you stay here any longer or we shall not ...
— The Story of Glass • Sara Ware Bassett
... personality, and that if it were associated with the Logos, it would be impossible to avoid recognising "two Sons." He expressly asserted that the humanity of Christ was incomplete, contending that this very defect in the human nature made possible the unity of His person. According to Apollinaris, then, the union was a composition. The Logos superseded the human reason, and was thus united to body and ...
— Monophysitism Past and Present - A Study in Christology • A. A. Luce
... found himself involved in the anxieties to which other men were subject; this long exemption and security fostered a too exclusive regard of self, an inaptitude for sympathetic emotion, which he recognised as the defect of his character. This morning's events had startled him, and given a shock to his imagination; but already he viewed them and their consequences with a self-possession which differed little from unconcern. Bennet Frothingham, no doubt, had played a rascally game, foreseeing all along ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... money-getting ways, but rather a fine disdain for mere cash. They'll loaf before your face and work behind your back with good-natured honesty. They'll steal a watermelon, and hand you back your lost purse intact. Their great defect as laborers lies in their lack of incentive beyond the mere pleasure of physical exertion. They are careless because they have not found that it pays to be careful; they are improvident because the improvident ones of their acquaintance get on about as well as the ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois
... Saint Sebastian full of arrows, were equally a source of delight to him. Even in subjects which had no such elements of horror he finds the materials for the delectation of his ferocious pencil; he makes up for the defect by rendering with a brutal realism ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... default, or error in judgment of the Pilot, Master, Mariners, or other servanis of the Shipowners. Ship not answerable for losses through explosion, bursting of boilers, breakage of shafts, or any latent defect in the machinery or hull, not resulting from want of due diligence by the Owners of the Ship, or any of them, or by the Ship's Husband or Manager. General Average payable according to York-Antwerp Rules. In Witness whereof, the Master or Agent of the said Ship hath affirmed to ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... many-sidedness and smattering. In Utopia, where the concentric rings of growth are formed by the gradual evolution of an inner life, whatever feeds that inner life is a contribution, however humble, to the growth of the whole tree; and many-sidedness, far from being a defect, is one of the first conditions of success in education. But in the Great Public Schools, where veneers of information are being assiduously laid on the surface of the boy's mind with a view to his passing some impending examination, the greater the number ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... Mr. Dreiser's style in connection with the following topics: (1) economy; (2) realism; (3) suggestion; (4) taste; (5) rhythmic beauty. What deeply rooted defect is suggested by the following description of the Woolworth Building in New York:—"lifts its defiant spear of clay into the very maw ...
— Contemporary American Literature - Bibliographies and Study Outlines • John Matthews Manly and Edith Rickert
... the complaints of the schoolmaster that the public does not defer to his professional opinion as completely as it does to that of practitioners in other professions. At first sight it might seem as though this indicated a defect either in the public or in the profession; and yet a wider view of the situation would suggest that such a conclusion is not a necessary one. The relations of education to the public are different from those of any other professional work. Education is a public business with ...
— Moral Principles in Education • John Dewey
... Sherlock Holmes's defects—if, indeed, one may call it a defect—was that he was exceedingly loath to communicate his full plans to any other person until the instant of their fulfilment. Partly it came no doubt from his own masterful nature, which loved to dominate ...
— The Hound of the Baskervilles • A. Conan Doyle
... orphanhood, and inheritance of feverish passion, there was added another, and to him a heavy and life-long burden. A physical defect in a healthy nature may either pass without notice or be turned to a high purpose. No line of his work reveals the fact that Sir Walter Scott was lame. The infirmity failed to cast even a passing shade over that serene power. Milton's blindness is the occasion of the noblest prose and verse ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... human."—Blair's Rhet., p. 265. "If the personification of the form of Satan was admissible, it should certainly have been masculine."—Jamieson's Rhet., p. 176. "If only one follow, there seems to be a defect in the sentence."—Priestley's Gram., p. 104. "Sir, if thou have borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him."—John, xx, 15. "Blessed be the people that know the joyful sound."—Psalms, lxxxix, 15. "Every auditory ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... action to the clutch, for except when the two sides of the machine meet with very different resistance, and then only when running straight, the clutch will not compare with the other. The clutch also gives rise to what is considered by most riders a grave defect, the inability to back treadle, while the free pedal, which is an immediate consequence, is considered by others ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 447, July 26, 1884 • Various
... fed. Edwards's observation, that a worn-out horse is not proper for Atlas to mount in battle, is impertinent; the horse here mentioned seems to be a post horse, rather than a war horse. Yet as arm-gaunt seems not intended to imply any defect, it perhaps means, a horse so slender that a man might clasp him, and therefore formed for expedition. ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson
... And how Richard and I worshipped them all—not only these but every small-bit actor in every stock company in town. Indeed, so many favorites of the stage did my brother and I admire that ordinary frames would not begin to hold them all, and to overcome this defect we had our bedroom entirely redecorated. The new scheme called for a gray wallpaper supported by a maroon dado. At the top of the latter ran two parallel black picture mouldings between which we could easily insert cabinet photographs of the actors and actresses ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... possibilities of an object used for form study should not be too varied. "It must be suggestive through its limitations," says Miss Blow, "for the young mind may be as easily crushed by excess as by defect."[36] ...
— Froebel's Gifts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... deep Study in that occult Science, rendred him Poreblind; to remedy which Misfortune, he had always a 'Squire follow'd him, bearing a huge Pair of Spectacles to saddle his Honour's Nose, and supply his much-lamented Defect of Sight. But whether such an Unhappiness did not deserve rather Pity than Ridicule, I leave to the Determination of all good Christians: I cannot but say, it raises my Indignation, when I see these Paunch-gutted Fellows usurping the Title and Atchievements of my dear Sir John, whose Memory ...
— A Learned Dissertation on Dumpling (1726) • Anonymous
... ALL the slightest particulars of the slightest transactions—all the things done and all the words uttered during the time of which it treats. The omission of any circumstance, however insignificant, would be a defect. If history were written thus, the Bodleian Library would not contain the occurrences of a week. What is told in the fullest and most accurate annals bears an infinitely small proportion to what is suppressed. ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... been considering why poets have such ill success in making their court, since they are allowed to be the greatest and best of all flatterers. The defect is, that they flatter only in print or in writing, but not by word of mouth; they will give things under their hand which they make a conscience of speaking. Besides, they are too libertine to haunt antechambers, too poor to bribe porters and footmen, and too proud to cringe to second-hand favourites ...
— Life And Letters Of John Gay (1685-1732) • Lewis Melville
... been pretty exhaustively figured and described in various aeronautical publications. The unforeseen defect was the badness of the work in the silk netting. It tore aft as soon as I began to contract the balloon, and the last two segments immediately bulged through the hole, exactly as an inner tube will bulge through the ruptured ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... retreat from Scotland, Robert Bruce left his fastnesses, in which he intended to have sheltered his feeble army; and supplying his defect of strength by superior vigor and abilities, he made deep impression on all his enemies, foreign and domestic. He chased Lord Argyle and the chieftain of the Macdowals from their hills, and made himself ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... no slight defect can be shown in every community. There is no intellectual craze so absurd as not to have a following among educated men and women. There is no scheme for the renovation of the social order so silly that ...
— The Story of the Innumerable Company, and Other Sketches • David Starr Jordan
... variety of opinions and perpetual disputes among philosophers has induced not a few of late, as well as in former times, to think that it was vain labour to endeavour to acquire certainty in natural knowledge, and to ascribe this to some unavoidable defect in the principles of the science. But it has appeared sufficiently, from the discoveries of those who have consulted nature, and not their own imaginations, and particularly from what we learn from Sir Isaac Newton, ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe
... is no load on the turbine, to be sure that the governor controls the machine with the throttle wide open. It might be that the main poppet valve has sustained some injury not evident on inspection, or was leaking badly. Should there be some such defect, steps should be taken to regrind the valve to its ...
— Steam Turbines - A Book of Instruction for the Adjustment and Operation of - the Principal Types of this Class of Prime Movers • Hubert E. Collins
... sense of other men. But such extravagance is of two kinds, according as one goes beyond and ascends up higher than the greater number rise or can rise, and these are they who are inspired with Divine enthusiasm; or by going down lower where those are found who have greater defect of sense and of reason than the many, and the ordinary; but in that kind of madness, insensibility and blindness, will not ...
— The Heroic Enthusiast, Part II (Gli Eroici Furori) - An Ethical Poem • Giordano Bruno
... invented. To say that the natural reason is insufficient for such results is plainly untrue, firstly, for the reasons above stated, namely, that the difficulty of interpreting Scripture arises from no defect in human reason, but simply from the carelessness (not to say malice) of men who neglected the history of the Bible while there were still materials for inquiry; secondly, from the fact (admitted, I think, by all) that the supernatural ...
— The Philosophy of Spinoza • Baruch de Spinoza |
