"Detract" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... (minutes) detaleto. Detain malhelpi, deteni. Detect eltrovi. Deter malhelpi. Deteriorate difekti. Determine decidi. Determination decideco. Determined decida. Detest malami. Dethrone detroni. Detonation eksplodbruo. Detract kalumnii. Detriment malprofito, perdo. Detrimental malhelpa. Devastate dezertigi, ruinigi. Develope vastigi. Development vastigo. Deviate malrektigxi. Deviation malrektigxo. Device devizo. Devil diablo. Devine diveni. Devious malrekta. Devise ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes
... bacon and their faces impartially; then transferring the crisp curly brown strips to the big slices of bread, devoured them with exclamations of approval that were most grateful to the arranger of the feast. Even canned cream failed to detract from the flavor of the coffee, and they consumed great quantities of the fragrant beverage, ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs
... Plato, Aristotle, Bacon, Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon, Burns, Byron, Augustus, Webster, and numerous others of the noted men of all ages have been incontinent men. The fact that these men were guilty of crime does not in the least degree detract from the enormity of the sin. It is equally true that many great men have been addicted to intemperance and other crimes. Alexander was a Sodomite as well as a lecherous rake. Does this fact afford any proof that those crimes are virtues instead of vices? Such argument is hardly worthy of ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... Preachers and other members of the Church. The meetings were held in the afternoons of the Sabbath, and sometimes, to hold the plan in countenance, the Pastor himself would go out and deliver a sermon. At first it was feared by some of the good brethren that these side meetings would detract from the regular services of the Church, but the result proved that, on the contrary, they gave an increase of both interest and attendance. For the people, thus edified and interested, came into the village and thronged ...
— Thirty Years in the Itinerancy • Wesson Gage Miller
... BECQUER (1836-1870) wrote perhaps the most highly polished Spanish verse of the nineteenth century. His Rimas are charged with true poetic fancy and the sweetest melody, but the many inversions of word-order that were used to attain to perfection of metrical form detract not a little from their charm. His writings are contained in three small volumes in which are found, together with the Rimas, a collection of prose legends. His prose work is page xl filled with morbid ...
— Modern Spanish Lyrics • Various
... at least of dissension is got rid of, by reducing the minds of women to such a nullity, that they have no opinions but those of Mrs. Grundy, or those which the husband tells them to have. When there is no difference of opinion, differences merely of taste may be sufficient to detract greatly from the happiness of married life. And though it may stimulate the amatory propensities of men, it does not conduce to married happiness, to exaggerate by differences of education whatever may be ...
— The Subjection of Women • John Stuart Mill
... equally evil. Then again, not all sins are committed through pure malice, that is, with complete knowledge and full consent. Ignorance and weakness are factors to be considered in our guilt, and detract from the malice of our sins. Hence two kinds of sin, mortal and venial. These mark the extremes of offense. One severs all relation of friendship, the other chills the existing friendship. By one, we incur God's infinite hatred, ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... to sit and sip their tea for the greater part of each day—this being their acme of happiness. The dust may lie half-an-inch thick over the surface of their tea and bread and butter, but this does not detract from the delights ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various
... nobility and gentry to rally round him in defence of their lives and their creed. Coligni long delayed joining him, and evinced a hesitation and a reluctance to embark in civil war, which emphatically attest the goodness while they in no degree detract from the greatness of his character. His wife, who naturally thought that anxiety on her account aided in restraining him, exhorted him in words of more than Roman magnanimity to arm in defence of the thousand destined victims, who looked up to him for guidance ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... individual temperament; to some nervous natures it certainly appears to be a great comfort; but I have my doubts whether smoking, as a general rule, does add to the pleasures of life. It must, moreover, detract somewhat from the sensitiveness of ...
— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock
... to tell you of, so have I very few books, and know nothing of what is stirring in the literary world. I have read the Life of Arnold of Rugby, who was a noble fellow; and the letters of Burke, which do not add to, or detract from, what I knew and liked in him before. I am meditating to begin Thucydides one day; perhaps this winter. . . . Old Seneca, I have no doubt, was a great humbug in deed, and his books have plenty ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... which we shall give, we believe that the language could scarcely be improved. But we are constrained to say, that her compositions are very often disfigured by strained or slovenly modes of phraseology, which greatly detract from their impressiveness, and which must materially injure the reputation of their authoress, by turning away many hearts from the homage which they otherwise would most willingly have ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... nor has it since because of the pity of it which lent the pathetic interest that makes a story deathless and ageless; the subtle something which influences to better moods, and from which the years as they pass do not detract, but rather pay it the tribute of an occasional addition thereto, by which its hope of immortality ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... somewhat vague termination to Ashley's spirited address did not detract from the applause with which it was greeted by his own partisans, or from the wrath with which it was received by the ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... believed—such was the impression Cleo's personality had made on him—was going to be a gorgeous panoramic future, a triumphant historic march through the civilised world. The fact that Cleo now went about clothed like any other mortal did not detract from his estimate of her genius, for the mere dispensation with such extraneous splendour left untouched the ...
— Cleo The Magnificent - The Muse of the Real • Louis Zangwill
... array of passages from Descartes’s letters, showing plainly that his mind was in the line of discovery finally verified by the experiments in Auvergne. {43a} It may be granted beyond doubt this was the case. It would ill become any admirer of Pascal to detract from the glory of Descartes. But it must be held no less firmly, that in the personal question raised by Descartes’s letter, the balance of evidence is all in favour of Pascal. There are no indications that the two men ever met save on the occasion so frankly described ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch
... possible—and sometimes, when he knew he'd cut off more than he could cram into his pipe, he'd put his hand in his pocket for the pipe and drop some of the tobacco there. Then he'd hand the plug to his mate, engage the stranger in conversation and try to hold his eye or detract his attention from Brummy so as to give Brummy a chance of cutting off a couple of pipefuls, and, maybe, nicking off a corner of the cake and slipping it into his pocket. I once heard a bushman say that no one but a skunk would be guilty of this tobacco trick—that it is about the ...
— Children of the Bush • Henry Lawson
... 'There is great objection in completely identifying (as here) the two that are different creatures always spring from the union of Conditions (with what in its essence is without Conditions). This view doth not detract from the supremacy of the Unborn and the Ancient One. As for men, they also originate in the union of Conditions. All this that appears is nothing but that everlasting Supreme Soul. Indeed, the universe is created by the Supreme Soul itself ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... large inferences coupled with that pronounced conservatism detract in a measure from the authenticity of Riehl's work in the department of Social Science, which to him is fundamentally "the doctrine of the natural inequality of mankind." (See p. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VIII • Various
... want to detract from him," I said. "He used to dance with wall-flowers and they said he was an angel to ...
— The Motormaniacs • Lloyd Osbourne
... been coming to her for years. He ordered in an unusually large basket of eggs from the farm and managed to find a complicated arrangement of rope and pulleys, the manipulation of which for an hour or more daily was warranted to add to or detract from the stature of man or woman, according to the desire of the dissatisfied individual. His note with the instrument was a scintillating skit and was answered in kind. But through it all Phoebe was undoubtedly lonely. ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess
... strains rose and throbbed upon the air. It was maddening. The keenness of his disappointment gave his face an intensity of ardent expression that certainly did not detract from its charm in the eyes of the girl who at that instant glanced up into it. The next moment he was pressed aside—very decorously, very courteously, even apologetically pushed aside, but still compelled by an insinuating patrician hand to make room for its ...
— An Algonquin Maiden - A Romance of the Early Days of Upper Canada • G. Mercer Adam
... They forgot that when in Rome you must do as the Romans do, and that to ride in a sumptuous carriage, with uniformed footmen, is in America not only an unnecessary expense, but a habit which, among such a democratic people as the Americans, would detract from, rather than add to, one's dignity. An envoy residing in a foreign country should be in touch with the people among whom he is sojourning. If he put on unnecessary airs, there will be a coldness and lack of cordiality between him and the community; his ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang
... sense, we cannot dedicate—we cannot consecrate—we cannot hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great ...
— Reading Made Easy for Foreigners - Third Reader • John L. Huelshof
... and action. It is thought that a diligent use of the muscles in physical labour may detract from the disposition, time, and power of excessive speech. Paul gives a similar suggestion, "And that ye study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands as we commanded ...
— Talkers - With Illustrations • John Bate
... he cannot tell what may happen agriculturally in Alaska or the rest of the arctic regions when the world outside is filled up and all unfrozen lands are under cultivation. Still less is he one who would belittle a country he has learned to love or detract in any way from its due claims to the attention of mankind. There is in the territory a false newspaper sentiment that every one who lives in the land should be continually singing extravagant praises of it and continually making extravagant claims for it. A man may ...
— Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled - A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska • Hudson Stuck
... not intended to, nor can they, detract from the reputation of the Russian engineer. His labors and their results will be handed down in history as the most triumphant and enduring monument of the value of fortifications, and his name must ever be placed in the first ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck
... means of the nebular hypothesis, it is impossible to explain all the phenomena associated with the motions of the orbs which enter into the structure of the solar system, yet this does not detract much from the merits of the theory, the fundamental principles of which are based upon the evolution of the solar system from a rotating nebula. The retrograde motions of the satellites of Uranus and Neptune, the velocity of the inner Martian moon, and other ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard
... not curtail the benefit which the [25] student derived from making his copy, nor detract from the good that his hearers received from his reading thereof; but it was intended to forestall the possible evil of putting the divine teachings contained in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" into human hands, to sub- [30] vert or ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... revolution and anarchy, and finally to despotism and military domination. In proportion, therefore, as the General Government encroaches upon the rights of the States, in the same proportion does it impair its own power and detract from its ability to fulfill the purposes of its creation. Solemnly impressed with these considerations, my countrymen will ever find me ready to exercise my constitutional powers in arresting measures which may directly or indirectly encroach upon the rights of ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... to be fed and clothed. The army had to be fed and clothed, transported and munitioned. And the fact that the supplying and equipping and transporting was highly profitable to those engaged in such pursuits did not detract from the essentially patriotic and necessary performance ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... lower half of the pedestal. In other words the statue will neither be dwarfed nor magnified by the contiguity of any discordant objects. It will stand alone. The abstract idea, as has been said, is noble. The plan of utilizing the statue as a lighthouse at night does not detract from its worth in this respect; it may be said to even emphasize the allegorial sense of the work. "Liberty enlightening the world," lights the way of the sailor in the crowded harbor of the second commercial ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 2, Issue 3, December, 1884 • Various
... altogether fitting and proper That we should do this. But, in a larger sense, We cannot dedicate— We cannot consecrate— We cannot hallow— This ground. The brave men, living and dead, Who struggled here, Have consecrated it far above our poor power To add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember What we say here, But it can never forget What they did here. It is for us, the living, rather, To be dedicated here to the unfinished work Which they who fought here have so nobly advanced. ...
— The Poets' Lincoln - Tributes in Verse to the Martyred President • Various
... mediaeval times will be brief, only so much in fact as is needed for a comprehension of the present. In approaching our own day, the story will become more and more detailed. If it be objected that the details, in so far as they detract from the conduct of Yugoslavia's neighbours, might with advantage have been painted with the hazy, quiet colours that you give to the excursions and alarms of long ago, one may reply that this book is intended to depict the world in which the Yugoslavs ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... Wilbur Wright's own statements are the clearest and best available. Apparently Wilbur was, from the beginning, the historian of the pair, though he himself would have been the last to attempt to detract in any way from the fame that his brother's work also deserves. Throughout all their experiments the two were inseparable, and their work is one indivisible whole; in fact, in every department of that work, it is impossible to say where Orville leaves ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian
... I believe, that a child, or even a man, is likely to be most sincere while persevering in that religion in whose belief he was born and educated; we frequently detract from, seldom make any additions to it: dogmatical faith is the effect of education. In addition to this general principle which attached me to the religion of my forefathers, I had that particular aversion our city entertains for Catholicism, which is represented there as the most monstrous ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... painters of that country loved to represent,—the head perfectly rounded and full, chestnut hair parted in the middle and laid smoothly on the brow, gray eyes with a mixture of green, handsome arms, natural stoutness which did not detract from her beauty, a timid air, and yet, on the high square brow an expression of firmness, hidden at present under an apparent calmness and docility. Without being sad or melancholy, she seemed to have little natural enjoyment. Reflectiveness, order, a sense ...
— The Alkahest • Honore de Balzac
... rough-spun tweed travelling suit struck me with an almost painful sense of incongruity, and I re-clothed him in my imagination with the grand, sweeping Oriental costume which is the fitting and proper frame for such a picture—the only garb which does not detract from the dignity ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the Greek section of New York. Sara confided to Jim, early in their acquaintance, that his father was the disinherited son of a nobleman and that he, the grandson, would be his grandfather's heir. The glamour of this possible inheritance did not detract at all from the romance of the new friendship in Jim's credulous ...
— Still Jim • Honore Willsie Morrow
... Qualities; which will be a great ease to the Reader. Thus every way perfect and compleat have you, all both Tragedies and Comedies that were ever writ by our Authors, a Pair of the greatest Wits and most ingenious Poets of their Age; from whose worth we should but detract by ...
— The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher in Ten Volumes - Volume I. • Beaumont and Fletcher
... so effective as a person of an ordinary mind might think. No matter how revolutionary and anarchist in inception, there would be fools enough to give such an outrage the character of a religious manifestation. And that would detract from the especial alarming significance we wish to give to the act. A murderous attempt on a restaurant or a theatre would suffer in the same way from the suggestion of non-political passion: the exasperation ...
— The Secret Agent - A Simple Tale • Joseph Conrad
... numbers of your magazine. Having myself been one of the party who participated in many of the pleasures, and suffered all the perils of that expedition, I can not only bear testimony to the fidelity of the narrative, but probably add some facts of experience which will not detract from the ...
— Thirty-Seven Days of Peril - from Scribner's Monthly Vol III Nov. 1871 • Truman Everts
... Wisdom yields a base delight, 60 Men who exult when minds of heavenly tone Jar in the music which was born their own, Still let them pause—ah! little do they know That what to them seemed Vice might be but Woe. Hard is his fate on whom the public gaze Is fixed for ever to detract or praise; Repose denies her requiem to his name, And Folly loves the martyrdom of Fame. The secret Enemy whose sleepless eye Stands sentinel—accuser—judge—and spy. 70 The foe, the fool, the jealous, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... persevered and was candid. This deplorable occupation was now so nearly finished and happily, as yet, everything had been so tranquil, that it would be a thousand pities if any untoward event should occur to detract from the dignified attitude which the territory now to be evacuated had maintained. It was of critical importance in every sense that St. Meuse should not give way to riot or disorder on that occasion. He hoped ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... represent it, is to be a painter of genius. Though it be true that he "who does not at all express particulars expresses nothing; yet it is certain that a nice discrimination of minute circumstances, and a punctilious delineation of them, whatever excellence it may have, (and I do not mean to detract from it,) never did confer on the artist the character of genius." The impression left upon the mind is not of particulars, when it would seem to be so; such particulars are taken out of the subject, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... architectural forms frequently do convey a meaning, which we term symbolism in art. If this symbolism does not detract from the first object of ornament—viz., to beautify—it is perfectly legitimate and proper. It is impossible to fully appreciate many phases of art, as, for instance, the Egyptian and the early Christian, if we leave out of sight the symbolism ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 598, June 18, 1887 • Various
... But, sir, while we remember that Muggleton has given birth to a Dumkins and a Podder, let us never forget that Dingley Dell can boast a Luffey and a Struggles. (Vociferous cheering.) Let me not be considered as wishing to detract from the merits of the former gentlemen. Sir, I envy them the luxury of their own feelings on this occasion. (Cheers.) Every gentleman who hears me, is probably acquainted with the reply made by an individual, who—to use an ordinary figure of speech—"hung out" in a tub, ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... that the verses were tolerably good; but at the same time observed that the author had reviled as ignorant dunces several persons who had writ with reputation, and were generally allowed to have genius; a circumstance that would detract more from his candour than could ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... asked this in good faith. He had come to believe, with most of his comrades, that Elmer Chenowith was next door to a wizard. Of course they realized that his knowledge was at all times founded on facts and common sense; yet this did not detract from ...
— Pathfinder - or, The Missing Tenderfoot • Alan Douglas
... with such glee by the miniature men and women attending and enjoying wakes and fairs, only worked half time. The physical-force majority in the House, and their aiders and abettors, were they to see this, would perhaps laugh at the petty details, but their doing so would not in the least detract from their truth, or render questionable for a moment the deductions I make from them,—that poverty is so wide spread and bitter that the poor are compelled to make a stern sacrifice of innocent amusements; that the parent cannot exercise ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various
... its base and the intervening country veiled in a pale grey mist. {1} It was a wonderful vision, and shortly, as a vision, vanished. Except the cone of Tristan d'Acunha—also a cone of snow—I never saw a mountain rise in such lonely majesty, with nothing near or far to detract from its height and grandeur. No wonder that it is a sacred mountain, and so dear to the Japanese that their art is never weary of representing it. It was nearly fifty miles off ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... shaped leg and thigh, a small foot, and well formed fingers, entirely free from enlargements or abrasions; his arms were finely molded, and well hung to his body; his hands were beautiful, and the nails did not detract from their beauty. He took the greatest care of them, as in fact of his whole person, without foppishness, however. He often bit his nails slightly, which was a sign of ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... year Cato was chosen praetor,[726] but he was considered not to add so much dignity and honour to the office by his good administration, as to detract from it and bring it into disrepute by often going to the Rostra without his shoes and his tunic, and in this attire presiding at trials of men of rank in matters of life and death. Some also say that even after dinner, when he had drunk ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... them. They looked upon them as badges of the slavery from which they had been delivered, and to which they had no disposition to return. They reasoned that God has in His word established the regulations governing His worship, and that men are not at liberty to add to these or to detract from them. The very beginning of the great apostasy was in seeking to supplement the authority of God by that of the church. Rome began by enjoining what God had not forbidden, and she ended by forbidding what He had ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... in this degenerate age, but almost in any of the former; when men were made de meliore luto; when examples of charity were frequent, and when there were in being, Teucri pulcherrima proles, magnanimi heroes nati melioribus annis. No envy can detract from this: it will shine in history, and, like swans, grow whiter the longer it endures, and the name of ORMOND will be more celebrated in his captivity ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... space alike fail us to describe at length the subsequent campaigns of that and the following year. Montcalm's defence of Fort Ticonderoga on the 8th of June, 1758, was a masterly piece of strategy, and was unmarred by any incident to detract from the honour of his victory, which was achieved against stupendous odds. Ticonderoga continued to be Montcalm's headquarters until Quebec was threatened by the British under Wolfe; when he at once abandoned the shores of Lake Champlain, and mustered all his forces for the defence ...
— Canadian Notabilities, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... longed for reconciliation. Reconciliation for one thing or another had been the most driving inspiration her twenty years of married life had known; it was her most potent incentive. Cowed and broken, fear bound her fast to his footsteps. Not even the daughter struggling to her feet at her side could detract her ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... factor in the true Scientific Method, but cannot constitute the Method itself, or its leading feature. Let it not be understood, however, that in bringing the Inductive Method in Science to the ordeal of a critical examination, it is designed to detract from its just dues or to depreciate its true value. Science is preeminently severe in its probings; and that which, asserts its claim to the highest Scientific position, and affects to be the only guide to exact knowledge, ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... possession, conformity, owl-eyed sobriety, and ignorance—Bevy Fleming had become persona non grata. How did she take all this? With that air of superior consciousness which knows that no shift of outer material ill-fortune can detract one jot from an inward mental superiority. The truly individual know themselves from the beginning and rarely, if ever, doubt. Life may play fast and loose about them, running like a racing, destructive tide in and out, but they themselves are ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... of Hawke. The battle of Cape St. Vincent, therefore, is not that most characteristic of Rodney's genius. Judged by his career at large, it is exceptional; yet of all his actions it is the one in which merit and success most conspicuously met. Nor does it at all detract from his credit that the enemy was much inferior in numbers; eleven to twenty-one. As in Hawke's pursuit of Conflans, with which this engagement is worthy to be classed, what was that night dared, rightly and brilliantly dared, was the dangers of the deep, not of the foe. ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... not seem to me that there is anything unique about any of them," said Mrs. Parsons, with a cold sniff intended to be conclusive. Nor did Littleton's efforts to explain that elaboration in a private residence was liable to detract from architectural dignity and to produce the effect of vulgarity fall upon receptive soil. The rich man's wife listened in stony silence, at times raising her lorgnette to examine as a curiosity this young man who was telling her—an American woman who had travelled around ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... very cruel upon Mr. Sadler that he is debarred from the joy of putting the crown on his beloved measure; however, his must be the honor, though another may complete it; and for my part, I feel that, if I were to believe that my exertions ought to detract the millionth part from his merits, I should be one of the most unprincipled and contemptible of mankind. Ask the question simply, Who has borne the real evil, who has encountered the real opposition, who roused the sluggish public to sentiments of honor and pity? Why, Mr. Sadler; ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... demoralizing, mischievous and reprehensible behavior, calculated to produce an unpleasant state of perturbation in the atmosphere of our household, inoculate a spirit of anarchy in their fellows, and detract from the dignity of our honored ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... with love that is stronger, Than all the fond ties which the heart holds enshrined; Adversity, sorrow or pain can no longer Detract from this heart, if with ...
— Mountain idylls, and Other Poems • Alfred Castner King
... me, as it proves your judgment above being biased by the prejudices of others. The English, from national jealousy and enmity to the French, detract him. Divines, with more justice, as he exposes himself to their censure. It is even their duty to contemn his tenets; but, without being his disciple, we may do justice to his merit, and admire him as a judicious, ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... in a country of ruins. It seems that to be drawn to her one must know her more; and, after such brilliant successes, certainly nothing can be more flattering than to reckon almost as many friends as formerly lovers. Perhaps, however, not that I would detract from her merit, had she but once loved—the number would have been ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... Methodist preacher at the same time as the rainbow tie, diamond tie-pin, heavy gold watch-chain, diamond ring and natty spats of a professional bookmaker. The latter oddities, however, did not detract from the quiet, mournful dignity of his face and manner. Paul felt himself in the presence of an ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... think the latter way preferable. For the principal inconvenience which occurs in the proposed method of restoring MSS. is, that the colour frequently spreads, and so much blots the parchment as to detract greatly from the legibility; now this appears to happen in a less degree when the alkali is put on first, and the dilute acid is ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho
... prevailed in parliament; and the common's, besides giving thanks for the king's speech, voted unanimously, that they would settle on his present majesty during life all the revenue enjoyed by the late king at the time of his demise. That they might not detract from this generosity by any symptoms of distrust, they also voted unanimously, that the house entirely relied on his majesty's royal word and repeated declarations to support the religion of the church of England; but they added, that that religion was dearer to them than their ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... bordered by mysteriously closed and shuttered houses, but mainly these were small and of the peasant order. On the Grand' Place, for of course there was one, the tower sprang from a collection of rather shabby buildings, of little or no character, but this did not seem to detract from the magnificence of the great tower. I use the word "great" too often, I fear, but can find no other word in the language to ...
— Vanished towers and chimes of Flanders • George Wharton Edwards
... break in the monotony for him to receive a call from Levy's agent, and the fact that the visitor felt inclined to provide liquid refreshment of a grade considerably higher than he had been able to indulge himself in for many years did not detract from his welcome. As the evening wore on he was quite willing—almost eager—to tell the story of his life to this agreeable and sympathetic listener, so Levy had been materially assisted in the preliminary investigation of his case. Nor was ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... died the man who first sent ships and men to the soil of North Carolina. That he failed in what he desired to accomplish should not detract from the gratitude and reverence due to his memory. If incompetent and unworthy agents, and the accidents of fortune, thwarted him in his designs, the fault is not his. He was the greatest and most illustrious man connected with our annals as a State, and should ever receive ...
— School History of North Carolina • John W. Moore
... apart, in Signor Margiotta the question of Lucifer has received a most important witness; he is the most recent, the most illustrious, and Masonically the most decorated of all. If I add that he is in one respect to be included among the most virulent, I do not necessarily detract from his value. So far as one can possibly be aware, he is a man of unimpeachable integrity, who gives us every opportunity to identify him, heraldically by his arms and emblazonments, historically by an account of his family, ...
— Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite
... Lake Minchumina. There the two mountains rise side by side, sheer, precipitous, pointed rocks, utterly inaccessible, savage, and superb. The rounded shoulders, the receding slopes and ridges of the other faces detract from the uplift and from the dignity, but ...
— The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) - A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest - Peak in North America • Hudson Stuck
... the counties. This policy did not lack advocates. But the County Councillors were solid against it: evidently their private meeting discussed and decided against an expedient which they held would detract from the dignity of the central Parliament and from the dignity of the County Councils. Those who defended it as a plan which might meet Ulster's difficulty got no backing from Ulster; that group ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... souls, Feared by the most below: those who looked up Saw, at their season, in clear signs, advance Rapturous valour, calm solicitude, All that impatient youth would press from age, Or sparing age sigh and detract from youth: Hence was his fall! my hope! myself! my Julian! Alas! I boasted—but I thought on him, Inheritor of all—all what? my wrongs - Follower of me—and whither? to the grave - Ah, no: it should have been so years far hence! Him at this ...
— Count Julian • Walter Savage Landor
... catalogue emperors, statesmen, and noblemen known to him, with familiar indifference, as things below the musical Art, gave a distinguishing tone to Brookfield, from which his French accentuation of our tongue did not detract. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the frill around the neck breaks apart the mushroom is fit to gather; keeping it longer may add to its size a little, but surely will detract from its tenderness. The gills of the mushrooms will retain their pink tinge for a day after the frill breaks open, but they soon grow browner and blacker, until in a few days they are unfit for food. In gathering, ...
— Mushrooms: how to grow them - a practical treatise on mushroom culture for profit and pleasure • William Falconer
... mean that derived from the works of Homer and Virgil) would incline us to the latter opinion, which however does not appear to have been generally entertained in the schools. We shall give one more specimen in the above style; and we beg it may be remembered, that in so doing, we have no wish to detract in any way from the merit of the illustrious poet in the Eton Grammar; all we think is, that he might have introduced a little more comicality into his work, ...
— The Comic Latin Grammar - A new and facetious introduction to the Latin tongue • Percival Leigh
... to a gallop as he came up Hunter's Spinney, to quench the voice that spoke within him, saying things he would not hear, that spoke of love, and the tenderness and humility of love, and of how these did not detract from the splendour of manhood, the fine rage of passion, but rather glorified them. Something in his feeling for Hazel answered that voice, and it worried him. By heredity and upbringing he had been taught to dislike and mistrust everything ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... cleverer woman than her meed of credit has led the world to believe. She understood Hamilton very well even then, although, as his faults but added to his fascination in the eyes of those that loved him, the knowledge did not detract from her happiness. In many ways she made herself necessary to him; at that time she even kept his papers in order. He talked to her freely on every subject that interested him, from human nature to finance, taxes, and the law, and she never permitted a yawn to threaten. He read ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... call an idea in any speech or writing of ——'s. Those enormously prolix harangues are a proof of weakness in the higher intellectual grasp. Canning had a sense of the beautiful and the good; —- rarely speaks but to abuse, detract, and degrade. I confine myself to institutions, of course, and do not mean personal detraction. In my judgment, no man can rightly apprehend an abuse till he has first mastered the idea of the use of an institution. How fine, for example, is the ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... of a freely willing being cannot be foreknown, the ignorance of them does not detract from the perfectness of the Supreme Being. Omnipotence cannot make two and two five. Omnipotence cannot do what is intrinsically impossible. No more can Omniscience know what is ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody
... to all intents and purposes Turkish in appearance. Built partly on a hill overlooking the sea, it descends into a small bay where the occasional passing steamers anchor. Well wooded and hilly, it is really a delightful spot, though the Turkish element may or may not detract from its beauty according to personal taste. The irregular houses, the mosques with their slender towers, the bazaar, and the gaily-dressed if dirty crowds that circulated between the rows of shops—gave a distinctly pleasing effect. The heavily-veiled women, ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... is abhorrent that purple color should be made to detract from that of vermilion. Also that the Odes of Ch'ing should be allowed to introduce discord in connection with the music of the Festal Songs and Hymns. Also that sharp-whetted tongues should be permitted to ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... sentiments of the characters are reported in concealed blank verse that smacks of theatrical rant, though the absurd Oriental digressions, the disguises, the frequent poisonings, and fortunate accidents all detract from the naturalness and plausibility of the tale, yet one cannot deny the piece occasional merits, which if smothered in extravagances, are hopeful signs of a coming change. The very excess of strained and unnatural incidents indicates that the popular palate was becoming cloyed; for a time the ...
— The Life and Romances of Mrs. Eliza Haywood • George Frisbie Whicher
... Who can tell the remote sources of human invention; who knows the then popular songs which Homer probably incorporated in his epics; who can trace the fountains of those streams which have fertilized the literary world?—and hence, how shallow the criticism which would detract from literary genius because it is indebted, more or less, to the men who have lived ages ago. It is the way of putting things which constitutes the merit of men of genius. What has Voltaire or Hume or ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord
... the alienation, and, if I may hazard such an expression, the utter aloofness of the poet's own feelings from those of which he is at once the painter and the analyst; that, though the very subject cannot but detract from the pleasure of a delicate mind, yet never was poem less dangerous on a moral account. Instead of doing as Ariosto, and as, still more offensively, Wieland has done; instead of degrading and ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... to shave since he left the prison. Of course he had brought nothing with him. There was no time. His hand went unconsciously every other minute to his scrubby chin. In truth, his Norse blondness did not allow it to show as much as he supposed. But that did not detract from the pervading ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... with his cables and letters, for after leaving Honolulu he would not be in touch with business or friends for three weeks or a month, except by wireless. So the two boys were seeing the sights by themselves, more or less, which did not detract from their enjoyment ...
— The Pirate Shark • Elliott Whitney
... beyond Jenner's range, and long before his time; for we have respectable testimony of their having come within the observation of a Cheshire gentleman, who had been informed of them shortly after settling on his estate in Prestbury parish, in or about 1740. This does not in the least detract from Jenner's merit, but shows that to his genius for observation, analogy, and experiment, we are indebted for this application of a simple fact, only incidentally remarked by others, but by Jenner rendered the stepping-stone ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... of Columbus and his contemporaries all these doings were held to detract from the glory of his own achievements, and were the subject of endless affidavits, depositions, quarrels, arguments, proofs and claims in the great lawsuit that was in after years carried on between the Crown of Spain and the heirs of ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... arm, stopping her ears with jewellers' cotton. Peggotty knowing nothing about her, and my mother saying nothing about her, she was quite a mystery in the parlour; and the fact of her having a magazine of jewellers' cotton in her pocket, and sticking the article in her ears in that way, did not detract from the ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... arms, freeing their legs from the heavy weight of the body and strengthening the arms. This fence has also the advantage of being useful in a garden for the purpose of dividing one part from another, as, for example, the flower-beds from the garden walks, and it does not detract in any way from ...
— Dr. Montessori's Own Handbook • Maria Montessori
... "Copenhagen," and finally "Post Office." From all of these games Alice begged to be excused. She told the Professor that she was not bashful nor diffident, but that her eyesight was so poor that she knew she would detract from the pleasure of the others if she engaged in the games. The Professor demurred at first, but said finally that her excuse was a good one. Then he turned to Abner and remarked that he supposed Mr. Sawyer would ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... over a well, of sixteenth-century workmanship, and passing on we arrive at one of the most historic spots of Prague, the Starom[ve]stke Nam[ve]sti, the Old Town Square, or Ring. In shape it is neither of these two, but that does not detract from the throbbing interest that clings ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... if their style is almost uniformly illiterate, if they are the productions of a band of mutinous dogs standing out for rights which they never possessed and deserving of a halter rather than a hearing, these are circumstances that do not in the least detract from the veracity of the allegations they advance. The sailor appealed to his king, or to the Admiralty, "the same as a child to its father"; and no one who peruses the story of his wrongs, as set forth in these documents, can doubt for ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson
... be traced between the charms in Macbeth and the incantations in this play (the Witch of Middleton), which is supposed to have preceded it, this coincidence will not detract much from the originality of Shakespeare. His Witches are distinguished from the Witches of Middleton by essential differences. These are creatures to whom man or woman plotting some dire mischief might resort for occasional ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... teaching and practice that there are no unrelated harmonies, cacophony was not absent. Another thing: this composer has temperament. He is cerebral, as few before him, yet in this work the bigness of the design did not detract from the emotional quality. I confess I did not understand at one hearing the curious dislocated harmonies and splintered themes—melodies they are not—in the Pierrot Lunaire. I have been informed that the ear should play ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker
... worshippers of the letter), I only, maintain that the meaning by, which alone an utterance is entitled to be called Divine, has come down to us uncorrupted, even though the original wording may have been more often changed than we suppose. (59) Such alterations, as I have said above, detract nothing from the Divinity of the Bible, for the Bible would have been no less Divine had it been written in different words or a different language. (60) That the Divine law has in this sense come down to us uncorrupted, is an assertion which admits of no dispute. (61) For from the Bible itself ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part III] • Benedict de Spinoza
... cravings. She no longer regretted the inferior passion that her fears had obliged her to take the first night she came; she began to look up to this young man—so much younger than herself—without knowing what it meant; it was not until she found that this attitude did not detract from his picturesqueness that she discovered herself seeking for reasons to degrade ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... British loss, whilst the Boers lost 1 killed and 5 wounded. No attempt had been made to occupy positions below the crown of the hill which commanded the approaches, and the Boers were able to creep up under good cover from place to place by the exercise of their admirable tactics. It is impossible to detract from the performance of the Boers, and a glance at the position leaves one more astonished than ever that a successful attack could ever have been made upon it. The Boers displayed on this day the finest fighting qualities. The generalship of their ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... but conveying a high and solemn meaning. I can find no way of expressing its effect on me, so quaint and venerable as I feel this cathedral to be in its immensity of striped waistcoat, now dingy with five centuries of wear. I ought not to say anything that might detract from the grandeur and sanctity of the blessed edifice, for these attributes are really uninjured by any of the Gothic oddities which ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... many plays have ghosts in them, and how this Ghost is better than that. You must shew how terrour is impressed on the human heart. In the description of night in Macbeth[272], the beetle and the bat detract from the general ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell
... envy, detraction, pity, have their use. Why should you pity rather than assist, if it is in your power to do so? Is it because you cannot be liberal without pity? We should not take sorrows on ourselves upon another's account; but we ought to relieve others of their grief if we can. But to detract from another's reputation, or to rival him with that vicious emulation, which resembles an enmity, of what use can that conduct be? Now envy implies being uneasy at another's good because one does not enjoy it oneself; ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... the cigarette habit is insidiously and gently to point out the injurious effects on her appearance. Cigarette smoking stains a woman's fingers and discolors her teeth. It also tends to make her complexion sallow and to detract from the rubiness of her lips. It bedims the sparkle of her eyes. It makes her less attractive mornings." Chewing has practically disappeared, not because it ceased to soothe excited nerves but because it was seen to be a ...
— Civics and Health • William H. Allen
... accomplish without puzzling the reader with too many technical terms. The study of the larynx was made possible by the invention of the laryngoscope in 1855 by Manuel Garcia, a celebrated singing-master. It is a simple apparatus—which, however, does not detract from but rather adds to its value as an invention—and has been a boon to the physician in locating and curing affections of the throat. Its essentials are a small mirror fixed at an obtuse angle to a slender handle. Introduced ...
— The Voice - Its Production, Care and Preservation • Frank E. Miller
... not think it right to allow friends to put themselves to trouble on my account without a frank avowal that I was willing to accept, and without delaying until certain of success; but with a firm determination not to detract from the merits or services of others, nor to seek this lofty elevation by dishonorable means or lying evasions or pretense. In this way, and in this way only, am I a candidate; but with great doubt whether, if nominated, ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... mournfully enshrouding the silent dead. There is something so unnatural in the conjunction of a scanty vegetation with a soil cursed with hopeless aridity, that the gardens and few green spots, occurring in the neighbourhood of Alexandria, detract from, instead of embellishing, the scene. Though pleasant and beautiful as retreats to those who can command an entrance, these circumscribed patches of verdure offend rather than please the eye, when ...
— Notes of an Overland Journey Through France and Egypt to Bombay • Miss Emma Roberts
... seen in that part of the country, the patriarch of the lot apparently; nor did the fact that his face was still streaked with dried mud, and his clothes looked like those of a common hobo, seem to detract from his ...
— Chums of the Camp Fire • Lawrence J. Leslie
... solution of the question, How does the sun manage to transmit its electric influence to the earth? And this solution is so grandiose in conception, and so novel in the mental pictures that it offers, that its acceptance would not in the least detract from the impression that the Aurora ...
— Curiosities of the Sky • Garrett Serviss
... the conveyer of nutrition in relation to the former, so it falls to the male to protect and in some degree to provide for the woman as child-bearer. It would not, of course, be impossible for woman to provide for herself, but it would detract so considerably from social efficiency that any group in which it was done would soon disappear. It is the nature and supreme function of woman that makes her dependent upon man. And even though the dreams of some were realised, and society as a whole cared for woman in ...
— Religion & Sex - Studies in the Pathology of Religious Development • Chapman Cohen
... and Congressman, was a great man in his day. It does not detract from his worth that he was well aware of the fact. There was no false modesty about this backwoods Charlemagne. He wrote of himself, "If General Jackson, Black Hawk, and me were to travel through the United States we would bring out, ...
— Humanly Speaking • Samuel McChord Crothers
... pretends. As his object was to read what he was intending to write at great public assemblies in Greece, he was, of course, under every possible inducement to make his narrative as interesting as possible, and not to detract at all from whatever there might be extraordinary either in the extent of his wanderings or in the wonderfulness of the objects and scenes which he saw, or in the romantic nature of the adventures which he ...
— Cyrus the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... dexterously involved sentences, allowed the plan of my newly-invented theory to appear—so much of it, that is, as would leave Hohenfels completely in the dark, and detract in no wise from the splendor of my Opus when it should be published. As science, however, truly considered, is the art of dilapidating and merging into confused ruin the theories of your predecessors, I was somewhat more precise ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 28. July, 1873. • Various
... detract but little from our admiration for Mr. Darwin's achievement. Any one can make people see a thing if he puts it in the right way, but Mr. Darwin made us see evolution, in spite of his having put it, in what seems to not a few, an exceedingly mistaken way. Yet ...
— Life and Habit • Samuel Butler
... more inquisitive glance than that which Amelie, shrouded behind the thick curtains, directed from the window at the tall, manly figure and handsome countenance of him whom she knew to be Pierre Philibert. Let it not detract from her that she gave way to an irresistible impulse of womanly curiosity. The Queen of France would, under the same temptation, have done the same thing, and perhaps without feeling half the modest shame of it that Amelie did. A glance sufficed—but ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... that any man of honour or honesty should not scorn, by such a practice, to shake his own credit, or to detract from the validity of his word; which should stand firm on itself, and not want any attestation to support it. It is a privilege of honourable persons that they are excused from swearing, and that their ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... founded, to some extent, on Godwin's Caleb Williams, the man passing through life with a mystery; the similar names of Falkner and Falkland may even be meant to call attention to this fact. The three-volume form, in this as in many novels, seems to detract from the strength of the work in parts, the second volume being noticeably drawn out here and there. It may be questioned, also, whether the form adopted in this as in many romances of giving the early history by way of narrative told by one of the dramatis personae to another, is the desirable ...
— Mrs. Shelley • Lucy M. Rossetti
... notorious band. Twenty years afterwards the axe lay as a useless corpus delicti in the archives of the court, where it is probably resting yet with its rust spots. In a made-up story it would be wrong thus to disappoint the curiosity of the reader, but all this actually happened; I can add or detract nothing. The next Sunday Frederick rose very early to go to confession. It was the day of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin and the parish priests were in the confessionals before dawn. He dressed in the dark, and as quietly as possible left the narrow closet which had ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various
... the heart, and will be cold and critical rather than enthusiastic. According to Arnold, each poem should be a unit, and he protested against the tendency of English poets to use brilliant phrases and figures of speech which only detract attention from the poem as a whole. For his models he went to Greek poetry, which he regarded as "the only sure guidance to what is sound and true in poetical art." Arnold is, however, more indebted than he thinks to English ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... that Marcus Aurelius was philosophy enthroned. Without any desire to contest or detract from that compliment, let it be added that he was conscientiousness enthroned. It is his grand and original characteristic that he governed the Roman empire and himself with a constant moral solicitude, ever anxious to realize that ideal of personal virtue and general ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... was smooth and white as alabaster; but the eye-lid drooped; the eye hung fire, and under each orb the skin was slightly blue, but so blending with the paleness of the rest of the face, as rather to give distinctness to the character of beauty, than to detract from the general effect. Her second child hung on her left arm, and a certain graceful negligence in the plaits of her hair and the arrangement of her bosom, showed that the cares of the young mother had superseded the ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... look at a group of dark creatures further on, who fled from her presence as she skirted a ravine where they fed. They were about a score of the small wild ponies known as heath-croppers. They roamed at large on the undulations of Egdon, but in numbers too few to detract much from ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... was extraordinarily many-sided and prolific, and it is difficult to give a condensed appreciation of it. As an architect he was strongly under Roman and Italian influences, and his style and aims were exotic rather than native. But this does not detract from their merit, nor need it diminish our estimate of his genius. It was, indeed, the most signal triumph of that genius that he was able so to mould and adapt classical models as to create a new manner of the highest charm and distinction. Out of simple curvilinear ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... this kind, however offensive, is not enough to detract materially from the value of so much that is meritorious; nor again will that outspoken treatment of delicate topics (less observable in The Cathedral than in En Route), which makes the book undesirable for ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... type defines itself; as a condition of knowledge; as a test of what is right; as a motive to life and virtue so indispensable that it must exist as illusion if it did not exist as fact; because, therefore, its existence cannot detract from the goodness of the First Cause or the promise ...
— A Handbook to the Works of Browning (6th ed.) • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... thought well to efface myself behind these students. Were I to substitute my thought for theirs, I should lay myself open to the reproach which I so often address to my generation. I have let them speak for themselves. Any commentary would detract from the beauty of the sight of these enthusiastic and serious young people, in this most tragical hour of history, discussing their duties ardently and at great length, taking stock of their faith, and solemnly affirming that faith in ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland
... policy in the complete recognition of the high political importance which the Japanese people have achieved by their political strength and military ability. German policy does not regard it as its task to detract from the enjoyment and development of what ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... boatswain and carpenter, and complained to them of what he termed my tyrannical conduct, which, he represented to his two listeners, was of so grossly humiliating a character that it was calculated very seriously to detract from his influence with his followers. So serious a grievance did he make of it that at length Polson and Tudsbery approached me with something in the nature of a remonstrance, accompanied by a mildly offered ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood
... understand it; she sings like an angel; and to conclude, after the fashion of the knights of this day—though I deal not ordinarily with their language—I would say cheerfully, that I am ready to place myself in lists against any one whomsoever, who dares detract from the beauty of the imperial Anna Comnena's person, or from the virtues of her mind. Having said this, my noble captain, we have said all that it is competent for you to inquire into, or for me to answer. That there are hansomer women than the Princess, is unquestionable; and I question ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... or did he Retain the only sap of poesie, That kept all branches living? must his fall Set an eternal period upon all? So when a spring-tide doth begin to fly From the green shoar, each neighbouring creek grows dry. But why do I so pettishly detract An age that is so perfect, so exact? In all things excellent, it is a fame Or glory to deceased Lovelace name: For he is weak in wit, who doth deprave Anothers worth to make his own seem brave; And this was not his aim: nor is it ...
— Lucasta • Richard Lovelace
... now that he is coming into his own; and how many know him only as Mendel, forgetting his priestly office? Liszt was a cleric, but few called him Abbe. A priest as a priest can be nothing else. In fact, it is almost inevitable that his greatness in anything else will detract from his priesthood. Now the Church, my dear Mark, has the wisdom of ages behind her. She never judges from the exceptions, but always from the rule. She gets better service from a man who has sunk his temporal interests in the spiritual. She is the sternest mistress ...
— Charred Wood • Myles Muredach
... it, and its height was, I should say, a trifle over twenty feet. It was the winged figure of a woman of such marvellous loveliness and delicacy of form that the size seemed rather to add to than to detract from its so human and yet more spiritual beauty. She was bending forward and poising herself upon her half-spread wings as though to preserve her balance as she leant. Her arms were outstretched like those of some woman about to embrace one she dearly loved, while her whole attitude gave ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... power of great art upon those who know it when they see it than the unbounded praise with which Dryden at once saluted Milton. The fact that his admiration at first took the absurd form of turning Milton's epic into a "heroic opera" in rhyme does not detract from the significance of his writing publicly within a year of Milton's death that the blind old regicide's poem was "one of the greatest, most noble and sublime which either this age or nation has produced," and to this he was to add, thirteen years later, the still bolder ...
— Milton • John Bailey
... among men, there is also ample scope for patience. When we think of our own need for the constant exercise of this virtue, we will admit its necessity for others. After the first flush of communion has passed, we must see in a friend things which detract from his worth, and perhaps things which irritate us. This is only to say that no man is perfect. With tact, and tenderness and patience, it may be given us to help to remove what may be flaws in a fine character, ...
— Friendship • Hugh Black
... of these illustrious men has long been placed beyond the reach of cavil. Criticism cannot reach, envy cannot detract from, emulation cannot equal them. Great present celebrity, indeed, is no guarantee for future and enduring fame; in many cases, it is the reverse, but there is a wide difference between the judgment of the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... must be admitted that Zacuto's work is a drama with a purpose. The poet wished to fortify his exiled, harassed people with the inspiration and hope that flow from the contemplation of a strong, bold personality. But the admission does not detract from the genuine merits of the poem. On the other hand, this first dramatic effort naturally is crude, lacking in the poetic forms supplied by highly developed art. Dialogues, prayers, and choruses follow each other ...
— Jewish Literature and Other Essays • Gustav Karpeles
... public school in the early twentieth century. That its authorities should have been so violently perturbed by a proposal to teach SHAKSPEARE histrionically, or by the spectacle of boys enjoying modern poetry, surely supposes conditions almost incredibly archaic. This, however, does nothing to detract from the admirably-drawn figure of Quirk himself, bursting with energy, enthusiasm and intolerance, overcoming passive resistance on the part of the boys, only to be shipwrecked upon the cast-iron prejudice of the staff. That his apotheosis should have been translation to Rugby, where he finds ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 4, 1919. • Various
... as Venezuelan only by extravagant claims based on the pretensions of Spanish officials in the last century. This area he expressly refused to submit to arbitration. The language of the Salisbury note was diplomatically correct, a fact which did not detract from the effect of the ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... well-proportioned. In more advanced life Boswell, who with Dr. Johnson visited her, characterized her person and deportment as "genteel." There was nothing unfeminine, either in her form or in her manners, to detract from the charm of her great natural vivacity, or give a tone of hardness to her strong good sense, calm judgment, and power of decision. Her voice was sweet and low; the harsher accents of the Scottish tongue were not to be detected in ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... rightly thinking that courage is as valuable in supporting misfortunes as it is against the Macedonian phalanx, so arranged matters as to show that for him the evil was overshadowed by the good, and that his private sorrows were eclipsed by the successes of the state, lest he should detract from the importance and glory of the victory. He buried the first child, and immediately afterwards triumphed, as we have said: and when the second died after the triumph, he assembled the people and addressed them, not so much in the words of one who needs consolation, as of one who would console ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... with bronze ornaments, which have been removed for the sake of the metal. The marble enrichments of the attic have also disappeared, and their place has been taken by common and tawdry decorations more adapted to the stage of a theatre. But notwithstanding everything that has been done to detract from the imposing effect of the building by the alteration of its details, there is still, taking it as a whole, a simple grandeur in the design, a magnificence in the material employed, and a quiet harmony in ...
— Architecture - Classic and Early Christian • Thomas Roger Smith
... seen that at the outbreak of the war only five active German corps were left on the eastern front. Two, the First and the Twentieth, had, so far, had to bear the brunt of the Russian advance; one other, the Sixth, had been sent from Breslau to detract, as much as possible, the Russian onslaught against the Austrian forces in Galicia; and the other two, the Fifth and Seventeenth, stationed in Danzig and Posen, were too far ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume II (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... unreservedly condemned. Jane Eyre is a woman's autobiography, by a woman it is professedly written. If it is written as no woman would write, condemn it with spirit and decision—say it is bad, but do not eulogise and then detract. I am reminded of the Economist. The literary critic of that paper praised the book if written by a man, and pronounced it "odious" if the work of ...
— Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle • Clement K. Shorter
... to stay on the defensive—on the defensive against the "open-shop" employers and against the courts. Even the periodic excursions into politics were in substance defensive moves. This turn of events naturally tended to detract from the prestige of the type of unionism for which Gompers was spokesman; and by contrast raised the ...
— A History of Trade Unionism in the United States • Selig Perlman
... and to go out with Madge when Miss Wildmere was unattainable. For the time he was content to imitate Madge's tactics, and acted as if he intended to follow the course that she had suggested. The fact that Arnault was so evidently enjoying his dinner and the Wildmere smiles did not detract from his purpose to prove that he also was not without resources. Moreover, he felt that he had not treated Madge fairly; he had been truly fond of her, and now was conscious of a growing respect. As she had said, it was not a little thing that she had attempted and accomplished, and there ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... coldly and carelessly passed over the benefit thereof, until it was too late to put the same in practice. For my own part, I acknowledge that indeed I thought some further advice would either alter or at least detract from the accomplishment of her determination. I thought this the rather because she had so long been wedded to peace, and I supposed it impossible to divorce her from so sweet a spouse. But, set it down that ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... is only a love of favour. The envy of NOT possessing it, consoles and softens its regrets by the contempt it evinces for those who possess it, and we refuse them our homage, not being able to detract from them what attracts that of the rest ...
— Reflections - Or, Sentences and Moral Maxims • Francois Duc De La Rochefoucauld
... ever better fitted than Franklin to play the part of a witness, and no record in politics or in law can compare with the report of his testimony. Some persons have endeavored to account for, which means of course to detract from, its extraordinary merit by saying that some of the questions and replies had been prearranged; but it does not appear that such prearrangement went further than that certain friendly interrogators ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... interesting; the plot managed with art, and the characters well drawn. The love scenes I think are the worst: they are prettily written, and full of flowers, but are rather cold; they have more poetry than passion. I do not mean to detract from Mr. Jephson's merit by this remark; for it does not lessen a poet's fame to say he excels more in Painting the terrible, than the tender passions."-Memoirs, ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... even in jest. Come now, do you really think a jacket like yours can make the servant look like you, or detract from your grace and beauty? There is a very simple way; put your jacket by for a future occasion, and wear something else in ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... the school. Fig. 42. After all have discovered the face of the boy, do not return the sheet to the drawing board, but lay it on the floor or elsewhere out of sight, as it has served its purpose and should not be allowed to detract from the attention needed for the remainder ...
— Crayon and Character: Truth Made Clear Through Eye and Ear - Or, Ten-Minute Talks with Colored Chalks • B.J. Griswold
... nearer approach, the appearance of Mount Olympus is not nearly so grand as when viewed from a distance. The mountain is surrounded by several small hills, which detract from the general effect. ...
— A Visit to the Holy Land • Ida Pfeiffer
... ever since the beginning of the world by every human being."[91] Nor was he the "first person who correctly analyzed that method and explained its uses," as Aristotle had done so long before. But these facts do not detract from the glory of Bacon any more than the discovery of America by the Norsemen five hundred years before the time of Columbus detracts from his glory. The same process of reasoning would take all credit from every philosopher that has ever lived, for with equal truth it may be said that ...
— History of Education • Levi Seeley
... the French fleet upon the coast of America is a great and striking event; but the operations of it have been injured by a number of unforeseen and unfavorable circumstances, which, though they ought not to detract from the merit and good intention of our great ally, have nevertheless lessened the importance of its services in a great degree. The length of the passage, in the first instance, was a capital misfortune; for had even one of common length taken place, Lord Howe, with the British ships-of-war ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... of the South Sea Islands, and Mr Becke, no doubt of set artistic purpose, has confined himself in the collection of tales now offered almost entirely to this facet of the life. I do not question that he is right in deciding to detract nothing from the striking effect of these powerful stories, taken as a whole, by interspersing amongst them others of a different character. But I hope it may be remembered that the present selection is only ...
— By Reef and Palm • Louis Becke
... in the dark days which followed the outbreak of the rebellion is not forgotten. They ventured largely, and boldly, and patriotically on the side of the Union and the constitutional supremacy of the nation over States and citizens. It does not at all detract from the merit of the act that the losses, which they feared but unhesitatingly risked, were transmuted into unexpected gains. It is a solid recommendation of the suggested plan that it offers the opportunity to these and kindred ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... Worthie Knight, Sir Henrie Nevill. Worthy Sir, I Present, or rather returne unto your view, that which formerly hath beene received from you, hereby effecting what you did desire: To commend the worke in my unlearned method, were rather to detract from it, then to give it any luster. It sufficeth it hath your Worships approbation and patronage, to the commendation of the Authors, and incouragement of their further labours: and thus wholy committing my selfe and it to your Worships dispose I rest, ever readie to ...
— A King, and No King • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... already that I am possess'd With more than half the Gallian territories, And therein reverenced for their lawful king: Shall I, for lucre of the rest unvanquish'd, Detract so much from that prerogative, As to be call'd but viceroy of the whole? No, lord ambassador, I 'll rather keep That which I have than, coveting for more, Be cast from possibility ...
— King Henry VI, First Part • William Shakespeare [Aldus edition]
... and she flamed out into a fit of imperious anger against Jessy. She had a hazy idea that this was not altogether reasonable, for she was to some extent fastening the blame she deserved upon another person's shoulders; but it did not detract from the comfort the indulgence ...
— Vane of the Timberlands • Harold Bindloss |
