"Failure" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... never left the bank's vaults except when in the possession of the bank's president in the latter's private office. Clarke had therefore chosen the line of least resistance—the bank president's office! And that accounted, he, Jimmie Dale, understood now, for the sudden failure of the Tocsin's plans three nights ago, since it accounted evidently for the sudden disappearance of Hunchback Joe, which had checkmated her on that night and on subsequent nights—for it had taken those three nights to perfect their plans in the bank, and the work there had evidently ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... recalled you to modern life. I have been sitting on that old green settee, and at the same time riding on horseback in Virginia, through an open wooded country, with one of Lord Fairfax's grandsons and two pretty cousins of his, and a fallow deer has just appeared in the distance, when, by the failure of Hutchinson or Wheeler, just above me, poor Mr. Dillaway has had to ask me, "Ingham, what verbs omit the reduplication?" Talk of war! Where is versatility, otherwise called presence of mind, so needed as in recitation ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... severely blamed for the way in which he trained the voice. I have nothing to say in regard to those who imputed to him physical and barbarous methods of developing it; but it may be true that he endangered it by certain exercises or by failure to cultivate the mechanism. I do not feel myself competent to pronounce upon this technical point, but I can give an exact account of what ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... The failure of one undertaking never discouraged Marvel from beginning another; and it is a pity, that, with so much spirit and activity, he had so little steadiness and prudence. His sheep died, and he set out for Spalding full of the thoughts of the heronry. Now ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... ship about and take him back he would not have consented, but yet to go on almost broke his heart. He was steel and butter. His friend, the honorable Frank Winchester, was or seemed all steel. He was one of those sanguine spirits that don't admit into their minds the notion of ultimate failure. He was supported, too, by a natural and indomitable gayety. Whatever most men grumble or whine at he took as practical jokes played by Fortune partly to try his good humor, but ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... was continued on February 22, 1916. The strong resistance the French had offered to the furious attacks of the German infantry may be called a failure. But they succeeded in holding back the Germans until their reserves had time to reach the scene and prepare a new ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... dwelling-houses, shops, and mills, and in breaking ground. At one time during the past summer there was a prospect of an abundant yield from 300 acres sown in cereals; but, unfortunately, the grasshoppers swept away the entire crop; and a second crop of buckwheat and turnips proved a failure. The Indians on this reservation are well-behaved, and inclined to be industrious. Many of them are engaged in tilling the soil, while others are learning the mechanical arts; and they may, as a body, be said to be making considerable progress in the pursuits of civilized life. ...
— The Indian Question (1874) • Francis A. Walker
... he halted and made a hop back; Juliet looked disappointed. At last another cicada set up a louder note some yards away and, without a nod or a sign, Juliet skipped off into space, leaving the most disconsolate little Romeo of a grasshopper you ever beheld. He gave vent to a dismal failure of a vibration and hopped to the foot ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... superior, if equal, to the lady whose last production is now before us, and whom we have much regret in finally taking leave of: her death (in the prime of life, considered as a writer) being announced in this the first publication to which her name is prefixed. We regret the failure not only of a source of innocent amusement, but also of that supply of practical good sense and instructive example, which she would probably have continued to furnish better than any of her contemporaries:—Miss Edgeworth, indeed, draws characters and details conversations, ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... suppose they are no wiser or better in their capacity of legislators than I find them every day at dinner. But I feared for my reputation. They would have expected something better than the occasion demanded, or the individual could produce, and there would have been a failure. ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... here, as in all his writings, has been so to present his theme as to invest it with the rational interest attaching to a clear exposition of causes and effects, as shown in a series of events. Where he may have failed, the failure is in himself, not in his subject. The recent Spanish-American War, while possessing, as every war does, characteristics of its own, differentiating it from others, nevertheless, in its broad analogies, falls into line with its predecessors, ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... whose slightest caprice was law.—in obeying his commands one could do no wrong. Woman became the arbiter of man's destiny in so far as, the fervent lover, in his ardor, was glad to do her bidding. The troubadour Miravel has told us that when a man made a failure of his life, all were prone to say: "It is evident that he did not care for the ladies." There is a worldly tone in this remark which grates upon the ear—it does not ring clear and true, although the Provencal poets had improved the manners of their time and ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... his table. "Case of Harding vs. Southport, 2043, establishes that a Lobby is responsible for any member on Mars. It is also responsible for informing the authorities of any criminal conduct on the part of its members or any former member known to it. Failure to report shall be considered an admission that the Lobby recognizes the member as one in good standing and accepts responsibility ...
— Badge of Infamy • Lester del Rey
... one of several reasons which explain the apathy of the public on A.'s first appearance. There was large promise, but the public require performance; and in poetry a single failure overweighs a hundred successes. It was possible that his mistakes were the mistakes of a man whose face was in the right direction —who was feeling his way, and who would ultimately find it; but only time could decide ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... he did not conceive public opinion to be accurate at long range. It was quite probable they would hit the wrong man who, after he had recovered from his amazement would perhaps spend the rest of his days in writing replies to the songs of his alleged failure. It would be very unfortunate, no doubt, but in this case a general was of no ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... Kirtland, the hope of making it a prosperous city had died with the failure of the bank. Of the few who remained two distinct parties were formed—the orthodox, headed by Halsey, and the reformers, encouraged, if not headed, by the former leaders who were now apostate. In the camp of the reformers there were those who saw visions ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... to test them it should not be by the more or less artificial standards of any one age in their history, but rather by the spirit, and temper, and intentions of their Lord and Master Jesus Christ. When this is done, the differences between them fall into their proper proportions in view of the failure which is common to them all. On these terms too will the old antagonisms become a generous rivalry in good works and each church be ready to seek the welfare of others in the common interests of the Kingdom which they ...
— The War and Unity - Being Lectures Delivered At The Local Lectures Summer - Meeting Of The University Of Cambridge, 1918 • Various
... a failure, even though you find no birds'-nests. You are sure to find other things of interest, plenty of them. A friend of mine says that, in his youth, he used to go hunting with his gun loaded for wild turkeys, and, though ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... "be welcome. I am worth two hundred and forty-five millions. Thank God that you are not. Thank God that you are poor. Thank God for your scanty meals and clothing, and your ceaseless failure to make both ends meet. Pray God you may die poor. How I envy you all your blessed privilege of struggle! Thank ...
— How Doth the Simple Spelling Bee • Owen Wister
... uprising in the southern missions only a few months before? But each one learns from his own experience. The Indian is sanguine, and hopes to succeed where others have failed, or carries out his purposes, desperately and without hope, to end in certain failure. This is not an Indian trait exclusively; it is a question of the weak overpowered by the strong, and has shown itself in all parts of the earth and in every race of mankind. See how well treated were the Indians of Nueva California by their conquerors, mild, humane and devoted to their interests, ...
— Old Mission Stories of California • Charles Franklin Carter
... talk to her of his work and aims upon the Fuel Commission and of the conflict and failure of motives he found in himself, as freely as he had done to Dr. Martineau and with a surer confidence of understanding. Perhaps his talks with the doctor had got his ideas into order and made them more readily expressible than ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... when Afrasyab Khan was distracting the country by his ambitious attempts, occurred a failure of the periodical rains, followed by one of those tremendous famines which form such a fearful feature of Indian life. In Bengal, where the monsoon is regular, and the alluvial soil moist, these things are almost as unknown as in England: but the arid plains of Hindustan, basking at the ...
— The Fall of the Moghul Empire of Hindustan • H. G. Keene
... positive pain or positive poverty I do not here speak. I speak of those innumerable accidental limitations that are always falling across our path—bad weather, confinement to this or that house or room, failure of appointments or arrangements, waiting at railway stations, missing posts, finding unpunctuality when we want punctuality, or, what is worse, finding punctuality when we don't. It is of the poetic pleasures to be drawn from all these that I sing—I ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton
... Alcibiades, and made him ashamed of his mean and miserable life. Socrates at one time seemed about to fall in love with him; and he thought that he would thereby gain a wonderful opportunity of receiving lessons of wisdom. He narrates the failure of his design. He has suffered agonies from him, and is at his wit's end. He then proceeds to mention some other particulars of the life of Socrates; how they were at Potidaea together, where Socrates showed his superior powers of enduring ...
— Symposium • Plato
... attacking fortifications, and keeping long night-watches, were getting worn-out and broken; they being now old, their bodies less fit for labor, and their courage, also, beginning to give way with the failure of their strength. Besides, it was said that an infectious disease, occasioned by their irregular diet, was prevailing in Caesar's army, and what was of greatest moment, he was neither furnished with money nor provisions, so ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... counted for establishing a schism in the Church had already joined, with all the encouragement which the minister could bestow, the alt-Catholic sect, which, as has been shown, was destined to prove a failure. It is almost superfluous to say that the parishioners studiously avoided all communication in things spiritual with the nominees of the State. Meanwhile, the faithful people were not left destitute. Zealous young priests from the seminaries visited ...
— Pius IX. And His Time • The Rev. AEneas MacDonell
... Warsaw in 1810, studied music (at the Warsaw Conservatoire under Elsner) as an amateur and law for his profession; joined in 1830 the Polish insurrectionary army; left his country after the failure of the insurrection; taught the piano in London; played in 1835 several times with success in Paris; resided there for some years; went in 1841 to Havannah; on account of the climate, removed to New York; gave there concerts with Sivori; and returned to Paris in 1850. This ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... the extremity of His humiliation. Death must have been repulsive to Him. If the failure of heart and flesh, the cold sweat, the physical collapse, the last parting, the solitude and separation of the grave are all repelling and painful to us, how much ...
— Our Master • Bramwell Booth
... "I don't know how to play the sisterly touch-and-go at all, but the men tell me it doesn't work—dead failure, always ends the same. Sister proposes, or is ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... The failure to produce adequate results of scale in the interiors of the larger Italian churches, has been already alluded to. It is strikingly exemplified in the Duomo at Florence, the nave of which is 72 feet wide, with four pier-arches each over 55 feet in span. The immense vault, ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Architecture - Seventh Edition, revised • Alfred D. F. Hamlin
... sure, regard him as dead when, on pulling on the wire, they found that it was loose; and after the failure of this attempt to establish a bridge, would probably start on their return march, without delay. He had, therefore, only himself to rely upon, beyond what assistance he could get from the Sikh, when ...
— Through Three Campaigns - A Story of Chitral, Tirah and Ashanti • G. A. Henty
... sat, caressing his chin and thrusting forward his bristly moustache, Mrs. Brace perceived in his eyes a confession of failure. Although he was far from suspecting it, he presented to her keen scrutiny an amusing figure. She observed that his shoulders drooped, and that, as he slowly produced a handkerchief and mopped his forehead, his movements ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay
... armies. They designate the place where they desire to go, dispose of the prisoners who are captured, and have the direction of other matters of especial importance, of which they get the honor, if they are successful; but, if not, the disgrace of failure in the war falls upon them. These captains alone are looked upon and considered ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain V3 • Samuel de Champlain
... as she had been on a like occasion in Rome. And the cause lay deep. She was no longer struggling against the perception of facts, but adjusting herself to their clearest perception; and now when she looked steadily at her husband's failure, still more at his possible consciousness of failure, she seemed to be looking along the one track where duty became tenderness. Will's want of reticence might have been met with more severity, if he had not already been recommended ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... his perception is of the keenest, and though it is frequently partial, incomplete, it is excellent as far as it goes. The book gave but limited satisfaction, I believe, in England, and I am not sure that the failure to enjoy certain manifestations of its sportive irony, has not chilled the appreciation of its singular grace. That English readers, on the whole, should have felt that Hawthorne did the national mind and manners but partial justice, is, I think, ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.
... said the countess, eagerly. "Has the seizure of the pamphlet, coming directly after the failure to obtain the cross, led to ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... failure of wine, which prevented him from saying mass; but every morning and evening he summoned the men to his cabin, to listen to prayers and preaching, and on Sundays and fete days they chanted vespers. Father Zenobe usually spent the day in the ...
— France and England in North America, a Series of Historical Narratives, Part Third • Francis Parkman
... no one knows when we shall see each other again. You are returning to the theatre. If that is your wish, I would not try to thwart it. You know best what is the highest prize the world can give you. And how can I warn you against failure and disappointment? I know you will be successful. I know the people will applaud you, and your head will be filled with their praises. You are going forward to a new triumph, Gerty; and the first step you will take will be ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black
... accompanies genuine poetic gifts. The case of David Gray, the young Scottish poet who died in 1861, is an instance to the contrary. His lot was exceedingly sad, and the failure of health just as he was on the verge of achieving something like success justified his profound melancholy; but that he tuned this melancholy and played upon it, as if it were a musical instrument, is plainly seen in one ...
— Ponkapog Papers • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... failure of the fourth attempt, Captain Jack threw up his hands, and turned the Aurora's nose down-stream. The little boat, which had sulked and hung back in the rapids all day, picked up her heels, and hustled down with the current, like a wilful child that obtains ...
— Two on the Trail - A Story of the Far Northwest • Hulbert Footner
... deeply disappointed by the failure of the enterprise on which his hopes had been so much set, he did not conceal; but he never believed that the ten years' work had been lost, and he never doubted that Union would come. He did not live to see it, but when, on October 31, 1900, the two Churches at length became one, ...
— Principal Cairns • John Cairns
... sensible man would contend for a moment—but show me at any point, let any of my hon. friends show me from day to day as this session passes, where this bureaucracy, as they call it, has been at fault. Do they suppose it possible that I will not show my recognition of that failure, and do all that I can to remedy it? Although the Government of India is complicated and intricate, they cannot suppose that I shall fail for one moment in doing all in my power to demonstrate that ...
— Indian speeches (1907-1909) • John Morley (AKA Viscount Morley)
... Manley had fought in France with a brilliant intrepidity which had not met with the public recognition it deserved, and learned that he had been invalided out of the Army owing to the weakness of his heart. This common failure of health was a bond of sympathy between them, and made them well ...
— The Loudwater Mystery • Edgar Jepson
... no news from the coast which can amount to certainty of the King's arrival," said another of the company, in that tone of subdued and tremulous whisper which implies a failure of resolution. ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... her to think that she who considers her life a failure because she has done no good to others, perhaps by that thought of humility has saved her ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof
... Estella. "I am what you have made me. Take all the praise, take all the blame; take all the success, take all the failure; in short, take me." ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... failure to Major Selby, who in turn sent a letter to Warren Jarvis at his New York club. There the latter was hastening his preparations for the great trek through the mountains. Warren had closed his office, where, profiting by his experiences in South and Central ...
— The Ghost Breaker - A Novel Based Upon the Play • Charles Goddard
... came. What are you now? Don't let fellows lead you astray. You can be a fine fellow without being a bad one. Let the 'Sociables' alone. They'll teach you to be a cad. If you don't care for yourself, think of Heathcote, who only needs your encouragement to make a worse failure than he has made already. Save him from Pledge. Then you'll be a fine fellow, with ...
— Follow My leader - The Boys of Templeton • Talbot Baines Reed
... Isaac Iselin, "but not a whole people." "Poverty" says Lucian, "persuades a man to do and suffer everything that he may escape from it." "It requires a great deal of poetry to gild the pill of poverty," says Madame Deluzy; "and then it will pass for a pleasant dose only in theory; the reality is a failure." "A generous and noble spirit" says Dionysius, "cannot be expected to dwell in the breast of men who are struggling for their ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... sailed back to England, sobered by a sense of failure, but encouraged by the example of the Moravians, who accepted whatever Providence ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... familiar that she hardly noticed it. And all the way she was thinking of Francis Sales, his absurdity, his good looks and his distress; but in the permanence of his distress, even in its sincerity, she did not much believe, for he had failed to touch anything but her pity, and that failure seemed an argument against the vehemence of his love. Yet she liked him, she had always liked him since, as a little girl, she had been taken by her stepsisters to a haymaking party at ...
— THE MISSES MALLETT • E. H. YOUNG
... lose sight of the ideals which have carried us so far, which have so greatly modified the conditions of other peoples than ourselves, we shall perish as a force in the world. And if this government proves a failure, how long do you think the material interests of which you are so solicitous will endure? Or do you care whether they endure beyond your lifetime? Perhaps not. But it is a matter of importance, not only to the nation, but to the world, whether or not the moral idea of the United States of America ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... such a pang that he could not answer, but with a twig played a game of tick-tack-toe in the dust, while he thought bitterly that no one could blame Helene Spenceley for preferring Canby to a person who seemed destined to failure ...
— The Dude Wrangler • Caroline Lockhart
... third reason for the failure of the reform majority is found in the fact that the minority was permitted to organize both Senate and Assembly. In the Assembly the machine element named the Speaker without serious opposition. The Speaker named the ...
— Story of the Session of the California Legislature of 1909 • Franklin Hichborn
... illusioned, with no practical knowledge of any side of life, but full of a true poetic feeling for the mystery and pathos of life and death, the wonder of the waters, the stars, the flowers, accidents of life, success, failure. Beginning with a song called "Wide Wings" (published by a small retail music-house in Evansville, Indiana), and followed by such national successes as "The Letter That Never Came," "I Believe It, For My Mother Told Me So" ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... respective precincts. They were not allowed to entertain slave friends at their houses, without the permission of the owner of the slaves. To all prohibitions there was affixed severe fines in large sums of money. In case of a failure to pay these fines, the delinquent was sent to the House of Correction; where, under severe discipline, he was constrained to work out his fine at the rate of one shilling per day! If a Negro "presume ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... in its train. Again a young man will marry and settle down when mature consideration would show that his career would advance much more rapidly if he were not burdened with a family. Again, an individual marries and without even admitting to himself that his marriage is a failure he gradually shuts himself off from any emotional expression—protects himself from the married state by sublimating his natural domestic ties, usually in some kind of engrossing work, but often in questionable ways—by hobbies, speed ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... to Saint-Cloud was very different from that in which I reported the failure of my endeavours with Mademoiselle Choin. I was received in triumph before a large company. To my surprise, Mademoiselle, as soon as I appeared, ran towards me, kissed me on both cheeks, took me by the hand, and led me into the orangery. Then she thanked me, and ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... conversational instinct has thus been daily strengthened. Hence the reunions of these people have been characterized by a sprightliness and vigor and spirit that the Anglo-Saxon has in vain attempted to seize and reproduce. English and American conversazioni have very generally proved a failure, from the rooted, frozen habit of reticence and reserve which grows with our growth and strengthens with our strength. The fact is, that the Anglo-Saxon race as a race does not enjoy talking, and, except in rare instances, does not talk well. A daily ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 106, August, 1866 • Various
... one, although it is probably the most expensive boat in these waters. I am told it cost anywhere from half a million to a million. She was built by Thornycroft, like a cruiser, with Parson's turbine engines in her. After the failure, Captain and crew were discharged, and I am on board as a sort of watchman until she is sold, but there is not a large market for a boat like 'The Walrus,' and I am told they will take the fittings out of her, and sell her as a cruiser to one of the ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr
... in default of something more to my mind, I turned to my nurse and determined to make that silent woman talk. At first it was difficult, for I tried to discover her feelings, her attitude, her history. As to the first two of these I met only failure and the last was pathetically simple. An orphan she was, a bread-winner, an observer. I say it was pathetic, but not that she was. Things are changing rapidly with women, I can see that plainly, ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... failure of the shot, I tried him with the left-hand barrel at the same hole. The report of the gun echoed over the lake, but there he stood as though he bore a charmed life;—an increased flow of blood from the wound ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... which she thought most adapted to irritate the Netherlanders into a full compliance with her wishes. Her advisers in the Provinces were inclined to take the same view. It seemed obvious, after the failure in France, that those countries must now become either English or Spanish; yet Elizabeth, knowing the risk of their falling back, from desperation, into the arms of her rival, allowed them to remain for a season on the edge of destruction—which would probably have ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... into the whole subject, but no practical results followed the step. In 1792 the Duke de Rochefoucauld wrote that 'the Canadian who could read was regarded as a phenomenon.' The attempt of the 'Royal Institution for the Advancement of Learning' to establish schools was comparatively a failure; for after an existence of twenty years it had only 37 schools, attended by 1,048 pupils altogether. The British Government, at no time after it came into possession of the province, ever attempted anything ...
— The Intellectual Development of the Canadian People • John George Bourinot
... rank gave him an unlimited power of life and death in his own territories, Ferdinand had much to fear. Yet selfish apprehension soon yielded to a more noble sorrow. He mourned the fate of Hippolitus, and the sufferings of Julia. He could attribute the failure of their scheme only to the treachery of Robert, who had, however, met the wishes of Ferdinand with strong apparent sincerity, and generous interest in the cause of Julia. On the night of the intended elopement, he had consigned the keys to Ferdinand, ...
— A Sicilian Romance • Ann Radcliffe
... their failure, the believers in the claims of the so-called Sebastian endeavoured to enlist the sympathy of the foreign potentates on behalf of one of their own order who was unjustly incarcerated and deprived of his rights. In this they failed; but at last the government ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous
... with the news, readily lent me an armful of newspapers, dating from a month back to the day before. With these I sought the tavern, and, ordering some breakfast, sat down to study the "Huddlestone Failure." ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... near the window, and mopped his face again, with a shaking hand. Death he was accustomed to—but death met decently in bed and resulting from some understood cause. Death in this horrible and mysterious form shook him; he could not understand it, and his failure to understand appalled him. He was a physician; it was his business to understand; and yet here was death in a form as mysterious to him as to the veriest layman. It compelled him to pause and take stock of himself—always a disconcerting process ...
— The Mystery Of The Boule Cabinet - A Detective Story • Burton Egbert Stevenson
... Porteous did not, in fact, develop in a few hours, after his failure to appear on the scaffold. The Queen's pardon (or a reprieve) reached Edinburgh on Thursday, Sept. 2; the Riot occurred on the night of Sept. 7. The council had been informed that lynching was intended, thirty-six hours before the fatal evening, but ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... to this erroneous idea that housekeeping is a failure to-day? For the fact that it is a failure cannot be hidden, and that it has been a failure for many years past is equally true. Recent inventions, and labor saving utensils, have greatly facilitated housework, yet housekeeping is still accompanied with much dissatisfaction on the part ...
— Wanted, a Young Woman to Do Housework • C. Helene Barker
... responsibility of participating in the design. The count, however, was greatly displeased at this answer, and said to his associates, "I understand it perfectly. He is willing that we should seize and carry him, as if by violence, but wishes, in case of failure, to throw all the blame upon those who are periling their lives to save him." The queen hoped earnestly that the enterprise would not be abandoned, and sat up till after midnight preparing her cases ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... of this: My failure in mathematics was serious. My grades in English, history, and Latin were good enough. But this brought down my average. [This? What this? Five nouns intrude between the pronoun this ...
— The Century Handbook of Writing • Garland Greever
... moment, Mr. Carter. You say that you and I know what marriage is. How do you reconcile it with your knowledge of Nina, your knowledge of her upbringing, to plan deliberately what would make our marriage—or any marriage—foredoomed to failure from the start? I didn't spoil Nina, I didn't form her tastes. She has thought of herself as an heiress, she has spent money, lived luxuriously. I only ask a fair chance. Make it an allowance, if you like. Keep the matter in the family; don't blaze to the world that you ...
— Harriet and the Piper - (Norris Volume XI) • Kathleen Norris
... what all they did in that wild and reckless land, that further rest was impossible, and we betook ourselves with our mattresses to the staterooms, for another attempt at sleep, which, however, meant only failure, as the sun rose incredibly early on that river, and we were glad to take a hasty sponge from a basin of rather thick looking river-water, and go again out on deck, where we could always get a cup of black coffee from ...
— Vanished Arizona - Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman • Martha Summerhayes
... with the exception of a few inconsiderable fragments and the historical drama Florian Geyer. The latter has been excluded by reason of its great length, its divergence from the characteristic moods of Hauptmann's art, and that failure of high success which the author himself has implicitly acknowledged. The arrangement of the volumes follows, with such modifications as the increase of material has made necessary, the method used by Hauptmann in the first and hitherto the only collected edition of his dramas. Five plays ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann
... that it finds itself in a cul-de-sac. But what is to be done? The experienced can see that many of the offered reforms are but the repetition of old mistakes which will involve us in the unhappy cycle of disillusion and failure. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, if men everywhere are seeking for a sign, a glimpse of a scheme of life, a view of reality, a hint of human destiny and the true outcome of human effort, to be an inspiration and a guide to them in their pathetic struggle out of the morass in which ...
— Bergson and His Philosophy • J. Alexander Gunn
... and at the seasonable time. For the emotional and unreasoning elements are subject to motions sometimes too quick and vehement, at other times too remiss and slow. And so everything we do may be a success from one point of view, but a failure from many points of view; as to hit the mark one thing only is requisite, but one may miss it in various ways, as one may shoot beyond or too short. This then is the function of practical reason following ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... to the employment of this new labor-force is due to the government's failure to see the possibility of saving most valuable labor-power and achieving an economic gain by dovetailing the idle months of young women in industrial life into the ...
— Mobilizing Woman-Power • Harriot Stanton Blatch
... with astonishment the total failure of its schemes for the re-conquest of Servia, resolved to temporize, and agreed to allow them a local and national government with a reduction of tribute; but previous to the ratification of the agreement withdrew its consent to the ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... to patch up the affair failed. Shosshi went about broken-hearted for several days. To have been so near the goal—and then not to arrive after all! What made failure more bitter was that he had boasted of his conquest to his acquaintances, especially to the two who kept the stalls to the right and left of him on Sundays in Petticoat Lane. They made a butt of him as it was; he felt he could never stand between them for a whole morning now, and ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... Christine were going into the country for the day), with a mind occupied with the phrases in which he should bid her good-by and eyes lazily reading the newspaper, was suddenly startled beyond words by a short paragraph on the financial page. This stated in the baldest terms the failure of ...
— Ladies Must Live • Alice Duer Miller
... troops in Lebanon. These troops are based mainly in Beirut, North Lebanon, and the Bekaa Valley. Syria's deployment was legitimized by the Arab League early in Lebanon's civil war and in the Ta'if accord. Citing the continued weakness of the LAF, Beirut's requests, and failure of the Lebanese Government to implement all of the constitutional reforms in the Ta'if accord, Damascus has so far refused to withdraw its ...
— The 1996 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... endure through life. This association of the sexes operates as a restraint upon both, salutary to good conduct and good morals. Such restraints are far more effective than the staid lessons of some old, wrinkled duenna of a school-mistress, whose failure to find a sweetheart in girlhood, or a husband in youthful womanhood, has soured her toward every man, and filled her with hatred for the happiness she witnesses in wedded life, and which is ever present all around her. Her warnings are in violation of nature. She ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... more difficult than to convince a child that she pleads in vain for any ardently desired object. Nothing that Angela could say would reconcile her niece to the idea of failure; so there was no help but to let her fancy her arguments conclusive, and to change the bent of her ...
— London Pride - Or When the World Was Younger • M. E. Braddon
... as well," said he, rallying himself, "that we part here. Our experiment has proved a sad failure. We grow colder and more repellant each day, instead of drawing closer together and becoming more lovingly assimilated. It is not good—this life—for either of us. We struggle in our bonds and hurt each other. Better apart! better apart! Moreover"—his ...
— After the Storm • T. S. Arthur
... to measure the success or failure of the work, the teacher must ask himself, What do our college graduates who have taken art courses possess that is lacking in those who have not ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... feet, shot up the head of an enormous snake, with a lamping wallowing glare in its eyes. Again the leopardess rushed to the attack, but found nothing. At a third monster she darted with like fury, and like failure—then sullenly ceased to heed the phantom-horde. But I understood the peril and hastened the crossing—the rather that the moon was carrying herself strangely. Even as she rose she seemed ready to drop and give up the attempt as hopeless; and since, I saw her ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... of late had become almost certainties, have been suddenly defeated. The affair of the Rennepont inheritance, in spite of all the care and skill employed upon it, has completely and finally failed. At the point to which matters had been brought, it is unfortunately worse than a failure; it is a most disastrous event for the Society, which was clearly entitled to this property, fraudulently withdrawn from a confiscation made in our favor. My conscience at least bears witness, that, to the last moment, ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... with which the resource may be found and developed to keep up with the rapid acceleration of demand. In the chapter on conservation the suggestion is made that future difficulties are more likely to arise from failure to coodinate the dynamic factors of supply and demand, than from absolute shortage of material ...
— The Economic Aspect of Geology • C. K. Leith
... renounced the delights all round her, made terms with the discomforts and looked for alleviations. But it was during these walks that she began to perceive that she was making, in a way she had not at all anticipated, a complete failure of her role of English teacher. The three weeks' haphazard curriculum had brought only one repetition of her English lesson in the smaller schoolroom; and excepting at meals, when whatever conversation there was was general and polyglot, she was ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson
... tried. It was just such things as this the missionary had meant when he said she was unfit for life out here. She would stay and bear the loneliness and fright. She would prove, at least to herself, that she had the courage of any missionary. She would not bear the ignominy of weakness and failure. It would be a shame to her all her life to know she had failed ...
— The Man of the Desert • Grace Livingston Hill
... 22, 1780 (intercepted letters).] In the general weakness and exhaustion, however, nothing was done; and, as neither the State nor Federal governments took any steps to protect them, and as their missionaries refused to learn wisdom, it was evident that the days of the Moravians were numbered. The failure of the government to protect them was perhaps ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt
... "If one failure grieves you in this way, Elizabeth, what would you do if you had chosen a path from which you could not turn back, although you knew that it was wrong? There are many men and women whose lives are based upon what you would call, ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... it—you tried to make me save myself for my own sake,—and it couldn't be done. It was a failure. And now you're trying to make me save myself ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... was a trap, meant to stop or delay us, and I'll wager high it was the baronet who set and baited it. It would please him well to be able to say what our failure to come would give him warrant for. Let us gallop a bit, lest we be late and so play ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... training in it, which alone could teach its right principles, makes, and in the nature of things is bound to make, great mistakes—mistakes easily avoidable. No such thing can possibly be right. Raphael himself designed for tapestry, and the cartoons are priceless, but the tapestry a ghastly failure. It could not have been otherwise under the conditions. Executant separated from designer by all the leagues that ...
— Stained Glass Work - A text-book for students and workers in glass • C. W. Whall
... that those boys had gone to the theatre to-night I was completely discouraged," declared Ried. "It seemed to me that our work was a failure; I could almost see Satan laughing over the success of his scheme. I never felt so about anything in my life. And now it seems to me that perhaps the Lord will let it result in being the best thing that ...
— Ester Ried Yet Speaking • Isabella Alden
... hunted in play, for the sheer joyousness of it; now he hunted in deadly earnestness, and found nothing. Yet the failure of it accelerated his development. He studied the habits of the squirrel with greater carefulness, and strove with greater craft to steal upon it and surprise it. He studied the wood-mice and tried to dig them out of their burrows; and he learned much about ...
— White Fang • Jack London
... standing very still to let Mary rub his silky nose. But John Fenn looked only at Philippa. Of her father's heresies he would not, he said, do more than remind her that the wiles of the devil against her soul might present them-selves through her natural affections; but in regard to her failure to wait upon the means of grace he spoke without mercy, for, he said, "faithful are the ...
— The Voice • Margaret Deland
... place among the socially elect as the crowning achievement—the great desideratum—of our joint career. It is what we have always been striving for. Without it we—both of us—would have unquestionably acknowledged failure. My future, my reputation, my place at the bar and my domestic life would have meant nothing at all to us, had not the grand cordon of success been thrown across ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... electricity and the black patterns of the shadows, she saw the sharp outlines of the city, and beyond that the immense blue field of the sky sown thickly with stars. Life was there—life that embraced success and failure, illusion and disillusion, birth and death. In the morning she would go back to it—she would begin again—in the morning she would will herself to pick up the threads of middle age as lightly as Stephen and Patty would ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... of the situation was reported by Governor Young to the President of the United States, and the truth slowly made its way into the eastern press. President Buchanan tacitly admitted his mistake; but to recall the troops at that juncture would be to confess humiliating failure. ...
— The Story of "Mormonism" • James E. Talmage
... same cry: "If the doctor had only been here!" From all she could gather, Elsie had passed a restless night and had died of heart failure in the morning. An overtaxed heart had given out by the exertion ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... general opinion, they follow the reformers timidly; they do not precede them. Sometimes, however, certain governments have attempted those sudden reforms which we know as revolutions. The stability or instability of the national mind decrees the success or failure of ...
— The Psychology of Revolution • Gustave le Bon
... Metcalf, you conducted a series of spraying experiments recently, and I understand that others have done the same thing. Mr. P. A. Dupont, I believe, on his fine estate near Wilmington, tried to spray a few chestnut trees with Bordeaux mixture, and I understand he gave it up as a physical failure, to say nothing of the cost. Am I ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Seventh Annual Meeting • Various
... there was a fresh change of plans. The expedition against Ticonderoga was given up, as another attempt at Louisbourg was about to be made. The English government were determined that the disastrous delays, which had caused the failure of the last expedition, should not be repeated. Loudon was recalled, and to General Abercromby, the second in command, was intrusted the charge of the forces in the colonies. Colonel Amherst was raised to the rank of major general, and appointed to command the expedition from England against ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... capacity, astonishing in attainment, it nevertheless admits willful fault, and misses what it ought first to have attained. It is therefore, to a certain measure, vile in its perfection; while the older work is noble even in its failure, and classic no less in what it deliberately refuses, than in what it rationally and rightly ...
— Ariadne Florentina - Six Lectures on Wood and Metal Engraving • John Ruskin
... was a failure; for pretty soon it begun to storm again, and this time worse than ever. The rain poured down, and never a light showed; everybody in bed, I reckon. We boomed along down the river, watching for lights and watching ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... return to Meta Incognita were doomed to disappointment. The ore that the ships carried proved to be but worthless rock, and from the commercial point of view the whole expedition was a failure. Frobisher was never able to repeat his attempt to find the North-West Passage. In its existence his faith remained as firm as ever. But, although his three voyages resulted in no discoveries of {22} profit to England, his name ...
— Adventurers of the Far North - A Chronicle of the Frozen Seas • Stephen Leacock
... ardent plans for the rescue and rehabilitation of Keggo, and they show the projection and the failure of the plans. They show work found for Keggo (through Simcox's scholastic side) and lost and found again and again lost and still again. They show Keggo's remorse and they show Rosalie's forgiveness. They ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... far as Nancy was concerned, had been very dull indeed. To be bored, in her creed, was a confession of complete failure; it indicated the most contemptible inefficiency, since she designed the whole fabric of her life with the unique object of keeping herself amused. Nothing bored her more than to have the general attention centered on some one else, as all that evening it had been ...
— Ladies Must Live • Alice Duer Miller
... and checking huge accumulation. He pointed out how vast sums could be found for such subsidies out of the money spent today on an education which the poor detested for their children and which most of the wealthy admitted to be an abject failure. Most of those, he noted, who oppose Distributism do so on the ground that the proposals are unpractical or revolutionary, which generally means that they have not examined the proposals. His own were certainly practical ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... a resource-rich country, suffers from pervasive government controls, inefficient economic policies, and rural poverty. The junta took steps in the early 1990s to liberalize the economy after decades of failure under the "Burmese Way to Socialism," but those efforts stalled, and some of the liberalization measures were rescinded. Despite Burma's increasing oil and gas revenue, socio-economic conditions have deteriorated due to the regime's ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... capital, and under the direction of science and the most experienced skill. The solitary adventurer may tickle the stern ribs of Acadia with his paltry hoe and pick in vain,—she will laugh for him and such as he with no sign of a golden harvest. Failure and vexation, disappointment, loss, and ruin, will be again, as they have already been, his only reward. With this full disclaimer, therefore, at the commencement of our remarks, we trust that we shall, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... arises from the deed itself, this deed is not expedient, for instance that one cross a river by a tottering bridge: but if the danger arise through man's failure in the deed, the latter does not cease to be expedient: thus it is expedient to mount on horseback, though there be the danger of a fall from the horse: else it would behoove one to desist from all good things, that may become dangerous accidentally. ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... Life-Time, shall be paid to his Executors, if so appointed by Will; but if no Will be made, then his Part of what was got as aforesaid shall go to his Widow, or Heirs at Law, if claim'd in Twelve Months, from the Time of the said Brigantine's Arrival into her commission'd Port; and on Failure thereof, said Share or Shares shall be and belong to the general Interest ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various
... maladroitness, which was the more singular because she had really written under strong emotion. She did not even now guess the secret of her failure; which was, that she had written entreating forgiveness of one whom she had not wholly forgiven. ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Land and I chatted about one thing and another, staring at that mysterious sea whose depths to this day are beyond the reach of human eyes. Quite naturally, I led our conversation around to the giant unicorn, and I weighed our expedition's various chances for success or failure. Then, seeing that Ned just let me talk without saying much himself, I ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... Professor Channing, while expressing some disapproval of this feature of our system, fails to offer a satisfactory explanation of its origin. "Perhaps nothing in the Constitution of the United States is more extraordinary," he tells us, "than the failure of that instrument to provide any means for getting rid of the judges of the Federal courts except by the process of impeachment. In England, in Massachusetts and in Pennsylvania, judges could be removed by ...
— The Spirit of American Government - A Study Of The Constitution: Its Origin, Influence And - Relation To Democracy • J. Allen Smith
... most envenomed attacks on the Jews were written after the destruction of Jerusalem, when the failure of Rome to break the stubborn spirit of her conquered foe became apparent. The legions could destroy Jerusalem; they could not uproot Judaism or even stay its progress. The presence of thousands of Jewish captive slaves at Rome accelerated indeed the march of conversion. ...
— Josephus • Norman Bentwich
... art swift to bless, Strong to comfort, skilled to heal; Failure is with Thee success, Woe the forerunner of weal; Every stroke is a caress, Every ...
— A Christmas Faggot • Alfred Gurney
... survey the portage with a theodolite. Orders were also given by the commissioner that the first barometer which should be returned should be carried over the portage. It was believed that this double provision would have secured the examination of this point beyond the chance of failure. A snowstorm, however (the same which interrupted the last operation referred to), set in after the level had been run to the mountain of Biort, and one of the laboring men, worn out by his preceding ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 3: Martin Van Buren • James D. Richardson
... drawing-room too small and your husband growing too fat. Why, I again ask you, this string of vexatious impressions? If you remember rightly, dear Madame, you wore for the first time the day before yesterday that horrible little violet bonnet, which is such a disgusting failure. First pair ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... eyes is a very common failure with growing girls, although very often they do not know it, and headaches come most frequently from the eyes being strained; frowning on the part of a girl is very generally a sign that her eyes are being strained. Reading in ...
— How Girls Can Help Their Country • Juliette Low
... such a total failure in General Hull's expedition, it became late in the season before the American Government could collect a force on the frontiers with which, with any safety, another descent upon Canada could be made. At length, Major-General ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson |
