"Inaccuracy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... but he expressed pleasure, and led me up the narrow, steep stairway, whose ceiling almost touched my head as I climbed up after him. On the first floor the landlord, in festal raiment, intercepted us, introduced himself in English (which he spoke with pretentious inaccuracy), and, barring my further ascent, took possession of me, and led the way to his best parlour, as if it were entirely unbecoming for his tenant to receive ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... passage, as I did, in perfect good faith, ought not to be accused of offering matter in disguise. There was no disguise about it. Mr. Haden's words may be compared with my quotation. Again, to prevent any possible inaccuracy, a proof of the article in Scribner was sent to Mr. Haden before it was published.[22] It is scarcely necessary that I should allude to Mr. Whistler's studied discourtesy in calling me "a Mr. Hamerton." It does me no harm, but it is a breach of ordinary good ...
— The Gentle Art of Making Enemies • James McNeill Whistler
... To those of us who normally feel loyal to the nation, such a disloyal sentiment brings sharp indignation. As an index of our own sentiment and our own happy relations to the nation, this indignation has value. As a stimulus to a programme or ethical generalization, it is the cause of vast inaccuracy and sad injustice. American syndicalism is not a scheming group dominated by an unconventional and destructive social philosophy. It is merely a commonplace attitude—not such a state of mind as Machiavelli or Robespierre ...
— An American Idyll - The Life of Carleton H. Parker • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... exactly a grange, but then it had such an enormous rudder that the justice of that part of the title seemed to over-balance any little inaccuracy in ...
— Rudder Grange • Frank R. Stockton
... with this margin of inaccuracy, that up to the very dawn of the twentieth-century scientific discovery was still rather a procession of happy accidents than an orderly ...
— The World Set Free • Herbert George Wells
... calling, love it, rejoice in it, regret its defects, and honor its achievements, they begin consciously to try to show how good a newspaper can be made with nothing but the tuition of the office. Inaccuracy, carelessness, bad taste, and dubious ethics present themselves at a different angle when judged in the light of a calling for which colleges and universities furnish training. A corporate spirit and a corporate standard are felt more strongly, and men who have learned ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... The following passage is from Mr. Hallam's account of Campanella and his disciple Adami. My reference is to the first edition of Mr. Hallam's work; but the passage stands unaltered in the second. I believe these to be rare instances of inaccuracy. ...
— Notes & Queries, No. 27. Saturday, May 4, 1850 • Various
... consist of presents of chura, cheese, butter, yak milk, and tsamba, and they said they would sell us ponies if we required them. The description was too glowing; so, taking all things into consideration, and allowing for the inaccuracy of speech of my interlocutors as well as of Tibetans in general, I thanked them from the bottom of my heart and answered that I preferred to continue my way and bear my ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... piece of thought, "A man's a man for a' that" unites the two defects of obviousness and inaccuracy. As for the deep feeling, I hardly see where it comes in—unless it be a feeling of wounded and blatant but militant self-esteem. As for the poetry—well, "J.B." had rather have written it than have written one-third of Scott's novels. ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... has been made upon the inaccuracy of the printed Memoirs, but judging from a personal inspection of the original, there appear to be but few serious errors. [Footnote: "Turning" for "Trimming instruments" (in Lady Anne's will), and such like slips. See ...
— Memoirs of Lady Fanshawe • Lady Fanshawe
... but as it was unsalaried rank, he attached no great importance to it. Sir George Templemore was inquiring concerning the recording of deeds, a regulation that had recently attracted attention in England; and one of Mr. Effingham's replies contained some immaterial inaccuracy, which Aristabulus took occasion to correct, as his first appearance ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... inaccuracy does it," he said; "eyebrows probably too oblique,"—therewith pulling the blind lower to get a better light, and resuming ...
— The Stolen Bacillus and Other Incidents • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... recorded the average speed as two and a half feet in ten seconds, estimating this as a mile in three and a half hours. An observant colonel in the American army has laid bare my congenitally hopeless mathematical inaccuracy, and corrected this to five hours and fifty-two seconds. Now, however, I established a wholly new record for the straight-away dash for home of the army ants. With the handicap of gravity pulling them down, the ants, both laden ...
— Edge of the Jungle • William Beebe
... together, the one by the other. The lines convey poetic sentiment rather than reasoned truth; while Mr. Browning's close would be no unfit epilogue to a scientific essay on history, or a treatise on the errors of the human understanding and the inaccuracy of human opinion and judgment. This is the common note of his highest work; hard thought and reason illustrating themselves in dramatic circumstance, and the thought and reason are not wholly fused, they exist apart and irradiate with far-shooting beams the moral confusion of the tragedy. ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... much of the talk at lunch—except that it turned on Ruskin and his art views, with which latter, it seemed to me, Browning had not much sympathy. He told me two anecdotes designed to prove Ruskin's technical inaccuracy; one relating to Michael Angelo, the other to Browning's own exquisite poem, Andrea del Sarto. 'But never mind,' said Browning, 'he writes ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... nature, of Scriptural truths cause them to surmount verbal disturbances. A doctrine, for instance, which is sowed broadcast over the Scriptures, and recurs, on an average, three times in every chapter, cannot be affected by the casual inaccuracy of a phrase, since the phrase is continually varied. And, therefore, I would not deny the possibility of an effectual searching by very unlearned persons. Our authorized translators of the Bible in the Shakspearian age were not in any exquisite sense learned men; they were very able men, and in ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... not believe we have a more trustworthy historian than Dr. Hale, so far as giving us the motive and pith and essence of great transactions. He is sometimes criticised for inaccuracy in dates or matters that are trifling or incidental. I suppose that comes from the fact that while he stores away in his mind everything that is essential, and trusts to his memory for that, he has not the time, which less busy men have, to verify every unsubstantial ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... often amused at the very slight knowledge that could carry a society girl through a conversation. In Hunter, Baxter & Hunter's offices there would be instant challenges, even at auntie's table affectation met its just punishment, and inaccuracy was promptly detected. But there ...
— Saturday's Child • Kathleen Norris
... Trossachs. The objection is utterly futile, for there is not a single spire or pinnacle from one end of the Trossachs to the other. All their rocks are heavily rounded, and the introduction of the word "spire" is a piece of inaccuracy in description, ventured merely for the sake of the Gothic image. Farther: it has been said that if I had substituted the word "gable," it would have spoiled the line just as much as the word "pediment," though "gable" is a Gothic word. Of course it would; but why? Because "gable" is a term of ...
— Lectures on Architecture and Painting - Delivered at Edinburgh in November 1853 • John Ruskin
... credibility of the traveller who publishes an account of some distant and comparatively unimportant country. How warily will they compare the measurements of a pyramid, or the description of a ruin; and how sternly will they censure any inaccuracy in these contributions of merely curious knowledge, while they will receive, with eagerness and unhesitating faith, the gross misrepresentations of coarse and obscure writers, concerning a country with which their own is placed in the most important and ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... as Hugo often is, it is never the inaccuracy that falsifies. He has been severely criticized for having in Au Lion d'Androcles assigned to a single epoch events and personages which are really separated by centuries. But all the facts are typical of the spirit which dominated Imperial Rome, and combine therefore ...
— La Legende des Siecles • Victor Hugo
... ruthlessness, some of Froude's exaggerations—to call them by no worse name—in his Story of the English in Ireland. When his Erasmus was translated into Dutch, the countrymen of Erasmus accused him of constant, if not deliberate, inaccuracy. Lord Carnarvon once sent Froude to South Africa as an informal special commissioner. When he returned to this country he wrote an article on the South African problem in the Quarterly Review. Sir Bartle Frere, who knew South Africa as few men did, said ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... who has become interested in the question would more wisely approach it with a tendency toward doubt than toward implicit belief; to doubt, however, that leads one directly to investigation. We need to remember, however, that inaccuracy by no means connotes inveracity. There is here no imputation against the honesty of any writer, even when carelessness, exaggeration and inaccuracy are not only alleged, but demonstrated to exist. A. L. Aurora, ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell
... connection. Resnel, in his preface to Pope's Essay, remarks that Garth exhibits no discrimination of characters; and that what any one says might, with equal propriety, have been said by another. The general design is, perhaps, open to criticism; but the composition can seldom be charged with inaccuracy or negligence. The author never slumbers in self-indulgence; his full vigour is always exerted; scarcely a line is left unfinished; nor is it easy to find an expression used by constraint, or a thought imperfectly ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson
... accurately described or but moderately misrepresented. I say moderately misrepresented, because the absolute transmission of anything beyond a mere list of names, and dates, without addition, omission, or embellishment, is a practical impossibility. Hence we must allow for some inaccuracy; just as in mechanics we must allow for friction. But, allowing for this, we must still remember that the event and the account of it, are correlative terms. An opinion—an account of an account—only takes the appearance of a tradition. It is a tradition so far as it is handed ...
— The Ethnology of the British Islands • Robert Gordon Latham
... neither gracious nor candid. While dealing in columns of figures to prove the inaccuracy of the enrolment, it concealed the fact that, although urged to cooeperate with the enrolling officers, he had ignored their invitation to verify the enrolment. In menacing tones, too, he intimated "the consequences of a violent, harsh policy, ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... conversation Hyde triumphantly redeemed his promise of assistance. He could describe with a delightful accuracy—or inaccuracy— the lovely toilets and pretty accessories of the high English wedding feasts of the previous year. And in some subtle way he threw into these descriptions such a glamour of romance, such backgrounds of old castles and chiming ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... contributors to his paper, he threw his weight always on the side of the man who had complete knowledge of his subject. No brilliancy of style could make up in his eyes for lack of precision in thought or inaccuracy in statement. Next in order he appeared to value in a reviewer a judicial quality of mind, as essential to a sane and balanced criticism. "He disapproved"—to quote Mr. C. A. Cook again—"of anything fanciful in expression or any display of sentiment;" but, so long as writers ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... stature, with a shrieky voice, and speaks uncommonly fast) bowed himself in; and a Colloquy ensued, on Literature and so forth, of the kind we may conceive. Colloquy which had great fame in the world; Gottsched himself having—such the inaccuracy of rumor and Dutch Newspapers, on the matter—published authentic Report of it; [Next Year, in a principal Leipzig Magazine, with name signed: given in Helden-Geschichte, iv. 728-739 (with multifarious commentaries and flourishings, denoting ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... present: "Pray, sir, do you think such conduct natural?" "Why, no, sir," Macklin replied gravely, "not in a Sir John Dorilant, but strictly natural as Mr. Reddish; for, as you know, he has advertised himself as a gentleman of easy fortune." It has been pointed out, however, that the inaccuracy, fatal to so many anecdotes, affects even this one. The book is thrown away in strict accordance with the stage directions of the play; and it is so treated, not by Sir John Dorilant, but by ...
— A Book of the Play - Studies and Illustrations of Histrionic Story, Life, and Character • Dutton Cook
... be no doubt, notwithstanding the slight inaccuracy, that our young friend had turned up; and so she had. Would to ...
— Carmilla • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... The highest intellects, Origen, Tertullian, and Eusebius, were representatives of a philosophy not hers; her greatest bishops, such as St. Gregory, St. Dionysius, and St Cyprian, so little exercised a doctor's office, as to incur, however undeservedly, the imputation of doctrinal inaccuracy. Vigilant as was the Holy See then, as in every age, yet there is no Pope, I may say, during that period, who has impressed his character upon his generation; yet how well instructed, how precisely informed, how self-possessed an oracle of truth, nevertheless, do we find the Church ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... and making no attempt to follow common-sense rules, or to improve our state. It stated that we had been in the village three days, and thus implied that there could be no excuse. Our reply asserted that the inaccuracy of the report made it worthless. That, though the Regiment had been there three days, the Army, which the gallant Major T. represented and worked for, had been in the village some months. That Major T.'s party ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills
... increasing with the number of the wheels used. It is stated that with three wheels practically useful results can be obtained, although in this case the error, if the instrument is consistently handled so as always to produce the greatest inaccuracy, may be as much ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... be said for the Latin origin of the Gesta Romanorum is that the nucleus is made up of extracts, frequently of glaring inaccuracy, from Roman writers and historians. The Cologne edition comprises one hundred and eighty-one chapters, each consisting of a tale or anecdote followed by a moral application, commencing formally with ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... disgraceful act, I would not have ventured to relate it." (Gordon's Memoirs, vol. i. p, 210.) The author, also, would not have ventured to adduce it, without first satisfying himself, by inquiry, as to the probable credibility of Mr. Gordon, and likewise testing his narrative. It bears marks of the inaccuracy in details to which memory is subject, but the indications of ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... shock and New Japan is the result. She is thus a living witness to the inaccuracy of those sweeping generalizations as to her inherent ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick
... look, not with concern but with a deep interest, to anything which may appear in the 'Pulpit' respecting my 'Criminal Queens.' I venture to think that the book,—though I wrote it myself,—has an importance of its own which will secure for it some notice. That my inaccuracy will be laid bare and presumption scourged I do not in the least doubt, but I think your reviewer will be able to certify that the sketches are lifelike and the portraits well considered. You will not hear me told, at any rate, that I had better sit at home and darn my stockings, as you said the ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... total the numbers of killed, wounded, and missing, after the three earlier battles, have been massed, and added to the total number of men known to have taken part in the battle of Magersfontein. The inaccuracy dependent on the fact that some of the men reported as wounded or missing in the earlier battles had already returned to their regiments, and are included in the total of 11,447, ...
— Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 • George Henry Makins
... in the misery of cold, and hunger preying upon him both night and day, in a degree which very many would not have survived,—he, when retracing his schoolboy annals, could have shown indecision even, far more dreaded inaccuracy, in identifying the house, not one syllable after that, which he could have said on any other subject, would have won any confidence, or deserved any, from a judicious reader. I may now mention—the Herod being dead whose persecutions I had reason to fear—that the house in question stands in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... testimony—testimony from the nature of the subject more than ordinarily liable to be affected by prejudice, and by the limitations of each witness's powers of observation and opportunities of ascertaining the truth. But after all deductions for prejudice, mistake, inaccuracy and every other shortcoming, there is left a strong, an invincible consensus of testimony, honest, independent and full of undesigned corroborations, to the development of the mind of all races in the lower culture along ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... the time of its greatest distance from the earth, was not what it had been in the time of Ptolemy. The Greek astronomer placed the sun in longitude 65 degrees, but Albategnius found it in longitude 82 degrees, a distance too great to be accounted for by inaccuracy of measurement. The modern inference from this observation is that the solar system is moving through space; but of course this inference could not well be drawn while the earth was regarded as the ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... A trifling but characteristic inaccuracy concerning the Peace Commission may as well be corrected before the subject is left. This is the statement, apparently originating from Malay sources, but promptly indorsed in this country by unfriendly critics, to the effect that the representative ...
— Problems of Expansion - As Considered In Papers and Addresses • Whitelaw Reid
... Flatnose, Magnus Barelegs, Hako, and Somerled. I got a pocket map arranged for my own use (copied from Dr. Beveridge's large one) with a red cross at all the sites of ancient forts. It was my fond hope, for pride attends us still, that I might find some inaccuracy in Dr. Beveridge's book, and, from measurements on the spot, be able to contradict some of his statements. But what are the hopes of man! I did not know that predestination, in the form of dirty weather, was working against ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... Reformation, written in the Protestant interest, and by his greater work, the History of my Own Times. Not without a decided bias, this latter work is specially valuable as the narration of an eye-witness. The history has been variously criticized for prejudice and inaccuracy; but it fills what would otherwise have been a great ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... an interesting bit of imagination. A unique instance of inaccuracy on the part of the Danes! Hamlet lived to be king in his little land and was buried where he died—if he ever ...
— The Sunny Side of Diplomatic Life, 1875-1912 • Lillie DeHegermann-Lindencrone
... every traveler in China is, by the inaccuracy of the natives, and especially of the Chinese. Their ideas of distance are most extraordinary. One may ask a Chinaman how far it is to a certain village and he will blandly reply, "Fifteen li to go, but thirty li ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews
... "animadversiones" to the "Deipnosophists" (when will somebody complete and print Dyce's translation?) the learned Schweighaeuser in no measured language accuses Clearchus of wanton recklessness and gross inaccuracy. ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... miracle; in Alice in Wonderland, we shall accept any dream-like enchantment. But we demand that the conclusions shall follow from the premises, that the whole be consistent. We cannot tolerate miracle in a realistic novel or drama, or glaring inaccuracy of fact in a historical novel, because they are in contradiction to the laws of reality tacitly assumed. The final demand which we make of any work, of art is that it live. What can be made to live for us may be beautiful to us. But nothing can ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... because it is characteristic of babies to be toothless, or prevented the little body from standing erect, because at first the characteristic of the infant is that it does not rise to its feet? Indeed, we do something of the same sort when we deliberately prolong the poverty and inaccuracy of childish speech; instead of helping the child by making him listen intently to the distinct enunciation of speech sounds, and watch the movements of the mouth, we adopt his rudimentary language, and repeat ...
— Spontaneous Activity in Education • Maria Montessori
... room; the odds were that she was behind those bars. A bow dropped thence would fall, the wind being favourable, into the lane, not ten, but twenty paces from the street. I ought to have been prepared for a slight inaccuracy in ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... are liable to inaccuracy, even as regards development, and much more in regard to functional power. The activity, power and predominance of an organ may be essentially changed, without making any perceptible impression upon ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, January 1888 - Volume 1, Number 12 • Various
... follow the little band of explorers led by Captain Fremont as day after day they made their way across what was then a trackless waste, and see what troubles they encountered because of the inaccuracy of the maps ...
— The Western United States - A Geographical Reader • Harold Wellman Fairbanks
... the sixty odd pages of the article in the North American, is that I have misrepresented the part borne by Cotton Mather in the proceeding connected with the Witchcraft Delusion and prosecutions, in 1692. Various other complaints are made of inaccuracy and unfairness, particularly in reference to the position of Increase Mather and the course of the Boston Ministers of that period, generally. Although the discussion, to which I now ask attention, ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham
... and feet pointing to the four corners of the cavern, was a grown man's skeleton, complete to the last tooth. King had brought a compass with him, and if that was reasonably accurate then the arms and legs of the skeleton were exactly oriented, north, south, east and west; there was an apparent inaccuracy of a little less than five degrees, which was no doubt attributable to ...
— Caves of Terror • Talbot Mundy
... some may still be found upon the shelves of public libraries. These MS. collections furnish a mine of inexhaustible riches to the student of manners. When checked by legal documents, they frequently reveal carelessness, inaccuracy, or even willful distortion of facts. The genius of the Novella, so paramount in popular Italian literature of that epoch, presided over their composition, adding intreccio to disconnected facts, heightening sympathy by the suggestion of romantic motives, turning the heroes or the ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... never be got by putting down colour which is not seen; at any rate only a master who has long served accuracy can venture on occasional inaccuracy—telling a lie, knowing it to be a lie, and as, se non vera, ben trovata. The grown man in his art may do this, and indeed is not a man at all unless he knows how to do it daily and hourly without departure from the truth even in his boldest lie; but the child in art must stick to ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... comparison is one of the very numerous parts of historical inquiry in which a better result is arrived at in proportion as the matter is more generally and largely observed. It is one in which detail is more fatal to a man even than inaccuracy, and it is one in which hardly a single observer who has been really soaked in his subject has avoided ...
— The Historic Thames • Hilaire Belloc
... processes such as these I came to find, in years long subsequent to the encounter at Durham, that Mr. Lowell, though an accomplished politician, a brilliant writer, and an admirable after-dinner speaker, was, conversationally considered, an inaccurate man with an accurate manner. But, after all, inaccuracy is by no means the worst of conversational faults, and when he was in the vein Mr. Lowell could be exceedingly good company. He liked talking, and talked not only much but very well. He had a genuine vein of wit and great dexterity in phrase-making; and on due occasion would produce ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... happiness must express the sole possible motive of Judas Iscariot and of his Master; it must explain the conduct of Stylites on his pillar or Tiberius at Caprae or A Kempis in his cell or of Nelson in the cockpit of the Victory."] have been a stumbling-block to many, we must pause to note their inaccuracy, while insisting that they are no part of a sound utilitarian, or eudemonistic, theory. Far from the desire for happiness being the universal motive, it is one of the less common springs of conduct. Habit, inertia, instinct, ideals drive us this way and that; we do a thousand ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... so that by some inaccuracy of instruments or calculation, the observations of the latitude, in this voyage, seem ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... inaccuracy had done its baleful work, a spirit of infidelity and of hostility either to the essentials or the details of the new religion must have impelled such as were either imperfect Christians, or no Christians at all, ...
— The Causes of the Corruption of the Traditional Text of the Holy Gospels • John Burgon
... physiological analysis all but six millions of people. The Marceaus, the Massenas, the Rousseaus, the Diderots and the Rollins often sprout forth suddenly from the social swamp, when it is in a condition of fermentation; but, here we plead guilty of deliberate inaccuracy. These errors in calculation are likely, however, to give all their weight to our conclusion and to corroborate what we are forced to deduce in unveiling ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac
... the streets, too, bore ample testimony to the inaccuracy of drivers in gauging distances, and so did the hubs and splash-boards of the post-carriages, all twisted and ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... countryman from Subiaco, who had spent some years in breaking stones out of consideration for the Government, as a general confession of the inaccuracy of his views regarding foreigners, was by no means astonished when he saw Nino appear with a woman in his arms. Together they seated her on one of the mules, and ran beside her, for there was no time for Nino to ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... instance of the inaccuracy of published reports of this lecture, it may be mentioned that all previous versions give this passage as The artist may trace the depressed revolution of Bunthorne simply to the lack ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... anecdote that forms a tribute at once to the fertility of his research and the industry of his invention. I should not omit to add that the volume is enriched with some admirably reproduced portraits of members of the Biffin circle, as also by an index that is itself a monument of inaccuracy so subtle that it must be traced ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, March 19, 1919 • Various
... de la Louisiane" printed at Paris A.D. 1684, from information derived from DuLuth, who visited France in 1682-3, and conferred with the minister of the Colonies and the minister of Marine—shows the inaccuracy, as to points of compass at least, of the early French explorers. According to this map, Lake Buade (Mille Lacs) lies north-west of Lake Superior and Lake Pepin lies due ...
— The Feast of the Virgins and Other Poems • H. L. Gordon
... to find no inaccuracy in the 1888 edition, which is indeed stated in the introduction to be entirely by mechanical process, without hand intervention; but being reproduced by printer's ink in black only, not only do the colors not appear, but the chromatic values are actually far ...
— Commentary Upon the Maya-Tzental Perez Codex - with a Concluding Note Upon the Linguistic Problem of the Maya Glyphs • William E. Gates
... do not describe the phenomena in the same terms or in precisely the same manner. The narrative differs in the various accounts, and the phenomena appear far more remarkable in some than in others. The inference is that none of them is right—certainly not the more remarkable ones—and that the inaccuracy of ...
— The Problems of Psychical Research - Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal • Hereward Carrington
... latter became impatient and cried: "Sit there, clod-pate, for let me sit wherever I will, that will still be the upper end, and the place of worship to thee." This saying is commonly attributed to Rob Roy, but Emerson with his usual inaccuracy in such matters places it in the mouth of Macdonald,—which ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... projectile weapon, and it transmitted the same shock-power as a heavy caliber bullet. To be sure, it hadn't the spread of heat weapons such as the Hadjis used, which could kill within six inches of their target. But wide-range beamers encouraged inaccuracy. They were messy, careless weapons which reinforced careless traits. Anyone could fire a heat gun; but to use a needlebeam effectively, you had to practice constantly. And practice paid off. A good needlebeam man was more than a match ...
— The Status Civilization • Robert Sheckley
... latitude of the same place, simple as the observation is thought to be. The cause is quite clear; and though it equally affects altitudes taken for absolute time, the disagreement is less obvious, and it will often happen that a chronometer going extremely well appears to vary every day from inaccuracy in the observations. Thus it is, I think, generally admitted, that it is almost impossible to rate a chronometer from altitudes observed with the sea horizon. Nor is this difficulty removed by taking equal altitudes, because the refraction ...
— Account of a Voyage of Discovery - to the West Coast of Corea, and the Great Loo-Choo Island • Captain Basil Hall
... 26th—the day after the Settlement debate in the House of Commons—Mr. Chamberlain replied at length to the arguments put forward by the Schreiner Ministry in favour of a general amnesty, and exposed in particular the historical inaccuracy of the appeal to the "Canadian precedent." At the same time he stated that Her Majesty's Government, while they could not be a consenting party to a policy condoning adhesion to the enemy in the field, had no doubt that "such a measure of penalty as the mass of loyal ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... from Osborne's Harleian Catalogue, and those not compiled by Johnson, but by Oldys), a very small part of it relates to the person who is the subject of the book; and, in that, there is such an inaccuracy in the statement of facts, as in so solemn an authour is hardly excusable, and certainly makes his narrative very unsatisfactory. But what is still worse, there is throughout the whole of it a dark uncharitable cast, by which the most unfavourable construction is put upon almost every circumstance ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... hours can allow for: we must unavoidably clump them closer; and so long as a circumstance might as well have happened at one time as at another, I consider that the poet is justified in crowding prior events as near as he may please towards the goal of their catastrophe. If then any slight inaccuracy as to dates arrests your critical ken, believe that it is not ignorantly careless, but learnedly needful. One other objection, and I have done. No man is an utter inexcusable, irremediable villain; there is a spot of light, however hidden, somewhere; and, notwithstanding the historian's picture, ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... expose his transcripts for sale, without first submitting them to the inspection of certain officers appointed by the university, and if an error was discovered, the copies were ordered to be burnt or a fine levied on them, proportionate to their inaccuracy. Harsh and stringent as this may appear at first sight, we shall modify our opinion, on recollecting that the student was in a great degree dependent upon the care of the transcribers for the fidelity of his copies, which rendered ...
— Bibliomania in the Middle Ages • Frederick Somner Merryweather
... of Middleton's parliament, frequently called the "drunken parliament," from the excesses of its leading men, and which on the following year signalised itself by the Glasgow act,—that act which emptied nearly four hundred pulpits in one day. The inaccuracy of the statement made by the prelatic newspaper, asserting that he had formerly been minister at Kirkcaldy, will not surprise any person who is acquainted with the writings of the Prelatists of that period, who seem not to have been able to write the truth when relating ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... evidently used in preparing your remarks, and I desire no more than that it be used with accuracy. In a single reading of your remarks, I only discovered one inaccuracy in matter, which I suppose you took from that paper. It is where you say: "The undersigned are unable to agree with you in the opinion you have expressed that the Constitution is different in time of insurrection or invasion from ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... Inaccuracy and sensationalism Mr Bennett is welcome to, and to the sort of notoriety it has brought him. Cheap maudlin sentiment may profess a pity for those "dervish homes ruined" by the successes of British ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... vols., the last of which appeared in 1870. As literature this work has a place among the greatest productions of the century; but in its treatment it is much more dramatic, ethical, and polemical than historical in the strict sense; and indeed the inaccuracy in matters of fact to which F. was liable, combined with his tendency to idealise and to colour with his own prejudices the characters who figure in his narrative, are serious deductions from the value of his work considered as history. The English in Ireland ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... little reflexion to see that this keen and exaggerated habit of criticism must be productive of much discomfort in a society in which it is general, and that, when applied to literary work, even though it may be a protection against inaccuracy and breaches of taste, it must be a great discouragement to the young and repressive of much honest and valuable effort. To restrain the critical spirit, whether applied to mind or conduct, with proper limits, it is necessary, keeping these ...
— Progressive Morality - An Essay in Ethics • Thomas Fowler
... liberty could be bought only with the one currency of eternal vigilance, and coupled with these others who were too busy to attend to the active processes by which the government is from time to time renewed; and they have concluded, with fatal inaccuracy of judgment, that this exceptional disposition of a small number of persons was a type of the whole population. Nothing could be more absurdly untrue. Outside of a very limited circle no such political ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... answer, that he would not come forth to a duel unless the English could fetch Marlborough from his grave, but that, in the meantime, any one of his grenadiers would willingly give the challenger such satisfaction as he was entitled to demand. Whatever inaccuracy there may be in some of these circumstances, there is no doubt of the fact that Buonaparte and the brave commodore strove together at Acre, under the highest influence of personal resentment, as well ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... kora, (1) maiden, (2) pupil of the eye, can hardly be kept in English. It is worthy of remark that our text of Xenophon has en tois thalamois, a perfectly natural expression. Such a variation would seem to point to a very early corruption of ancient manuscripts, or to extraordinary inaccuracy on the part of Longinus, who, indeed, elsewhere displays great looseness of citation, confusing ...
— On the Sublime • Longinus
... the charts, it has been the writer's endeavor, by consulting a large number of fishing captains of long experience upon these grounds, to reduce the margin of inaccuracy as much as possible. In case of conflict of their opinion, the greatest agreement as to the ...
— Fishing Grounds of the Gulf of Maine • Walter H. Rich
... have one or more additional scales for alternative use in testing the same children at very brief intervals, the same scale may be used for repeated tests at intervals of a year or more with little danger of serious inaccuracy. Moreover, results like those set forth above are important evidence as to the ...
— The Measurement of Intelligence • Lewis Madison Terman
... doubted that Durrance was deliberately referring to Harry Feversham. He had some knowledge, though how he had gained it Sutch could not guess. But the knowledge was not to Sutch's idea quite accurate, and the inaccuracy did Harry Feversham some injustice. It was on that account chiefly that Sutch did not affect any ignorance as to Durrance's allusion. The passage of the years had not diminished his great regard for Harry; he cared for him indeed with ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... smaller. Its smell showed that it had contained brandy. Then these two women had not been with the murderer, and therefore he could not have fought because the other men had insulted them. This discovery proved the inaccuracy of Lecoq's original suppositions. It was an unexpected check, and he was mourning over it in silence, when Father Absinthe, who had not ceased ferreting about, uttered a cry ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... two pages to Lord Powis. Advertisement six pages, not numbered. After this, there should be a "Genealogical Table of the family of Herbert," which is very scarce, on account of its being suppressed by Mr. Walpole, for its inaccuracy. The life occupied 171 pages. "Mr. Walpole," says the late Mr. Cole, "when I was with him in the autumn of 1763, at which time the book was partly printed, told me that either one or two hundred copies were to be printed; half to be sent to the Earl of Powis, and the other half he was to reserve ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... 19, xv. 23, xvi. 20, but it is not probable that they were official annals. There was indeed a court official whose name is sometimes translated "the recorder," 2 Sam. viii. 16, 1 Kings iv. 3. But besides the probable inaccuracy of this translation,[1] it is very unlikely that, in the northern kingdom at any rate, with its frequent revolutions, court annals were continuously kept; the annalist could hardly have recorded the questionable steps by which his monarch often ...
— Introduction to the Old Testament • John Edgar McFadyen
... love; and he was struck by the vast inaccuracy of that large phrase. It meant, Howat told himself, literally nothing: what complex feeling Isabel Penny might have for her husband, Caroline's frank desire for David Forsythe, Myrtle's meagre emotion, Fanny Gilkan's sense of Hesa ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... which have very recently reached me. Lord Heytesbury says that the reports which reach the Irish Government are very unsatisfactory. I presume that if the worst should happen which is predicted, the pressure would not be immediate. There is such a tendency to exaggeration and inaccuracy in Irish reports, that delay in acting upon them is always desirable; but I foresee the necessity that may be imposed upon us at an early period of considering whether there is not that well grounded apprehension of actual scarcity that justifies and compels the adoption ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... accidental chromatic alteration in the same bar, the neglect of a tie, or an enharmonic interval with a tie are all common faults which mark careless performances. After the piece has been read as a whole and you have determined upon the notes so that there is no opportunity for inaccuracy from that source you will find that the best way to proceed is to take a very small passage and study that passage first. For the inexperienced student I should suggest two measures or a phrase of similar length. Do not leave these two measures ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke
... refer to; and if the words "compilation and recital" seem to bear any application beyond the prospectus before adverted to, or in any way to trench on your just pretensions as a writer, I truly lament the inaccuracy, and will take the most immediate means of rectifying the error, which circumstances may place within my reach; either by present correction or on a new edition of the work. My situation as Secretary of the African Association ...
— The Journal Of A Mission To The Interior Of Africa, In The Year 1805 • Mungo Park
... speech which I put into David Claridge's mouth was not Quaker speech. For instance, they would not have it that a Quaker would say, "Thee will go with me"—as though they were ashamed of the sweet inaccuracy of the objective pronoun being used in the nominative; but hundreds of times I have myself heard Quakers use "thee" in just such a way in England and America. The facts are, however, that Quakers differ extensively in their habits, and there grew up in England among the Quakers in ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the execution of the larger parts of machine manufacture, a very considerable proportion of the detail parts still continued to be executed by hand labour, in which the chisel and the file were the chief instruments employed. The results were consequently very unsatisfactory, both as regards inaccuracy and costliness. ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... States officers upon taking possession after her surrender on July 3. Some uncertainty attends the conclusions reached from its examination, because the record is brief and not always precise in its statements; but, whatever inaccuracy of detail there may be, the ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... speaking through them. They may tell you much that is chiefly imaginary, but even imagination has got to have some physical basis as a starting-point. They may tell you much that is clearly and ludicrously irrelevant, or untrue, on account of inaccuracy of observation, confusion of cause and effect, or a mental color-blindness produced by the disease itself. But these things can all be brushed aside like the chaff from the wheat if checked up by the picture of the disease ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... on the selection of a spot with capabilities. What is said about detecting and bringing into practice nice relations of size, proportion, and color, is one of those mere vaguenesses of speech which serve to veil inaccuracy of thought. The phrase quoted may mean any thing, or nothing, and guides in no degree. That the true result of the natural style of gardening is seen rather in the absence of all defects and incongruities than in the creation of any ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... steamers are required to have some approved means of firing lines to the shore. Cunningham rockets and the Hunt gun are largely used. The inaccuracy of the rocket is of less importance when fired from a ship than when fired ...
— Sinking of the Titanic - and Great Sea Disasters • Various
... Inaccuracy, provincialism, and a too hasty rushing to conclusions, were the rocks that he had split on, but he got his revenge when he said:—"How would I play with you? From all the poppycock Anglice bosh you talked ...
— American Notes • Rudyard Kipling
... masterly tracing of current evils to their remote causes. He may have erred in some of his minor statements; this will happen to anyone who writes much, but attempts to discredit Rizal on the score of historical inaccuracy really reflect upon the captious critics, just as a draftsman would expose himself to ridicule were he to complain of some famous historical painting that it had not been drawn to exact scale. Rizal's writings were intended to bring out in relief the evils ...
— Lineage, Life, and Labors of Jose Rizal, Philippine Patriot • Austin Craig
... students, however far advanced in more showy accomplishments, there will not be found one in a hundred who can make an accurate drawing to scale. It is much if they can copy anything with approximate fidelity of its real size. Now, the inaccuracy of eye which prevents a student from drawing to scale is in fact nothing else than an entire want of appreciation of proportion, and therefore of composition. He who alters the relations of dimensions to ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... favours the bold;' here is a very definite subject: take hold of it, and it will steady and lead you on: you will know in what direction to look. Not one boy in a hundred does avail himself of this assistance; your boy is not solitary in his inaccuracy; all boys are more or less inaccurate, because they are boys; boyishness of mind means inaccuracy. Boys cannot deliver a message, or execute an order, or relate an occurrence, without a blunder. They do not rouse up their attention and reflect: ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman |
