"Fault" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... not a single Frenchman should be allowed to return from Egypt; and here their commander-in-chief had passed successfully from end to end of the station, unseen by any British cruiser. He did not, however, consider himself at fault, and his judgment may be allowed, although in his own case. "If I could have had any cruisers, as was my plan, off Cape Bon, in Africa, and between Corsica and Toulon, Mr. Buonaparte could not probably ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... and all the delights of the sea temporarily denied to her. Perhaps not quite all, when she came to think of it. She could not paddle, but she might manage to hobble down to the shore, and sit on the sun-baked rocks. Even Mademoiselle could surely find no fault with this. And she might possibly find someone to talk to. She was so fond of talking, and it was a perpetual regret to her that she could not understand the ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... Mr. Grimes was more at fault than he actually was," said Ruth, boldly. "Surely he did not ...
— Ruth Fielding in Moving Pictures - Or Helping The Dormitory Fund • Alice Emerson
... dimensions in which you have to seat yourself for the next three hours. There are no twenty minutes during which you are doomed to sit in miserable expectation. Exactly at the hour named the music begins, and for two hours it is your own fault if you be not happy. A railway-carriage has brought you to steps leading up to the garden in which these princely halls are built, and when the music is over will again take you home. Nothing can be more perfect than the concert-room at Monte Carlo, and nothing more charming; and for ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... lost," said Mrs Delvile, "but if once it was yet higher, the fault was my own, in indulging an expectation of perfection to which ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... Inez de Castro, which has been poetized in half-a-dozen forms of late, and is even in the Amulet before us: the subject and title of the second tragedy is Otho: both will probably be of a melo-dramatic cast, which founded the success of Rienzi. If it should be so, the fault will not rest with the fair authoress, the managers, or admirers of the pure drama; we need not add where ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 399, Supplementary Number • Various
... dragged along until the advertisements were able to announce "Fifteenth Night of the Great Realistic Drama." And various scathing paragraphs from the papers were pruned down and weeded till they seemed unstinted praise. Thus: "It was not the fault of the management that the new play was so far from being a triumphant success," was cut down to one modest sentence, "A triumphant success." "A few enthusiastic cheers from personal friends alone broke the ominous silence when the curtain fell," ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... winter camp before we came into the mountains. But there was sickness in the mountains and Waba-mooin said that it also was my fault. So they drove me out with sticks and stones. That is why they would not ...
— The Trail Book • Mary Austin et al
... was the fault of what mother said about the visitor that made what did happen happen, but I am almost sure really that it was the fault of us, though I did not see it at the time, and even now I'm sure we didn't mean to be unkind. Quite the opposite. But the events of life ...
— The Magic World • Edith Nesbit
... on the empty earth; but she had not courage to disclose the truth, and the very excess of her desperation animated her to surpassing exertions. At the accustomed vesper hour, she led him to the chapel; and, though trembling and weeping on his account, she played, without fault in time, or error in note, the hymn written to celebrate the creation of the adorned earth, soon to ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... culture, but of great natural ability, and was {152} gifted with remarkable political sagacity. Macdonald used to say that Pope could have been anything he desired had he only received a good education in his youth. He added that he had never known Pope's judgment to be at fault. In times of stress and difficulty Pope was the colleague of whom he first sought advice and counsel, and upon whose rough good sense he implicitly relied. Pope died two years before his chief, who never ceased ...
— The Day of Sir John Macdonald - A Chronicle of the First Prime Minister of the Dominion • Joseph Pope
... and the temptations you are exposed to. You have our hourly prayers; and we would have you flee this evil great house and man, if you find he renews his attempts. You ought to have done it at first, had you not had Mrs. Jervis to advise with. We can find no fault in your conduct hitherto: But it makes our hearts ache for fear of the worst. O my child! temptations are sore things,—but yet, without them, we know not ourselves, nor what we ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... Mariner was begun. The most wonderful piece of criticism on record is perhaps that of Mrs. Barbauld on the poem. She objected to it because it had no moral. Coleridge replied: 'In my judgment the poem had too much; and the only, or chief fault, if I might say so, was the obtrusion of the moral sentiment so openly on the reader as a principle or cause of action in a work of such pure imagination. It ought to have no more moral than the Arabian Nights' tale ...
— More Pages from a Journal • Mark Rutherford
... see them doing something that is not right my brain works so hard it keeps me awake nights. If it's anything very dreadful, like Peggy's going and getting engaged, I point out the error, the way they're always pointing errors out to me. Of course it doesn't do any good, but that isn't my fault. It's because they haven't got what my teacher ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... blame," she wrote. "From many points of view he is as much the victim of circumstances as I am. I have to acknowledge myself in fault; and yet, if I were more so, my problem would be easier to solve. There are conditions in which it is scarcely less difficult to discern the false from the true than it is to separate the foul current from the pure, after their streams ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... people who had lately sympathized with the mourning goddess in her tears and cries of sorrow, now joined with her in expressions of mad and amorous delight. Wives and virgins—all the women who had refused during the week of mourning to make a sacrifice of their hair—were obliged to atone for this fault by putting themselves at the disposal of the strangers whom the festival had brought together, the reward of their service becoming the property of the ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... rumbling old car had begun to carry her down, away from him, the flat was noisy with her absence. She came home eagerly sorry—to find an eagerly sorry Carl. Then, while they cried together, and he kissed her lips, they made a compact that no matter for what reason or through whose fault they might quarrel, they would always settle it before either went to bed.... But they were uncomfortably polite for two days, and obviously were so afraid that they might quarrel that they were both prepared ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... no longer felt the passion, they fell back on themselves, or lower. The architect returned to the round arch, and even further to the flatness of the Greek colonnade; but this was not the fault of the twelfth or thirteenth centuries. What they had to say they said; what they felt they expressed; and if the seventeenth century forgot it, the twentieth in turn has forgotten the seventeenth. ...
— Mont-Saint-Michel and Chartres • Henry Adams
... habit of domination. Indolent and energetic by turns; rich in natural gifts and often poor in book-learning, though some, in the lack of good teaching at home, had been bred in the English universities; high-spirited, generous to a fault; keeping open house in their capacious mansions, among vast tobacco-fields and toiling negroes, and living in a rude pomp where the fashions of St. James were somewhat oddly grafted on the roughness of the plantation,—what they wanted in ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... of her position. She had noticed before the signs of a change in manner towards her, a little less respect perhaps from men, and an avoidance by women. She had attributed this latter partly to jealousy of her, for no one is willing to acknowledge a fault in himself when a more agreeable motive can be found for the estrangement of his acquaintances. But now, if society had turned on her, she would defy it. It was not in her nature to shrink. She knew she had been wronged, and she knew that ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 5. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... in his life in Nazareth that drew the attention of his companions and neighbors to him in any striking way. We know that he wrought no miracles until after he had entered upon his public ministry. We can think of him as living a life of unselfishness and kindness. There was never any sin or fault in him; he always kept the law of God perfectly. But his perfection was not something startling. There was no halo about his head, no transfiguration, that awed men. We are told that he grew in favor with men as well as ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... I will believe it. I am disposed to be hasty and passionate: it is a fault in my nature; but I never meant, or wished you evil; and God is my witness that I would as soon stretch out my hand to my own life, or my father's, as to yours." At these words, Wringhim uttered a hollow exulting laugh, put his hands in his pockets, and withdrew a space to his accustomed ...
— The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner • James Hogg
... the fault of Farnham's conversation with women was the soldier's fault of direct and indiscriminate compliment. But this was too much in Euphrasia's manner for her to object to it. She laughed and said, "You ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... execution," Leicester thus writes to an unknown correspondent on October 10. Killigrew, who was to arrange the business with Mar, was in Scotland by September 19. On October 6, Killigrew writes that Knox is very feeble but still preaching, and that he says, if he is not a bishop, it is by no fault of Cecil's. "I trust to satisfy Morton," says Killigrew, "and as for John Knox, that thing, as you may see by my letter to Mr. Secretary, is done and doing daily; the people in general well bent to England, abhorring the fact in France, and ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... to make matters even. Her request, made aloud, in defiance of all rules of good taste, sounded so much like an attempt to repay at once the balance due to the poor cousin, that Pons flushed red, like a girl found out in fault. The grain of sand was a little too large; for some moments he could only let it work in his heart. Cecile, a red-haired young woman, with a touch of pedantic affectation, combined her father's ponderous manner with a trace ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... 'you quite mistake the principles of my composition if you imagine that there is such a thing about me.' After all, there was very little that was false in anything the signora said. If Mr Slope allowed himself to be deceived it was his own fault. Nothing could have been more open than her declarations ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... also had a better object in view, which was to purchase property in the country, and to reside on it. That he did not succeed in rooting out of Lord Cumber's mind his senseless prejudices with respect to the duties of a landlord, was unfortunately none of his fault. All that man could do, by reasoning, illustration, and remonstrance, he did; but in vain; the old absurd principle of the landlord's claims upon his tenantry, Lord Cumber neither could nor would give ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... mistress of true melancholy, The poisonous damp of night disponge upon me, That life, a very rebel to my will, May hang no longer on me: throw my heart Against the flint and hardness of my fault; Which, being dried with grief, will break to powder. ...
— Tract XI: Three Articles on Metaphor • Society for Pure English
... the same may be said, although of the latter description there exist but few. Those of Paul de Kock are well known in other countries as well as France; they are very clever and exceedingly amusing, but partake of the fault alluded to. As a female writer and translator, Madame Tastu may be cited as having produced works which do credit to her taste and judgment. Madame Emile de Girardin, well known as Delphine Gay, is a talented ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... usually contrive to do the very opposite. That's the sort of thing Minnie's going in for just now, though I really think she is a little ashamed of it, she keeps it so well hidden. You see my penetration was not at fault—I said it was revival meetings or ...
— Hollowmell - or, A Schoolgirl's Mission • E.R. Burden
... his jewels too dear and have them returned on his hands; for which reason they are sure to give good bargains, especially to those who have no experience, that they may not lose their credit. When such merchants as are experienced in jewels purchase too dear it is their own fault, and is not laid to the charge of the brokers; yet it is good to have knowledge in jewels, as it may sometimes enable one to procure them at a lower price. On the occasions of making these bargains, as there ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... dried and warmed as quickly as possible. But Madge's temper, none of the sweetest by nature, was completely spoiled; she had only peevish or sullen answers for all the expressions of sympathy and condolence that were poured out by the kindly campers. It was all the boy's fault, and there was no excuse for him. She ought to have known better than to come among such. But here Hilda pressed her hand, and said "Be still!" in a low tone, but with a flash of the eye that so forcibly recalled the "Queen Hildegarde" of old ...
— Hildegarde's Neighbors • Laura E. Richards
... breathe some time my native air, and then return to the baths of Savoy, where Julie should join me, by his advice, in the beginning of autumn. His principles did not seem startled by the symptoms of mutual passion which he had not failed to perceive between us. Our pure flame was in his eyes a fault, but it was also its own purification. His countenance only expressed the indulgence of man, and the compassion of God. He thus endeavored to save us by loosening the tie which threatened to draw us to one common ...
— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine
... Uncle Kit got to him, then he acknowledged that it was all his own fault, and that it was ...
— Thirty-One Years on the Plains and In the Mountains • William F. Drannan
... Mr Simkins, "for to be finding fault with what you say, for I would not be unpelite in no shape; but if I might be so free as for to differ a little bit, I must needs say I am rather for going to work in anotherguess sort of a manner; and if I ...
— Cecilia vol. 3 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... no fault—but a saucy tongue for which he is now in Burlington jail—A negro man about 39 years of age. He is a compleat farmer, honest and sober. For further particulars enquire of the subscriber in Evesham, Burlington Co. Feb. ...
— Stories of New Jersey • Frank Richard Stockton
... fault, Sher'ff, not our'n," leered the glib old man. He, too, had had a sip of the stalwart cherry-bounce. "Boy's ...
— Wolf's Head - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... him, but through him—with us for his guides," replied Ameni in a low voice but with emphasis. "It is his own fault that I have abandoned his cause. Our first wish—to spare the poet Pentaur—he would not respect, and he did not hesitate to break his oath, to betray us, and to sacrifice one of the noblest of God's creatures, as the poet was, to gratify a petty grudge. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... I have indulged against some persons—the Lelands principally—were most unchristian, and I hope the Lord has helped me to put them away. It has been hard for us to see strangers occupying our dear old home; and yet it was certainly no fault of theirs that we were compelled to ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley
... comforts of the establishment. There is a dark corner about volantes, which they are disposed to order for you at a very unreasonable profit; but as there are plenty of livery stables at hand, and street volantes passing all the time, it will be your own fault, if you pay six dollars where you ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 25, November, 1859 • Various
... at fault, perhaps. Besides, Robinson's is not the only book of travels in the world," returned Dominick, as he hacked away at the ...
— The Island Queen • R.M. Ballantyne
... one knows where they come from, and no one knows where they go. It was to guard our secret from these that prompted your father not to file. We had planned to establish our friends on the adjoining claims, and thus build up a syndicate of our own choosing. So he did not file, but it was through no fault of his that I remain ignorant of the location, but rather it was the result of a combination of unforeseen circumstances. You shall ...
— The Gold Girl • James B. Hendryx
... cemetery of fire-killed trees, the charred limbs cracking harshly under their eager feet, they swept. Suddenly the trail kinked sharply to the right, and the Dog-Wolf, swift-rushing, overshot it. "E-u-h! at fault," he muttered. "Some trick of the fool Cow's." Back and forth, back and forth like Setters the ...
— The Outcasts • W. A. Fraser
... heard a man of God say: "We cannot bridle the tongues of the people among whom we live: they will talk"; and by talk he meant gossip and criticism and fault-finding. ...
— When the Holy Ghost is Come • Col. S. L. Brengle
... three making every effort for him in secret, and consequently he had all the faults of a spoiled eldest son. The noble is eaten up with the egoism which their unselfishness was fostering in Lucien; and Mme. de Bargeton was doing her best to develop the same fault by inciting him to forget all that he owed to his sister, and mother, and David. He was far from doing so as yet; but was there not ground for the fear that as his sphere of ambition widened, his whole thought perforce would be how he might maintain ...
— Two Poets - Lost Illusions Part I • Honore de Balzac
... complexity of our many social problems, it does not quite do to extemporize an opinion. In a recent issue the Republican came very near falling into this fault. Taking as its text a striking example of locating a clot of blood in the brain, and referring the knowledge by which this was done to vivisection, it spoke lightly of the limitation which many have sought ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell
... match between his daughter Isabel and her cousin, the son of that Francis Esmond who was killed at Castlewood siege. And the lady, it was said, took a fancy to the young man, who was her junior by several years (which circumstance she did not consider to be a fault in him); but having paid his court, and being admitted to the intimacy of the house, he suddenly flung up his suit, when it seemed to be pretty prosperous, without giving a pretext for his behavior. His friends rallied ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... all your fault, Colonel," said Miss Alathea. "In your excitement after the race you grasped my hand and ...
— In Old Kentucky • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... intelligence flowed from the canal of his Flemish footman, he believed every circumstance of Tom's report, thanked him for his warning, and, after having reprimanded him for his misbehaviour at Lisle, assured him that it should be his own fault if ever they should part again. He then deliberated with himself whether or not he should retort the purpose upon his adversary; but when he considered that Hornbeck was not the aggressor, and made that unhappy husband's case his own, he could not ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... "So much fault is found with the Springfield speech by the opponents of the Republican party, and so many accusations made of inconsistency with the Nashville speech, that perhaps you may say—what you meant —what the foremost purpose was in ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... she continued to regard Hugo. Hugo's mask was entirely for Westerling. He did not seem to see Marta now, and through his mask radiated the considerate understanding of one who can put himself in another's place—which was Hugo's besetting fault or virtue, as you choose. In short, the chief of staff had a feeling that this private knew exactly what he, the ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... that this outbreak on the part of the Indians, and its subsequent outrages, was the result of mismanagement; and, it is but justice to the reputation of Kit Carson to assert, that it was no fault of his that affairs had terminated so disastrously. He had used every means which human skill could devise to allay the anger of the Indians. Had his superiors in power acted with the same discretion and judgment, in all probability the Utahs might have ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... it as a fault if a child seems unwilling to talk about religion? What do you think "religion" means to ...
— Religious Education in the Family • Henry F. Cope
... altogether to her credit—wasn't it additional proof that she was a fine pure woman? How could she have continued deeply to care for a man scandalously untrue, and drunk much of the time? Certainly, it was in no way her fault that Rod made her the object and the victim of the only kind of so-called love of which he was capable. No doubt one reason he was untrue to her was that she was too pure for his debauched fancy. Thus reasoned Drumley with that mingling of truth and error characteristic ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... Charley, as he surveyed the feathered heap. "Those are all fine eating and will provide us with a couple of dandy meals. The only fault I have to find is that they use up too much ammunition. If we use it up at this rate, we will have ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... with the Friars Preachers, one of them, from feelings of compassion, begged him to return to his children, and to pardon the fault they had committed, but he replied: "Indulgence which gives rise to an easy relapse into sin, is not be commended. I will not sanction by my presence what has been committed against holy poverty." This charitable religious endeavored ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... the young man was well educated, rich, and seemed only to have the one fault of loving you so well, why would you not marry him? Ma chere,' I said, 'you throw away your good fate. You see what a service it would be to your family. (I speak as your friend, you comprehend.) You save your father; you make the young man happy; all could ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various
... the good, Ninette; very ornamental. Drina—and that Josephine kid are real beauties. I—er—take to Billy tremendously. He told me that he'd locked up his nurses. I ought to have interfered. It was really my fault, ...
— The Younger Set • Robert W. Chambers
... you would know what a bright spot your letter and the thought of a real friend has made in it. I suppose you have been thinking all this time that I was neglectful because I didn't answer, but it was all the fault of someone who gave you the wrong address. I am hoping you will forgive me for the delay and that some day you will have time to write to ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill
... Their progress was slow, but unerring. The course they pursued was the direction taken by Mary and her rescuer. It was not long before they arrived within a few feet of the place of the maiden's concealment. But now they were at fault. There were no bushes immediately around the fallen tree. They paused, the chief in the van, with their bows and arrows and tomahawks in readiness for instant use. They knew that the maiden could not return to her friends on foot, or the treacherous savage be able to bear her ...
— Thrilling Adventures by Land and Sea • James O. Brayman
... de la Croix, a Paris, 1710, in 12mo.; a work of ten years' labor, chiefly drawn from the Persian writers, among whom Nisavi, the secretary of Sultan Gelaleddin, has the merit and prejudices of a contemporary. A slight air of romance is the fault of the originals, or the compiler. See likewise the articles of Genghizcan, Mohammed, Gelaleddin, &c., in the Bibliotheque Orientale of D'Herbelot. * Note: The preface to the Hist. des Mongols, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... the operation looks so simple and so easy of performance that unskilled and unprepared persons have been tempted to try welding, with results that often caused condemnation of the process, when the real fault lay entirely ...
— Oxy-Acetylene Welding and Cutting • Harold P. Manly
... intended. Unlike Cleopatra, age had withered it. Was I not like a cook whose dinner has been sent back untasted? The best available ingredients were put into that confection and if it did not issue from the oven with those savory whiffs that compel appetite, my stove is at fault. Perhaps some good old literary housewife will tell me, disconsolate among my pots and pans, how long an idea must be boiled to be tender and how best to garnish a thought to an editor's taste? And yet, sir, your manners are excellent. ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks
... had money about you my poor child," she said, "or I would have suggested your leaving it with me. I worried afterward about putting you in this room with Margaret Brown; but we were full, and there was no help for it. That is her great fault. She is not honest. We knew that, but when she appealed to me for a night's lodging, I could not turn her away. The front door is never locked, and those who come here can leave when they like. We found it standing open this morning, and ...
— Jolly Sally Pendleton - The Wife Who Was Not a Wife • Laura Jean Libbey
... Jasper Jay. And you might think he would have felt the least bit uncomfortable. But he only laughed loudly and replied that if he didn't have a good time it wouldn't be his fault. ...
— The Tale of Jasper Jay - Tuck-Me-In Tales • Arthur Scott Bailey
... themselves born to ill luck, and make up their minds that the world invariably goes against them without any fault on their own part. We have heard of a person of this sort, who went so far as to declare his belief that if he had been a hatter people would have been born without heads! There is however a Russian proverb which says that Misfortune is next door to Stupidity; and it will often be found that ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... sayings of Larry Geohegan in the same happy-go-lucky spirit in which they were uttered. No one had more friends and fewer enemies than the tall boy; because he was generous to a fault, humorous in his remarks, and the life of the camp when out ...
— The Airplane Boys among the Clouds - or, Young Aviators in a Wreck • John Luther Langworthy
... to human life—social, industrial, civic, and political. The Church still preaches the gospel of the Grace of God, the obligation and blessing of worship, the meaning and virtue of the Christian Sacraments." Also "My brethren, we shall not be content to criticize and find fault with our own age and time, but rather we shall pray for the power to see within its questionings, unrest and discontent—aye, its recklessness and apparent failures—the strivings of the Spirit of God. But each man has to voice for himself the ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram
... breach of usage might cause his social ruin,—in which case he would be given to understand that he was not merely a social, but also a religious offender; that the communal god was angry with him; and that to pardon his fault might [163] provoke the divine vengeance against the entire settlement. But it yet remains to be seen what rights were left him by the central authority ruling his district,—which authority represented a third form of religious despotism from which ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... fourth consulship of Titus Quinctius, our enemies came in arms, to the very gates of Rome,—and went away unchastised! But who are they that our dastardly enemies thus despise?—the consuls, or you, Romans? If we are in fault, depose us, or punish us yet more severely. If you are to blame—may neither gods nor men punish your faults! only may you repent!—No, Romans, the confidence of our enemies is not owing to their courage, or to their belief of your cowardice; they have been too often vanquished, ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... here to Eaux Chaudes, and the blue had opened into bloom overhead, I do not know what would have been said of the climate, but we should have held very strong opinions concerning it. As it is, we can lay the fault on Fate, not on any misplanning. This is an inestimable relief. We did our part. We went more than half way. The blame was Fate's, not ours. Fate is the one, therefore, that merits the abuse. It is a solace to put the blame squarely where it belongs, and a greater solace ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... to address your Excellency in order to beg humbly for the favour of your protection for myself and for my soldiers. We are filled with the most ardent desire to repair the fault which we have committed by bearing arms, not against the king, as our enemies have so falsely asserted, but to defend our lives against those who persecuted us, attacking us so fiercely that we believed it was ...
— Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... for a cane signifies by derivation, "the sharpener of the young" (narthex, nearous thegein), but the best authorities were against it. Seneca is indignant with the savage who will "butcher" a young learner because he hesitates at a word—a venial fault indeed, one would think, when we remember what must have been the aspect of a Roman book, written as it was in capitals, almost without stops, and with little or no distinction between the words. And Quintilian is equally ...
— Roman life in the days of Cicero • Alfred J[ohn] Church
... ones ill judge of love that cannot love Nor in their frozen hearts feel kindly flame; Forthy they ought not thing unknown reprove, Ne natural affection faultless blame For fault of few that have abused the same: For it of honor and all virtue is The root, and brings forth glorious flowers of fame That crown true lovers with immortal bliss, The meed of them that love and ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... and saw us standing there that way, with my hands on Joe's shoulders, and he rushed up and said: 'I'll kill you!' He said we was standing there hugging each other, and that we'd disgraced him; but that wasn't so. It was all my fault, but Joe didn't tell ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden
... will not deserve it if you are inattentive and unfeeling now. It is not doing as you would be done by, either. Do now, Betsey, forget, for a few days, that Miss Webster ever scolded or found fault with you. If you want to love any one just do him a kindness, and you don't know how fast love springs up in the heart; you would be much happier, Betsey, I am sure. Come try, you are not a cross girl, and you don't mean to be unkind now. I shall expect to hear from Lucy, ...
— Emilie the Peacemaker • Mrs. Thomas Geldart
... colonel," said the count, "that no one suspected you. The absence of secrecy in the duel put the police at fault. Had you been supposed to be carrying those papers, you would never ...
— A Diplomatic Adventure • S. Weir Mitchell
... one thus entrusted, would remember that he had a soule to saue or lose, by the well or ill discharging of so waighty a function, and did accordingly from time to time bestowe his requisite endeauour, what the least fault could escape the espiall of so many eyes, or the righting amongst so many hands? But I haue thrust my sickle ouer-farre into anothers haruest: let my mistaking be corrected, and in regard ...
— The Survey of Cornwall • Richard Carew
... "That was Savage Landor; but it was his own fault. He could never make concessions." She thought him a ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... have relieved the public discontent. The severe condemnation of the murder of Gabinius, was the only measure which could restore the confidence of the Germans, and vindicate the honor of the Roman name. But the haughty monarch was incapable of the magnanimity which dares to acknowledge a fault. He forgot the provocation, remembered only the injury, and advanced into the country of the Quadi with an insatiate thirst of blood and revenge. The extreme devastation, and promiscuous massacre, of a savage war, were ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... disagree with the "bad." Even if, after eight months, I had been bidden farewell in the same phrase with which I was greeted, I should still refuse to say "bad lot" about those men. I hope that in such a case I should have the grace to recognise the failure as my fault, not theirs, and to take the "bad lot" as ...
— A Padre in France • George A. Birmingham
... popularity of Mr. Davis as well. Without understanding the details of the campaign, and with no patience to listen to the excuses of his few defenders, the public voice was unanimous in denunciation of the plan and conduct of the whole movement; and it arraigned the President for the fault of his inferior, calling him to trial before a jury that daily was becoming more biased and more ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... breadth of shoulder that would have made him quite ridiculous had it not been counterbalanced by an altitude of six feet four. He had a huge head of red hair, and a huge heart full of tenderness. His only fault was utter recklessness in regard to his own life and limbs—a fault which not unfrequently caused him to place the lives and limbs of others in jeopardy, though he never could be brought to ...
— Shifting Winds - A Tough Yarn • R.M. Ballantyne
... too introspective. I ought to look out of myself. But I can't. It isn't my fault that my eyes are turned inwards. I'm made like that. I can't alter my make. I can destroy myself, but ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... active support of numbers of persons not yet ripe for them. It is legitimate compromise to say:—'I do not expect you to execute this improvement, or to surrender that prejudice, in my time. But at any rate it shall not be my fault if the improvement remains unknown or rejected. There shall be one man at least who has surrendered the prejudice, and who does not hide that fact.' It is illegitimate compromise to say:—'I cannot persuade you to accept my ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... readily the great man admitted his fault! Though he never again upset Father's peace of mind, Master relentlessly continued to dissect me whenever ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... this reason custom has established it as a rule, in common societies, that men should not indulge themselves in self-praise, or even speak much of themselves; and it is only among intimate friends or people of very manly behaviour, that one is allowed to do himself justice. Nobody finds fault with Maurice, Prince of Orange, for his reply to one who asked him, whom he esteemed the first general of the age, THE MARQUIS OF SPINOLA, said he, IS THE SECOND. Though it is observable, that the self-praise implied is here better implied, than if it had been directly ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume
... be so rotten if I could see that it was all my own fault. It's true I drink, but I shouldn't have taken to that if things had gone differently. I wasn't really fond of liquor. I suppose I ought not to have married Ethel. If I'd kept her it would be all right. But I ...
— The Trembling of a Leaf - Little Stories of the South Sea Islands • William Somerset Maugham
... speech, and that impulsive movement, Kenelm halted, in a sort of dreaming maze. He turned timidly, "Can you forgive me for my rude words? I presumed to find fault ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... only adapted to ridicule innocence more surely. Who can doubt that these dramas gave a practical impulse to corruption? When Alexander the Great derived no pleasure from a comedy of this sort which its author read before him, the poet excused himself by saying that the fault lay not with him, but with the king; that, in order to relish such a piece, a man must be in the habit of holding revels and of giving and receiving blows in an intrigue. The man knew his trade: if, therefore, the Roman ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... criticism of those who find fault with the absence from your library of books that you know to be nearly worthless; their absence will be a silent but eloquent protest against them, sure to be vindicated by the utter oblivion into which they will fall. Many a flaming ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... unconscious... now he looked up, past her... he seemed so out of place, somehow, alone with an elderly lady... then he fixed his eyes—which were blue—on the landscape. He had not realized her presence, she thought. Yet it was none of HER fault that this was not a smoking-carriage—if that was ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... was all but choked did I withdraw my head for a gasp of fresh air. And there was the Captain himself, yelling with laughter, and sprawling all over the place in convulsions of unseemly merriment, with those long legs which—but they are not his fault, ...
— Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... you a word of advice: If you have the slightest fault to find with that infernal nigger, shoot him at sight. A swelled-headed nigger, with a bee in his bonnet, is one of the worst difficulties in the world to deal with. So better make a clean job of it, and wipe him out ...
— The Lair of the White Worm • Bram Stoker
... declaration of the deceased that he had not done various crimes; and to this day the Egyptian will rely on justifying himself by sheer assertion that he has not done wrong, in face of absolute proofs to the contrary. The main fault of character that was condemned was covetousness, and it is the feeling which wrecks the possibility of Egyptian independence at present. The intrusion of scheming underlings between the master and his men ...
— The Religion of Ancient Egypt • W. M. Flinders Petrie
... have become glass before him, through which he looked into the innermost chambers of her mind. Terror-stricken, she snatched her hands away to cover it. "No, no!" she cried wildly. "I am angry with no one. I have found fault with no one. Draw no sword for ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... this process. Generally, however, the White Clergy[1] are so miserably poor that they cannot be blamed for making the best market they can for their priestly offices. Whether the system or the salary be at fault it is hard to say, but from whatever cause the fact remains that the parish clergy of the villages are not always all they might be; there are many among them who lead upright lives and gain the respect of their parishioners, but it would be idle to deny that there are many whose thoughts ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various
... pretend that I designed deceiving you; but was it you who discovered my poverty? Are you not free to act as you please, after the disclosures that I have voluntarily given you? And let me remark, sir, that if I listen humbly to your reproaches—if I even acknowledge my fault—the sense of manhood is not dead in my soul. You talk of 'merchandise' and 'goods,' as if you came here to buy something! You allude to my Lenora, do you? All your wealth, sir, could not purchase her! and, if love is not powerful enough ...
— The Poor Gentleman • Hendrik Conscience
... impressive eloquence. The strongest and deepest emotions can be expressed only by a full, deep-toned utterance. Speaking on one key, with only slight variations, either above or below it, is perhaps the most common, and, at the same time, the most injurious fault both of declaimers and of ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... that, while we were playing, Carl threw his ball and broke your window. It was partly my fault too, and we thought we would all come ...
— The Story of the Big Front Door • Mary Finley Leonard
... a peevish and provoking way of finding fault or giving advice. Just now her voice sounded almost as if she was going to cry. But Colin was a sensible boy. He knew what she said was true, so he swallowed down his ...
— Rosy • Mrs. Molesworth
... family ever had a livin' blessin' showered on 'em right out of heaven," said Mrs. Gray, "we did, the day Sylvia come here. Funny, Austin's the only one of us can see's she's got a single fault. He says she's got lots of 'em, just like any other woman—but I bet he'd cut the tongue out of any one else who said so. Seems as if I couldn't wait for the third of September to come so's she'll really be my daughter, though I haven't got one that seems any dearer to me, ...
— The Old Gray Homestead • Frances Parkinson Keyes
... you away from anything you intend to do, whether it is football or anything else, and by going about your own business quietly and pleasantly, doing just what you would do if they were not there, generally they will get tired of it, and the boys themselves will see that it is not your fault, and will feel, if anything, rather a sympathy for you. Meanwhile I want you to know that we are all thinking of you and sympathizing with you the whole time; and it is a great comfort to me to have such confidence in you and to know that though these creatures can cause ...
— Letters to His Children • Theodore Roosevelt
... the stock argument, that people will pervert utility for their private ends, Mr. Mill challenges the production of any ethical creed where this may not happen. The fault is due, not to the origin of the rules, but to the complicated nature of human affairs, and the necessity of allowing a certain latitude, under the moral responsibility of the agent, for accommodation to circumstances. And in cases of conflict, ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... wink and a sly normal lurch, The owl, very gravely, got down from his perch, Walked round, and regarded his fault-finding critic (Who thought he was stuffed) with a glance analytic, And then fairly hooted, as if he should say: "Your learning's at fault this time, anyway; Don't waste it again on a live bird, I pray. I'm an ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... fault that any of these quarter-wits have any money to play the market with. They wouldn't have money enough to play a five-centisol slot machine if we hadn't gotten ...
— The Cosmic Computer • Henry Beam Piper
... and passed without any untoward event. Yet that is not enough to dispel the faith in Mother Shipton's prediction. She is not at fault. Some blundering calculator made a mistake as to time, and the people of Somerset are yet to ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... found fault with this editorial English. There rose a general murmur; the loftier spirits demanded a purer vocabulary, the multitude wanted to know whether that licensed victualler really existed. All looked for an easy word next week; easy it must be this time, or the game would ...
— The Town Traveller • George Gissing
... is the bastard son of an aristocratic Englishwoman who in early youth was forced by her father into a loveless union with a rich plebeian. The single fault of the mother's life is confessed after twenty years, when the husband in a moment of anger strikes her high-spirited and obstinate son. The latter consents to leave his home for ever, and relinquish the name he has borne. On these terms the wife is spared. Richard ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... come into my mind and help me to resist temptation. I have thought of you as something higher, holier, purer than myself. And such a good scholar, too! I have always been proud of my sister. You found fault with me, of course. I deserved it, poor, thoughtless fellow that I have been. I cannot be like you, Alma, but I am really going to try to be better. I have done with idle ways and bad companions. I did not know what Knut really was until we came to be constantly together, and then, bad as ...
— The Golden House • Mrs. Woods Baker
... Davy," said Anne, gathering up the fragments with trembling fingers. "It was my fault. I set that platter there and forgot all about it. I am properly punished for my carelessness; but oh, what ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... acting will finish up Alison's love affair," she thought. "It won't be any fault of mine if it doesn't. Oh, ...
— Good Luck • L. T. Meade
... batteries at the harbour's mouth were so admirably placed that they ought to have proved amply sufficient for the defence of the place; and no doubt they would have so proved in other hands, or had a proper lookout been kept. That they had fallen so easily to us was the fault, not of Morillo, but of the man whom he had left ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood
... impossible that a people like the Irish, disinterested and unselfish to a fault, should ever come to respect a compact brought about by such means and influences as these. Had, however, the Union, vile as were the means by which it was accomplished, proved to the real benefit of the country—had equal civil and religious rights been freely and at ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... years of age and had just begun his career—an instructor in the economics department, with a thousand-dollar salary. That is not why he was called an economist; but can you blame my brothers for doing their best to break the engagement?... I do not—now. It was not their fault if Carl actually practiced what they merely preached. Should Carl be blamed? No; for he seriously intended never to marry at all—until he met me. Should I be blamed? Possibly; but I did my best to break the engagement too—and incidentally both our hearts—by going abroad and staying ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... My descriptions you call slow, my imaginings frivolous, science dry. Jokes are feeble and personalities tedious morality is stale, religion is cant. What, how can I write? You have had a taste of all and if you are not content the fault is—well, let me be on the safe side—either yours ...
— Three Months of My Life • J. F. Foster
... us, working mortal weal and woe Beyond the force of mortals to control. And if these powers appear in love and truth, I think they must be gods, and worship them. But if their secret will is manifest In blind decrees of sheer omnipotence, That punish where no fault is found, and smite The poor with undeserved calamity, And pierce the undefended in the dark With arrows of injustice, and foredoom The innocent to burn in endless pain, I will not call this fierce almightiness Divine. Though I must bear, with every man, The burden ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... noises grew deafening together, the noise of the peril of England and the louder noise of the placidity of England. It is their fault if the last verse was written a little ...
— Tremendous Trifles • G. K. Chesterton
... become more auspicious and more favourable in consequence of such conduct of his. And terrible Rakshasas subsisting on animal food, of gigantic and fierce mien, all become unable to prevail over a Brahmana who practiseth these purifications. The Brahmanas are even like blazing fires. They incur no fault in consequence of teaching, of officiating at sacrifices, and of accepting gifts from others. Whether the Brahmana be cognisant of the Vedas or ignorant of them, whether they be pure or impure, they should never be insulted, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... he is. She has caught some of Hampstead's levelling ideas and encourages the young man. It was all Kingsbury's fault from the first. He began the world wrong, and now he cannot get himself right again. A radical aristocrat is a contradiction in terms. It is very well that there should be Radicals. It would be a stupid do-nothing world without ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... the first," responded Frank; "it was my fault that you were coaxed into it. I won't do it again, I assure you. Don't worry over it, my boy. It wasn't anything serious; only just a little after-theatre fun, and hearing those sporty girls ...
— Uncle Terry - A Story of the Maine Coast • Charles Clark Munn
... has recited her lesson without a fault. She receives a good mark. Emmeline Capel too receives a good mark for her recitation ...
— Our Children - Scenes from the Country and the Town • Anatole France
... as follows: The material in hand is loosely grouped in eighteen sections, according to origin, chronology, content, or form. Though logically at fault, because of the cross-division thus inevitably entailed, this plan has seemed to be the best. No real confusion will result to the user in consequence. In fact, no matter what system be adopted, certain songs will belong equally well to ...
— A Syllabus of Kentucky Folk-Songs • Hubert G. Shearin
... to witness that it is not my fault," said McGregor, who thought he perceived a certain degree of reproach in the faces of the bystanders; but all agreed ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... the friends continued walking in the grove; for a long time, they lay there and found no sleep. And over and over again, Govinda urged his friend, he should tell him why he would not want to seek refuge in Gotama's teachings, what fault he would find in these teachings. But Siddhartha turned him away every time and said: "Be content, Govinda! Very good are the teachings of the exalted one, how could I ...
— Siddhartha • Herman Hesse
... of any approaching demand upon her services as to have become proverbial, and the swelling of that young person's "tornsuls," as she termed them, was anticipated as might be anticipated the rising of the sun. Not that it was Belinda's fault, however; Belinda's anxiety to be useful amounted at all times to something very nearly approaching a monomania; the fact simply was, that, her ailment being chronic, it usually evinced itself at inopportune periods. "It's the luck of the family," said Phil. "We never ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... buildings, but in presence of all who followed the King in his promenades, nobles, courtiers, officers of the guard, and others, even all the rolete. The dressing given to Louvois was smart and long, mixed with reflections upon the fault of this window, which, not noticed so soon, might have spoiled all the facade, and compelled it to ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... said, thoughtfully, "but it all wasn't really Manton's fault, after all. Stella liked the Bohemian sort of life too much—and Manton does the Bohemian up here wonderfully. It was too much for Stella. Then, when Phelps came along and was roped in, she fell ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve
... has been changed since you left. I have now Miss Watkins, returned from overseas. I think you knew her—name of Mary? Very good looking—almost her only fault. ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... unpleasant repetition of the "ing" in it! Where were his ears and judgment on that occasion? But I have more than once heard it said that Wordsworth had not a genuine love of Shakspeare,—that, when he could, he always accompanied a "pro" with his "con," and, Atticus-like, would "just hint a fault and hesitate dislike." Truly, indeed, we are all of "a mingled yarn, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... reflected Harry. "Then in that case the Germans could claim they were not directly responsible. They might claim that the boys got enthusiastic and enlisted voluntarily. If they got shot it was no fault of the dear, kind ...
— Boy Scouts Mysterious Signal - or Perils of the Black Bear Patrol • G. Harvey Ralphson
... George won't have to find fault with you for bringing your ship into these shallow waters. Tom—my brother Tom, you know—is very anxious about it. I think he would like ...
— The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols • William Black
... be ungrateful if I did not care for such a kind Beast," cried Beauty indignantly. "I would die to save him from pain. I assure you it is not his fault ...
— The Blue Fairy Book • Various
... under such regulations and restrictions as the board of regents may deem proper. At first the students recited together, but Mr. Chadbourne made it a condition of accepting the presidency that they should be separated. I do not speak of the separation of the sexes to find fault. I conceive that if equal advantages be given women by the State, whether in connection with or apart from men, they have no ground for complaint. My object is to compare the advantages given to the sexes and see the practical effect of legislation ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... by Divine Providence, and after a surprising manner escaped death, for the fire did not touch them; and I suppose that it touched them not, as if it reasoned with itself, that they were cast into it without any fault of theirs, and that therefore it was too weak to burn the young men when they were in it. This was done by the power of God, who made their bodies so far superior to the fire, that it could not consume them. This it was which ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... as my part should have escaped, and your part be all burnt up, Master George," said Morgan, slowly. "But it ar'n't my fault. I'd almost rather they'd ragged the garden to pieces, and cut down the trees, ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... found a daily newspaper for the propagation of Labour views have not always met with success. Possibly the fault has been that they made their appeal too exclusively to the Labour public. We understand that every care will be taken that our contemporary shall under no circumstances be ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, February 18th, 1920 • Various
... on the plantation just like they did in the real slavery days, only I received a small wage. I picked cotton and thinned rice. I always did just what they told me to do and didn't ever get into any trouble, except once and that was my own fault. ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Florida Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... told you that our war was properly conducted. There was no looting in Ballymahon and I never saw a drunken man the whole time. If those Sinn Feiners had a fault it was over-respectability. I shouldn't care to ...
— Our Casualty And Other Stories - 1918 • James Owen Hannay, AKA George A. Birmingham
... place of seats and hammocks between the big trees and the rose garden, and the talk turned for a time upon Rendezvous. "They have the tidiest garden in Essex," said Manning. "It's not Mrs. Rendezvous' fault that it is so. Mrs. Rendezvous, as a matter of fact, has a taste for the picturesque. She just puts the things about in groups in the beds. She wants them, she says, to grow anyhow. She desires a romantic disorder. But she never gets it. When he walks down the path all the plants dress ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... Kent desired. He exulted as he saw that he was being gratified. "If there isn't fun pretty shortly it won't be my fault," said he, as he plunged onward ...
— The Ranger - or The Fugitives of the Border • Edward S. Ellis
... The Cossacks, at the command of the "good Czar" are celebrating a bloody feast—knouting, shooting, clubbing people to death, dragging great masses to prisons and into exile, and it is not the fault of that vicious idiot on the throne, nor that of his advisors, Witte and the others, if the Revolution still marches on, head erect. Were it in their power, they would break her proud neck with one stroke, but they cannot put the heads ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 1, March 1906 • Various
... alone that deprives them of flavour. Yet another precaution may be needful to prevent a mishap. In a hot summer, Celery will sometimes 'bolt' or run up to flower, in which case it is worthless. This may be the fault of the cultivator more than of the seed or the weather, for a check in many cases hastens the flowering of plants, and it is not unusual for Celery to receive a check through mismanagement. If sown too early, it may be impossible to plant out when of suitable size, and the consequent arrest of ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons |
