"Flaw" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... dreary grave-yard toll, betokening a flaw, the ship's forecastle bell, smote by one of the grizzled oakum-pickers, proclaimed ten o'clock, through the leaden calm; when Captain Delano's attention was caught by the moving figure of a gigantic black, ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... would, the two Generals, equal in battle, face to face for the first time—could not give the total of the day. It was still an unadded sum, and the guns, despite the night, were steadily contributing new figures. This was the flaw in their arithmetic; nothing was complete, and they saw that they would have to begin again to-morrow. So, with this day's work yet unfinished, they began to prepare, sending for new regiments and brigades, massing ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... assault the dwellers at land, and leaue them vncouered houses, pared hedges, and dwarfe-growne trees, as witnesses of their force and furie : yea, euen the hard stones, and yron barres of the windowes, doe fret to be so continually grated. One kind of these stormes, they call a flaw, or flaugh, which is a mightie gale of wind, passing suddainely to the shore, and working strong effects, vpon whatsoeuer it incountreth in ...
— The Survey of Cornwall • Richard Carew
... we have seen, the idea of the tragic hero as a being destroyed simply and solely by external forces is quite alien to him; and not less so is the idea of the hero as contributing to his destruction only by acts in which we see no flaw. But the fatal imperfection or error, which is never absent, is of different kinds and degrees. At one extreme stands the excess and precipitancy of Romeo, which scarcely, if at all, diminish our regard for him; at the other the murderous ambition of Richard III. In most cases ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... frustrated by the very different conceptions which obtain in the two religions. The Christian incarnation must be, and is, first of all, of a perfect ethical type—an ideal of transcendent moral beauty and spiritual excellence. The least flaw or crookedness in His character would vitiate His pretensions, and would be the death-blow to the doctrine of His incarnation and divinity. In Hinduism, on the other hand, moral criteria have no application to the "descents" or incarnations of Vishnu. To his three ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... a portion of the truth; for there was more in the background, which he did not wish to confide to his friend. Toto Chupin's revolt had disquieted him. Let there be but a single flaw in the axletree, and one day it will snap in twain; and Mascarin wanted to ...
— Caught In The Net • Emile Gaboriau
... honourable than that of a clergyman's wife unless indeed it were a bishop's. Considering his father's influence it was not at all impossible that Theobald might be a bishop some day—and then—then would occur to her that one little flaw in the practice of the Church of England—a flaw not indeed in its doctrine, but in its policy, which she believed on the whole to be a mistaken one in this respect. I mean the fact that a bishop's wife does not take the rank ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... Kremlin live in fear their power and position would collapse were their own people to acquire knowledge, information, comprehension about our free society. Their world has many elements of strength, but this one fatal flaw: the weakness represented by their iron curtain and their police state. Surely, a social order at once so insecure and so fearful, must ultimately lose its ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Harry S. Truman • Harry S. Truman
... a present of rarities was brought to the sultan, among which were two precious stones; one of them remarkably clear in its water, and the other with a flaw. The sultan now bethought himself of the lapidary, and sent for him to his presence, when he gave him the clear jewel to examine, and demanded what ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... invincible, magnanimous in conquest and never so sublime as on that day when he laid down his victorious sword and sought his noble retirement—here, indeed, is a character to admire and revere; a life without a stain, a fame without a flaw." ...
— The Constitution of the United States - A Brief Study of the Genesis, Formulation and Political Philosophy of the Constitution • James M. Beck
... fear o' that. She's as toom's a cock. Gang and luik. The last drap in her wame flaw oot at the window i' that bottle. Eh! Alec, but I'll hae a sair day, and ye maun be true to me. Gie me my Homer, or I'll never win throu't. An ye may lay John Milton within my rax (reach); for I winna pit my leg oot o' the blankets till ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... reasoning," Cyril remarked. "There's scarcely a flaw in it, as you'll see by my account of the affair. After saying good-by to Prescott on the night I left the settlement, I went on until I was near the muskeg and had dismounted to camp when a stranger rode up. We sat talking for a while and I foolishly told him I meant to buy some horses ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... quarter of an hour ago, proud, and, I may say, swaggering, as he does over his learned friends when he has found a flaw in one of ...
— The Ink-Stain, Complete • Rene Bazin
... paradoxical reactions of price changes on supply. Let us turn, though, once more to these earlier laws, and with a heightened critical sense let us submit them to the test of the whole gamut of our experience, and see if in any of them we can find the smallest flaw. The first of them will pass through the ordeal—let each reader prove it for himself—unscathed. The second will emerge with a few hairs, as it were, singed. It tells us, for instance, that a rise in price will tend to augment the supply. Now there are some things the supply ...
— Supply and Demand • Hubert D. Henderson
... you find that there are no stampers. The immense hundred-ton guns and the crank-shafts of transatlantic steamers are forged by hydraulic pressure, and the worker has but to turn a tap to give shape to the immense mass of steel, which makes a far more homogeneous metal, without crack or flaw, of the ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin
... blissful gentleness, Not like a rocket, which, with passionate glare, Whirs suddenly up, then bursts, and leaves the night Painfully quivering on the dazed eyes; A love that gives and takes, that seeth faults, Not with flaw-seeking eyes like needle points, But loving-kindly ever looks them down With the o'ercoming faith that still forgives; A love that shall be new and fresh each hour, As is the sunset's golden mystery, Or the sweet coming of the evening-star, Alike, and ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... a peculiar experience came to the captain of the yacht Coral. A slight flaw in the breeze, which was bearing the vessel forward, caused the sails to flap, and must have made a sort of funnel of one of them for the moment; or rather, as may be said, it made a temporary whispering gallery of the deck ...
— Adrift on the Pacific • Edward S. Ellis
... the people were destined to learn the highest of all arts, self-government on a grand scale. The absence of a leisure class, devoted to no calling or profession, merely enjoying the refinements of life and adding to its graces—the flaw in American culture that gave deep distress to many a European leader—de Tocqueville thought a necessary virtue in the republic. "Amongst a democratic people where there is no hereditary wealth, ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... strong-minded a man to accept the hazy modern notion that the soul in its highest sense can change: he seems to have held that religion can never get any better and that poetry rather tends to get worse. But he did not see the flaw in his political theory; which is that unless the soul improves with time there is no guarantee that the accumulations of experience will be adequately used. Figures do not add themselves up; birds do not label or stuff themselves; ...
— The Victorian Age in Literature • G. K. Chesterton
... there is a flaw in Blizzard's mind. It is the only way to account for him. He stands on ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... thing out till there's no flaw. We shall surprise the Acropolis today: That is the duty set the older dames. While we sit here talking, they are to go And under pretence ...
— Lysistrata • Aristophanes
... small volumes, "The Lesson of the Master" and "Terminations," and in those two little volumes of short stories he who will may find out something of what it means to be really an artist. The framework is perfect and the polish is absolutely without flaw. They are sometimes a little hard, always calculating and dispassionate, but they are perfect. I wish James would write about modern society, about "degeneracy" and the new woman and all the rest of it. Not that he would throw any light on it. He seldom does; but he would say ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... the blast, Bent like a reed each mast, Yet we were gaining fast, When the wind failed us; And with a sudden flaw Came round the gusty Skaw,[9] So that our foe we saw Laugh as ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... custom in excess, and it grows worse instead of better, as the influence of the better mannered and better educated diminishes; but this is a spot on the sun—a mere flaw in the diamond, that friction will take out. But what a country—what a glorious country, in truth, it is! You have now done the civilized parts of the old world pretty thoroughly, my dear boy, and must be persuaded, yourself, of the superiority of ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... words on the approach of death, "O! what a prodigal have I been of that most valuable of all possessions—Time!" express with exact truth the fundamental flaw of his character and career, of which he had at ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... a different development of the same type of quiet unassuming English gentleman,—the gallant, thrusting, never-tiring Plumer. Small spare man of dainty gait and finish, yet moulded in a clay which hitherto has shown no flaw in the rougher elements of the soldier. It is no inconsiderable tribute to his sterling qualities as a leader that he gained both the confidence and devotion of the rough Bushboys from the Antipodes, with whom he was associated. But however dainty and unassuming the shell, it is the spirit ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... But when I came to reflect that this was but an outbreak among old friends on an old occasion, after (I do believe) months of sobriety; that there was no concealment about it; and that though obstinate at first as to how little drunk, &c., he was very repentant afterwards—I cannot let this one flaw weigh against the general good of the man. I cannot if I would: what then is the use of trying? But my confidence in that respect must be so far shaken, and it vexes me to think that I can never be sure of his not being overtaken so. I declare that ...
— Two Suffolk Friends • Francis Hindes Groome
... stiletto type than the dagger. An inscription ran lengthwise down the steel, which was of a distinct bluish tinge where it was not darkly stained. About an inch from the tip a tiny triangular nick had been made in one of the sharp edges, the only flaw in the weapon's perfection. Creighton looked up from it to meet ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... resolving to lose no more time by awaiting new orders from Angers, and fearing the least flaw in her marriage, the Court was obliged to comply with my proposal, and ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... cried the Lamps' Father in great anger, "who sells cracked lamps? If there is a flaw in one of mine, ask me for ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan
... the former, there is nothing that you Christian people need more to have dinned into you than this, that your continuance in the state of a redeemed man, with all the security and blessing that attach thereto, depends upon your continuing to be righteous. Every sin, every flaw, every dropping beneath our own standard in conscience of what we ought to be, has for its inevitable result that we are robbed for the time being of consciousness of the walls of the city being about us and of our ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... were present; the old spell which he threw over everybody—a spell which was from the heart and the manner as well as from the meaning of his words—was not lacking, but to Harley, keenly attentive, there seemed to be a flaw in his logic. The reasoning was not as clear and compact as usual. Only a man with a penetrating, analytical mind would observe it, but there were openings here and there where his armor could be pierced. Blaisdell, ...
— The Candidate - A Political Romance • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... before the stout arm-chair was secured to the cables, slowly lowered, and landed at last on the outside of the hut. Many an anxious glance was cast at the slate-gray sky. An inopportune flurry of snow, a flaw of wind:—and even now all would be lost. Dusk too impended, and as the rope began to coil on the windlass at the signal to hoist every eye was strained to discern the identity of the first voyagers in this aerial journey,—the two children, securely lashed to the chair. This was well,—all ...
— The Christmas Miracle - 1911 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... expression that I have already mentioned: here it was somewhat marred, though, by an over-rigidity of the lines. It is unfortunate that our farmers, when they plant at all, will nearly always plant in straight lines. The straight line is a flaw where we try to blend the work of our hands with Nature. They also as a rule neglect shrubs that would help to furnish a foreground for their trees; and, worst of all, they are given to importing, instead of utilising our native ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove
... even after the most careful revision, to find any flaw in my argument; and I incline to think none has been found by my critics—at least, if they have, they have kept the discovery ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... them perfectly. Very likely next day they, too, would fade, as you put it, Burkhardt; they would want to get out of this part of country as quickly as possible when they realized what had happened. I see no flaw in our plan. Fortunately the three directors who are coming will be gone by ...
— In the Shadow of the Hills • George C. Shedd
... the way, and thus he justified, he is in pursuit of an enemy, and consequently is at war), and dodging about, under cover, spying out the secrets of the land, and not very fastidious in listening to conversation that does not exactly concern him. We fear that there is some such flaw in the character of Ned Hinkley, though, otherwise, a good, hardy fellow—with a rough and tumble sort of good nature, which, having bloodied your nose, would put a knife-handle down your back, and apply a handful of cobwebs ...
— Charlemont • W. Gilmore Simms
... merits both spiritual and spectacular, and he brought to the big house an exotic atmosphere that was spicy with delights. The little boy prayed that this hero might be made again the man he once was; not because of any flaw that he could see in him—but only because the sufferer appeared somewhat less than perfect to himself. To Bernal's mind, indeed, nothing could have been superior to the noble melancholy with which Cousin ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... protection; that is, the police and the Courts were so completely in the scheme that it was sufficient, on the arrest of a "reliable," if the boss sent word to the judge or State's attorney "to be keerful" as this was "one of our boys." Promptly a flaw would be discovered in the indictment and the ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... forth: Perjured ere long he fled, and now returns To reap a harvest from his master's dream" - Thus mused he, while black shadow swept the moor. So day by day darker was Milcho's heart, Till, with the endless brooding on one thought, Began a little flaw within that brain Whose strength was still his boast. Was no friend nigh? Alas! what friend had he? All men he scorned; Knew truly none. In each, the best and sweetest Near him had ever pined, like stunted growth Dwarfed ...
— The Legends of Saint Patrick • Aubrey de Vere
... a work of genius. But, oh! Jaffery, I do want it to be without a flaw. Don't hate me, dear—I know you've done all that mortal man could do for Adrian and for me. But it isn't your fault if you're not a professional novelist or an imaginative writer. And you, yourself, said the bridges were clumsy. Couldn't you—oh!—I loathe hurting you, ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... in the purest statuary marble would convert the Eve of Powers to a monster. Masculine observers, if the birthmark did not heighten their admiration, contented themselves with wishing it away, that the world might possess one living specimen of ideal loveliness without the semblance of a flaw. After his marriage,—for he thought little or nothing of the matter before,—Aylmer discovered that this was the case ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... traditions of centuries namely, to its bumptiousness, in a word. But chiefly, I think, the reason is to be found in its lack of anything properly to be called a philosophy. This is surely a fatal flaw in any system, because it involves a contradiction in terms; and to say that to have no philosophy is the philosophy of the impressionists, is merely a word-juggling bit of question-begging. A theory of technic is not a philosophy, however systematic it may be. It is a mechanical, ...
— French Art - Classic and Contemporary Painting and Sculpture • W. C. Brownell
... most ingenious. But there is in this plan one flaw which no one has noted. I suppose that you, Maternus, evolved this really promising idea from pondering on what Claudius told us. All the hearsay about Rome and its festivals which ever came to the ears of all of ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... come as nigh as that of Crasweller, he too, like Crasweller, would impotently implore the grace of another year. He would ape madness like Barnes, or arm himself with a carving-knife like Tallowax, or swear that there was a flaw in the law, as Exors was disposed to do. He too would clamorously swear that he was much younger, as did the old women. Was not the world peopled by Craswellers, Tallowaxes, Exorses, and old women? Had I a right to hope to alter the feelings which nature herself had implanted in the ...
— The Fixed Period • Anthony Trollope
... flaw in the project, from a merely utilitarian point of view, is that the future of these young women appears rather vague. The demand for female Hindu teachers in India is at present small, and a few only have found employment in this way. Three or four have become ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin
... course, these facts themselves, being less than all the stream of creative duration to which they belong, will be abstractions, if taken apart from that whole stream, and so distorted. This flaw in what we know even by direct acquaintance can never be wholly remedied short of our succeeding in becoming acquainted with the whole of duration. It is something, however, to be aware of the flaw, even if we cannot wholly remedy it, and the wider the acquaintance ...
— The Misuse of Mind • Karin Stephen
... vulgar at the same time. All lighter agitations and excitements might be dangerous to Jevons, but passion and great grief and grave anxiety ennobled him. He came back from Switzerland chastened and purified of all offence. Even Reggie couldn't have found a flaw ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... help forming some opinion of a man's sense and character from his dress; and I believe most people do as well as myself. Any affectation whatsoever in dress implies in my mind a flaw in the understanding.... A man of sense carefully avoids any particular character in his dress; he is accurately clean for his own sake; but all the rest is for other people's. He dresses as well, and in the same manner, as the people of sense and fashion ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... walls the mighty sire explores, With eye close searching, lest a weakening flaw, Might hurl some part to ruin. All he found Firm in its pristine strength;—then glanc'd his eye Around the earth, and toils of man below. 'Bove all terrestrial lands, Arcadia felt— His own Arcadia—his preserving care. Her fountains he restores; her streams not yet To murmur daring; to ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... that it could go through a ring without touching it; he was also able to dance, and play the castanets, while his ears touched the ground. The King was embarassed, for it was impossible to find a flaw ...
— My Book of Favorite Fairy Tales • Edric Vredenburg
... sweep of his hair; the sharp clearness of his profile; the steady serenity of his gray eyes; the ease and suppleness and indolent strength of his tall thin figure—all these physical details expressed the reserves and inhibitions of generations. The only flaw that she could detect was that dryness of soul that she had noticed before, as of soil that has been too heavily drained. She knew that he excelled in all the virtues that are monumental and public, that he was an honourable opponent, a scrupulous defender of established rules and precedents. ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... even then, if he bought the land, and another person, for any reason whatever, laid claim to it, the owner had to prove the validity of each of a long series of documents, going back, perhaps, for centuries. A flaw in any one of these would give rise to a contest which could be settled only after a very tedious investigation; and thus arose the long and ruinous Chancery suits which were the disgrace of English law. When a man's title to his estate was disputed, it often happened ...
— History of Australia and New Zealand - From 1606 to 1890 • Alexander Sutherland
... England some black storm Shall blow ten thousand souls to heaven or hell; And this fell tempest shall not cease to rage Until the golden circuit on my head, Like to the glorious sun's transparent beams, Do calm the fury of this mad-bred flaw. And for a minister of my intent, I have seduc'd a headstrong Kentishman, John Cade of Ashford, To make commotion, as full well he can, Under the tide of John Mortimer. In Ireland have I seen this stubborn Cade Oppose himself against ...
— King Henry VI, Second Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]
... The Ring and the Book, in its perfection and integrity, fully satisfies the conditions of artistic triumph. Are we to ignore the grandeur of a colossal statue, and the nobility of the human conceptions which it embodies, because here and there we notice a flaw in the marble, a blemish in its colour, a jagged slip of the chisel? "It is not force of intellect," as George Eliot has said, "which causes ready repulsion from the aberration and eccentricities of greatness, any more than it is force of vision that causes the eye to explore the ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... passage of his supplies up the Rhine, which might have been seriously impeded by them at Rheinberg. The details of the siege, as of all the Prince's sieges, possess no more interest to the general reader than the working out of a geometrical problem. He was incapable of a flaw in his calculations, but it was impossible for him quite to complete the demonstration before the arrival of de la Chatre. Maurice received with courtesy the Marshal, who arrived on the 18th August, at the head of his contingent of ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... saddening in effect. The autumn wood robed in its scarlet clothes, The matchless tinting on the royal rose Whose velvet leaf by no least flaw is flecked, Love's supreme moment, when the soul unchecked Soars high as heaven, and its best rapture knows— These hold a deeper pathos than our woes, Since they leave ...
— Poems of Passion • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... visitors, for the state of the country did not invite Londoners; but we did not want them. The suppression of Clarence was the only flaw in a singularly happy time; and, after all I believe I felt the pity of it more than he did, who expected nothing, and was accustomed to being ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... writer of 'slams' is that he must resolutely shut his eyes to any qualities which appeal, even to him, as good qualities, while dwelling with ferocious zest upon every point that he can possibly magnify into a flaw. Or he may even fly at one bound to a pinnacle of wisdom by basing his criticism entirely upon the first chapter or the last chapter of a book, or the first act or the last act of a play. Or he may win his spurs for smartness by deliberate misstatements, born, perhaps, ...
— Poet Lore, Volume XXIV, Number IV, 1912 • Various
... delicately-moulded mouth—a smile that was like sunlight on clear water, revealing a nature so simple and candid; and deep down, trembling into light, the crystalline soul which had come without flaw from its Maker's hands, and in the midst of evil had caught no stain to dim its perfect purity. It seemed now to Mrs. Churton, as she expounded the sacred doctrines which meant so much to her, that she had not known so great a happiness since her daughter, white even to her lips at the thought ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... were fought, and victories gained. Success was his object, and he was generally successful. He conquered his enemies by their weakness rather than by his own strength, and it had been found almost impossible to make up a case in which Sir Abraham, as an antagonist, would not find a flaw. ...
— The Warden • Anthony Trollope
... down at the terraced streets just below, she thought it a strange thing that so favored a woman should rail at her own country and kinsmen. It oppressed her loyal little heart, for she had begun to like the titled lady, and hated to find so grave a flaw in her nature. ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... loitered once, and fearing whipping, did As boys will do, sneaked to the stairs and hid. So, if this running off be not a, vice Too bad to pardon, let me have my price." The man would get his money, I should say, Without a risk of having to repay. You make the bargain knowing of the flaw; 'Twere mere vexatiousness ...
— The Satires, Epistles, and Art of Poetry • Horace
... this girl who had betrayed her father, her faith, her class. She ought to repent, of course, and Church was the right place; yet there was something brazen in her repenting there before their very eyes; she was too palpable a flaw in the crystal of the Church's authority, too visible a rent in the raiment of their priest. Her figure focused all the uneasy amazement and heart searchings of these last weeks. Mothers quivered with the knowledge that their daughters could see her; wives with the idea that their ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... rapidly increasing because whenever he pressed his ear to the wall he could hear the almost inaudible tickings and vibrations as the bubble's skin contracted or expanded and the Nothing tapped and searched with its empty fingers for a flaw or crack that it could ...
— The Nothing Equation • Tom Godwin
... harmonies, to be always rejecting and refining. It had its sorrows, of course. How often in the old days one came in contact with some gracious and beautiful personality, and flung oneself into close relations; and then one began to see this and that flaw. There were lapses in tact, petulances, littlenesses; one's friend did not rightly use his beautiful mind; he was jealous, suspicious, trivial, petty; it ended in disillusionment. Instead of taking him as a passenger on one's vessel, and ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... charm are such that we wish to sit at her feet at once. She is intellectual, but with a disarming smile, religious, but so charitable, masterful, and yet loved of all. None is perfect, and there must be a flaw in her somewhere, but to find it would necessitate such a rummage among her many adornments as there is now no time for. Perhaps we may come upon it accidentally in ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie
... we'll find support. Get them on the jump and we're all right. Now I'll ride somewhere between Canker and Truman. All ready now?" "What I want to know, major, is this," began Canker, always on the lookout for some point or flaw. ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... had come to him in 1764 in Rome whilst "musing amongst the ruins of the Capitol"; in 1787 his great work was finished at Lausanne, where he had resided since 1783; modern criticism, working with fresh sources of information, has failed to find any serious flaw in the fabric of this masterpiece in history, but the cynical attitude adopted towards the Christian religion has always been regarded as a defect; "a man of endless reading and research," was Carlyle's verdict after a final perusal of the "Decline," "but of a most disagreeable style, and a ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... procured by the authority of Henry but he found it not so easy to levy the money upon his subjects. The people, who were acquainted with the immense treasures which he had amassed, could ill brook the new impositions raised on every slight occasion; and it is probable that the flaw which was universally known to be in his title, made his reign the more subject to insurrections and rebellions. When the subsidy began to be levied in Cornwall, the inhabitants, numerous and poor, robust and courageous, murmured against a tax occasioned by a sudden inroad ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part C. - From Henry VII. to Mary • David Hume
... like the yarns and strands of a tow-line. Quick! I'll blow the fire. When at last the twelve rods were made, Ahab tried them, one by one, by spiralling them, with his own hand, round a long, heavy iron bolt. A flaw! rejecting the last one. Work that over again, Perth. This done, Perth was about to begin welding the twelve into one, when Ahab stayed his hand, and said he would weld his own iron. As, then, with regular, gasping hems, he hammered on the ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... the Supreme Being can see their innermost thoughts as clearly as they can perceive their own reflection; while the crystal ball is an emblem of purity. Great store is set by the latter, especially if of large size and without flaw; but to my mind the imperfect ones are the best, as they refract the light and do not ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... of dates of past eclipses in Professor Morgan's book he referred to a certain eclipse of the moon which occurred about two hundred millions of years before Christ, and not a flaw could be discovered in his figuring. But Professor Macadam did not hesitate to make a charge. He asserted with great vehemence that as there was no moon two hundred millions of years before Christ, there could ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... latent in the suggestive imagery of a predecessor, laying under contribution the most intimate familiarity with what is best in the literature of the ancient and modern world, the unwearied artist toils patiently on till his precious mosaic work is without a flaw. All the resources of rhetoric are employed to give distinction to his style and every figure in rhetoric finds expression in his diction: Hypallage ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... Antony beside Caesar. In solitude we are ashamed of this cowardice and resolve to put it away; but when the great man returns, our knees knock and we are as weak as before. It is suicide to fly from such mortification. A brave boy faces it as well as he can. By-and-by the dazzle abates, he sees some flaw, some coarseness or softness, in this shining piece of metal; he begins to fathom the motives and measure the orbit of this tyrannous benefactor. They are the true friends who daunt and overpower us, to whom for a little we yield ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... which cannot suffer the least injury without damage; it is a precious stone, the price of which is lessened by the least flaw. ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... allow me no more credit. Once when I was in a very bad humour, I let out my secret before Szilard, and the worthy young man undertook to relieve me of my burden. I don't know whether he detected a technical flaw in my bonds or whether he found out some other means of frightening my creditor; anyway, he assured me I only need pay the original sum with interest upon it at the legal rate. Moreover, he undertook to procure me an honourable ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... technically as hard as, say, Paganini—but in interpretation!... And in the Beethoven concerto, too, there is a simplicity, a kind of clear beauty which makes it far harder to play than many other things technically more advanced. The slightest flaw, the least difference in pitch, in intonation, ...
— Violin Mastery - Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers • Frederick H. Martens
... It was on the same spot as all the others, but blow me if it didn't get three of them infantry. They fell squirmin' right on top o' us an' the instrument, so I concluded that spot wasn't as safe as the F.O. had reckoned, an' there was a flaw in 'is argument somewheres that the Coal-Box 'ad found out. The F.O. saw that too, an' we shifted out quick-time. After that things quietened down a bit, an' the short hairs on the back o' my neck had time to lie down. They stood on end again once or twice in the afternoon, when ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable
... theas hed no avail, For th' waters deluged all the vale; An' th' latest news 'at I heerd Th' railway's nearly disappear'd; But if it's fun withaat a flaw, Wha, folks, I'm like ...
— Th' History o' Haworth Railway - fra' th' beginnin' to th' end, wi' an ackaant o' th' oppnin' serrimony • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... out of anything," had been said. "He has somehow established her as if she were his mother or his aunt—or his interpreter. And such clothes, my dear, one doesn't behold. Worth and Paquin and Doucet must go sleepless for weeks to invent them. They are without a flaw in shade or line or texture." Which was true, because Mrs. Mellish of the Bond Street shop had become quite obsessed by her idea and committed extravagances Miss Alicia offered up contrite prayer to atone for, while Tembarom, simply chortling in his glee, signed checks to pay for their exquisite ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... not better to cripple the easy, irresponsible, and delightfully casual social instincts of the House of Seagrave. Educated according to my own ideas, they must inevitably have become, in a measure, types of the set with which they are identified.... And the only serious flaw ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... characteristically and purely Russian. An Englishman may be in love with an idea, and start out bravely to follow it; but if he finds it leading him into a position contrary to the experience of humanity, then he pulls up, and decides that the idea must be false, even if he can detect no flaw in it; not so the Russian; the idea is right, ...
— Essays on Russian Novelists • William Lyon Phelps
... sacred, although I may be permitted to express my regret that he has not done so in a spirit more worthy of the cause which he defends. In spite of hostile criticism of very unusual minuteness and ability, no flaw or error has been pointed out which in the slightest degree affects my main argument, and I consider that every point yet objected to by Dr. Lightfoot, or indicated by Dr. Westcott, might be withdrawn without at all weakening my position. These objections, I may say, refer ...
— A Reply to Dr. Lightfoot's Essays • Walter R. Cassels
... in this country. As a rule, representatives of the committee visit the scene of the accident as soon as possible after its occurrence. Eye-witnesses are called before them to give evidence of the disaster; the remains of the craft are carefully inspected in order to discover any flaw in its construction; evidence is taken as to the nature and velocity of the wind on the day of the accident, the approximate height at which the aviator was flying, and, in fact, everything of value that might bear on the ...
— The Mastery of the Air • William J. Claxton
... for if not to encourage legitimate enterprises in the community upon which it depends for its business? There isn't a flaw in this proposition, Wentz! Can you ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... surprising pieces of news to give you, Eliza. In the first place it has been discovered that there was a very serious flaw in the title to Fairclose, and that the sale to me was altogether illegal. Mr. Hartington has behaved most kindly and generously in the matter, but the result is he comes back to Fairclose and we ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... fascination for him, until now he was recognized as one of the world's greatest experts on these subjects. The great lock concerns often sent for him to test new inventions, and invariably he could point to any flaw in the constructions of them that existed. As he came to manhood his knowledge had grown apace until to many ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... "The flaw in that statement," says Cray after a pause, "is that this may be another ship of the ...
— The Lost Kafoozalum • Pauline Ashwell
... flaw in your reasoning which escapes me now. In Spain, the Mother Country, this body lends and has lent ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal
... certain shape; it persists in this plan, and completes it. Here is a perfect crystal of quartz for you. It is of an unusual form, and one which it might seem very difficult to build—a pyramid with convex sides, composed of other minor pyramids. But there is not a flaw in its contour throughout; not one of its myriads of component sides but is as bright as a jeweler's faceted work (and far finer, if you saw it close). The crystal points are as sharp as javelins; their edges will cut ...
— The Ethics of the Dust • John Ruskin
... have the secret of removing flaws from diamonds. The King showed him a stone valued at 6,000 francs—without a flaw it would have been worth 10,000. Saint-Germain said that he could remove the flaw in a month, and in a month he brought back the diamond—flawless. The King sent it, without any comment, to his jeweler, ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... me, but I have just issued from many generations of forest poverty, and knowing how hard it is to break that thraldom, I would stop you from taking the first step towards it. The bloom upon your cheek, the mould you are the product of without flaw, the chaste lady's tastes and thoughts, and inborn strength and joy, are the work of God's favor to your family for generations. That favor he continues in laying those family burdens on another's shoulders, to spare you the toil and care, anxiety and slow decay, that this violent ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... me, you four hundred, where did you get it? Who gave it to you? Your grandfather, you say? Your father? Can you go all the way back and show there is no flaw anywhere in your title? I tell you that the beginning and the root of your wealth is necessarily in injustice. And why? Because Nature did not make this man rich and that man poor from the start. Nature does not intend for one man to have capital and another ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... of flame, The coming man of the race will find her. For petty purpose and narrow aim, And fault and flaw she will leave behind her. He grown tender, and she grown wise, They shall enter the Eden by both created; The broadened kingdom of Paradise, And love, and mate, as the first ...
— Poems of Experience • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... give her a Bible, that she might read the Scriptures. This had been one of the worst girls, and she had behaved so very badly upon her trial that it was almost shameful. She conducted herself afterwards in so amiable a manner, that her conduct was almost without a flaw. She is now in the Penitentiary, and, I hope, will become a valuable member ...
— Elizabeth Fry • Mrs. E. R. Pitman
... its realisation the limitation of the public authority, for liberty is the only object which benefits all alike, and provokes no sincere opposition. In supporting the claims of national unity, governments must be subverted in whose title there is no flaw, and whose policy is beneficent and equitable, and subjects must be compelled to transfer their allegiance to an authority for which they have no attachment, and which may be practically a foreign domination. ...
— The History of Freedom • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... stability of the social security system. Shortly after taking office I proposed and Congress enacted legislation to protect the stability of the old age and survivors trust fund and prevent the imminent exhaustion of the disability insurance trust fund, and to correct a flaw in the benefit formula that was threatening the long run health of the entire social security system. The actions taken by the Congress at my request helped stabilize the system. That legislation ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Jimmy Carter • Jimmy Carter
... packing them for market. And oh! the joy of it! the pleasure she took in laying the rich brown and creamy-white eggs in cosy nests in the sweet-smelling hay; her pride in their appearance! The only flaw in her happiness was the fact that she could not carry the basket and dispose of the contents herself to the customers. She pictured herself turning back the snow-white cloth from the top of the basket, and counting out her beloved treasures one ...
— The Carroll Girls • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... and looked at it closely. He put it on the scales and weighed it carefully, measured it, and scrutinized it as closely as he could in the lamplight, but he knew himself that these were devices to gain time. The pearl showed all too clearly a flaw that would make it valueless. Every one waited for his verdict. He was conscious that his voice was a little shaky, but he answered as ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Fisheries • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... hear of our flitting. Happily, we had little darkness to add to the misery of our passage, for the sun was far south, and we had only three hours of night. Yet, when the black squalls of snow and sleet rolled up from the westward, there was darkness enough. At times a flaw in the wind—a brief veering to the south—would let us keep the ship travelling to the westward. All hands would be in high spirits; we would go below at the end of our watches, making light of sodden bedclothes, ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... manly dignity belonging to his proud position as an engaged man was very comical. So was the entire change from his former abasement and devotion to Nan to a somewhat lordly air with his little betrothed; for Dora made an idol of him, and resented the idea of a fault or a flaw in her Tom. This new state of things suited both, and the once blighted being bloomed finely in the warm atmosphere of appreciation, love, and confidence. He was very fond of the dear girl, but meant to be a slave no longer, and enjoyed his freedom immensely, quite unconscious that the great tyrant ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... have seemed a nuisance, but I was only trying to get you back on the straight path where you've always belonged. I can't believe you did this thing, even unconsciously, until I'm shown proof without a single flaw. Until the autopsy the only thing we have to work on is that party last night. I've telephoned to New York and put a trustworthy man on the heels of Maria and the stranger. Meantime I think I'd better watch ...
— The Abandoned Room • Wadsworth Camp
... definition is fatal to metaphysics. If you do not now point out a flaw in my definition, you are disqualified later on from advancing metaphysical arguments. You must go through life seeking that flaw and remaining metaphysically silent ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... long been cultivated in our gardens, and is deservedly a great favourite. It may not be uninteresting to give the other common and ancient names of the Easter Flower, as in every way this is not only an old plant, but an old-fashioned flower. "Passe Flower" and "Flaw Flower" come from the above common names, being only derivations, but in Cambridgeshire, where it grows wild, it is called "Coventry Bells" and "Hill Tulip." Three hundred years ago Gerarde gave the following description of ...
— Hardy Perennials and Old Fashioned Flowers - Describing the Most Desirable Plants, for Borders, - Rockeries, and Shrubberies. • John Wood
... Some flaw in the wind lifted the smoke and sent it high over the heads of all. Dick saw Custer, the general with the yellow hair, still on horseback and apparently unwounded, but the little army had stopped. It had been riddled already by the rifle fire from ...
— The Last of the Chiefs - A Story of the Great Sioux War • Joseph Altsheler
... Tenney, as if his mind, unsatisfied, went back to one flaw after another in Raven's argument. "You see me go by to my work, an' you come up here to talk over my folks behind my back an' tole 'em off ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... our favor. Ma says she will never, in this world, change it—and changes made in any other world won't do us any good. But pa says he knows how to break it! Mr. Meggley, her lawyer, who drew up the will, has made an agreement to sell pa the flaw—for of course there is one in it, for all wills have flaws—then he will employ another lawyer and break it without any trouble. My, it will be so exciting! I suppose we will have to prove that Aunt Patsey was of unsound mind. Pa will give us our testimony to learn by heart! Pa is a real enterprising ...
— The Inner Sisterhood - A Social Study in High Colors • Douglass Sherley et al.
... ar far, mark aw flaw, caught ay bake, rain e less, men ee easy, ski eir their, software i trip, hit i: life, sky o father, palm oh flow, sew oo loot, through or more, door ow out, how oy boy, coin uh but, some u put, foot y yet, young yoo few, chew [y]oo /oo/ with optional ...
— THE JARGON FILE, VERSION 2.9.10
... out to be a good driver of aeroplanes," commented Roy, as he watched; "see that flaw strike them! There! he brought the Cobweb through it like an old general of the ...
— The Girl Aviators' Sky Cruise • Margaret Burnham
... was in some sort a villain. Although shocked, I felt a secret joy. For somewhat too broadly had Bell smirked his sanctity on me. When piety has been flaunting over you, you will steal a slim occasion to proclaim a flaw. There is much human nature goes to the stoning of a saint. In my ignorance I had set the rogue in the company of the decorous Lorna Doone and the gentle ladies of Mrs. Gaskell. It is not that I admire that chaste assembly. But it were monstrous, even so, that I should neighbor them ...
— Journeys to Bagdad • Charles S. Brooks
... hard to tell without strict inquiries. I doubt me if we could learn all before next May Day, when we might get hold of the man himself and find out who and what he is. Such wedlock as his cannot be without flaw, and might be made invalid by law; but, wife, there is no getting over this, that the child took her vows in the name of God, and I dare not act as though such vows were unspoken. Her youth and ignorance may plead in part for her. She scarce knew the solemnity of the step she ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... the nearest that nature has ever come to counterfeiting a colonnade. These trees are all the same height, say sixty feet; the trunks as gray as granite, with a very gradual and perfect taper; without sign of branch or knot or flaw; the surface not looking like bark, but like granite that has been dressed and not polished. Thus all the way up the diminishing shaft for fifty feet; then it begins to take the appearance of being closely wrapped, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... been foul play, sir," he said. "I thought there must have been, for I could not imagine that this bar would have broken unless there had been a flaw in the metal or it had been tampered with. I unshackled it myself, for I thought it was better that the men should not see it until I ...
— The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty
... no detailed account of the measure, but it seems to have provided grants of land for veterans, and was to be administered by seven commissioners. The law was afterwards cancelled by decree of the senate, probably on the ground of some technical flaw. The emperor Vespasian attempted to reclaim for the state small oddments of land (subseciva) which were held by neighbouring owners to whom they had never been definitely assigned. The attempt met with violent ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... temper. He exclaimed: "If there is a flaw in my sister-in-law's pedigree, what is to be said of people who visit women of alien religions, take food from their hands, and tipple strong liquor ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea
... the causes of the movements of the heavenly bodies, as you, with your own common sense, would employ to detect a burglar. The only difference is, that the nature of the inquiry being more abstruse, every step has to be most carefully watched, so that there may not be a single crack or flaw in your hypothesis. A flaw or crack in many of the hypotheses of daily life may be of little or no moment as affecting the general correctness of the conclusions at which we may arrive; but, in a scientific inquiry, a fallacy, ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... keenness, which underlies the skill of the money-changer in detecting a counterfeit among a thousand bank-notes, notwithstanding its deceptive similarity; of the jeweler who marks the slightest, apparently imperceptible, flaw in an ornament; of the physicist who perceives distinctly the overtones of a vibrating string. According to this we see and hear not only with the eye and ear, but quite as much with the help of our present knowledge, with the apperceiving ...
— The Elements of General Method - Based on the Principles of Herbart • Charles A. McMurry
... centre of affairs. "Sir," it begins, "upon the sad and serious discourse which we fell into last night, concerning these dangerous ruptures of the Commonwealth, scarce yet in her infancy, which cannot be without some inward flaw in her bowels, I began to consider more intensely thereon than hitherto I have been wont,—resigning myself [i.e. having hitherto resigned myself] to the wisdom and care of those who had the government, and not finding that either God ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... emergencies of the Government for twenty-five years. He has trodden the perilous heights of public duty, and against all the shafts of malice has borne his breast unharmed. He has stood in the blaze of 'that fierce light that beats against the throne,' but its fiercest ray has found no flaw in his armor, no stain on his shield. I do not present him as a better Republican or as better man than thousands of others we honor, but I present him for your deliberate consideration. I nominate ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... he left the room, however, had touched the one flaw in Galen Albret's confidence of righteousness. Wearied with the struggles and the passions he had undergone, his brain numbed, his will for the moment in abeyance, he seated himself and contemplated the images those two words ...
— Conjuror's House - A Romance of the Free Forest • Stewart Edward White
... the whole scene: only above the accursed wood, as if through a horrid rift in the murky ceiling, a rainy deluge—'sleety-flaw, discoloured water'— streams down amain, spreading a grisly spectral light, even more horrible than that palpable night. Already the Earth pants thick and fast! the darkened Cross trembles! the winds are dropt—the ...
— Intentions • Oscar Wilde
... general belief of those who frequent this place that he who steps upon the marble slab facing the god courts disaster, unless his heart is as free, from treachery and guile as this stone beneath him is free from flaw. Perhaps you have heard the rumour, ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... secret from my stepfather was impossible. I had vainly endeavored for months to find the flaw in his armor of dissimulation; I had but broken not one dagger, but twenty against the plates of that cuirass. If I had had all the tormentors of the Middle Ages at my service, I could not have forced his fast-shut lips to open, or extorted ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... any one who seeks to discuss my stories with me, being a modest chap with a flaw in my vanity, she abandoned the subject after a few ineffectual attempts to find out how I get my plots, how I write my books, and how I ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... more than the sum of the station district returns (3) Different forms of work; one table revealing proportion of Missionaries, Native Workers, Foreign Funds, and Native Contributions employed in different forms of work One table of results A serious flaw in this table (4) The extent to which different classes, etc., are reached. One table including the station returns with the addition of special missions which work among special classes in the whole Province or Country (5) Self-support. ...
— Missionary Survey As An Aid To Intelligent Co-Operation In Foreign Missions • Roland Allen
... of those things," she admitted again; "but it is a flaw in a young man, isn't it," she persisted, betraying an unusually anxious interest, "for him never to think of a ...
— The Early Bird - A Business Man's Love Story • George Randolph Chester
... corners of the bazaar where their defects could not be seen plainly. When the purchase had been consummated they were brought out into the sunlight. The word also means "wax." It is said that in the days of imperial Rome when a sculptor came to a flaw in the marble he filled it with wax to hide the defect, but when the hot days came and the wax was melted the defect was seen plainly. Paul is desiring for these Philippians that there may be none of this, but that their lives should commend themselves ...
— And Judas Iscariot - Together with other evangelistic addresses • J. Wilbur Chapman
... Planchette serenely, "the piece of skin is as safe and sound as my eye. There was a flaw in your reservoir somewhere, or a crevice in the ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... stood before Arndis, queen of Teris. Her eyes probed at him, trying to divine his thoughts. There was anger in those eyes. If she detected a single flaw in his story it would mean Ben's death. More than that, it would mean disaster for Earth. ...
— Daughters of Doom • Herbert B. Livingston
... for beauty, or attempts to produce what shall be beautiful, by complying with these conditions, come no nearer to the aim than do compounded mineral waters to the briskness and flavor of a fresh draught from the original spring. In the analysis there may be no flaw; the ingredients are chemically identical in quality and proportion; but the nameless, inimitable, inscrutable life is wanting: the mixing has been done by a mechanical, not by a creative hand. Haydon says, "The curve ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... profession as would a doctor or a lawyer? Have not students contented themselves with two lessons a week since time immemorial? Need we go further to discover one of the flaws in our own educational system,—a flaw that is not due to the teacher or to the methods of instruction, but rather to our time-old custom. Two lessons a week are adequate for the student who does not aspire to become a professional, but altogether insufficient ...
— Great Pianists on Piano Playing • James Francis Cooke
... potent fascination of this woman. As Sylvia looked, her feminine eye took in every gift of face and figure, every grace of attitude or gesture, every daintiness of costume, and found no visible flaw in Ottila, from her haughty head to her handsome foot. Yet when her scrutiny ended, the girl felt a sense of disappointment, and no ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... sensibilities. This choice of emotional gratification before truth and upright dealing with one's own understanding, creates a character that is certainly far less unlovely than those who sacrifice their intellectual integrity to more material convenience. The moral flaw is less palpable and less gross. Yet here too there is the stain of intellectual improbity, and it is perhaps all the more mischievous for being partly hidden under the ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... midst of the surroundings she found "so wonderful and so beautiful"—thus she assured me, and her voice made it impossible to doubt. And, the evening before the great day, I, going for a final look round, could find no flaw serious enough to justify the sinking feeling that came over me every time I thought of what Anita would think when she saw my efforts to realize her dream. I set out for "home" half a dozen times at least, that afternoon, before I pulled myself together, ...
— The Deluge • David Graham Phillips
... each generation, while freely confessing the sins of its fathers, has protested its own innocence and boasted of its own achievements, and then, with a pharisaic sense of rectitude, has complacently pointed to some inscrutable flaw in the Irish character as the key to the Irish problem. The generation which passed the Act of Union, oblivious of British pledges solemnly given and lightly broken, wondered what had become of the prosperity ...
— Handbook of Home Rule (1887) • W. E. Gladstone et al.
... your duties as a prince (of the kingdom). To be prepared for unforeseen dangers, Be cautious of what you say; Be reverentially careful of your outward behaviour; In all things be mild and correct. A flaw in a mace of white jade May be ground away; But for a flaw in speech ...
— The Shih King • James Legge
... can a man become truly good; built four-square in hands and feet and mind, a work without a flaw.' ...
— Hellenica • Xenophon
... a last interview with Mr. Bradlaugh and Mrs. Besant at 63 Fleet Street. Mr. Bradlaugh told me he could find no flaw in our Indictment, and his air was that of a man who sees no hope, but is reluctant to say so. Mrs. Besant was full of quiet sympathy, proffering this and that kindness, and showing how much her heart was greater than her opportunity ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... wind had hardly swept it easily to leeward once when it fell back against the shrouds, hardly stirring. The pirate sloop's deck righted slowly and her limp sails drooped from the gaffs. A sudden flaw in the breeze had settled about her, without interrupting her rival's progress in the least. A glum despair came over the crew. They lolled, for the most part silent or grumbling curses, against the rails, with here and there one trying to whistle up a wind. The other sloop ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader |
