"Weak spot" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... o'clock the Turks, after repeated assaults upon the British lines, massed for a final attempt to drive the invaders into the sea. On and on they came, concentrating on the hard-pressed Third Brigade as the weak spot in the British defense. Fighting gamely against heavy odds, this Australian Brigade which had borne the brunt of the landing attack and which had been almost continually counterattacked all afternoon, gave way slowly, selling every inch of ground dearly. Hundreds of ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... carefully till he found a discolored crack in the marble tracery showing a weak spot, made two or three light taps with his head to get the distance, and then lifting up six feet of his body clear of the ground, sent home half a dozen full-power smashing blows, nose-first. The screen-work broke and fell away in ...
— The Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... 'fair' as opposed to 'unfair' houses. Apply all these tests and the Government unquestionably breaks down on every one of them." If this was all that an apologist for the Government could say, no wonder that the attack went home. The opponents of Home Rule were of course delighted to find another weak spot in their adversary's defences; and the episode ...
— The History of the Fabian Society • Edward R. Pease
... "'The weak spot in all this yere humor grows out of the idees this tenderfoot's been gainin', an' the improvements he's been makin', while stragglin' about in our s'ciety. I onhesitatin'ly states that if this yere joke is pulled off ...
— Wolfville • Alfred Henry Lewis
... folks I have in my mind haven't been quite smart enough," he declared at length. "They should have put up a sounder man. As it happens, I know a little about the one they fixed upon. Mr. Hames is what you could call a professional claim-jumper, and it's fortunate that there's a weak spot or ...
— The Greater Power • Harold Bindloss
... pushing out in all the world for trade, and our people want information. Some of them need it—all want it—and they need to be well represented among the people of the other countries where they want to do business. And wherever there is a weak spot there is trouble and dissatisfaction. So that with changing times a change ...
— Latin America and the United States - Addresses by Elihu Root • Elihu Root
... with a wink, snugging up to the lady, I did; For she'd found a weak spot in my 'art, this cold classical gal, and no kid. I'd been 'aving a pull at my flask, up that tree, and her pluck and blue eyes Made me feel a bit spoony; in fact I was mashed. But, O ...
— Punch Among the Planets • Various
... goal line to punt. Thursby, at centre, passed low, and Freer was hurried, with the result that the ball went almost straight into the air, was caught by the wind and landed out of bounds at Brimfield's eighteen yards. Cherry Valley started in again with grim determination. A weak spot was discovered at right guard, where Gafferty was in Hall's place, and two gains were made there, bringing the pigskin to the twelve yards. Another attempt, this time on Tyler, produced two more. With two to go on fourth ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour
... which bore upon the next day's work. This Willoughby Smith has nothing against him either as a boy at Uppingham or as a young man at Cambridge. I have seen his testimonials, and from the first he was a decent, quiet, hardworking fellow, with no weak spot in him at all. And yet this is the lad who has met his death this morning in the Professor's study under circumstances which ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... myself on a moral level with those with whom I had to deal. I may occasionally even have left the other party to make this needful adjustment, and I have never known him fail to do so. I felt, therefore, very little scruple in making use of the one weak spot discoverable in the defenses of our redoubtable opponent, his Excellency the President of Aureataland. No doubt the reader's eye has before now detected the joint in that great man's armor at which we ...
— A Man of Mark • Anthony Hope
... sank within him as he remembered the weak spot in his tracing; but he answered, "I don't think so, sir; though it does look as if ...
— Derrick Sterling - A Story of the Mines • Kirk Munroe
... Almost every hour after brought news of some fresh disaster. House after house failed. The question every morning was which would go next. Every failure depleted the resources of other concerns. Loss after loss ensued, until a total paralysis of business set in. Every weak spot was discovered and houses that otherwise would have been strong were borne down largely because our country lacked a ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... character is Euripides' Clytemnestra. Yet unlike her, she remains absolutely human throughout; her weak spot was her maternal affection which made her hesitate, while Clytemnestra was past feeling, "not a drop being left". Medea is the natural Southern woman who takes the law into her own hands. In the Trachiniae is another, outraged as Medea was, yet forgiving. Truly Sophocles said he painted men as ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... him and you can't beat his system," continued the Tennessee Shad. "If you guess don't hesitate; jump at it. The only thing you can do is to wait for his jokes, and then grab the desk and weep for salvation—it's his one weak spot." ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... this portion of the Northern army which was standing upon another low hill and struck it with great violence. It was wavering and would give way soon. But Thomas, showing the singular calm that always marked him in battle, noticed the weak spot. The general was then near Major Hertford. He quickly wrote a ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler
... education made worldly advantages of little force in her mind, and love the one priceless possession of a woman's heart which could not be bartered. And yet might there not be an element of selfishness in this—might not its sacrifice be a family duty? Mrs. Mavick having found this weak spot in her daughter's armor, played upon it with all her sweet persuasive skill and ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... be termed the physical evidence," continued Harley, "is complete, I admit: too complete. There lies the weak spot. But what I will call the psychological evidence points in a totally different direction. A man clever enough to have planned this crime, and Camber undoubtedly is such a man, could not—it is humanly impossible—have been fool enough, ...
— Bat Wing • Sax Rohmer
... spontaneously charges itself with electricity. If the glass has a weak spot, a scratch say, an electric spark is produced at that point and the vessel crumbles, just like a Leyden jar ...
— Marvels of Modern Science • Paul Severing
... moment with the idea that perhaps Jo was not going to regard their offence as particularly heinous after all; but his better judgment scouted the idea, and he returned to his scrutiny of the wall. There was a weak spot near where Hector, Peterson's billy-goat, had butted his way through on a memorable occasion, and escape was still a ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... body of which Christ is the head, and you and I are "members in particular." Let us see to it that we are not the weak spot in the body, crippling and maiming the whole. The church is the city of God among men, and we are its citizens, bound by its laws, loyal servants of the Great King, sworn to obey his commands and enlarge his kingdom, and repel all the assaults ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler
... clung to us long. In Paris it snowed heavily, and I was constrained to betake myself in a cab—"chauffe," it is needless to remark—to seek out a kindly dentist, the bitter east wind having sought out and found a weak spot wherein to ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... The weak spot in his leadership was that he did not realize the humanity which still burned in their lost souls. But at what point would they revolt? I could not let little Jimmie go through the pain I ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... limits, probably somewhat to the right of the centre. However, that was a minor detail, as it made little difference where I succeeded in penetrating the cordon of pickets, so long as I returned with the information sought. If I had, through mere chance, discovered a weak spot, then God ...
— Love Under Fire • Randall Parrish
... you a mean turn he is expecting you will repay him in like manner. He guards himself against this. He is ready for your revenge, but if you repay him with good you attack him in a weak spot and make him feel like thirty cents, and this is all the revenge you can ...
— Dollars and Sense • Col. Wm. C. Hunter
... Berryville pike. As the line pressed forward, Ricketts observed this widening interval and endeavored to fill it with the small brigade of Colonel Keifer, but at this juncture both Gordon and Rodes struck the weak spot where the right of the Sixth Corps and the left of the Nineteenth should have been in conjunction, and succeeded in checking my advance by driving back a part of Ricketts's division, and the most of Grover's. As these troops were retiring I ordered Russell's reserve division to be put into action, ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. II., Part 4 • P. H. Sheridan
... intestine to escape from the abdominal cavity, which we call hernia. This is one of a fair-sized group of dangers clearly due to the assumption of the erect position and our incomplete adjustment thereto. In the quadrupedal position this necessary weak spot—a partial opening through the abdominal wall—was developed in that region which was highest from the point of view of gravity and least exposed to strain. In the bipedal position it becomes lowest and most exposed; hence the much greater frequency of hernia in the human species as compared ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... family which also formed an important group in the court clique. The purpose of the northern campaigns was not, of course, merely to defend private interests of court cliques: the northern frontier was the weak spot of the southern empire, for its plains could easily be overrun. It was then observed that the new "Earlier Ch'in" state was trying to spread from the north-west eastwards into this plain, and Ch'in was attacked in an attempt to gain a more favourable frontier territory. These expeditions ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard
... alcohol, and is thus vaporized—first passes through several convolutions of pipe within the burner, and then issues from a hole so fine that some people would not call it a hole at all but an orifice or something like that. That little hole is the weak spot of the primus stove. Sometimes it gets clogged, and then a fine wire mounted upon some sort of handle must be used to dislodge the obstruction. Now, the worst thing that can happen to a primus stove is to get the wire pricker broken off in the burner hole, and that is what happened to us. ...
— The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) - A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest - Peak in North America • Hudson Stuck
... of Short-stories. The writer of Short-stories must have the sense of form, which Mr. Lathrop has called "the highest and last attribute of a creative writer." The construction must be logical, adequate, harmonious. Here is the weak spot in Mr. Bishop's "One of the Thirty Pieces," the fundamental idea of which has extraordinary strength perhaps not fully developed in the story. But others of Mr. Bishop's stories—"The Battle of Bunkerloo," for instance—are ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... occurs in the wood, here you must leave more substance because this is a weak spot. If the pin be large and you cannot avoid it, then it is best to drill it out carefully and fill the cavity with a solid piece of hard wood set in with glue. A pin crumbles while an inserted piece will stand the strain. If such a "Dutchman" be not too large ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... live with his wife; for ten years he had for his mistress a Mademoiselle de Bellefeuille, who bore him illegitimate children—didn't she? Well, such a magistrate is no saint; he is a man like any other; he can be won over; he must give a hold somewhere; you must discover the weak spot and flatter him; ask his advice, point out the dangers of attending the case; in short, try to get him into the same boat, and ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... forcing Harris back for a loss, and then Marvin called for kick formation and himself held the ball for Brownell. What happened then was one of those unforeseen incidents that make football the hair-raising game it is. There was a weak spot in the second's line and, with the passing of the ball to Marvin, the 'varsity forwards came rampaging through. Brownell swung his leg desperately, trusting to fortune to get the pigskin over the ...
— Left End Edwards • Ralph Henry Barbour
... topic. I still had a warm glow in my heart for the aged couple, and I could hear Uncle Henry's bottle of adolescent peach brandy laughing to itself from where it was lashed to the back of my saddle. I struck in the only weak spot in the wall. ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... grinned for the third time, knowing that he had touched a weak spot; not a difficult thing to do, if you touched the big fellow at all. A young man of spirit would have told his creditors to go to Jericho. Beaumont-Greene might have said, "You have skinned me a bit. I don't whine about that; I mean to pay up; but you'll ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... of Saxons, which had been General von Hausen's army, lay next to General von Buelow, a little north of Vitry, and as it proved, a weak spot in the German line. The left center of the attacking force was under the command of the Duke of Wuerttemberg and extended across the whole southern end of the plain of Champagne to the upper streams of the Aisne south of St. Menhould. The extreme ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12) - The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... the stalemate when he plunged his dagger into the ground and on the next roll caught the handle in his mouth. Holding his opponent's arms in both his hands he plunged his head down and managed to find a weak spot in the other's armor: M'shika howled and pulled free and when he climbed to his feet blood was running down his arm and dripping from his fingertips. Ch'aka jumped after him but the wounded man grabbed up ...
— The Ethical Engineer • Henry Maxwell Dempsey
... but one weak spot in his armour—and the world never suspected it: the consuming passion with which he loved his two children. This was the side of his nature he had hidden from the eyes of man. A refined egotism, this passion, perhaps—for he meant to live his own life over in ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon
... lean leech, its victim found, is pleased To fix itself upon a part diseased Till, its black hide distended with bad blood, It drops to die of surfeit in the mud, So the base sycophant with joy descries His neighbor's weak spot and his mouth applies, Gorges and prospers like the leech, although, Unlike that reptile, he will not let go. Gelasma, if it paid you to devote Your talent to the service of a goat, Showing by forceful logic that its beard Is more than ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... of the German military machine is its weak spot, and on this, my second visit to the German Great Headquarters, I was able to give the astonished authorities a personal demonstration as to how any smooth-tongued stranger could turn up at even this "holy of holies." The nocturnal trail led in a military ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... killing Germans is a barbarous notion and a savage method. A thrust with small forces at a weak spot to bring the enemy to their knees by loss of provinces, resources and prestige is an artistic idea and a scientific stroke: the one stands for a cudgel blow, the ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton
... now—those heavy floes, hard, flinty, and widespread, and that berg, gigantic, and almost as hard as glass? Well, if we have a heavy blow from the north-west, we shall be jammed between the ice now resting on the Magdalens and those Greenland monsters yonder, and if there is a weak spot ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... weak spot in the programme, the Black Stallion, the cause of the hunt, seemed made of iron, that ceaseless swinging pace seemed as swift and vigorous now as on the morning when the chase began. Up and down he went rounding up the herd and urging them on by voice and example ...
— Wild Animals I Have Known • Ernest Thompson Seton
... and unfavorable surroundings. If, therefore, his method of living does not contribute to building up and strengthening what is in the first place a weak structure, the structure itself will, during the first strain put upon it, give way, and naturally the weak spot will be the point of election for the invasion of disease. This strain may be one of the infantile diseases,—scarlet fever, or measles, or whooping cough, or it may be bronchitis. Instead of convalescing ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol. 3 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... to me all the way over the mountains, except when they were out taking what I have reason to believe was an occasional drink, Daddy mine. Jess had Mr. Loomis to herself. They have found your weak spot, Daddy. They know you love to talk of your daughter. You have only known Major Burleigh a little ...
— Warrior Gap - A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. • Charles King
... This weak spot in the Church, which business men mock at, or fret at, exactly reveals the work that is waiting for business men to do. Business to-day takes intellectual grasp and insight—promptness, energy, enterprise, and common-sense. ...
— The Warriors • Lindsay, Anna Robertson Brown
... weak spot, too, which is more important for our purposes. If His Gracious Majesty went to bed to-night with as many guineas in his pocket as that"—he jingled his loose coin vigorously —"he'd ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough
... have some weak spot in his insane armor, some way by which he could be reached and destroyed—and Bentley swore to himself that it would be he who would find that ...
— The Mind Master • Arthur J. Burks
... when he brushes up against the world." Jeff added his own criticism thoughtfully. "The weak spot in him is a sort of flatness of mind. This makes him afraid of new ideas. He wants to be respectable, and respectability is the most damning ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... last time, and saw how steadily that long, white, three-deep, zigzag line was standing at its post of danger, with the blue Royal Roussillon in the middle, and the grenadiers drawn up in handy bodies just behind, ready to rush to the first weak spot, he thrilled with the pride of the soldier born who has an ...
— The Passing of New France - A Chronicle of Montcalm • William Wood
... artificial frontier will be inevitable, if the Serb districts of Hungary are to be included in the new State and if the Serb capital is to be rendered immune from the dangers of future bombardment. The weak spot in so drastic a solution is the inclusion of the Slovene districts, which—in view of their geographical position, cutting off the German provinces of Austria from the sea—is unthinkable, save in the ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... all-powerful; and the first person to whom she mentioned his name dismissed the subject indifferently. Her own entire sincerity had enabled her to detect the insincerity of her ally. She had purposely made mention of the weak spot which she had discovered, in order that her observation might be corroborated. And this Maggie had ...
— The Sowers • Henry Seton Merriman
... religious propagandism. He excelled in the art of driving a nail where it would go. He never worried his acquaintance with controversy, never introduced religious topics unseasonably, never cast his pearls before unappreciative animals. But when he saw a chance, an opening, a sympathetic tendency, or a weak spot, he fastened on it with unerring instinct. His line was rather admonitory than persuasive. When he thought that the person whom he was addressing had an inkling of the truth, but was held back from avowing it by ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... up. The 1st Division had been unable to advance to connect across with us at Bellenglise, but by their demonstration they doubtless prevented the enemy from concentrating for a counter-attack in that quarter, which was a decidedly weak spot. ...
— The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 - 1919 - History of the 1/8th Battalion • W.C.C. Weetman
... dramatic element and to "move that admiration which is the delight of serious plays" and to which "a bare imitation" will not suffice. [Footnote: Essay of Dramatic Poesy: ib. 582] Both grounds of defence will seem to the modern reader questionable enough. Howard at once laid his finger upon the weak spot of the first. "It is", he said, "no argument for the matter in hand. For the dispute is not what way a man may write best in; but which is most proper for the subject he writes upon. And, if this were let pass, the argument is yet unsolved in itself; for he ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... recently had an idea of shaving off his beard, partly to defy time, but partly also (I must admit) because a friend had suggested to him, wildly, perhaps—that if he dispensed with a beard his hair might grow more sturdily ... Yes, there was one weak spot in the middle of the top of his head, where the crop had of late disconcertingly thinned! The hairdresser had informed him that the symptom would vanish under electric massage, and that, if he doubted the bona-fides of hairdressers, any doctor would testify ...
— The Regent • E. Arnold Bennett
... determine how he shall deal with the strange conditions raising their barrier between him and the object of his desire. Magdalene calls to her the object of hers. The middle-aged spinster has a weak spot in her heart for David. The boyish shoe-maker's apprentice on his side adores her—and the pleasant bits she maternally smuggles to him from Pogner's kitchen. Questioned, he informs her that he is making the place ready for the master-singers. There is to be directly ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... unfortunately our history was not repeated with the other parties. Bowers came up half an hour after us. They also had done well at the last, and I'm pretty sure they will get on all right. Keohane is the only weak spot, and he only, I think, because temporarily blind. But Evans' party didn't get up till 10. They started quite well, but got into difficulties, did just the wrong thing by straining again and again, and so, tiring themselves, ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... the time. Nothing escaped his mental vision; he was lynx-eyed; in him the mental powers of perception, which seem like duplicates of the senses, had the mysterious power of swift projection that astonishes us in intellects of a high order—slingers who are quick to detect the weak spot in any armor. ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... "The Serpent"—"The Devil." And the Spanish opinion of him helped Drake to win many a tough battle. Amongst the thrilling examples are his dashes into Corunna and Cadiz. Drake never took the risk before calculating the cost and making certain of where the vulnerable weak spot of the enemy lay, and when and where to strike it. The complete vanquishing of the Armada is another instance of Drake's great qualities of slashing yet sound judgment ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... are grumbling yourself at me because I grumbled!" says a quick-witted darling not ten years old. Ah! never shall any weak spot in our armor escape the keen eyes of ...
— Bits About Home Matters • Helen Hunt Jackson
... walking round and round it, as if it had been a wild beast trying to get out of its cage, and he had to watch and prevent it at every weak spot; or as if he were a magician, busily sustaining the charm by which he confined the gad-about creature. The moment he saw it beginning to get the better of him, he ran to the sluice and banished it to the regions ...
— Gutta-Percha Willie • George MacDonald
... reason which we do not understand, the forces beneath the surface increased their activity. The force of the steam and other gases was too great to be restrained, and at a weak spot in the overlying rocks they broke through. Molten lava accompanied them, and a new volcano came into life in the valley where Cinder Cone now raises ...
— The Western United States - A Geographical Reader • Harold Wellman Fairbanks
... small boys have liked it! That was my only idea in coming down here. I meant no more mischief, I'll swear to that! Unfortunately, though, I'd got so keen on the scheme that I hadn't thought of its weak spot. ...
— Simon • J. Storer Clouston
... men to the present political situation was peculiar, and, as it turned out, was to constitute the weak spot in the Cowperwood-McKenty campaign. Tiernan and Kerrigan, to begin with, being neighbors and friends, worked together in politics and business, on occasions pooling their issues and doing each other ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... shaken, no doubt, by loss of Officers (complete); by heavy losses of men (not replaced, or replaceable, under a month) and by sheer physical exertion. Small wonder then that one weak spot in our barrier gave way before the solid mass of the attacking Turks, who came on with the bayonet like true Ghazis. The first part of the rifle fire last night was entirely from our own men. The break ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton
... said impulsively. "There must have been a weak spot somewhere, or he wouldn't be lying here like that!" Somehow his impassiveness surprised me. I had expected that he would find a valid argument in my phrase; but it did not move him, at least not in the way I thought. Something like ...
— The Jewel of Seven Stars • Bram Stoker
... in his dandyism and in his skill as a fighter. His genius basked in the sunshine as he made high reliefs in the sand or charcoaled pictures on the cool, grey rocks hidden in the sound-sopping jungle. The one weak spot in his character was his faith in a sort of wizardry. Contemptuous alike of the open violence or stratagems of his fellows, he had the utmost horror of an implement which Yan-coo, who was medicine-man ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... had found his one weak spot at once. He had a reply ready for every other opening in the English tongue, but now he could ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... her cunning from her childhood, as she is taught to watch the ranks of Protestantism and whenever she finds a weak spot, she turns her forces upon this weakened line, and is further instructed never to weaken in her continual march ...
— Thirty Years In Hell - Or, From Darkness to Light • Bernard Fresenborg
... scheme in all its aspects and found only one weak spot in it. We, the Boston companies, were to "go snags" with Whitney in the results of a legislative game in which he was to bear the expense of getting a charter, and as Whitney and Towle said it was to cost them $250,000 to $300,000 to get it, it looked as if there would be some nasty business done ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... of intelligence and of exultation shot across the weather- beaten face of the old fisherman, for he detected a weak spot in the other's knowledge. The worthy Captain, with that species of exclusiveness which accompanies excellence in any one thing, was quite ignorant of most matters that pertain to the land. That there should be a tree, so far inland, ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... then, I don't know what it was. I cannot tell what, in the question and in the look, touched some weak spot. The question called up such sharp answers; the look spoke so much sympathy. It was very odd for me to do, but I was taken unawares; my eyes fell and filled, and before I could help it were more than full. I do not know, to this day, how I came to cry before Thorold. It was very soon over, my ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... of another, in her lap. For once she was grateful that an ENGAGED sign shielded them from interruptions, for Latin was her shakiest subject, especially the rules of indirect discourse. The instructor had warned the class that this weak spot was to be the point of attack. If Robbie Belle should not succeed in drumming the rules into her head before the ideas in it began to spin around and around in their usual dizzy fashion when she waxed sleepy, she might just as ...
— Beatrice Leigh at College - A Story for Girls • Julia Augusta Schwartz
... favourable issues. The less endowed player, however, is not left quite defenceless; he has necessarily to adopt a different system, namely, to try to find a weak point in the arrangement of his opponent's forces and concentrate his attack on that weak spot. As a matter of fact, in a contest between players of equal strength, finding the weak point in the opponent's armour is the only possible plan, and this may be said to be the fundamental principle of the modern ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... first attempt, Marchmont sought other means of information, for there is always a weak spot in every defence, and a man of far less keen perception than the reporter would have had little difficulty in finding the most favourable point of attack. So it is not surprising that after a little cogitation he went in search of Miss Matilda, whom he had met the day before when he had returned ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells
... Yes—there was the weak spot; he had felt it from the first! But he still hoped to convince McCarren that his case was strong enough without it; and he urged the reporter to come back to his rooms and sum up the facts ...
— The Early Short Fiction of Edith Wharton, Part 1 (of 10) • Edith Wharton
... first business of a housekeeper in America is that of a teacher. She can have a good table only by having practical knowledge, and tact in imparting it. If she understands her business practically and experimentally, her eye detects at once the weak spot; it requires only a little tact, some patience, some clearness in giving directions, and all comes right. I venture to say that your mother would have exactly such bread as always appears on our table, and have it by the hands of your cook, because she could detect ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... well then; we'll think. I, myself, will think. First, I'll have a talk with the sodden amorist. I'll grill him. I'll find the weak spot in his armor. There must be something we can ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... smack to take them aboard. They were worn out with incessant labour, and the dividing line between sinking and being kept afloat was very narrow. A little more straining, or an ugly sea breaking on to a weak spot would quickly seal their fate. They knew all this, but scorned the thought of bringing on themselves the charge of cowardice. It soon became apparent that the little craft of only 280 tons dead-weight would have to be put before the wind if she was to be saved. The crew had to stand up ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... for either humility or vanity Ignorance is a solemn and sacred fact Imperative demand of patients and their friends Invectives against such as dared to doubt the dogmas Kept extreme remedies for extreme cases Logical errors Loud outcry on a slight touch reveals the weak spot Medical Jounals must find something to fill their columns Medical logic which does not seem to have been taught Medicines proper, which hurts a well man, hurts a sick one Much as you know, something is still left for you ...
— Widger's Quotations from the Works of Oliver W. Holmes, Sr. • David Widger
... weak spot in Selina's resistance to his proposal—the good of the boy. To promote that there were other men she might have married offhand without loving them if they had asked her to; but though she had known the worthy speaker from her youth, she could not for the ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... bottom of the Atlantic and found a surviving colony from Atlantis, and saw reproduced on a screen events leading up to the sinking of Atlantis. It was written by the late Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and the only weak spot was that Sir Arthur had to change the submergence of Atlantis from a natural catastrophe into a "judgment" of the gods, whose sense of propriety was outraged by the "wickedness" of the Atlanteans. If you reprinted this story your ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... just any nationality, assimilates himself to local conditions, instantly changing his heart with his change of sky, and learning to wave his stars and stripes with the best of the native-born, must seem miraculous to the ordinary patriot. And here we touch the weak spot in Mr. ZANGWILL'S paean of the Melting Pot. For those who migrate to America for the sake of its democratic freedom are the few; and those who go there for the sake of its dollars are the many; and into the Melting Pot—or, to use ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, February 18, 1914 • Various
... here solely with the duty of a choice group of intellectuals. The questions at issue affect the people at large, those to whose service these young men have devoted themselves. A new spirit, an active faith, are requisite. The war has brought to light the weak spot in the Swiss character. Touching is the shame felt by these truehearted youths owing to the attitude of their country at the outset of the war. They are personally hurt by such surrenders of principle. In the strongest terms they censure the abdication of the Swiss soul at the time when ...
— The Forerunners • Romain Rolland
... recluse of him. Don't you see? That one thing has colored my personal attitude toward preachers as a class. I can never meet a minister without thinking of that episode which has kept me here where I never see another white woman, and very seldom a man. It's really a weak spot in me, holding a grudge like that. One wouldn't condemn carpenters as a body because one carpenter botched a ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... you be so ignorant as not to know that God is a Spirit? I am astonished at you." And Mrs. Bullen passed on without a single doubt in her mind that there was a single weak spot in her creed, or that anybody could question its intelligibility and coherence who would not also question the multiplication-table. She told her husband when she got home that it was really dreadful to think that the poor had such low views of the Divine Being. How degraded! No wonder they were ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford
... weak spot is the relation of the sexes, both before and after marriage. Strict monogamy, with the equality of duties of husband and wife, is the remedy for ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick
... and hornwork, this wall became a simple rampart; stout indeed and solid and twenty-seven feet high, with two flanking towers for enfilading fire, besides a demi-bastion at the Mount Orgullo end, yet offering the weak spot in the defences. ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... skin blanket as much dried meat as she could carry, she slipped unnoticed from the kraal. Her object was to escape from the Great Place, but this she did not try to do by any of the gates, knowing them to be guarded. Some months ago, before she started on her embassy, she had noted a weak spot in the fence, where dogs had torn a hole through which they passed out to hunt at night. To this spot she made her way under cover of the darkness—for though she still greatly feared to be alone at night, her pressing need conquered ...
— The Wizard • H. Rider Haggard
... let the board settle silently down into position. "The back part of this building must be set up on piles. I reckon we could pry that plank up with the bench, Neb, but it's liable to make considerable racket. Let's hunt about first for some other weak spot." ...
— Keith of the Border • Randall Parrish
... has its weak spot," sneered the man. "If I mistake not you have found my lord's. It is possible I ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz
... can make of a man! I have known this woman two years; I have danced and dined with her, made love, and here I can scarce breathe! I am lost if she sees me in this condition, or finds a weak spot. How I love her, love her! I have kissed the air she leaves in passing by. Oh! I will solve this enchanting mystery. I have the right now; I am rich, ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... mirror in her garret, so she had dressed by her sense of touch, and I could see that she was afraid to stand up and look at herself in the mirror in my room. I knew the weak spot in all women's hearts (which men are very wrong in considering as matter for reproach), and I encouraged her to admire herself, whereupon she could not restrain a ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... for the real Karl Armstadt had lulled me into a feeling of security. But now that my disguise had been penetrated, my old fears were renewed. True, the weigher's records had seemingly cleared me, but I knew that Grauble had seen the weak spot in the German logic of the stupid official, who had so lightly dismissed Katrina's accusations. Moreover, I fancied that Grauble had guessed the full truth and connected this uncertainty of my identity with the seditious tenor of the suggestions I had made to him. ...
— City of Endless Night • Milo Hastings
... from the trees. As weapons of defence they would not serve me, for if I tried to bite I should expose my throat and nose, which are the unprotected parts of my body. If ever you see me asleep, you will notice that I hide my head between my forepaws; never expose your weak spot, ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... remembering," he murmured, "those children. I am bound to think this matter out, Berenice. I am going to meet Graham and Mellors next week. I shall not rest until I have made some effort to put my hand upon the weak spot. Somewhere there is a rotten place. I want to ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... over the whole range of political misgovernment from the White House and the national platform down, although the actual issue was the choice of a mayor, twelve aldermen and a school committee, so that only casual reference was made to the single weak spot on the ticket until the Hon. James O. Lyons rose to address the meeting. The reception accorded him was more spontaneous and effusive than that which had been bestowed on either of his predecessors, and as he stood waiting with dignified urbanity for the applause to subside, some ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... to my weak spot, all right, partner," he hastened to say in the boldest manner possible. "But really and truly, I have got some things I want to do, though of course they could be postponed if absolutely necessary. Some time perhaps you'll be having my plebeian ...
— The Chums of Scranton High - Hugh Morgan's Uphill Fight • Donald Ferguson
... of Achilles's heel will be eternally true. A man may be humble or powerful, feeble or strong, but there are none of us without some weak spot in our armor, a spot vulnerable beyond all others, a certain place where wounds prove most dangerous and painful. M. Isidore Fortunat's weak place was his cash-box. To attack him there was to endanger his life—to wound him at a point where ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... "The third weak spot was our pilot-house. You see that it is built a little more than three feet above the deck, of bars of iron, ten by twelve inches square, built up like a log-house, bolted with very large bolts at the corners where ...
— The Monitor and the Merrimac - Both sides of the story • J. L. Worden et al.
... of the mountain, giving the command to Ravanel and Catinat, and with a pair of pistols in his belt and his carbine on his shoulder, he glided from bush to bush and rock to rock, determined, if any weak spot existed, to discover it; but the information he had received was perfectly correct, every issue ...
— Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... seemingly at a disadvantage, and overwhelmed by misfortunes. The bold glance of the great Frederick discovers ever-new fountains of help; he creates in himself both power and strength, and when his enemies think they have caught the royal lion in their nets, his bold eye has already discovered the weak spot; he tears it apart, and makes his foes, bewildered with terror and astonishment, fly before him. It is true, the king has just lost three battles! The Austrians and Russians defeated him at Hochkirch, at Kunersdorf, and at Mayen. But what ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... against Mr. Mifflin," said Titania angrily. "He's one of my father's oldest friends. What would Mr. Mifflin say if he knew you had been breaking into his house and frightening me half to death? I'm sorry you got that knock on the head, because it seems that's your weak spot. I'm quite able to take care of myself, thank you. This isn't ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... among the million things they were said to have said—that they would be in Ladysmith on November 9, and I believe they half believed themselves. At any rate I make no doubt that all this morning they were feeling—feeling our thin lines all round for a weak spot to break in by. ...
— From Capetown to Ladysmith - An Unfinished Record of the South African War • G. W. Steevens
... think so," acquiesced the coach. "There's only one weak spot in the back field, and that's at left half. Martin, for some reason, isn't playing his game. He's too slow in starting, and he doesn't tackle as hard and fast as he ought to. Then, too, he's a little ...
— Bert Wilson on the Gridiron • J. W. Duffield
... Philadelphia to take some position offered him there by the Philadelphia committee, now thinks he will remain here,—for which I am very glad. Very few men could be so useful as he in this place; for though he has a weak spot on the question of negro character, he has a vast deal of good sense in detail, and is perfectly unimpeachable in his stern regard for justice, never allowing himself to be used in any way for the furthering ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... the strength of his case, he had not a doubt about it, but clearly saw his way to the verdict. Argued with the jury on substantial worldly grounds—the only grounds ever worth taking into account—it was a plain case, and had not a weak spot in it. He called himself for the plaintiff, there was no getting over his evidence, the counsel for the defendant threw up his brief, and the jury did not even turn to consider. After trying it, Stryver, C. J., was satisfied that ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... locality in which earthquakes are chronic it would seem as if there must be a particularly weak spot in the earth some miles below the surface. A shrinkage of the earth, in the course of the incessant adjustment between the interior and the exterior, will take place by occasional little jumps at this particular ...
— The San Francisco Calamity • Various
... opponent gives you no direct answer or reply, but evades it by a counter-question or an indirect answer, or some assertion which has no bearing on the matter, and, generally, tries to turn the subject, it is a sure sign that you have touched a weak spot, sometimes without knowing it. You have, as it were, reduced him to silence. You must, therefore, urge the point all the more, and not let your opponent evade it, even when you do not know where the weakness which you have ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; The Art of Controversy • Arthur Schopenhauer
... the attack on Turkey that the greater part of Macedonia should be given to Bulgaria, had hard work after the victory in convincing his countrymen that this was fair. In fact, the claims of the three allies to this district proved the one weak spot in the combination. The occupation of this country by Greeks and Serbs in the course of the first war against Turkey, while the Bulgarians were defeating the main Turkish army just northwest of Constantinople, brought ...
— The World War and What was Behind It - The Story of the Map of Europe • Louis P. Benezet
... rayson. Here you be, not twenty mile from the English coast, as I make it, and with a fair wind. Here you be, three times that distance and more from any port o' your own, the wind dead on her nose, and you ram-stamming the weak spot of her at a sea that's knocking the bows to Jericho. Now, Mossoo, you put her about, and run for Plymouth. She may do it. Pitch over a couple of guns forr'ad, and quit messing with a ship you don't understand, an' I'll warn she will ...
— The Laird's Luck • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... Ben sturdily, "and it was all right; just exactly as we used to make them, we boys; there wasn't a weak spot ...
— Five Little Peppers Midway • Margaret Sidney
... success to such an experiment. The slightest tincture of affectation, or false sentiment, would ruin the whole. We always distrust the man who would play upon our emotions, and are glad to take refuge in the ludicrous, to save ourselves from the pathetic. If a single weak spot can be detected in the magic chain which he would throw around our feelings, if every link does not ring with the sound of genuine metal, the charm is at once broken, and we laugh to scorn the writer who ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... detective's mind; and he had racked his brain again and again to find some satisfactory explanation. At the present moment he would undoubtedly have made some angry retort to the governor's sneering criticism, as people are wont to do when their antagonists discover the weak spot in their armor, had ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau
... hung about the outskirts of the town searching for some weak spot where he could make a successful entrance with his troopers. Before evening he was driven to the conclusion that an assault could only mean defeat and likely his own death, and he wished to live at least for another day. So when the sun was setting he rode away from Dudhope, ...
— Graham of Claverhouse • Ian Maclaren
... indulgences Frances Allan was chiefly responsible. The one weak spot in the armor of austerity in which John Allan clothed himself was his love for his wife, and it was often against what he felt to be his better judgment that he acquiesced in her system of child-spoiling. He felt a solemn responsibility toward the boy, and he did his duty by him, as he saw it, ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... duty consists in revenge alone? and does it need superhuman effort to recognise that revenge never can be a duty? I say again that Hamlet thinks much, but that he is by no means wise. He cannot conceive where to look for the weak spot in destiny's armour. Lofty thoughts suffice not always to overcome destiny; for against these destiny can oppose thoughts that are loftier still; but what destiny has ever withstood thoughts that are simple and good, thoughts that are tender and loyal? We can triumph over destiny ...
— Wisdom and Destiny • Maurice Maeterlinck
... a stout weapon with a solid wooden butt, about six feet long in all. It is really too heavy to use as a javelin. It is most effective as a pike thrust fairly into a foeman's face, or past his shield into a weak spot in his cuirass. The sword is usually kept as a reserve weapon in case the lance gets broken. It is not over 25 inches in length, making rather a huge double-edged vicious knife than a saber; but it is terrible for cut and thrust work ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... as things are,—and the fact cannot be too often emphasized,—is the weak spot in our system of imperial defense by sea power. Not until Palestine is in our possession can Egypt be regarded as safe."—Quoted in Literary Digest, Feb. ...
— Our Day - In the Light of Prophecy • W. A. Spicer
... whole, yet who are not above doing wrong at moments or under certain circumstances. This man will lie under given conditions of temptations. Another will bribe, if the inducement is strong enough. A third will merely trick. Almost every man has a weak spot somewhere. Yet why let this one weakness—a partial moral obliquity or imperfection—make us cast him aside as useless and evil. As soon say that man physically is spoiled, because he is near-sighted, lame or stupid. If we had our choice ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... till you meet Colonel Boundary," said Sir Stanley with a good-natured smile, "and the reason you do not meet him is because he is not a fool. But, gentlemen, every criminal has one weak spot, and sooner or later he exposes the chink in his armour to the sword of justice—if you do not mind so theatrical an illustration. Here, again, I do not think that Boundary will make any such exposure. One of you gentlemen has again ...
— Jack O' Judgment • Edgar Wallace
... the prisoner, "dere was shore one weak spot 'bout my defence—dey found de watch in ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher
... wanted to know. Besides," the man smiled his diabolical grin again, "there was a reason for going light on the details. At the time I held you up I hadn't any more idea than you had where John Massey was, nor whether he was even alive. It was the weak spot in my armor. But you were so panic stricken at the thought of having to give up your gentleman's fortune that you never looked at the hollowness of the thing. You could have bowled over my whole scheme in a minute by being honest and telling me to bring on your cousin, John Massey. But ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... often it was the small insignificant thing which served to ruin great enterprises built up with so much care and elaboration. Over and over again he had tested every point in his plans, and had not succeeded in finding any weak spot. There seemed to be no contingency he was not prepared to meet, for which he was not ready; and yet a sense of misgiving, almost amounting to a feeling of insecurity, oppressed him as he walked along ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... telephone repeating all men's wants. I open it, and where my eye first falls—well, no, not Morrison's Pills—but here, sure enough, and but a little above, I find the joint that I was seeking; here is the weak spot in the armour of society. Here is a want, a plaint, an offer of substantial gratitude: 'Two Hundred Pounds Reward.—The above reward will be paid to any person giving information as to the identity ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... diverticulum consists in the protrusion of the mucous and submucous coats through a defect or weak part in the muscular tunic; it is therefore of the nature of a hernia and not a localised dilatation of the tube as a whole. Anatomically, there is such a weak spot in the posterior wall opposite the cricoid cartilage, known as the pharyngeal dimple, between the circular and oblique fibres of the crico-pharyngeus muscle. As the pouch increases in size by pressure from within, it usually extends downwards ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... just now that if Mr. Jellicoe had murdered John Bellingham and disposed of the body in the mummy-case, he would have been absolutely safe for the time being. But there would be a weak spot in his armour. For a month or more the disappearance of his client would occasion no remark. But presently, when he failed to return, inquiries would be set on foot; and then it would appear that no one had seen him since ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... just then that Sir James rode back from his reconnaissance. He had fetched a circuit of Steens without discovering a weak spot, and his temper had steadily risen with the increase of the crowd. His dignity now stood fairly at stake. He moved his soldiers up the road and gave ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... day and night. Knock at that door and you will find him at home. Touch upon some vital need in his business— some defect or tangle that is worrying him—some weak spot that he wants to remedy—some cherished ambition that haunts him—and you will have rung the bell of his interest. A few openings that are designed to get the reader's attention and induce him to read farther, are ...
— Business Correspondence • Anonymous
... guards and the numerous burned patches where the fire had jumped the plowed boundary and blackened the earth to the fence which marked the line of the right of way, and, in some places, had burned beyond. It took a flag-flying special train of that bitter Presidential campaign to find a weak spot in the guard, and to send a spark straight into the thickest bunch of wiry sand grass, where the wind could fan it to a blaze and then seize it and bend the tall flame tongues until they licked around the next tuft of grass, and ...
— Lonesome Land • B. M. Bower
... was to deprive him of money. A man can't carry out many schemes unless he can get hold of money. Jenkins had kept a close eye on Jim Crill, and had grown continually more uneasy lest the old chap become too favourably impressed with Rogeen. He had early sensed the old man's weak spot—one of them—Crill hated to be pestered. That was the vulnerable side at which Evelyn Barnett, the niece, could jab. And Reedy had planned all her attacks. This last move of Crill's—hiring Rogeen to lend money for him, had alarmed Reedy more than anything that had ...
— The Desert Fiddler • William H. Hamby
... "I've seen rivers break, and it's frightful; but of course I've never seen anything to compare with the Salmon. Suppose—just suppose there should be some weak spot—" ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... the former continued fiercely. "That's just where the weak spot in her brain remains. If you ask me, I believe it's pandered to by Mrs. Unthank. Come to think of it," he went on, "the Domineys were never cowards. If you've got your courage back, send Mrs. Unthank ...
— The Great Impersonation • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... enemy strongly posted in a new line of fortifications covering the town of Williamsburg. Smith's engineering skill and his quick intelligence served him again most fortunately, and with the aid of Captain West of the Coast Survey then serving on his staff, soon enabled him to find the weak spot in the enemy's position. This time it turned out to be on the extreme left, where he had failed, probably through lack of troops, to occupy the extensive works which had been previously constructed. Realizing intuitively the ...
— Heroes of the Great Conflict; Life and Services of William Farrar - Smith, Major General, United States Volunteer in the Civil War • James Harrison Wilson
... away the smothering rubbish, to find myself a fixture—jambed fast between walls of granite. Deceptive ferns had masked the crevice. I had walked along a treacherous track until at a weak spot it had given way as the gallows' trap beneath ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... tracks, flattening themselves against the timbers of the tunnel as the form of Taylor Bill, faintly outlined in the distance, turned from the regular track, opened a great door in the side of the tunnel, which, to all appearances, was nothing more than the ordinary heavy timbering of a weak spot in the rocks, pulled it far back, then swerved the tram within. Then, he stopped and raised a portable switch, throwing it into the opening. A second later the door closed behind him, and the sound of the tram began to fade in the distance. Harry went forward, creeping along ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... dress-coat.[2108] Sieyes evidently had not taken into account either the work to be done or the men who would have to do it, while Bonaparte, who was doing the work at this very time, who understood men and who understood himself, at once put his finger on the weak spot of this complex mechanism, so badly adjusted and so frail. Two consuls,[2109] "one controlling the ministers of justice, of the interior, of the police, of the treasury, and the other the ministers of war, of the navy, ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... would show to man the weakness of the devil. The devil can do nothing with the man who is calmly set in his loyalty to God. This new Leader of the race was led up to the dreaded devil that men might know for all time his weak spot. The poison of those fangs is completely neutralized by simple, steady loyalty to God. But the rattles do ...
— Quiet Talks about Jesus • S. D. Gordon
... out a large handkerchief and passed it across his face. "It's only the fear of physical violence," he said. "That's the only weak spot. Fear was formerly distributed over a wide variety of possibilities, but now it's ...
— The Blue Germ • Martin Swayne
... treating his craft fairly in driving her thus recklessly in a strong breeze against a heavy sea; but he had perfect faith in her; he had driven every bolt and nail in her with his own hands, and was confident that there was not a weak spot anywhere about her; and the excitement and tension of the last few hours had wrought him into a condition of desperate impatience that would brook nothing savouring of delay. And, being completely dominated by this spirit of impatience, ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... and his weak spot," her uncle observed didactically. "Joyce's price is the Presidency. His weak spot is popular adulation. I agree with Fischer. He will probably ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... getting up and knocking my pipe out. "I only hope I shan't have to resign my seat over it. If I may venture to offer a criticism, the weak spot in the enterprise was the idea of inviting your lady friends to come and take ...
— The Right Stuff - Some Episodes in the Career of a North Briton • Ian Hay
... one at all but Olive Chancellor. Again it came over her, when she saw the brightness, the happy look, the girl brought back, as it had done in the earlier months, that the great trouble was that weak spot of Verena's, that sole infirmity and subtle flaw, which she had expressed to her very soon after they began to live together, in saying (she remembered it through the ineffaceable impression made by her friend's avowal), "I'll tell you what is ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... Snake passed the sheltering fern and came right up to Old Rattler. Rattler opened his sleepy eyes, threw himself on guard with a snap and a buzz, and shook his bony clappers savagely. But the King of Snakes was not afraid. Every snake has a weak spot somewhere, and that is the place to strike him. If he hadn't a weak spot no one else could live about him, and then, perhaps he would starve to death at last. If he had not some strong points, where no one could harm him, ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... durable; everybody may sway it. Let those who would be happy be firm. Here is a nut," said he, catching one down from an upper bough, "to exemplify: a beautiful glossy nut, which, blessed with original strength, has outlived all the storms of autumn. Not a puncture, not a weak spot anywhere. This nut," he continued, with playful solemnity, "while so many of his brethren have fallen and been trodden under foot, is still in possession of all the happiness that a hazel nut can be supposed capable of." Then returning to his ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... weak spot in your idea, as I told you, is that you and George Chandos have the same body. Now, if you could manage to provide George with separate flesh and blood of his ...
— Not George Washington - An Autobiographical Novel • P. G. Wodehouse
... well that that is the weak spot in our armor,—a very weak spot, too; for it is quite clear, that, if M. de Boiscoran had given this explanation on the day of his arrest, he would have been released instantly. But what better can be found? What else can be found? However, this is only a rough sketch ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... That meant it was doubly important for the news to be carried back to General Harkness, for it showed that General Bliss had seized upon the weak spot in the Red line of defense, the necessity for weakening one spot to strengthen another, and, moreover, that the Blue army was far from being out of it as a result of the success of General Bean in the minor engagement ...
— The Boy Scout Automobilists - or, Jack Danby in the Woods • Robert Maitland
... there would be a weak spot in her heart for Dalberg; and, such is the peculiarly inconsistent nature of the female, a hatred that fed itself ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott
... fit in with the time when his master must find that he had betrayed him. He had, as he saw it, to gain time for Katharine Howard so she might finally enslave the King's desires. That there was one weak spot in her armour he thought he knew, and that was her cousin that was said to be her lover. That Cromwell knew of her weak spot he knew too; that Cromwell through that would strike at her he knew too. All depended upon whether he could ...
— Privy Seal - His Last Venture • Ford Madox Ford
... at it, and now Roxley tried again to force the center by a rush. But to their surprise Brill shifted to the left—that one weak spot—and got the ball on a fumble by the Roxley half-back. There was more quick action by four of the Brill players, and when the scrimmage came to an end the leather was found just three yards ...
— The Rover Boys at College • Edward Stratemeyer
... times these strains are induced by intestinal irritation accompanied by diarrhoea or constipation with straining. But, however the strain may take place, the abdominal muscles contract and push the intestines towards the wall of the belly. Then if they find an opening or even a weak spot, like the ring of the navel while it is undergoing the process of becoming blocked up, they select it and a ...
— The Veterinarian • Chas. J. Korinek
... turned to him affably— "you touch the weak spot. For the moment I see no way out of the situation, nor any chance but to prolong it; and even this," he added, "will not be easy unless the lady on the lamp-post sensibly alters the tone ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... he wound up, "Fynes was a crank, when all's said and done. We are all cranks, more or less,—all got our weak spot, I mean. It was secretiveness with our unfortunate friend. He liked to play at being a big personage in a mysterious sort of way, and the poor chap's paid for it," he added with ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... of The White Hen (MILLS AND BOON) we read that the Duke laughed softly. "'It is just like a romance,' he sighed happily;" which was precisely where, without intending it, the Duke placed his ducal finger upon the weak spot in the whole business. Because if ever a story was "like a romance," and like nothing else on earth, and filled with characters each and all pledged to preserve its unreality at all costs, here is that tale. The plot, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, August 25th, 1920 • Various
... to me was not at all clear. You could not always grasp, at once, just what he was aiming at. But once understood, the idea became illuminative, and extended into the next, or even to succeeding acts of the play. He could detect a weak spot quicker than any one I ever knew, and could remedy or straighten ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... Ah! this was the weak spot in his armor; the instinct of a mother was not mistaken. M. Lacheneur hesitated a moment; but he finally conquered the weakness that had ...
— The Honor of the Name • Emile Gaboriau
... is, I believe, one constant factor—a desire to deceive the person with whom one lives as to some weak spot in one's character or in one's career. For it is intolerable to live constantly with one human being who perceives one's small meannesses. It is really death to do so—that is why so many marriages ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford
... there was nothing to be done in that direction, she had discovered another weak spot in Christophe, one more easy of access: his moral faith. In spite of his squabble with the Vogels, and in spite of the intoxication of his adolescence, Christophe had preserved an instinctive modesty, a need of purity, of ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... more and more exasperated. He was happening upon every weak spot in the crust, and floundering at almost every step. All at once, as the surface broke there came to his nostrils the familiar smell of a partridge. It was a fresh scent. The fox forgot his indignation. He poked his narrow snout into the snow, sniffed sharply, ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... down. To this fact the phenomenon owes its peculiar interest. For we behold here in the case of man the same spectacle that we see cosmically in the case of the moon, the spectacle of a world that has died of old age. No weak spot in their social organism destroyed them from within; no epidemic, in the shape of foreign hordes, fell upon them from without. For in spite of the fact that China offers the unique example of a country that ...
— The Soul of the Far East • Percival Lowell
... in a case like this you can never be sure of anything. No, we must not relax in the slightest. Even as it is, I am continually afraid." He began to pace the room restlessly. "There may be a weak spot somewhere, some loop-hole we have forgotten. I think the druggists are safe and the mail is watched. That last supply, you are sure ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay |
