"Sightedness" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... can only be surprised that wise men ever fancied that a conflict could be avoided; but, as usual, the strenuous hope became father to an anxious belief. Abraham Lincoln, in the first year when he gave indication of his political clear-sightedness, said truly that the country could not continue half slave and half free. That truth involved war. There was no other possible way to settle the question between the two halves; talk of freeing the slaves by purchase, or by gradual emancipation ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... and misjudge each other, the best of us; and how can we help it? Misjudgments will be, must be; the only thing left to human finiteness and short-sightedness is frank dealing. There is one possible ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner
... comparatively narrow line of work. But this does not necessitate that our views should be narrow or our aims low. Teufelsdroeckh may live on a narrow lane; but his thoughts, starting along the narrow lane, lead him over the whole world. The narrowness of our horizon is due to our near-sightedness. ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler
... ever-present burden, until he often feels inclined to echo the passionate adjuration of Schiller: "Why hast thou cast me thus into the town of the ever-blind, to proclaim thine oracle with the opened sense? Take back this sad clear-sightedness; take from mine eyes this cruel light! Give me back my blindness—the happy darkness of my senses; take back thy dreadful gift!" This feeling is perhaps not an unnatural one in the earlier stages of the Path, yet higher sight ...
— The Astral Plane - Its Scenery, Inhabitants and Phenomena • C. W. Leadbeater
... "I believe that's what you church folk call it when the Almighty averts a disaster that is made imminent by your own short-sightedness." ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine
... there would He be as an ever-present and all-wise, almighty Helper. He would meet their need with His sufficiency; their weakness with His strength; their foolishness with His wisdom; their ignorance with His knowledge; their blindness and short-sightedness with His perfect, all-embracing vision. Hallelujah! What a Comforter! Why should they ...
— When the Holy Ghost is Come • Col. S. L. Brengle
... well equipped buildings and prepared teachers they removed from that system the stigma formerly attached to persons[13] educating their children at public expense. They, therefore, made of education a foundation upon which real democracy must build. It is only short sightedness on the part of writers to infer that because the Negro was in a few years thereafter deprived of the ballot that the good work which was done during the years that they were permitted to participate in the affairs of these States could be ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... almost neglected the subject under discussion—a communication that made poor Bertram ponder long. He could never get to the bottom of the superficial, and all the proprieties and conventions of life were profound to him. Fortunately for him old Mrs. Tramore liked him, he was satisfactory to her long-sightedness; so that a relation was established under cover of which he still occasionally presented himself in Hill Street—presented himself nominally to the mistress of the house. He had had scruples about the veracity ...
— The Chaperon • Henry James
... not the more noble because of the infinitude of the gain: and yet this is what is often taught as religion in books and sermons. We are told that sin is wrong, because it will make us miserable hereafter. Guilt is represented as the short-sightedness which barters for a home on earth—a home ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... and is this the strain in which you were wont to talk? Why are you thus altered, and what means this inauspicious quick-sightedness and alarm? We should indeed survey and prepare for danger, but we should never suffer it to overwhelm us. The cause of integrity should never be despaired of. What avails the suspicions of my keeper? The ever wakeful eye of heaven can make them slumber. Why should we ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... whom he lived. Long as he had resided at Keswick, I do not think there were twenty persons in the lower class whom he knew by sight; and though this was in some measure owing to a slight degree of short-sightedness, which, contrary to what is usual, came on in later life, yet I have heard him often lament it as not being what he thought right; and after slightly returning the salutation of some passer by, he would again mechanically lift his cap as ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... EYELIDS.—This may be caused by smoke or dust in the atmosphere, by other foreign bodies in the eye; frequently by eye-strain, due to far- or near-sightedness, astigmatism, or muscular weakness, which may be corrected by an oculist's (never an optician's) prescription for glasses. Exposure to an excessive glare of light, as in the case of firemen, or, on the other hand, reading constantly and ...
— The Home Medical Library, Volume II (of VI) • Various
... their great kindness, and my hope that between the lines of my descriptions of what I saw they will discover my earnest desire to serve the cause of Christ and his truth, even though my impressions may at times result from my own short-sightedness and ignorance. Only what ...
— A Tour of the Missions - Observations and Conclusions • Augustus Hopkins Strong
... sudden, overpowering rush of the blood, her reason was wavering and became overcast at the slightest shock. It had overturned that brain which was so prompt to go astray in fear or vexation, which lost so quickly the faculty of good judgment, of discernment, clear-sightedness and appreciation of its surroundings, which exaggerated its troubles, which plunged into foolish alarms, previsions of evil, despairing presentiments, which looked upon its terrors as realities, and was constantly lost in the pessimism of that species of delirium, at the end of which ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... that darkness, which excludes the light of life, may be considered as these three: First, the excessive preponderance of self-love, as the ruling motive of human conduct. Secondly, the short-sightedness of self-love, in magnifying the present, at the cost of the distant future. And, Thirdly, the grossness of self-love, in preferring of present goods the vulgar and the sensible, to the refined ...
— The Growth of Thought - As Affecting the Progress of Society • William Withington
... hopes, though he was so near, and the moonlight so clear, that he could see the bright eyes of the newcomer staring straight into his with insistent question. Evidently, the story of that near-sightedness had not been exaggerated. He saw the doubt in the beaver's eye fade gradually into confidence, as the little animal became convinced that the strange gray figure was in reality just one of the stumps. Then, the industrious ...
— The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories • Charles G. D. Roberts
... and industrious, but they lack fibre apparently, and that quick-sightedness for opportunities which makes the Chinese the most successful of all emigrants. Not a Malay or a Kling has raised himself either as a merchant or in any other capacity to wealth or distinction in the colony. The Klings make splendid boatmen, ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... his race, as he had never felt before. It was as though, after a long apprenticeship, he had sprung suddenly into maturity—entered at last into the full human heritage. But the very intensity and solemnity of his own feeling gave him a rare clear-sightedness. He realised that he had no certainty of success, scarcely even an entirely reasonable hope. But what of that? Were they not together, alone, practically, in these blessed solitudes? Would they not meet to-morrow, and next day, and ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... thirty-five pounds, but Hanks was two or three inches taller and he had a much longer reach, so that Theodore could not get in his blows, and although he fought with unabated pluck, he lost the contest. More serious than his short reach, however, was his near-sightedness, which made it impossible for him to see and parry Hanks's lunges. When time was called after the last round, his face was dashed with blood and he was much winded; but his spirit did not flag, and if there had been another round, he would have gone into it with undiminished determination. ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... understandings can comprehend neither. For, when the mind would look beyond those original ideas we have from sensation or reflection, and penetrate into their causes, and manner of production, we find still it discovers nothing but its own short-sightedness. ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke
... clear-sightedness, bravery, and firmness; but it is, above all, his generous human heart that gives him his power over this people. His is a face to shame the selfish, redeem the sceptic, alarm the wicked, and cheer to new effort the weary and heavy-laden. ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... is it not, dear Auguste?" said I, throwing my arms about him. "No, no, indeed I am not; but I have been cast so long on my own sole resources, and obliged to rely only on my own energy and clear-sightedness, that I always try to look at both sides of the question, and not to let my feelings overpower me, until I have proved that it is good and wise to do so. Consider, too, Auguste, that on this step depends the whole happiness or misery of a ...
— Valerie • Frederick Marryat
... Austria, Russia, and Prussia, should act as a buffer State between them; that, failing its creation, the Poles should be reconciled to being dominated by foreigners, by just and liberal treatment which alone would make them satisfied. His note, which is most remarkable for its far-sightedness, wisdom, force, and restraint, ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... cannot habitually trample on law and justice without retrograding toward barbarism. But I am hopeful that time will bring us changes for the better; that, as we get farther away from the war, we will outgrow the animosities and prejudices engendered by slavery. The short-sightedness of our fathers linked the negro's destiny to ours. We are feeling the friction of the ligatures which bind us together, but I hope that the time will speedily come when the best members of both races will ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper
... darkness had passed away from it. She understood that love of liquor had made him a party to this plot. Brandt had cunningly worked upon his weakness, proposed a daring scheme; and filled his befogged mind with hopes that, in a moment of clear-sightedness, he would have seen to be vain and impossible. And Helen understood also that the sudden shock of surprise, pain, possible fury, had sobered Mordaunt, probably for the ...
— The Last Trail • Zane Grey
... not only of public sympathy, but of all the courage and clear-sightedness which she had inherited. This she realized more fully than ever, when the excitement of campaigning was over. If she had chosen to spend her time and strength and money on automobiles or fine clothes, people would have passed upon her choice as the natural thing, and envied her way ...
— A Woman for Mayor - A Novel of To-day • Helen M. Winslow
... reached the age of manhood, and, obeying manhood's law, had "put away childish things." On what should it spend itself? It had lost none of its strength; while his fastidious notions of excellence, and a far-reaching clear-sightedness, which belonged to his truth of nature, greatly narrowed the sphere of its possible action. He could not delude himself into the belief that the oversight of his plantations, and the perfecting his park scenery, could be a worthy end of existence; or that painting and music were meant to be ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... men of mind, and the most venal writers suddenly become 'martyrs of truth.' A thousand noxious insects, whom a sunbeam of truth and real sagacity would have dispersed, favored by the darkness created for them with deplorable short-sightedness, insinuate themselves into the unarmed minds of the people, and instil their poison to the last drop, as though it were a forbidden delicacy of the most exquisite character. The only antidote, the productions of better writers, loses its strength because the ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... of many-sightedness possessed me at this time. Each little separate picture I ringed round with the light of my imagination and the joy of my heart; every one of them, moreover, being variously coloured by a pathos of its own. The pleasure ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... the family were running if they peristed in supporting that "fool of a Birotteau." The baron had detained Monsieur de Bourbonne as the old gentleman was taking his hat and cane after the usual rubber of whist. The clear-sightedness of that sly old fox seemed indispensable for an understanding of the reefs among which the Listomere family suddenly found themselves; and perhaps the action of taking his hat and cane was only a ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... was one of the most remarkable ever won. The discrepancy of numbers was immense. The Spaniards were unprovided with artillery or firearms, and owed their success to their discipline and bravery, and still more to the extraordinary valor and quick-sightedness of ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty
... in our agreement? This remains still in manuscript amongst my papers. If ever it be made public, the world will see how much the pleasantries and self-sufficient manner of M. de Voltaire on the subject must have made me, who was so well acquainted with the short-sightedness of this poor man in political matters, of which he took it into his head to speak, shake my sides ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... government, the reestablishment of the monarchy, such were, in reality the events that followed; they were what Georges had foreseen, what d'Ache had anticipated, what Le Chevalier had divined with such clear-sightedness. Though they seemed miraculous to many people they were simply the logical result of continued effort, the success of a conspiracy in which the actors had frequently been changed, but which had suffered no cessation from the coup d'etat of Brumaire until the ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre
... University was opened to them in 1869; eleven years before, Miss Sarah Burger, now Mrs. Stearns, made the resolve, the preparation, and the application to enter the University of Michigan; and young as she was, her clear-sightedness and courage called forth our admiration. As a child, in Ann Arbor, from 1845, to 1852, she had often attended the commencement exercises of the University, and on those occasions had felt very unhappy, because all the culture given to mind and heart and ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... and then had a coughing spell. He coughed so violently that the black cord suspended from his nose-glasses became tangled about a button on his great coat, and his glasses fell from his nose. In his awkwardness, intensified by his short-sightedness, he fumbled the button and the cord with his bony fingers until Eleanore came to the rescue. One move, and everything ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... above all, terrified the baroness was to see a sentiment attaining, by the force of its own instinct, to the clear-sightedness of practised experience. Calyste's letter to Beatrix was such as the Chevalier du Halga, with his knowledge of the world, might ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... the results justified the German emphasis (371) on vocational training. How do you explain this German far-sightedness? ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... square little trudges with shiny black hair and round myopic eyes. This near-sightedness when they approached the unclassified, resulted in their simultaneously making up the most horrible faces, the mere effort of focusing. Mary Nellen—for family affection, recognising their complete twin-ship, ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... means of fulfilling its contracts, when once its situation is clearly understood, would require a degree of credulity not often to be met with in the pecuniary transactions of mankind, and little reconcilable with the usual sharp-sightedness of avarice. Reflections of this kind may have trifling weight with men who hope to see realized in America the halcyon scenes of the poetic or fabulous age; but to those who believe we are likely to experience a common portion of the ...
— The Federalist Papers
... by electricity (the limitations of which have not yet been sensed so far even by the most audacious), so the intellect, as a producing medium, has had its period—a period of style-worship, vanities of speech and action, of self-service, of parading, of surface-show and short-sightedness, without parallel ...
— Child and Country - A Book of the Younger Generation • Will Levington Comfort
... though his air of indifference was perfect, a sickening foreboding was creeping in upon him. He was conscious of failure, of blind, idiotic folly. Never before had he been guilty of such miserable short-sightedness. He fought desperately against the toils which he felt were gradually closing in upon him. There ...
— The Kingdom of the Blind • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... have prospered and been well with him. His own happiness might have been secured, and the hopes of his friend and patron would not have been blasted. It was the misfortune of Allcraft, with all his long-sightedness, not to see far enough. He was to blame, deeply to blame, for the desertion of a man whom he knew to be at the mercy of his own wayward spirit, and utterly incapable of self-defence. Yet, called abroad, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... than this, providing the mules were unanimously agreed about remaining inside the railed-off space, and providing the monsoons had agreed not to roll the Mandarin violently about. With unpardonable short-sightedness, however, it seems that neither of these important factors in the case has been seriously considered or consulted, and, as an additional insult to the mules, the plank in front of them is elevated but four feet ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... once presented to a clergyman: "A sailor going to sea, his wife desires the prayers of the congregation for his safety." The minister, either through carelessness or short sightedness, misread the request thus: "A sailor, going to see his wife, desires the prayers of the ...
— The Importance of the Proof-reader - A Paper read before the Club of Odd Volumes, in Boston, by John Wilson • John Wilson
... special merit or qualities of his own, but to the power, which he believed that commerce gave to every brave, honest, and persevering man, to raise himself to a level from which he might see and read the great game of worldly success, and honestly, by such far-sightedness, command more power and influence than in any other mode of life. Far away, in the East and in the West, where his person would never be known, his name was to be regarded, and his wishes to be fulfilled, and his word pass like gold. That was the idea of merchant-life with which ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... this short-sightedness, the result of their isolated position, the aristocracy of power is always prompt to borrow from the aristocracy of talent that assistance in the practical working of its government which it requires; they are glad to find safe men among the people to whom they can delegate the cares of office, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... nervous system, all spring from a common source, and, from a monistic point of view, come under the same category. The "exact" Berlin physiologist shut this knowledge out from his mind, and, with a short-sightedness almost inconceivable, placed this special neurological question alongside of the one great "world-riddle," the fundamental question of substance, the general question of the ...
— Monism as Connecting Religion and Science • Ernst Haeckel
... except an occasional whisper of "Be quiet, Arthur," until Dr. Grey entered the room. Even then, she restrained herself so far as to let Miss Gascoigne tell the story. She trusted—as she knew she could trust—to her husband's sense of justice and quick-sightedness, even through any amount of cloudy exaggeration. When the examination came to an end, and Dr. Grey, sorely perplexed and troubled, looked toward his wife questioningly, all she said was a suggestion that both ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... affairs requires pure patriotism—that is, conscientiousness of being an American by principle, in the noblest philosophical sense, sound common sense, discretion, simplicity, sobriety of mind, firmness, clear-sightedness. Boutwell would be a Secretary ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski
... gained on Jane Withersteen's peerless racers. Wrangle had so long been away from the village that not improbably Jerry had forgotten. Besides, whatever Jerry's qualifications for his fame as the greatest rider of the sage, certain it was that his best point was not far-sightedness. He had not recognized Wrangle. After what must have been a searching gaze he got his comrade to face about. This action gave Venters amusement. It spoke so surely of the facts that neither Card nor the ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey
... severely reprehended his short-sightedness for seeing but the one proximate object in the particular attention he had bestowed on Miss Dale. He could not disavow that they had been marked, and with an object, and he was distressed by the unwonted want of wisdom through which he had been drawn to overshoot his object. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... rocket-high at the sight of a girl's joyous pose of body and the colour and form of the picture she made. In him the shrewdness of a strong intelligence was mingled with wild impulse. In most, rashness would be the outcome of such a marriage of characteristics; but clear-sightedness, decision, and a little unscrupulousness had carried into success many daring actions of his life. This very quality of resolute daring saved him ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Philologists and Ireland scholars are not made so, but you can, in no way, fashion a scholar out of a casual and inaccurate intelligence. The true scholar is one whom I envy, almost as much as I respect him; but there is a kind of mental short-sightedness, where accents and verbal niceties are concerned, which cannot be sharpened into true scholarship. Yet, even for those afflicted in this way, and with the malady of being "idle, careless little boys," the ancient classics ...
— Adventures among Books • Andrew Lang
... them were a little embarrassed, the Duke twirled his short white moustache, and Lord Blythe glanced at his wife with some wonder and curiosity. Both imagined, with the usual short-sightedness of the male sex, that the women had taken a sudden fantastic dislike ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... that we shall do well to balance the guilt of those who have committed this inexpiable crime. It is now, while we are in the thick of the horror, undergoing it, feeling it, that we have the energy, the clear-sightedness needed to judge it; from the depths of the most fearful injustice justice is best perceived. When the hour shall have come for settling accounts—and it will not long delay—we shall have forgotten much of what we have suffered and a blameworthy pity will creep over ...
— The Wrack of the Storm • Maurice Maeterlinck
... glad to see the little man; for almost the first time in his life he realised that sometimes dullness and short-sightedness are a blessing in disguise. Apparently to Driver there was nothing odd in this mad rush over to Paris; his expressionless eyes saw the untidiness of his master' ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres
... confinement, like a caged lion ready to break loose from bondage. But the lion freed might take refuge in his native woods, while Gaston, if he rushed forth into the world, knew that his bashfulness, his stammering, his near-sightedness, would render society a more intolerable prison than ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... His brain was dizzy, his heart was sick. His mind was distracted with the thought of a guilt which he did not feel to be his own, of sin for which his conscience did not smite him. For, with a strange commingling of clear-sightedness and submission to authority, he still believed that he had done perfectly right in giving up his claim to the Scotch estate, and yet, with all his heart, desired to feel that he had done wrong. And when the words with ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... this excess of clear-sightedness, we may at least labour for a system of greater honesty and kindness in the minor commerce of our daily life; since the great dishonesty of the great buyers and sellers is nothing more than the natural growth and outcome from the little ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... and the triumph of the National cause, in spite of the short-sightedness and blundering of the Administration, have proved the vitality and strength of the national constitution, and the greatness of the American people. They say nothing for or against the democratic theory ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson
... of all feminine endeavors and ambitions, it certainly seems rather hard that Providence should have condemned plain girls to start in the race at such an obvious disadvantage. Even under M. Comte's system, which provides for almost everything, and which, in its far-sightedness and thoughtfulness for our good, appears almost more benevolent than Providence, it would seem as if hardly sufficient provision had ...
— Modern Women and What is Said of Them - A Reprint of A Series of Articles in the Saturday Review (1868) • Anonymous
... To say that there can may sound paradoxical, and yet in a sense this is demonstrable. I do not mean that there is an observant mind behind and distinct from the sensation, and failing to observe it accurately through a kind of mental short-sightedness. What I mean is that the usual psychical effect of the incoming nervous process may to some extent be counteracted by a powerful reaction of the centres. In the course of our study of illusions, we shall learn that it is possible for the quality ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully
... maiden who was his promised bride. Without a moment's hesitation Sringa-Bhuja picked out the right sister; and the magician, though inwardly enraged, pretended to be so delighted at this proof of a lover's clear-sightedness that he cried: ...
— Hindu Tales from the Sanskrit • S. M. Mitra and Nancy Bell
... arm close pressed by him, and she knew by the frankness of that holding caress he was thinking of her still either not at all, or, she hoped, as a comrade who could perhaps be of assistance to courage and clear-sightedness in difficult hours. She wanted to be no more than that to him just now; it was the most she could do for him, but with a desire, the most acute she had ever felt for him, she wanted him to accept that—to take her ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... then, when Roberta was busy, they would take Mary out in search of "their birds," as they called them. Oddly enough they always found these rare species a second time, though Mary, because of her near-sightedness, had to be content with a casual glance ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton
... there is in much of the so-called Christian resignation to be found in the world to-day. To be sure there are inherited illnesses and pains, physical and mental, but the laws are so made that the compensation of clear-sightedness and power for use gained by working our way rightly out of all inheritances and suffering brought by others, fully ...
— Power Through Repose • Annie Payson Call
... autumn—Captain Polkington was coming to London, perhaps for as long as three months. Johnny did not know why; he thought perhaps to have some treatment for his rheumatism; Mrs. Polkington had arranged it. Julia did know why, and the short-sightedness of the policy roused her contempt. To thus put the family drawback out of the way, and leave him to his own devices and Mr. Gillat's care, seemed to her as unwise towards him as it was unkind to Johnny. She would have written that minute to expostulate ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... with the most consummate skill, of the author's whole Gallic policy and of his constitutional position. That Caesar was able to do this without, so far as can be judged, violating, or even to any large degree suppressing facts, does equal credit to the clear-sightedness of his policy and to his extraordinary literary power. From first to last there is not a word either of self-laudation or of innuendo; yet at the end we find that, by the use of the simplest and most lucid narration, in which hardly a fact or a detail ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail
... We both know it now. But anybody may be mistaken; it is no shame, either to you or me, especially since we have remedied the error after we discovered it. Really, I am in admiration of our clear-sightedness and bravery, in breaking loose, in despite of the trammels of conventionality. But you never were bound by those trammels, or any other, except what you call 'duty.' So I herewith declare you free,—that is what you want me to ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... the true idea of God. Hence the warfare between this spiritual idea and perfunctory religion, between spiritual clear-sightedness 316:15 and the blindness of popular belief, which led to the conclusion that the spiritual idea could be killed by crucifying the flesh. The Christ-idea, or the Christ- 316:18 man, rose higher to human view because of the crucifixion, and thus proved that truth ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... the room in that noiseless, sliding way, which indicates a constitutional diffidence. Her eyelids involuntarily contracted, so that she might see her callers on a near approach to them. Fayette Overtop, marking her modest demeanor and her short-sightedness, immediately announced his name and that of his companion, and the object of ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... were there. Their pure breath mingling with their mother's made the air milder and more gentle for his feverish lungs." This we shall not attempt to dispute. It is the study of the situation, though, that forms the subject of Lucrezia Floriani. George Sand gives evidence of wonderful clear-sightedness and penetration in ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic
... cleansed out of him, before he could be capable of spiritual existence; he meddled only with the surface of life, and never cared to penetrate further than to ploughshare depth; his very sense and sagacity were but a one-eyed clear-sightedness. I laughed at him, sometimes standing beside his knee. And yet, considering that my native propensities were toward Fairy Land, and also how much yeast is generally mixed up with the mental sustenance of a New Englander, it may not have been altogether amiss, in those childish and boyish days, ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.
... specialists in external criticism themselves, when they do not take the line of despising all synthesis a priori, are almost as easily dazzled as anybody else by incorrect syntheses, by a show of "general ideas," or by literary artifices, in spite of their clear-sightedness where works of critical ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois
... to the staircase, to the key— to everything, in short, that could be wished; no—stop! what am I saying?—to everything that ought to be abominated. Finally—for he had now settled the main question—that he had a friend who would take up the case where he himself, from short-sightedness, was obliged to lay it down.' This friend, the Pythias of this short-sighted Damon started up in a frenzy of virtue at this summons, and, rushing to the front of the alguazils, said, 'That since his friend had ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... the usual savor of human ingenuity, blended, however, with the proverbial short-sightedness of the species. It is very true that saps ascend for fructification; but what is this fructification, to which you allude? It is no more than a false demonstration of the energies of the plant. For all the purposes of growth, life, durability, and the final conversion ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... my engaging for several years, with the late Rev. F. F. Gough of the C. M. S., in the revision of a version of the New Testament in the colloquial of Ningpo for the British and Foreign Bible Society. In undertaking this work, in my short-sightedness I saw nothing beyond the use that the Book, and the marginal references, would be to the native Christians; but I have often seen since that, without those months of feeding and feasting on the Word of GOD, I should have been quite unprepared to form, on its present basis, a mission ...
— A Retrospect • James Hudson Taylor
... with an unusual measure of depravity and of short-sightedness, the reply can hardly be in the affirmative. And if it be otherwise, there remains but one explanation of the conduct of the seceding States—namely the dread that if they remained in the Union they would not ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... poor George for a minute, during which Sally began to giggle violently, and flirt in her rustic fashion with the three rebels in a row. At length George, recovering his poise and clear-sightedness, resumed,— ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... this state of things may continue; and the way to insure its continuance is to provide for a thoroughly efficient navy. The refusal to maintain such a navy would invite trouble, and if trouble came would insure disaster. Fatuous self-complacency or vanity, or short-sightedness in refusing to prepare for danger, is both foolish and wicked in such a nation as ours; and past experience has shown that such fatuity in refusing to recognize or prepare for any crisis in advance is usually succeeded by a mad panic of hysterical fear ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... long-sightedness and short-sightedness*, and method of remedying these defects by lenses. A. Normal eye. B. ...
— Physiology and Hygiene for Secondary Schools • Francis M. Walters, A.M.
... necessity for such alternations? Some degree of fluctuation there will always be. The very exercise of emotion tends to its extinction. Varying conditions of health and other externals will affect the buoyancy and clear-sightedness and vivacity of the spiritual life. Only a barometer that is out of order will always stand at set fair. The vane which never points but to south ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... falsehood, of sifting out the grains of truth from the mass, of arranging things according to their real value, and, if I may use the phrase, of building up ideas. Such a power is the result of a scientific formation of mind; it is an acquired faculty of judgment, of clear-sightedness, of sagacity, of wisdom, of philosophical reach of mind, and of intellectual self-possession and repose,—qualities which do not come of mere acquirement. The bodily eye, the organ for apprehending material objects, ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... attitude toward the world throughout the evening. Inwardly she longed to be gay like the others, but prudery and short-sightedness, the fruits of her training, prevailed, effectually debarring her from all enjoyment and leaving her cold and isolated like one afflicted with the plague. Could she have followed the dictates of her wishes, she would have remained within the seclusion of her room during the ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... America, after years of jealousy and small differences, followed by a tremendous war, at last learned this lesson. In the same way the states of Europe will have to learn it. The stumbling blocks in the way are the remains of feudal government in Europe and the ignorance and short-sightedness of the common people in many countries. Ignorance is rapidly waning with the advance of education, and we trust that feudalism will not long survive its last terrible crime, the world war ...
— The World War and What was Behind It - The Story of the Map of Europe • Louis P. Benezet
... see clearly themselves are almost always intolerant of those who do not. We often see this ludicrously exemplified, even in the trivial matter of near-sightedness. We are almost always a little vexed, when we point out a distant object to a friend, and ...
— Mercy Philbrick's Choice • Helen Hunt Jackson
... The decision to issue a declaration of such far-reaching importance was surely arrived at only after due and careful deliberation. The step which Great Britain has taken thereby once more proves the deep sense of justice and the far-sightedness of British statesmen. Needless to say that the Czecho-Slovaks will always remain grateful to Great Britain for this bold and generous act. Its immediate effect has been consternation in Vienna and encouragement ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek
... to find in a Talmudist is historic veracity. Yet it is not lacking in Rashi, either because he was guided by ancient and authentic traditions, or because he was inspired by his clear - sightedness, or - but this is apt to have been the case less frequently because he was well served by his power of divination. Rashi took good care not to confound the different generations of Tannaim and Amoraim, or the different rabbis in each. He knew the biographies ...
— Rashi • Maurice Liber
... Torywood. The affairs of the county had not sufficed for her untiring activities of mind and body; in the wider field of national and Imperial service she had worked and schemed and fought with an energy and a far-sightedness that came probably from the blend of caution and bold restlessness in her Scottish blood. For many educated minds the arena of politics and public life is a weariness of dust and disgust, to others it is a fascinating study, to be watched from ...
— When William Came • Saki
... national keen-sightedness, saw the internal working which his wife's home appeal had created, now came forward, and said, "Oh, yer honour, if as how I dare be so bowld as jist to ax you this wan'st, to take compassion on us; may be, next time, we could go together, ...
— A Book For The Young • Sarah French
... that on no occasion did I ever so thoroughly enjoy the stage as when I saw for the first time the charming piece of The Two Pages. Fleury in the role of Frederick the Great reproduced so perfectly the slow walk, the dry tones, the sudden movements, and even the short-sightedness of this monarch, that as soon as he appeared on the stage the whole house burst into applause. It was, in the opinion of persons sufficiently well informed to judge, a most perfect and faithful presentation; ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... because you're so near-sighted, my dear boy," replied Tom; and Ned, who was very sensitive on the subject of his near-sightedness, colored, and readjusted his eye-glasses, while he asked ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... as President witnessed nothing more momentous than the great panic of 1837, which he faced with a calmness and clear-sightedness surprising even to his friends, but which nevertheless assisted a collection of malcontents, under the leadership of Henry Clay, calling themselves National Republicans or Whigs, to defeat him for re-election. There ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... cups. Soup was then served, and then the bride drank once from the third cup, and handed it to her husband's father, who drank three more cups, the bride took it again, and drank two, and lastly the mother-in- law drank three more cups. Now, if you possess the clear- sightedness which I laboured to preserve, you will perceive that each of the three had inbibed nine cups of some generous ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... fleet withdrew to the Nore and, beyond blocking the mouth of the river, were able to effect no further damage. The blow to English prestige was however irreparable, and the people felt deeply humiliated that short-sightedness and lack of preparation on the part of the government should have exposed them to an insult galling to the national pride. One of its consequences, as had been anticipated by De Witt, was a more conciliatory attitude on the part of the English envoys ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... Miss Lavinia's short-sightedness caused her to bump into a man, who was intently gazing, from the height of six feet, at jewelled bugs, displayed in the window of a dealer in ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... action with the system of the universe, and may, perhaps, behold them extended to the utmost limits of time, past and future; but man seldom sees more than the simple facts, divested of their various relations of cause and effect. The writer, therefore, must adapt his performance to the short-sightedness of human nature, which he would enlighten; and not to the penetration of Omniscience, from which all intelligence ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... base, sordid, calculating principles which others made the basis of their lives. He thought with loathing of the sudden frenzy which had possessed him during the evening in Paris. Some poison must have been instilled into his veins; he could not recognize himself. But honor and rectitude, clear-sightedness and trustfulness in life were fast returning. Through the window, which had remained open, all the sounds of the lovely spring night poured into the room. It was spring, the season of love, and beneath the palpitating stars in the broad heavens, from fields and forests and waters came ...
— Fruitfulness - Fecondite • Emile Zola
... the short-sightedness of human beings shown more distinctly, than when France wasted her strength and treasure in a sterile contest on the continent of Europe, and permitted, with scarce an effort, her North American colonies to be ...
— With Wolfe in Canada - The Winning of a Continent • G. A. Henty
... reception, in the agent's room; but there was nothing for her. And the agent saw her to the door, with a satisfied air and a knowing wink, as though to make the others believe ... Lily didn't like that kind—her short-sightedness did not prevent her noticing it and blushing at it—but she was very pleased, all the same, to be seen to the door, before those small turns who were ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... creative or imaginative quality, and courage, and insight into ordinary human nature, and far-sightedness of what can be expected of people, do not get on with the ordinary millionaire. It cannot be denied that millionaires and artists get together in time; but the particular point that seems to be interesting to consider is how the millionaires and artists can be got ...
— Crowds - A Moving-Picture of Democracy • Gerald Stanley Lee
... of Life? Surely it must be, to express its own Livingness. Then in the True Order all modes of life and energy must converge towards this end, and it is only our short-sightedness that prevents us from seeing this,—from seeing that the greater the harmony of the whole Life, the greater will be the inflow of that Life in each of the parts that are giving it expression. This is what we want to learn with regard to ourselves, whether as individuals, classes or ...
— The Law and the Word • Thomas Troward
... says in his "foretalk" to the reprint, the essay is noteworthy, not merely as a signal service to Shelley's fame and memory, but for Browning's statement of his own aim in his own work, both as objective and subjective poet. The same clear-sightedness and impartial sympathy, which are such distinguishing characteristics of his dramatic studies of human thought and emotion, are obvious in Browning's Shelley essay. "It would be idle to enquire," he writes, "of these two kinds ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... time—in fact, if Philip's life had been ordered differently to what it was—it might have given this man a not unworthy pleasure to remember that, without a penny of his own, simply by diligence, honesty, and faithful quick-sightedness as to the interests of his masters, he had risen to hold the promise of being their successor, and to be ranked by them as ...
— Sylvia's Lovers, Vol. II • Elizabeth Gaskell
... it, without paying his successor the courtesy of waiting to see him inaugurated. Gadsden, the old Revolutionary leader of South Carolina, now relegated to the line of spectators, lamented the short-sightedness of early days in not sufficiently guarding American citizenship from the admission of foreign meddlers. "Our old-standers and independent men of long, well-tried patriotism, sound understanding, and good property," said he, "have now in general very little influence ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks
... latter, as unpractical and reckless. There is truth and falsehood in both accusations: but since no statesman has ever combined all the elements of statesmanship in a perfect and just proportion, and since neither prudence and clear-sightedness, nor enthusiastic and generous sentiment, can ever be dispensed with in the conduct of affairs without loss, a larger view will attach little discredit to either type. While, therefore, we may view with regret ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 1 • Demosthenes
... won't have him spoilt by those fine ladies!" she said to herself, with frowning clear-sightedness. "They make a perfect fool of him. Now, then, I'd better write to Lady Dunstable. Of course she ought ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward
... millionaire without the slightest embarrassment or apology for having broken in upon his seclusion at so unseasonable an hour. He used a pince-nez, and was constantly putting it to his eyes, as though troubled with short-sightedness. ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... restore him to some semblance of calm. Indeed, it may well be that it was to complete this that His Grace decided there and then that they should follow Grey's advice and go by way of Taunton, Bridgwater, and Bristol to Gloucester. He was, like all weak men, of conspicuous mental short-sightedness. The matter of the moment was ever of greater importance to him than any result that might attend it in ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... striking in their condition than the almost complete disappearance from their character, at least in its outward manifestations, of the vivacity, politeness, kindliness, comical blundering impetuosity, and double-sightedness, out of which the Irishman of the stage and Jo Miller's Irishman who made all the bulls were manufactured in the last century. Of the other nationalities we need hardly speak, as the English-speaking public knows little of them, although the German Jew is perhaps ...
— Reflections and Comments 1865-1895 • Edwin Lawrence Godkin
... went to Toronto and took another course, because his mother thought it was only right for him to see his own country first, before going abroad; and, besides, no commission had yet been offered him. The short-sightedness of those in authority was a subject which Mrs. Brunton often dwelt on, but she said she ...
— The Next of Kin - Those who Wait and Wonder • Nellie L. McClung
... impossible to look without sad forebodings upon the destiny of a war, begun upon the express understanding that evil shall be left triumphant throughout Europe, wheresoever that evil does not seem, to our own selfish short-sightedness, to threaten us with immediate danger; with promises, that under the hollow name of the Cause of Order—and that promise made by a revolutionary Anarch—the wrongs of Italy, Hungary, Poland, Sweden, shall remain unredressed, and that Prussia and ...
— Alexandria and her Schools • Charles Kingsley
... have told any man less blind than Castanier that it was only a piece of conjugal duty, as it were, to give this joy to the cashier, but use and wont had brought Castanier to the point where clear-sightedness is no longer possible ...
— Melmoth Reconciled • Honore de Balzac
... comprise subjects so important and delicate as the causes of the diffusion and intensity of secret influence; the machinery and state intrigue of marriages; the overbalance of the commercial interest; the panic of property struck by the late revolution; the short-sightedness of the careful; the carelessness of the far-sighted; and all those many and various events which have given to a decorous profession of religion, and a seemliness of private morals, such an unwonted weight in the attainment and preservation of public power. We are unable to determine whether ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman
... feigned insanity or any species of mania, but cases of imitated "moon blindness," or dim-sightedness, did occur now and again for the purpose of shirking ...
— Prisoners Their Own Warders - A Record of the Convict Prison at Singapore in the Straits - Settlements Established 1825 • J. F. A. McNair
... which he dealt, that he could get little or nothing done, and in September he wrote in plain but guarded terms of the incapacity of the lawmakers. The people were not yet ripe for his measures, and he was forced to bide his time, and see the injuries caused by indifference and short-sightedness work themselves out. Gradually, however, the absolutely necessary business was brought to an end. Then Washington issued a circular letter to the governors of the States, which was one of the ablest he ever wrote, and full of the profoundest statesmanship, ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge
... steadily at Baisemeaux, as if he would read his very heart; and perceived, with that clear-sightedness which men possess who are accustomed to the exercise of power, that the man was speaking with the most perfect sincerity. Besides, in observing his face for a few moments, he could not believe that Aramis would have ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... distinguished person. It was William Cowper, Lord Chancellor of England. To be able to cap a royal infirmity with a similar one has its advantages. William Cowper was short-sighted. Anne had also defective sight, but in a lesser degree. The near-sightedness of William Cowper found favour in the eyes of the short-sighted queen, and induced her to appoint him Lord Chancellor, and Keeper of the Royal Conscience. William Cowper's upper lip was thin, and his lower one thick—a ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... themselves. "Laughing stock," does the gentleman say? Oh no! Far from it! Let us not get panicky! Some weaknesses brought to light? Certainly. But in the analysis, later to be made, let us see if, for the most part, they do not but demonstrate the soundness of our educational principles and the far-sightedness of our educational leaders together with the short-sightedness of the present critics, in that had suggested recommendations been followed these weaknesses would not have existed. Let us give here but one illustration, and that briefly. We all admit that the medical examinations for the ...
— On the Firing Line in Education • Adoniram Judson Ladd
... many years, that she ought to have grown older than she had. But there was something unconquerably young, unconquerably naive, in her—something that, it seemed, would never die. Her cleverness went hand in hand with a short-sightedness that was like a rather beautiful, yet sometimes irritating stupidity. And this latter quality might innocently make victims, might even make a ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... you. Well, but yet "I am not hereby justified;" Phil. iii. 7; Acts xxiii. 1; 1 Cor. iv. 4. Nor will I dare to venture the eternal salvation of my soul upon mine own justice; "for he that judgeth me is the Lord;" that is, though I, through my dim-sightedness, cannot see the imperfections of my righteousness, yet the Lord, who is my judge, and before whose tribunal I must shortly stand, can and will; and if in his sight there shall be found no more but one spot in my righteousness, I must, if I plead my ...
— The Pharisee And The Publican • John Bunyan
... of Eunice. She said once more that because of her, she knew that she need never fear any serious trouble between Jerry and me, for, after all, it's the child that always pays for the mother's mistakes and short-sightedness, just as it is the soldier that pays for his commanding officer's blunders. That's why she felt that I had had to pay for her mistakes, and why she knew that I'd never compel my little girl to pay for mine. She said that the mother lives in the heart ...
— Mary Marie • Eleanor H. Porter
... his narrow, stereotyped honesty, could not understand the delicacy of Risler's heart. At the same time, the methodical bookkeeper's habit of thought and his clear-sightedness in business were a thousand leagues from that absent-minded, flighty character, half-artist, half-inventor. He judged him by himself, having no conception of the condition of a man with the disease of invention, absorbed by a fixed idea. Such men are somnambulists. They look, but ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... with a short-sightedness that is wellnigh criminal, has tied ye to this fellow! Can't ye perceive that the greatest service ye can render him will be to relieve him of the promise he has not the courage to end? In a six-months he'll bless ye for the deed, if ye will ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... by these means, acting on a mood of profound happiness, to a state of clear-sightedness where the lifting of a finger had effect, and one word spoke more than a sentence. They lapsed gently into silence, traveling the dark paths of thought side by side towards something discerned in the distance which gradually possessed them both. They were victors, ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... assist them, the king hastened to the spot with a company of horse, and rode in full speed considerably in advance to descry the weak points of the enemy; only a few of his attendants, and Francis, duke of Saxe-Lauenberg, rode with him. His short-sightedness led him too near a squadron of Imperial horse; he received a shot in his arm, which nearly precipitated him to the ground; and just as he was turning to be led away from the tumultuous scene he received a second shot in the back. With the exclamation, 'My God! ...
— Luther and the Reformation: - The Life-Springs of Our Liberties • Joseph A. Seiss
... did not cross the track at the time of her disappearance. To them it seemed enough to plead the child's love for the water, her desire to be allowed to fish, the opportunity given her to escape, and—the little shoes. Such short-sightedness in face of a great peril could be pardoned Mrs. Ocumpaugh on the verge of delirium under her cold exterior, but Mrs. Carew should have taken this possibility into account; and would have done so, probably, had she not been ...
— The Millionaire Baby • Anna Katharine Green
... others of obedience, he yet rose far above tradition or practice in his conception of strategy. He was perceptibly superior to the world about him in almost every aptitude, and particularly so in power of combination, in originality, and in far-sightedness. He could neither write nor spell correctly, but he was skilled in all practical applications of mathematics: town and country, mountains and plains, seas and rivers, were all quantities in his equations. Untrustworthy himself, he strove to arouse ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... N. blindness, cecity^, excecation^, amaurosis^, cataract, ablepsy^, ablepsia^, prestriction^; dim-sightedness &c 443; Braille, Braille-type; guttaserena (drop serene), noctograph^, teichopsia^. V. be blind &c adj.; not see; lose sight of; have the eyes bandaged; grope in the dark. not look; close the eyes, shut ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... Sourdough's pose or policy in life to profess short-sightedness. He would walk past a group of dogs as though unaware of their existence. Yet let one of those dogs but cock an eye of impudence in his direction, or glance with lifting eyebrow at one of his fellows, with a sneer or jeer in his heart ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... for my Sisters, ever since I placed myself in the Arms of Jesus I have been like a watchman on the look-out for the enemy from the highest turret of a fortified castle. Nothing escapes my vigilance; indeed, I am sometimes surprised at my own clear-sightedness, and I think it was quite excusable in the prophet Jonas to fly before the face of the Lord, that he might not have to announce the ruin of Ninive. Rather than make one single reproach, I would prefer to receive a thousand, yet I feel it is necessary that the task ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... is the greatest and most awful instance of the cruelty, greed, and short-sightedness of the capitalist class of which history gives any record. Even the horrors of Spanish rule in South America are dwarfed into insignificance in comparison with the cold, calculating, economic infamy which has starved, and is still deliberately starving, millions of people to death in British ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... held the reins for the period elapsing between the abdication of Cuza and the accession of Prince Carol, depicts in the darkest colours the economic situation to which the faults, the waste, the negligence, and short-sightedness of the previous regime had reduced the country, 'the government being in the humiliating position of having brought disastrous and intolerable hardship alike upon its creditors, its servants, its pensioners, and its soldiers'.[1] Reforms were ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth
... There are many cases of hopeless cripples about here who refused to go to hospital for treatment when their trouble was so slight that it could have been rectified. Now the children must look forward to a life of disability through their parents' short-sightedness. But when I think of what it means to these poor women to have perhaps ten children to care for, and all the rest of the work of the house and garden on their shoulders, I cannot wonder that their motto is "peace at ...
— Le Petit Nord - or, Annals of a Labrador Harbour • Anne Elizabeth Caldwell (MacClanahan) Grenfell and Katie Spalding
... E——. It was many years ago, when Boston Common was still used as a pasture, and cows were daily to be met in the crooked streets of the city, that this gentleman, distinguished for the courtesy and old-school politeness of his manner, no less than for his extreme near-sightedness, was walking at a brisk pace, one winter's day, and saw, just before him, a lady, as he thought, richly dressed in furs. As he was passing her, he thought he perceived that her fur boa or tippet had escaped from ...
— Autumn Leaves - Original Pieces in Prose and Verse • Various
... responsible enough, absorbing enough, and more than gratifying enough to satisfy him with his prospects. He was liked for himself, and he knew it, and he was already known for that strange one-sightedness, that odd little twist of mechanical vision, that sure knowledge of himself and his medium, that is genius. The joy of finding himself, and that the world needed him, had been strong upon Wolf during the last few months, ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris
... genius who finds out a vein of new ore. Originality is the seeing nature differently from others, and yet as it is in itself. It is not singularity or affectation, but the discovery of new and valuable truth. All the world do not see the wh looking at. Habit blinds them to some things; short-sightedness to others. Every mind is not a gauge and measure of truth. Nature has her surface and her dark recesses. She is deep, obscure, and infinite. It is only minds on whom she makes her fullest impressions that can penetrate her shrine ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... it said; but not in the old, bitter, and revengeful way voiced by his tongue before we came together in the one effort to save Carmel from what, in our short-sightedness and misunderstanding of her character, we had looked upon as the worst of humiliations and the most desperate of perils. There was sadness in his conviction and an honest man's regret—which, if noted by those about us—was far more dangerous to my good name than the loudest of denunciations ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... saddle, his arms were forced behind his back, while rough hands turned out the precious contents of his coat-pockets! All that he could do was to curse fate which had brought these pirates on his way, and his own short-sightedness and impatience in not waiting for the armed patrol which undoubtedly would have been sent out to him from Lyons in response to M. le ...
— The Bronze Eagle - A Story of the Hundred Days • Emmuska Orczy, Baroness Orczy
... a particular case is often possessed in the highest perfection by persons destitute of the power of generalisation. Men skilled in the military tactics of civilised nations have been amazed at the far-sightedness and penetration which a Mohawk displays in concerting his stratagems, or in discerning those of his enemies. In England, no class possesses so much of that peculiar ability which is required for constructing ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... eyes are concentrated upon, the greater the muscular effort necessary; so that by holding the book too near, the labor of reading is greatly increased, and the long persistence in such a habit is likely to produce weak eyes, and may, in some instances, lead to real near-sightedness. When children are observed to have acquired this habit and cannot be persuaded out of it, they should always be taken to a physician skilled in the treatment of the eye for examination and advice. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 647, May 26, 1888 • Various
... Assembly ventured on the fatal attempt to revolutionize the church, and (as a preliminary towards that) on the attempt to revolutionize the property of patronage. There lay the extravagance of the attempt; its short-sightedness, if they did not see its civil tendencies; its audacity, if they did. It was one revolution marching to its object through another; it was a vote, which, if at all sustained, must entail a long inheritance of contests with the whole civil polity ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... do. The gentle, patient painter, contented with his own estimation of his endowments, and resigned to be misjudged and neglected by the world, had his own indomitable doggedness. He would never flatter the world's low taste for commonplace, and its miserable short-sightedness; he would never pay homage to Sam Winnington which he did not deserve—a man very far from his equal—a mere clever portrait-painter, little better than a skilled stonemason. Thus Sam Winnington and Will Locke took to flushing when each other's names were mentioned—sitting ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... probability; suitable, I presume, to that state of mediocrity and probationership he has been pleased to place us in here; wherein, to check our over-confidence and presumption, we might, by every day's experience, be made sensible of our short-sightedness and liableness to error; the sense whereof might be a constant admonition to us, to spend the days of this our pilgrimage with industry and care, in the search and following of that way which might lead us to a state of greater perfection. It being highly rational to think, even were revelation ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume II. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books III. and IV. (of 4) • John Locke
... threatened to overthrow the monarchy itself. It was the people which in its religious or its political guise was the assailant of both. And as their foe was the same, so James argued with the shrewd short-sightedness of his race, their cause was the same. "No bishop," ran his famous adage, "no king!" To restore the episcopate was from this moment his steady policy. But its actual restoration only followed on the failure of a long attempt to bring the Assembly round to a project of nominating representatives ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green
... alleviations, years that were far asunder were bound together by subtle links of suffering derived from a common root. And herein I notice an instance of the short-sightedness of human desires, that oftentimes on moonlight nights, during my first mournful abode in London, my consolation was (if such it could be thought) to gaze from Oxford Street up every avenue in succession which pierces through ...
— Confessions of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas De Quincey
... power to please the fastidious musical taste of her husband; but never so bitterly as now, when she saw that power in the possession of another, and that other a beauty, a rival, and an inmate of her house. Oh, how deeply she now deplored her short-sightedness in bringing this siren ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... the end of it. He admitted the patriotism of Senator North's attitude, but contended that the United States would be more dishonoured if she disregarded this terrible appeal to her humanity. When Betty accused him of short- sightedness, he replied that a foretold result required a straight line of succession, and that when great events thickened the line of succession was anything but straight; therefore ultimates could not be foretold. He admitted ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton |
