"Defect" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... is that it has no passions. "O noble privilege of age! if indeed it takes from us that which is in youth our greatest defect." But the higher feelings of our nature are not necessarily weakened; or rather, they may become all the brighter, being purified from the grosser ...
— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock
... between the house of Fromont, once so wealthy, now living entirely upon its former reputation, and the ever-increasing prosperity of the establishment before his eyes. His stealthy glance penetrated to the darkest corners, seeking some defect, something to criticise; and his failure to find anything made his heart heavy and his smile forced ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... Arab or an Ajam?"; and quoth she, "Out on thee! He is of the Princes of Bassorah." "Is he old or young?" asked I; and she looked at me laughingly and answered, "Thou art certainly a simpleton! He is like the moon on the night of its full, smooth checked and beardless, nor is there any defect in him except his aversion to me." Then I put the question, "What is his name?" and she replied, "What wilt thou do with him?" I rejoined, "I will do my best to come at him, that I may bring about reunion ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton
... terrible, and lived in the open Fields. It is really somewhat surprzing that People so near in Situation, should differ so essentially in Disposition, as the Inhabitants of those Islands have in all Ages; Hospitality having been the distinguishing Attribute of the Irish, and it's opposite Defect, that of the Britons; the Account given of them by Horace 1700 and odd Years ago, Visam Britannes Hospitibus feros, being as literally applicable to them at this Day, where the Force of Education doth not operate to mitigate ...
— An Essay on the Antient and Modern State of Ireland • Henry Brooke
... critic with the command that he separate the chaff from the kernels. The critic did the work with alacrity, and turning to Apollo for his reward, received the chaff. Nothing could show us more appositely than this what criticism should not be. A critic's duty is to separate excellence from defect, as Dr. Crotch says; to admire as well as to find fault. In the proportion that defects are apparent he should increase his efforts to discover beauties. Much flows out of this conception of his duty. Holding it the critic will bring besides all needful knowledge a fulness of love into his work. ...
— How to Listen to Music, 7th ed. - Hints and Suggestions to Untaught Lovers of the Art • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... a plea of abatement, which is a plea praying that the indictment may be quashed, for some defect which the plea points out. This plea, though it was recently, made use of by the defendants in the case now pending in Ireland, is of very rare occurrence in ordinary practice—a recent statute having entirely superseded every advantage formerly to be derived ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... depositaries of the history upon which the religion was founded; by many formal catalogues of these, as of certain and authoritative writings, published in different and distant parts of the Christian world; lastly, by the absence or defect of the above-cited topics of evidence, when applied to any other histories ...
— Evidences of Christianity • William Paley
... into a story, Malory has another—the other of the first importance to the novelist proper—in his attraction to character, if not exactly in his making up of it. It has been said above that the defect of the pure romances—especially those of continental origin—is the absence of this. What the Greeks called [Greek: dihanoia]—"sentiment," "thought," "cast of thought," as it has been variously rendered—is even more absent from them ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... Mosaic books contained rules no longer adapted to the situation of the nation, and many difficult questions arose to which their law afforded no satisfactory solution. The rabbins undertook to supply this defect, partly by commentaries on the Mosaic precepts, and partly by the ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... indeed causes of thankfulness and rejoicing; but prevention is better than cure—piety from childhood is better than reformation in manhood. The judgment of the Apostle upon him "who neglects to provide for his own house," even in temporal matters, is well known; and must there not be a radical defect and wrong in any religious organization which loses the great majority of its own youth, and depends largely on infusions from without for the recruit of its numbers? Such an organization may do much good, and widely extend in many places ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... certainly were wiser than I was. But I observed that even the good artisans fell into the same error as the poets;—because they were good workmen they thought that they also knew all sorts of high matters, and this defect in them overshadowed their wisdom; and therefore I asked myself on behalf of the oracle, whether I would like to be as I was, neither having their knowledge nor their ignorance, or like them in both; and I made answer to myself and to the oracle ...
— Apology - Also known as "The Death of Socrates" • Plato
... "Everything good is on the highway," said Emerson, and the first and only lasting success is that of character. It may not be, for the moment, exhilarating to realize that one's ill fortune is usually the result of some defect in his selection, or error in his judgment, but, on the other hand, if the cause of his unhappiness lies in himself, the cause of his happiness may also lie with himself, and thus it is in his power to so transform ...
— The Life Radiant • Lilian Whiting
... harmless lunatics. It is confusing to call them imbeciles, now that this term has become restricted by medical writers to those who are, or once were, feeble-minded children. There are, of course, all degrees of mental defect possible at birth or in childhood, between that of the most degraded idiot and of a child who is said to be not very bright. With a large majority, however, something can be done to improve the mental condition, whereas ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... in each individual of every animal tribe. The reaction, so grand in the elements, is repeated within these small boundaries. For example, in the animal kingdom the physiologist has observed that no creatures are favorites, but a certain compensation balances every gift and every defect. A surplusage given to one part is paid out of a reduction from another part of the same creature. If the head and neck are enlarged, the trunk and extremities are ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... on the features of the work which had made it popular; formerly, she would have thought much more of its purely literary merits, for which her eye was very keen. How often she had given her husband a thrill of exquisite pleasure by pointing to some merit or defect of which the common reader would be totally insensible! Now she spoke less frequently on such subjects. Her interests were becoming more personal; she liked to hear details of the success of popular authors—about ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... exhibited this defect more palpably than in the course of evolution of schools of painting. Pre-Raphaelitism is perhaps the only exception, and pre-Raphaelitism was a violent and emotional counter-revolution rather than a movement characterized by catholicity of critical appreciation. ...
— French Art - Classic and Contemporary Painting and Sculpture • W. C. Brownell
... experience of daily life we rarely find stutterers to be rapid talkers. Still, this latter fact really helps M. Chervin's theory, since we may conclude it is precisely because stammerers find that a very rapid utterance increases their defect that they force themselves to speak deliberately, and also not to tire the vocal muscles. Hence, apart from the jesting inference which M. Claretie, in French journalist's fashion, is bent son twisting out of the scientific ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII, No. 29. August, 1873. • Various
... woods filled them with joy. It was merely a winter-road they followed, used by farmers for bringing out their logs and fire-wood. It was very crooked, too, and rough, but in a short time the deep snow would cover up the latter defect, and the jingle of bells would echo among the trees. Now it was the talk and laughter of the boys which alone ...
— Rod of the Lone Patrol • H. A. Cody
... this is done when the infant is perfected in the womb, which happens about the twenty-fourth day after conception; especially for males, who are generally born at the end of nine months; but in females, who are not so soon formed and perfected, through defect of heat, until the fiftieth day. And though this day in either case cannot be truly set down, yet Hippocrates has given his opinion, that it is so when the child is formed and begins to move, when born ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous
... another Sir Bale postponed or evaded the hospitalities which establish intimacies. Some people said he was jealous of his young and beautiful wife. But for the most part his reserve was set down to the old inhospitable cause, some ungenial defect in his character; and in a little time the tramp of horses and roll of carriage-wheels were seldom heard up or down the ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 3 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... great defect in dress, quite apart from the question of their harmony. A multiplicity of colours, though not in themselves inharmonious, is never pleasing. It fatigues the eye, which cannot find any repose where it is disturbed by so many colours. A bonnet of one colour, a gown of another, with trimmings ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... drove off rejoicing in half the success, at least, of her stratagem; but even as a politician she used upon every occasion too much artifice. It was said of Cardinal Mazarin, he is a great politician, but in all his politics there is one capital defect—"C'est qu'il veut toujours tromper." ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. V - Tales of a Fashionable Life • Maria Edgeworth
... replied her aunt; "that is your great fault, you do not finish your work. But I hope you will correct this defect, and give ...
— The Old Stone House • Anne March
... attain Release. And if the reflected image is held to perish together with its imperfections, by analogy the soul also will perish and then Release will be nothing but annihilation.— Consider the following point also. The destruction of a non-advantageous (apurushrtha) defect is of advantage to him who is conscious of that disadvantage. Is it then, we ask, in the given case Brahman—which corresponds to the thing reflected—that is conscious of the imperfections due to the limiting adjuncts? or is it the soul which ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... bodily peculiarities they use not only Sulla (the Pimply), Niger (the Swarthy), Rufus (the Red-haired), but even such as Caecus (the Blind), and Claudus (the Lame), wisely endeavouring to accustom men to consider neither blindness nor any other bodily defect to be any disgrace or matter of reproach, but to answer to these names as if they were their own. However, this belongs to ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... we surround ourselves are neither useful nor beautiful. They are either so absurdly over-ornamented as to have their usefulness completely impaired, or else they are the usual mechanical device equally complicated and hideous. Ornament is usually an anomaly, added to cover structural defect. If the relation of the parts to the whole is perfect, beauty is there. But being accustomed to the over-ornamented and wholly mechanical, we do not resent their presence. For what, indeed, is habit not responsible? ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 3, May 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... he writes to believers, "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God."(813) In the time of ancient Israel, every offering brought as a sacrifice to God was carefully examined. If any defect was discovered in the animal presented, it was refused; for God had commanded that the offering be "without blemish." So Christians are bidden to present their bodies, "a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God." In order to do this, all their powers must be preserved ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... missing. His skies are disappointing. Those curly-cue clouds are meaningless, and the artist succeeds better when he leaves a blank. At least some can fill it with the imagination. Another grave defect is the absence of modulation in his treatment of a landscape and its linear perspective. Everything seems to be on the same plane of interest, nor does he vary the values of his blacks—in foreground, middle distance, ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... This busines is very well dispatched. [D4] Now my Lord, touching the yong Prince Hamlet, Certaine it is that hee is madde: mad let vs grant him then: Now to know the cause of this effect, Or else to say the cause of this defect, For this effect defectiue comes by cause. Queene Good my Lord be briefe. Cor. Madam I will: my Lord, I haue a daughter, Haue while shee's mine: for that we thinke Is surest, we often loose: now to the Prince. My Lord, but note this letter, The which my daughter in obedience Deliuer'd to ...
— The Tragicall Historie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmarke - The First ('Bad') Quarto • William Shakespeare
... defect in our American life is not that we are hero worshipers, but rather that we worship but one type of hero; we recognize but one type of achievement; we see but one sort of genius. For two generations ...
— Craftsmanship in Teaching • William Chandler Bagley
... gracious curves, and the rich chestnut hair, swathed round her small, fine head, gleamed with the sheen which only youth or immense vitality bestows. Her skin was of that almost dazzling purity which is so often found in conjunction with reddish hair, and the defect of over-light brows and lashes, which not infrequently mars the type, was conspicuously absent. Her eyes were arresting. They were of a deep, hyacinth blue, very luminous and soft, and quite beautiful. But they held a curiously veiled ...
— The Hermit of Far End • Margaret Pedler
... Man. Objects of Pain or Pleasure, Love or Admiration, do not lie thick enough together in Life to keep the Soul in constant Action, and supply an immediate Exercise to its Faculties. In order, therefore, to remedy this Defect, that the Mind may not want Business, but always have Materials for thinking, she is endowed with certain Powers, that can recall what is passed, and ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... numerous thousands of other men who have been subjected to the same treatment, and together we all go trotting past any number of officers, who look you over with uncanny earnestness through eyes that seem to perceive the remotest defect with fiendish accuracy. Then we all trot home again and ...
— Biltmore Oswald - The Diary of a Hapless Recruit • J. Thorne Smith, Jr.
... instance of the defect classed No. 1 in the blank leaf. With what propriety is this speech of profound moral insight put in the mouth of that stupid, foolish Illo? ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... laws relative to power, on which Mr. Atherton based his arguments. He replied that he had never heard of one who did. I asked Mr. Atherton myself, if in the case of the newest and most improved steamers, with the best possible models for speed, he had ever found any defect in the law of, the resistance as the squares, and the power as the cubes of the velocity. He replied that he had not; and that he regarded the law as founded in nature, and had everywhere seen it verified in practice in the many experiments which it was his ...
— Ocean Steam Navigation and the Ocean Post • Thomas Rainey
... been given to accomplish all the objects for which it was created. It has been found powerful in war, and hitherto justice has been administered, an intimate union effected, domestic tranquillity preserved, and personal liberty secured to the citizen. As was to be expected, however, from the defect of language and the necessarily sententious manner in which the Constitution is written, disputes have arisen as to the amount of power which it has actually granted or ...
— Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Harrison • James D. Richardson
... the drama, all the other characters fall away into greater or less degrees of unsubstantiality. Perhaps Shelley intended this—as the maker of a bas-relief contrives two or three planes of figures for the presentation of his ruling group. Yet there appears to my mind a defect of accomplishment, rather than a deliberate intention, in the delineation of Orsino. He seems meant to be the wily, crafty, Machiavellian reptile, whose calculating wickedness should form a contrast to the daemonic, ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... 1334—says, speaking of Cimabue, precisely these words: "Cimabue was a painter of Florence in the time of the author, very noble beyond the knowledge of man, and withal so arrogant and so disdainful that if there were found by anyone any failing or defect in his work, or if he himself had seen one (even as it comes to pass many times that the craftsman errs, through a defect in the material whereon he works, or through some lack in the instrument wherewith he labours), incontinently he would destroy that work, however costly ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Volume 1, Cimabue to Agnolo Gaddi • Giorgio Vasari
... The outstanding defect in the libretto of Patience is the decentralisation of interest in the second act. The alert ones who remembered that in that act the heroine has only one song, and certain passages of dialogue not remarkable for dramatic force, had predicted that Millicent would ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... by pouring on it libations of wine from a foculus or movable altar containing this holy condiment, together with incense if that were used in the rite. As soon as it was dead, the internal organs were examined to make sure that there was no physical defect or abnormal growth, for it was, of course, quite as necessary that the animal should be "purus" within as without; this was the only object of the examination, until the Etruscan art of extipicina made its way to Rome. What became of the blood we are ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler
... find everything wrong," said Mlle. Cadet to Caesar, "what have you to say of that woman? I have been looking at her ever since she came in, and I don't find the slightest defect." ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja
... yourself camping by an unknown brook, and are deputed to catch the necessary trout for breakfast, it is wiser to choose the surest bait. The crackle of the fish in the frying-pan will atone for any theoretical defect in your method. But to choose the surest bait, and then to bring back no fish, is unforgivable. Forsake Plato if you must,—but you may do so only at the price of justifying yourself in the terms of Aristotelian arithmetic. The college president who abandoned ...
— Fishing with a Worm • Bliss Perry
... woman, which should shew the ardour of their passion, rather than the sheepishness of their nature; for who knows not that love delights in taming the lion-hearted? That those of the sex, who are most conscious of their own defect in point of courage, naturally require, and therefore as naturally prefer, the man who has most of it, as the most able to give them the requisite protection? That the greater their own cowardice, as it would be called in a man, the greater is their ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... third defect of this theory of the Atonement is, that it is profoundly unethical. The need of man is represented as being, above all, escape from penalty. Whereas, at least, the conscience of the sinner himself is bearing at all times witness to the truth that his real necessity ...
— Gloria Crucis - addresses delivered in Lichfield Cathedral Holy Week and Good Friday, 1907 • J. H. Beibitz
... belonged to the marsupial family, (pouched animals). It may be observed, although no specimens of so high a class of animals as mammalia are found earlier, such may nevertheless have existed: the defect may be in our not having found them; but, other things considered, the probability is that heretofore there were no mammifers. It is an interesting circumstance that the first mammifers found should have belonged to the marsupialia, when the ...
— Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation • Robert Chambers
... of corporation, like others, their want of supplies not affording them so much perfection, and their defect of government giving them liberty and temptation to disorder, to which they are much addicted; but in their sermons, whilst the English were among them, they would propose them as a pattern of civility and pious conversation. ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke
... have said—"There is in Crabbe an absolute defect of high imagination; he gives me little pleasure. Yet no doubt he has much power of a certain kind, and it is good to cultivate, even at some pains, a catholic taste in literature." Walter Savage Landor, ...
— Flowers and Flower-Gardens • David Lester Richardson
... their own faulty fancies. As a skilful artist examines a picture in the best light, that all its beauties may be revealed, she placed each one of her subjects in the most favorable aspect, studied her closely, searched out every fine point which might be heightened, and pondered over every defect which might be concealed. She had the rare gift of knowing how to embellish nature, how to bring forth all the capacities of a face and form, and how to modify the fashion of the day to the requirements of the wearer, instead of slavishly following ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... of the Anecdotes, (c. 9,) somewhat too naked, was suppressed by Alemannus, though extant in the Vatican Ms.; nor has the defect been supplied in the Paris or Venice editions. La Mothe le Vayer (tom. viii. p. 155) gave the first hint of this curious and genuine passage, (Jortin's Remarks, vol. iv. p. 366,) which he had received from Rome, and it has been since published in the Menagiana (tom. iii. p. 254—259) ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... stands all right. He next tunes the treble, then the bass; after doing his work perfectly he will often find that the treble fell somewhat while he was bringing up the bass; or, in a few cases, he may find that the treble sharpened, thus showing that there was yielding of the frame. Of course, this defect might be overcome by using an extremely heavy metal plate and wooden frame; but the commercial side of the question, in this day, calls for lightness in the instrument as a check to the expense of production, and, consequently, pianos that are "made to sell" ...
— Piano Tuning - A Simple and Accurate Method for Amateurs • J. Cree Fischer
... patulum signifies merely a large and widely opening mouth. Ovid (Metam. xv. 513) says, speaking of the monster who attacked Hippolytus, patulo partem maris evomit ore. Probably a wide mouth was a common defect among the Armenian women.—G.] ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... witchcraft; the grand jury, acting under instructions from him, having found bills against them. They were saved, not in consequence of any peculiar reluctance to proceed against them arising out of the nature of the alleged crime, but only from some technical defect in the indictment. If it had not been for this accidental circumstance, as the annalist of Philadelphia suggests, scenes similar to those subsequently occurring in Salem Village might have darkened the history of the Quakers, Swedes, Germans, and Dutch, who dwelt in the City of Brotherly ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... the name of their God, and declare the obedience they owed Him, their minds were so incompetent to conceive, their tongues so inadequate to utter the promptings of their hearts, that they preferred to confess their impotence by modest silence rather than to disparage so great a benefit by the defect of their words. Yet one of the points they had so long desired was still unfulfilled, and that the most important, namely the acceptance of their service as agreeable. Would to God that so happy a termination might by their coming be put, not so much to their ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... promoting individual and national amelioration should be abandoned in wholly unnecessary. That the existing system has certain practical advantages, and is a fair expression of the average moral standards of to-day is not only its chief merit, but also its chief and inexcusable defect. What a democratic nation must do is not to accept human nature as it is, but to move in the direction of its improvement. The question it must answer is: How can it contribute to the increase of American individuality? The defender of the existing system must ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... over young yet," Sir William said smiling; "but time will cure that defect. It is upon the young blood of Scotland that our hopes rest. The elders are for the most part but half Scotchmen, and do not feel shame for their country lying at the feet of England; but from their sons I hope for better things. The example of my dear friend, Sir John ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty
... complied promptly with this requisition; and, in the mean time, such numbers assembled voluntarily, that many were dismissed in consequence of the defect of means to subsist them in the field; and the King's troops were themselves blocked up in the peninsula ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall
... The great defect of Wordsworth, in our judgment, was want of sympathy with and knowledge of men. From his birth till his entry at college, he lived in a region where he met with none whose minds might awaken his sympathies, and where life was altogether ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 9. - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 26, 1850 • Various
... own; the existence, we mean, of a considerable navigable river close to the city. To the truth of which, the credit of Adams is completely pledged. On many other subjects it is possible that his narrative might be considerably at variance with the truth, by a mere defect of memory or observation, and without justifying any imputation on his veracity, but it is evident that no such latitude can be allowed him in respect to the La Mar Zarah, which, if not in substance true, must be ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... this defect be remedied? The answer to this question must be found by ascertaining the cause of the decline of our merchant marine. Why is it that Americans have substantially retired from the foreign transport service? We are a nation of maritime traditions and facility; we are a nation of constructive ...
— Latin America and the United States - Addresses by Elihu Root • Elihu Root
... therefore are not rightly defended, nor closed to undergo the weight and endure a Battel with the Enemies; all which Virtues are to be found in Gold, if it shall overcome all Enemies, and endure all trials without defect. ...
— Of Natural and Supernatural Things • Basilius Valentinus
... consisting of two towers connected by walls, The nearer tower, through which lay the entrance, was roofless, and in every way seemed to be more ruinous than the inner one, which appeared to be perfect in both its stories. This defect notwithstanding, the place was so strong that my heart sank lower the longer I looked; and a glance at Maignan's face assured me that his experience was also at fault. For M. d'Agen, I clearly saw, when I turned to him, that he had never until ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... to notice the second great defect in Martha, which the present occasion tended to illustrate. This was fretfulness of temper. Her language indicates extreme irritation. "Lord, dost thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone? Bid her, therefore, that she help me." It might be expected, that, overawed by the ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... environment. No doubt, however, many of the subjective causes of poverty are characteristics which have been acquired by individuals from the influence of their environment. When we attribute a certain per cent of poverty to intemperance, for example, it is probable that that particular personal defect may be ascribed almost wholly to the environment. On the other hand, there are other personal defects, such as sickness, vice, and mental deficiency, that cannot always with certainty be traced to environmental ...
— Sociology and Modern Social Problems • Charles A. Ellwood
... this? The fiddle had no longer any sound in it. There must be some defect in the strings; he ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book I - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... The patriotic enthusiasm which was thus evidenced did not constitute their only value, for the money that was spent in their making might have served to light the family hearth for the space of a year. Another little defect was that these matches could not be got to burn unless there was a light handy to touch them up with. If they could only have inherited some of the patriotic flame of which they were born they might have been marketable ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... Now, what is the defect in this argument? Something tells us that it must be wrong; but where is it wrong? Is it false? No. And yet it is wrong? Yes. But ...
— What Is Free Trade? - An Adaptation of Frederic Bastiat's "Sophismes Econimiques" - Designed for the American Reader • Frederic Bastiat
... few available observations as yet upon the first group. Still rarer are the cases in which as is necessary the whole bone-marrow has been subjected to an exhaustive examination, which alone affords adequate evidence of the extent of the defect. ...
— Histology of the Blood - Normal and Pathological • Paul Ehrlich
... alas! how does this eternal ideal fly before us, and leave us ever restless and unsatisfied! How much Henry felt it! more, indeed, than I had thought, well as I knew his humility. And indeed I cannot help thinking that he did not sufficiently distinguish between outward and inward defect. I can very well understand how, in any right mind, the latter should give deep pain. But for Henry Ware to charge himself with indolence [182] and idleness,—with not doing enough! Why, he was ever doing more than his health ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... without its uses, even if accompanied, as it often is, by a direct attack upon the judicial fairness and motives of the occupants of the bench; for if the law is but the essence of common sense, the protest of many average men may evidence a defect in a judicial conclusion, though based on the nicest legal reasoning and profoundest learning. The two important elements of moral character in a judge are an earnest desire to reach a just conclusion and courage to enforce it. In so far as fear ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... early utterances should not be hailed, however, with unmixed admiration. It is a sublimity born of defect or at least of disproportion. The will asserts itself magnificently; images, like thunder-clouds, seem to cover half the firmament at once. But such a will is sadly inexperienced; it has hardly tasted or even conceived any possible or high ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... is vastly more than this—there is in it, for example, the astounding portrait of Hurstwood—, but it seems to me plain that its relative popularity is by no means a test of its relative merit, and that the causes of that popularity must be sought in other directions. Its defect, as a work of art, is a defect of structure. Like Norris' "McTeague" it has a broken back. In the midst of the story of Carrie, Dreiser pauses to tell the story of Hurstwood—a memorably vivid and tragic story, to be sure, ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... furthermore, to remedy the defect common to these two doctrines, the very besetting problem of this whole type of philosophy. That problem, as has been seen, is to provide for the imperfect within the perfect, for the temporal incidents of nature and history within the eternal being. Many absolutist philosophers have declared the ...
— The Approach to Philosophy • Ralph Barton Perry
... significance in Gilbert's development. Years later he noted as the chief defect of Oxford that it consisted almost entirely of people educated at boarding-schools. For good, for evil, or for both, a boy at a day-school ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... view of green mountains from out a gloomy canyon. She had eyes, blue in repose, but shading to violet tints when aglow with vivacity; her nose was not perfect, because a trifle tip-tilted, but her face gained character through the defect; her very red lips held most delicious allurement in their slightly full curves. Her hands and feet were small enough to pay tribute to her birth and breeding, but not so small as to be doll-like. She wore a simple, white dress, ...
— Hidden Gold • Wilder Anthony
... Hutchinson in the train of reasoning that elucidates the pre-cancerous stage of cancer, or tread in the path followed by Sir Lionel Beale, in finding that the cause of disease depends on a blood change and the developmental defect, or the tendency or inherent weakness of the affected part or organ; to fully appreciate the inherent etiological factors that reside in man, and which constitute the tendency to disease or premature decay and death, we ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... in jail. It was not a bad place of residence during the coldest months. But for one defect, jail life would have been quite enviable; it forced upon him abstinence from ...
— Tales From Bohemia • Robert Neilson Stephens
... perfection, any maritime type which its situation on the Mediterranean might have suggested, nor were they inspired by any of the models of the native style; and perhaps, to the captious mind, its most serious defect is that its building has destroyed not only an actual portion of the old Majeure, but an historic interest which might well have been preserved by a wise restoration or an harmonious re-building. And yet, with the large Palace of the Archbishop on the Port de la Joliette near-by, the ...
— Cathedrals and Cloisters of the South of France, Volume 1 • Elise Whitlock Rose
... to find that a writer, pre-eminently endowed with delicacy of ear, and boasting of the complex harmonies of his style, should condescend to such an irritating defect. De Quincey says of one of the greatest masters of the humorous:—'The gyration within which his (Lamb's) sentiment wheels, no matter of what kind it may be, is always the shortest possible. It does not prolong itself, it does not ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... fleet and hung on its flanks near enough to report its position to the commander in chief. He underwent a heavy fire, but handled his frail ships so skillfully as to escape serious loss. At the same time the constant maneuvering he was forced to perform or a defect in the British system of communication made his reports of bearing seriously inaccurate. Whatever the cause, this error created a difficulty for the commander in chief, who, fifty miles away, was trying to locate the enemy for attack ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... daughter, all this will be as nothing, for there is nothing that can give happiness to the parents of Godless, wayward children. Some one has said, "Every drunkard, every gambler, every lost woman once sat in a mother's lap, and the downfall of the most of them may be traced to some defect in ...
— And Judas Iscariot - Together with other evangelistic addresses • J. Wilbur Chapman
... occasionally in company in other houses—memorably in that of the late Mrs Cunningham, Lord Cunningham's widow—but never, so far as she can remember, in that of her father. He was at that time considered a good talker—his company was sought for the sake of his conversation. His defect in conversation was that he was a bad listener. His own part was well sustained. His enormous store of varied information poured forth naturally and easily, and was interspersed with a wonderful stock of lively anecdotes and jokes. But he always lacked that greatest ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... it was the first or the only one of the kind that fell into my hands, but because it revealed to me at the outset a trait of the American character—especially of the women—which confronted me at every turn of the road afterward; namely, a want of repose—a defect which would seem to be largely accountable for the insensibility manifested by a great portion of the American young women of the middle classes to the fact that they have advantages at school such as their sisters in England would accept in an ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... idea gives a tone and colour to others, where one feeling melts others into it, there can be no reason why the same principle should not be extended to the sounds by which the voice utters these emotions of the soul, and blends syllables and lines into each other. It is to supply the inherent defect of harmony in the customary mechanism of language, to make the sound an echo to the sense, when the sense becomes a sort of echo to itself—to mingle the tide of verse, "the golden cadences of poetry", with the tide of feeling, flowing and murmuring ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... was indeed anonymous; but Mr. Guthrie was reputed the author by the whole country, and was therefore obliged to take notice of it. He was equally displeased at the vanity of the title, and the defect of the work itself, which consisted of some broken notes of his sermons, confusedly huddled together, by an injudicious hand.——He saw that the only method to remedy this, was to review his own sermons; from which he soon composed that admirable treatise, The Christian's great ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... life long, been lying till noon: yet I tell all young men, and tell them with great sincerity, that nobody who does not rise early will ever do any good." But, however that may be, he is plainly right in the broad issue. Practice is the only absolute proof of sincerity: but defect in practice is no proof of insincerity. Certainly, no Christian can doubt that the struggling, even though falling, sinner is in at least as hopeful a condition as the complacent person whose principles and practice are fairly conformable to each other ...
— Dr. Johnson and His Circle • John Bailey
... Syllogism defective in that it cannot explain Mind in the abstract. Mill quoted and answered. This defect in the ...
— A Candid Examination of Theism • George John Romanes
... slipped his hand into the cavity. At the back of it he felt the corner of a piece of paper projecting upward from below. The paper had evidently slipped off the top of the others and fallen into a crevice, due to the shrinkage of the wood or some defect of construction. ...
— The Colonel's Dream • Charles W. Chesnutt
... oaken box of jewels in the leathern case which had been made to contain it, strapped and locked it, and handed it to him together with its key. He was profuse in his compliments and thanks—almost obsequious, in truth—and I discovered another defect in his character—a defect which, as his friend in former days, I had guessed nothing of. I saw that very little encouragement would make him a toady—a fawning servitor on the wealthy—and in our old time of friendship I had believed him to be far ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... none. On the contrary, it seems in that country to be a symptom of modest consciousness, and a tacit confession of what all know to be true, that French faces have in fact neither red nor white of their own. This humble acknowledgment of a defect looks the more like a virtue, being found among a people not remarkable for humility. Again, before we can prove the practice to be immoral, we must prove immorality in the design of those who use it; either that they intend a deception, or to kindle ...
— Cowper • Goldwin Smith
... Whoever he was, the author of these wonderful little pictures may lay claim to be the best illustrator of Bunyan.[43] They are not only good illustrations, like so many others; but they are like so few, good illustrations of Bunyan. Their spirit, in defect and quality, is still the same as his own. The designer also has lain down and dreamed a dream, as literal, as quaint, and almost as apposite as Bunyan's; and text and pictures make but the two sides of the same homespun yet impassioned ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... by their feelings; and see and hear only what they wish to see and hear: I answer, that it is not for me as a man to start such a theory; but that if it be true, it is an additional argument for some education which will correct this supposed natural defect. And I say deliberately that there is but one sort of education which will correct it; one which will teach young women to observe facts accurately, judge them calmly, and describe them carefully, without adding or distorting: and that is, some ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... the work, for the experts decided that the new oil which spouted forth in such vast quantities was too heavy and malodorous to serve as an illuminant. Presently, however, it was discovered that this defect was a virtue, for here was a non-explosive petroleum that could be utilized in great quantities as a fuel, and work was hastened with renewed vigor, for now California possessed the monopoly of the one great need, not only of herself, but of all ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various
... her political and literary work a contempt for compromise of every kind, which occasionally leads her into untenable positions and exaggerations. Like her friend George Sand, she has ever been an inveterate optimist and in the clouds, and this defect of her very qualities has tended to make her proficient in the gentle art of making enemies. Thus she broke with Anatole France for espousing the cause of Dreyfus, because, in spite of her keen sense of justice, she identified the Army with France and was instinctively opposed to Jews, ...
— The Schemes of the Kaiser • Juliette Adam
... is ordinarily concerned merely with finding an ore of as good a general grade as possible; but he often finds to his surprise that his efforts have been directed toward the discovery of something which, due to some minor defect in texture, in mineralogical composition, or in chemical composition, is difficult to introduce on the market. There is here a promising field, intermediate between geology (or mineralogy) and metallurgy, for the application of principles of chemistry, metallurgy, and mineralogy, which ...
— The Economic Aspect of Geology • C. K. Leith
... the floor of the cellar was constantly under water, which is hardly likely to have been the case. He mentions also the observations made at the sluices of the Maelar Lake, from which a rise of one foot in a century had been inferred, but states that a defect in the measuring-scale completely invalidates the results. In addition to what the Academy are doing, he has had a reference-mark cut on the face of the steep rock of the citadel, so that, in the course of a few years, we shall be in a ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 434 - Volume 17, New Series, April 24, 1852 • Various
... animal economy. He had a good knowledge of obstetric operations. His ideas in relation to pathology did not proceed much further than the belief that disease was due to corruption of the humors. He was more scientific and accurate when he taught that paralysis results from a defect in the nerves. ...
— Outlines of Greek and Roman Medicine • James Sands Elliott
... material for spontaneous education. Carefully planned, as were Froebel's own "gifts," the new apparatus presents a series of exercises in sense discrimination, satisfying no doubt while unfamiliar, but suffering from the defect of the "too finished and complex plaything," in which Froebel saw a danger "which slumbers like a viper under the roses." The danger is that "the child can begin no new thing with it, cannot produce enough variety by its means; his power of creative imagination, his power ...
— The Child Under Eight • E.R. Murray and Henrietta Brown Smith
... Durham and Sunderland Railway, near Aycliff, was crossed by means of a double-planked road, about two miles in length. A few weeks after the line had been opened, part of the road sank one night entirely out of sight. The defect was made good merely by extending the floating surface of the road at this portion of ...
— Railway Adventures and Anecdotes - extending over more than fifty years • Various
... dissolved the grand jury of London for fear they should present, but ours in Dublin was dissolved because they would not present, which wonderfully alters the case. And therefore a second grand jury supplied that defect by making a presentment[21] that hath pleased the whole kingdom. However I think it is agreed by all parties, that both the one and the other jury behaved themselves in such a manner, as ought to be remembered to their honour, while there shall be any regard ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. VI; The Drapier's Letters • Jonathan Swift
... operating as a unit, it furnished useful support; but no credit for what the men did could go to Ireland. The other two brigades, the 30th and 31st, were left under the command of their divisional general and were to attack on the left of the bay. But owing to some defect in exploration of the coast-line, the movement was not so carried out; six battalions out of the eight were landed on the south of the bay and were attached to the right-hand force. Thus, in the actual operations Sir Bryan Mahon had ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... feast. No; if the cook, the cultured and recondite old cook, who had accumulated within himself all that his predecessors knew for centuries,—if he lacked anything of modern fashion and improvement, he had supplied his defect by temporary assistance from a London club; and the bill of fare was provided with dishes that Soyer would not have harshly criticised. The ethereal delicacy of modern taste, the nice adjustment of flowers, the French style of cookery, was richly attended to; and the list ...
— Doctor Grimshawe's Secret - A Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... rule," Tai-y retorted smilingly, "that those who have a defect in their speech will insist upon talking; she can't even come out correctly with 'Erh' (secundus) cousin, and keeps on calling him 'Ai' cousin, 'Ai' cousin! And by and by when you play 'Wei Ch'i' you're sure also to shout out yao, ai, (instead of ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... fingers of an artist who understood. And there were her lashes, dark and long, and curled up at the ends; and her cheek, with its changing, come-and-go coloring; her mouth, with its upper lip creased deeply in the middle—so deeply that a bit more would have been a defect—and with an odd little dimple at one corner; luckily, it was on the side toward him, so that he might look at it all he wanted to for once; for it was always there, only growing deeper and wickeder when she spoke or laughed. He could not see her eyes, ...
— Her Prairie Knight • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B. M. Bower
... men in darkness: I must need say, that I have had a great deal of experience of providence; and though it is no rule without or against the word, yet it is a very good expositor of the word in many cases." Conference at Whitehall. The great defect in Oliver's speeches consists not in his want of elocution, but in his want of ideas. The sagacity of his actions, and the absurdity of his discourse, form the most prodigious contrast that ever was known. The collection ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... statesman, however, is in many cases an advantage rather than a defect, and Falieri was young in vigor and character, and still full of life and strength. He was married a second time to presumably a beautiful wife much younger than himself, though the chroniclers are not agreed even on the subject of her name, whether ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... the recommendations already enumerated, she had another in the possession of what was supposed to be a very beautiful contralto voice. Her voice was certainly contralto, for she could not reach higher than D in the treble; its only defect was that it did not go correspondingly low in the bass: in those days, however, a contralto voice was understood to include even a soprano if the soprano could not reach soprano notes, and it was not necessary ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... that disturbed them and by mere chance were thrown in their way. The first and chiefest was the long stay of Caesar, though the day was far spent, and his being detained at home by his wife, and forbidden by the soothsayers to go forth, upon some defect that appeared in his sacrifice. Another was this: There came a man up to Casca, one of the company, and, taking him by the hand, "You concealed," said he, "the secret from us, but Brutus has told me all." At which ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... between civil and criminal jurisdiction, and of the separate maxims that govern these two provinces of law, that are eternally separate. Undoubtedly the courts of law, where a new case comes before them, as they do every hour, then, that there may be no defect in justice, call in similar principles, and the example of the nearest determination, and do everything to draw the law to as near a conformity to general equity and right reason as they can bring it with its being a fixed principle. Boni ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke
... something serious, and feel real misery from the disappointment. I am a strange compound of weakness and resolution. However, if I must suffer, I will endeavor to suffer in silence. There is certainly a great defect in my mind; my wayward heart creates its own misery. Why I am made thus, I cannot tell; and, till I can form some idea of the whole of my existence, I must be content to weep and dance like a child,—long for a toy, and be tired of it as soon ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell
... revived at Drury-Lane, where it has had a considerable run. The public prints have been loud in its praise; and this work has been styled "the perfect model of the lyric drama of England." The intervention of spoken dialogue, by many in their innocence hitherto supposed to be a defect in the construction of a musical drama, is strangely metamorphosed into a beauty in King Arthur. In short, from some of these critiques, King Arthur would appear to be the only perfect drama or opera which the world has ever seen. To show the real value of these criticisms, we may mention ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... This genealogy has been got up by the faithful and very persevering labours of Rev. F. R. A. Glover, M.A., and Rev. A. B. Grimaldi, M.A., two Episcopalian clergymen of England. The chart is supposed to be as near perfect as any such thing can be. If any of you find any defect be kind enough and let me know. In the following genealogy those who reigned have K. prefixed—the dates after private names refer to their birth and death, those after Sovereign's names to their accession ...
— The Lost Ten Tribes, and 1882 • Joseph Wild
... the most opposite colours, as must always be the case when a man becomes the object of fervent worship and bitter enmity. But the bare record of what he did and endured reveals him sufficiently. His qualities speak through his actions, so that he who runs may read. His most conspicuous defect was a want of suppleness—a certain rigidity of spirit which, when he succeeded, was called firmness, and when he failed, obstinacy. Yet the charge so often brought against him, that he allowed himself to be misled by evil counsellors, shows that this persistence ...
— Greece and the Allies 1914-1922 • G. F. Abbott
... initiative. In the center walked the Archduke, pulling deliberately at his heavy dark mustaches while he listened to the figure upon his right, a man of medium stature, who wore a hunting suit and a jaeger hat with a feather in it. He carried his left hand, concealing a defect of his arm, in the pocket of his shooting jacket, while with his free right hand he swung an ebony cane. His mustaches were turned straight upward from the corners of his mouth and the aggressive chin ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... sympathizing mind. In France they have no humourists who seem impelled by their nature to do good, in spite of their temperament—nor have we in England many people who are cold and unfeeling, yet systematically aimable: but I must still persist in not thinking it a defect that we are too impetuous, or perhaps ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... hopeless disarray, and the soft fluff of warming color becomes unkempt disorder, a confused mass from which the thread broken again and again is extracted. The work of careful hands has been reduced to lasting defect. ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll
... of his agreeing to join the shooting party that day. Owing to some defect in his vision or nervous system, he was a remarkably bad shot, though in everything else he was an expert and stalwart backwoodsman, as well as a good scholar. But when his friend Victor invited him he could not refuse, because it offered him an opportunity of spending ...
— The Red Man's Revenge - A Tale of The Red River Flood • R.M. Ballantyne
... The principal defect is in the mouth, which has lips too thick and full for beauty, though they are not turned out like a negro's. We do not possess any representations of the ancient people which can be distinctly assigned to the early Cushite period. ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 1. (of 7): Chaldaea • George Rawlinson
... that the younger children should not be put with those who have arrived at a more advanced stage of physical and mental evolution. Free development of the various individual aptitudes is thus secured, while avoiding that common defect of schools, the turning out of numerous lads all made after one ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero
... of Adrian, gifted as it was by every natural grace, endowed with transcendant powers of intellect, unblemished by the shadow of defect (unless his dreadless independence of thought was to be construed into one), was devoted, even as a victim to sacrifice, to his love for Evadne. He entrusted to her keeping the treasures of his soul, ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... we reckon the love of books. Now this virtue, like courage or liberality, has its mean, its excess, and its defect. The defect is indifference, and the man who is defective as to the love of books has no name in common parlance. Therefore, we may call him the Robustious Philistine. This man will cut the leaves of his own or his friend's volumes ...
— The Library • Andrew Lang
... to him that there might be some defect in the materials for the enamel—perhaps something wanting in the flux; so he set to work to pound and compound fresh materials for a new experiment. Thus two or three more weeks passed. But how to buy more pots?—for those ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... Limitation is, when the Infants which do contract Spousals are of that Wit and Discretion, that albeit they have not as yet accomplished the full Age of Seven Years, yet doth their supra-ordinary understanding fully supply that small defect of Age which thing is not rare in these days, wherein Children become sooner ripe, and do conceive more quickly than in ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... which, under proper conjunctions of the planets, he had been occupied many years of his life. He and Thomas Aquinas completed it together, endowed it with the faculty of speech, and made it perform the functions of a domestic servant. In this capacity it was exceedingly useful; but, through some defect in the machinery, it chattered much more than was agreeable to either philosopher. Various remedies were tried to cure it of its garrulity, but in vain; and one day Thomas Aquinas was so enraged at the noise it made, when he was in the midst of a mathematical problem, that he seized ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... the construction and maintenance of the roads. Their large margins of profit enabled the owners of the roads to transport goods at lower rates than other carriers and to thus compel the latter to abandon their business. Another defect of the original charters worked greatly to the disadvantage of independent carriers. They contained no provision as to the use of terminal facilities. The railroad companies claimed that these facilities ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee
... contention that the race problem is interwoven with the economic problems of the country is presented as the reason for directing more attention to this problem, the author does not treat the race question from an economic point of view. This has been the defect of the historical works which Dr. DuBois has written. He is at best a popular essayist with a bit of poetic genius. In all of his discussions of the race problem his mind has not as yet been adequate to the task of scientific treatment of the ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 5, 1920 • Various
... said Palko; and off he trotted to the priest, whose chief defect and peculiarity consisted not in delivering long sermons, but rather in the rebuking of Master Jock roundly, in the name of the Lord, on this the one occasion in the whole year when he met him face to face, to the intense delight of the assembled guests, who kept ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... to the ages of art and refinement. Their colour is brown, and their skin shines, being varnished with bears fat and paint. To appearance the men have no beards, nor hair on their head, except a round tuft on its crown; but this defect is not natural, as many people are given to believe, but the effect of art, it being customary among them to tear out such hair by the root. They go naked, except those parts which natural decency teaches the most barbarous nations to cover. The huts in which they live are ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 1 • Alexander Hewatt |
