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Defect   /dˈifɛkt/  /dɪfˈɛkt/   Listen
Defect

noun
1.
An imperfection in a bodily system.  "This device permits detection of defects in the lungs"
2.
A failing or deficiency.  Synonym: shortcoming.
3.
An imperfection in an object or machine.  Synonyms: fault, flaw.  "If there are any defects you should send it back to the manufacturer"
4.
A mark or flaw that spoils the appearance of something (especially on a person's body).  Synonyms: blemish, mar.



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"Defect" Quotes from Famous Books



... during its birth, by craniotomy or in any other manner, in order to save its mother's life, on the plea that the child is an unjust assailant of the life of its mother? Put the case in a definite shape before you. Here is a mother in the pangs of parturition. An organic defect, no matter in what shape or form, prevents deliverance by the ordinary channels. All that medical skill can do to assist nature has been done. The case is desperate. Other physicians have been called in for consultation, as the civil law requires before it will ...
— Moral Principles and Medical Practice - The Basis of Medical Jurisprudence • Charles Coppens

... from which it will follow, that it was 78 miles perpendicularly high, as you may see confirmed by Jacobus Mazonius,[2] and out of him in Blancanus the Jesuite.[3] But this deviates from the truth more in excesse then the other doth in defect. However though these in the moone are not so high as some amongst us, yet certaine it is they are of a great height, and some of them at the least foure miles perpendicular. This I shall prove from the observation of Galilaeus, whose glasse can shew ...
— The Discovery of a World in the Moone • John Wilkins

... reader against a common fault, much of the same nature; which is, mentioning any particular quality as absolutely essential to either man or woman, and exploding all those who want it. This renders every one uneasy who is in the least self-conscious of the defect. I have heard a boor of fashion declare in the presence of women remarkably plain, that beauty was the chief perfection of that sex, and an essential without which no woman was worth regarding; a certain method of putting ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding

... elegant woman, they should be neither muffled nor exposed. The drapery should be so arranged, as at once to answer the purposes of modest concealment and judicious display. The decorations should sometimes be employed to hide a defect, and sometimes to heighten a beauty; but never to conceal, much less to distort, the charms to which they are subsidiary. The love of Petrarch, on the contrary, arrays itself like a foppish savage, whose nose is bored with a golden ring, whose skin is painted with grotesque forms and ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... against it is not for those latter qualities, though," pointed out Enderby. "On questions where it conflicts with your enterprises, it's straight enough. That's it's defect. Upright equals ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... a tempting one when the journey is taken north and south; but it does not apply to a journey east and west, on the same isothermal line. Besides, it has this defect, that it does not admit of generalization. One cannot talk of sight and still less of the influence of a change of climate when a Cat returns home, from one end of a town to the other, threading his way through a labyrinth of streets and alleys ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre

... they 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 ...
— Apology - Also known as "The Death of Socrates" • Plato

... stamp his old life with shame? Had he not expiated his sin? Why was he so beaten down and crushed with remorse and suffering that he had only longed to end an existence that seemed God-forsaken and utterly useless? And then, half unconsciously, she noted the one serious defect in his face—the weak, receding chin; and she guessed that the mouth hidden under the heavy ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... to the regular squad or class work instructors should, when they notice a physical defect in any man, recommend some exercise which will tend ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss

... He owned this defect of temperament, but he said that it compensated the opposite in her character. "I suppose that's one of the chief uses of marriage; people supplement one another, and form a pretty fair sort of human being together. The only drawback ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... lots seems scarcely to come within the enumeration here given. It was intended as an appeal to heaven upon a question involved in uncertainty, with the idea that the supreme Ruler of the skies, thus appealed to, would from his omniscience supply the defect of human knowledge. Two examples, among others sufficiently remarkable, occur in the Bible. One of Achan, who secreted part of the spoil taken in Jericho, which was consecrated to the service of God, and who, being taken by lot, confessed, and was stoned to death. ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin

... are near the orchestra; even then the shades are so very much softened by youth, and the parts so rounded, and so utterly free from acute angles, that they can, as yet, but faintly express strong, turbulent emotions, or display the furious passions. In a boy of his age, this, so far from being a defect, is a beauty, the reverse of which would be unnatural; and if it were a defect, every day that passes over his head would remedy it. What is now wanting in muscular expression, is in a great measure supplied by ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol I, No. 2, February 1810 • Samuel James Arnold

... you walk upon the street on the next day of April fool, that you yield to the occasion. If an urchin points his finger at your hat, humor him by removing it! Look sharply at it for a supposed defect! His glad shout will be your reward. Or if you are begged piteously to lift a stand-pipe wrapped to the likeness of a bundle, even though you sniff the imposture, seize upon it with a will! It is thus, beneath these April skies, that you play your part in ...
— There's Pippins And Cheese To Come • Charles S. Brooks

... greater breadth of the hips. Physical differences so influence their mental natures, that, "before experience has opened their eyes, the dreams of the young man and maiden differ." The development of either is in close sympathy with their organs of reproduction. Any defect of the latter impairs our fair ideal, and detracts from those qualities which impart excellence, and crown the character with perfections. Plainly has Nature marked out, in the organization, very different offices to be performed by the sexes, and ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce

... that one advantage makes up for each defect. In this case Merley has had an accident—a defect. That may cause him to stop annoying daddy—a ...
— The Moving Picture Girls Snowbound - Or, The Proof on the Film • Laura Lee Hope

... for a very singular animal, first introduced to the notice of European naturalists about a century ago by Linnaeus, who gave it the name Coecilia glutinosa, to indicate two peculiarities manifest to the ordinary observer—an apparent defect of vision, from the eyes being so small and embedded as to be scarcely distinguishable; and a power of secreting from minute pores in the skin a viscous fluid, resembling that of snails, eels, and ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent

... judge from their fragments, never attained to a periodic style. And hence we find the same sort of clumsiness in the Timaeus of Plato which characterizes the philosophical poem of Lucretius. There is a want of flow and often a defect of rhythm; the meaning is sometimes obscure, and there is a greater use of apposition and more of repetition than occurs in Plato's earlier writings. The sentences are less closely connected and also more involved; ...
— Timaeus • Plato

... have traditionally ascribed to English rustics, to English sailors, and to Irishmen universally. Fielding is open to the same stern criticism, as a deliberate falsehood-monger; and from the same cause—want of energy to face the difficulty of mastering a real living idiom. This defect in language, however, I cite only as one feature in the complex falsehood which disfigures Fielding's portrait of the English country gentleman. Meantime the question arises, Did he mean his Squire Western ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... or some one for him, must assume the position of a pirate, and set his wits to work to contrive an organization realizing the invention but escaping the terms of the proposed claim. When such an escaping device is schemed out, then the defect in the claim is developed and the claim must be redrawn. In this way every possible escape must be studied so as to secure to the inventor adequate protection for his invention. Solicitors find ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1178, June 25, 1898 • Various

... with you at present, is to inquire the lowest price you are willing to take for this horse. My agent here informs me that you ask one hundred and fifty pounds, which I cannot think of giving—the horse is a showy horse, but look, my dear sir, he has a defect here, and there in his near fore leg I observe something which looks very like a splint—yes, upon my credit," said he, touching the animal, "he has a splint, or something which will end in one. A hundred and fifty pounds, sir! what could have ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... when we reflect how little the Japanese are accustomed to horse-riding at home, and what small opportunities they have of acquiring that knowledge of the management of horses which comes instinctively to the English groom, to the Irish farmer's son, or to the field labourer. The defect of a want of efficient cavalry is with the Japanese largely compensated for by the extreme mobility of their infantry. They appear to do everything at the double. All their soldiers seem to be perpetually kept ...
— Impressions of a War Correspondent • George Lynch

... excellent, whose military talent is unquestionable, and whose understanding is just and enlightened, allowed himself in conversation, to go too great lengths in blaming the first consul, before he could be at all certain of overthrowing him. It is a defect very natural to a generous mind to express its opinion, even inconsiderately; but General Moreau attracted too much the notice of Bonaparte, not to make such conduct the cause of his destruction. A pretext was wanting to justify the arrest of a man who had gained so many battles, and this ...
— Ten Years' Exile • Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne (Baroness) de Stael-Holstein

... casting opprobrium on the person of the judge-conservator. Then the father definitor Fray Pedro Barreto spoke. He read a short paper that he had written, saying that he had not been able to commit it to memory. He was followed by father Fray Antonio Gonsalez, who alleged a very trifling defect in the bull. After him Fray Diego Collado spoke. He said that he was the confessor of the president of Castilla when the bishop of Cordoba had a similar suit with the orders in Espana. Father Fray Pedro de Herrera gave his opinion last. All of them together ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXV, 1635-36 • Various

... victorious and triumphant to Constantinople, and a few months later died my master, El Uchali, otherwise Uchali Fartax, which means in Turkish "the scabby renegade;" for that he was; it is the practice with the Turks to name people from some defect or virtue they may possess; the reason being that there are among them only four surnames belonging to families tracing their descent from the Ottoman house, and the others, as I have said, take their names and surnames either from bodily blemishes or moral qualities. ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

... whom it is truly said that He is God, because he is the highest Good, we know not, and no search will make us know. All we know is that it is not from Him, of whom, and for whom, and by whom, are all things; "because it has no substance of its own, but is only the defect, excess, perversion, or corruption of that which has substance." The existence of evil is a mystery—one of the countless mysteries surrounding human life—which, after the best use of reason, must be put aside as beyond reason. But it is also a fact, and a fact which is so far from ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various

... found voice to say, "there is one great defect in it, from the conventional point of view." The actor stopped and looked ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells

... reigning power, was quite a different personage, although belonging to the woodpecker family. It was a red-headed woodpecker who assumed to own the lawn and be master of the feast. This individual was marked by a defect in plumage, and had been a regular caller since the morning of my arrival. During the blackbird supremacy over the corn supply he had been hardly more than a spectator, coming to the trunk of the elm and surveying ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller

... himself David Llewellyn; and there are good grounds for supposing that Shakspeare has caricatured him in Captain Fluellin. His descendants, however, conceiving that his prowess more than redeemed his natural defect, took the name of Game. Sir Walter Raleigh has an eulogium upon his bravery and exploits on the field of Agincourt, in which he compares him to Hannibal. He was knighted on the field with his two ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 2 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler

... volume, and a velocity of water such as had to be encountered here, it was now plainly seen that something else would have to be tried. No emergency, however great or sudden, ever finds a man of his stamp unready. As soon therefore as the collapse showed him the defect in his first plan, he instantly set about remedying it by dividing the weight of water to be contended with. At the upper fall three wing-dams were constructed. Just above the rocks a stone crib was laid on the south side, and directly opposite to this on the north ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin

... same address the Emperor declared that he would accept no inheritance to which he was made heir on account of a suit between the testator and some third person, nor would he uphold a will in which he was instituted in order to screen some legal defect in its execution, or accept an inheritance to which he was instituted merely by word of mouth, or take any testamentary benefit under a document defective in point of law. And there are numerous rescripts of the Emperors Severus and Antoninus ...
— The Institutes of Justinian • Caesar Flavius Justinian

... saliva, as well as of the proper moisture of the tongue. Hence, in many diseases, it becomes defective, such as fevers, colds, and the like; both from a want of the proper degree of moisture, and from defect of appetite, which, as was before observed, is necessary to the ...
— Popular Lectures on Zoonomia - Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease • Thomas Garnett

... however, in this matter, carefully to distinguish between translucency and luster. Translucency, though, as I have said above, a dangerous temptation, is, in its place, beautiful; but luster or shininess is always, in painting, a defect. Nay, one of my best painter-friends (the "best" being understood to attach to both divisions of that awkward compound word,) tried the other day to persuade me that luster was an ignobleness in anything; and it was only the fear of treason to ...
— The Elements of Drawing - In Three Letters to Beginners • John Ruskin

... thought sometimes that you, and my mother, and men like my father and Mr. Pascal, felt but little of the inward strength of sin. Your lives stand out so clear and true. If there is a stain upon them it is so slight, so plainly a defect of the physical nature, that it often seems to me you do not know what ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton

... in all these Arts of working on the Imagination, I think 'Milton' may pass for one: And if his 'Paradise Lost' falls short of the 'AEneid' or 'Iliad' in this respect, it proceeds rather from the Fault of the Language in which it is written, than from any Defect of Genius in the Author. So Divine a Poem in 'English', is like a stately Palace built of Brick, where one may see Architecture in as great a Perfection as in one of Marble, tho' the Materials are of ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... pressure; there are marks of haste not only in the writing of the latter part, but in the very construction of the story. Except for certain streaks of a slovenliness which seems to be an almost unavoidable defect in me, there is little to be ashamed of in the writing of the opening portion; but it will be fairly manifest to the critic that instead of being put aside and thought over through a leisurely interlude, the ill-conceived latter part was pushed to its end. I was at that time overworked, ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells

... been always accustomed to a patriarchal life, or to a war of mountaineers, which he had only quitted to pass a few months in prison, Djalma knew nothing, so to speak, of civilized society. Without its exactly amounting to a defect, he certainly carried his good qualities to their extreme limits. Obstinately faithful to his pledged word, devoted to the death, confiding to blindness, good almost to a complete forgetfulness of himself, he was inflexible towards ingratitude, falsehood, or perfidy. He would have felt no compunction ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue

... scripture with another. Procure and diligently use other books which may help you to grow in this knowledge. There are many excellent books extant which might greatly forward you in this knowledge. There is a great defect in many, that through a lothness to be at a little expense, they provide themselves with no more helps of this nature." Weighty, wise, ...
— Bunyan Characters (Second Series) • Alexander Whyte

... union of opposites (Light and Dark), Discord or Strife also had her say in the union. Thus the nature and character in every creature was the resultant of two antagonistic forces, and depended for its particular excellence or defect on the proportions in which these two elements—the {39} light and the dark, the fiery and ...
— A Short History of Greek Philosophy • John Marshall

... in an electric bath, or if a magnet is placed on his head, it looks at first sight as though a complete physical cure had been effected. All paralysis, all defect of sensibility, has disappeared. His movements are light and active, his expression gentle and timid, but ask him where he is, and you will find that he has gone back to a boy of fourteen, that he is at St. Urbain, his first reformatory, and that his ...
— Real Ghost Stories • William T. Stead

... duels, as I spake before, were hastened to hanging with their wounds bleeding. For the State found it had been neglected so long, as nothing could be thought cruelty which tended to the putting of it down. As for the second defect, pretended in our law, that it hath provided no remedy for lies and fillips, it may receive like answer. It would have been thought a madness amongst the ancient lawgivers to have set a punishment upon the lie given, which in effect is but a word of denial, a negative ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various

... soul and one might recall the wise and tolerant Montaigne's essay On the Duty of Historians where he says, "One may cover over secret actions, but to be silent on what all the world knows, and things which have had effects which are public and of so much consequence is an inexcusable defect." ...
— Venus in Furs • Leopold von Sacher-Masoch

... for themselves, and aside from this they have nothing. Take away this disease from them, cure them, and they are rendered most unfortunate, because they thus lose their sole means of living, they then become empty. Sometimes a man's life is so poor that he is involuntarily compelled to prize his defect and live by it. It may frankly be said that people are often depraved out of mere weariness. The soldier felt insulted, ...
— Twenty-six and One and Other Stories • Maksim Gorky

... be your friend—and, like a friend, Point out your very worst defect—Nay, never Start at that word! But I must ask you why You keep your ...
— Queen Victoria • E. Gordon Browne

... to a comedy. It may have required great observation and ingenuity to have discovered the cause of old toothless men mumbling their words. But as a piece of comic humour, on which the author appears to have prided himself, the effect is far from fortunate. Humour arising from a personal defect is but a miserable substitute for that of a more genuine kind. I shall give a specimen of this strange gibberish as it is so laboriously printed. It may amuse the reader to see his mother language transformed into so odd a shape ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli

... impossible to man—a revealed religion, authenticated by God. The shape which this negative answer takes is, as Mr. Mozley points out, much more definite now than it ever was. Miracles were formerly assailed and disbelieved on mixed and often confused grounds; from alleged defect of evidence, from their strangeness, or because they would be laughed at. Foes and defenders looked at them from the outside and in the gross; and perhaps some of those who defended them most keenly had a very imperfect sense of what they really were. The difficulty ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church

... agent Mont, who had told Henry that her beauty exceeded that of the Duchess of Milan "as the sun outshines the silver moon," she was found on her arrival in England to be "tall, bright, and graceful," her liveliness making amends for any defect as to regularity of feature. Comparing her claim to beauty with that of the other wives of Henry VIII., it does not appear that she contrasted unfavourably with any, not even with Katharine Howard, who was very generally admired. The king himself observed ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone

... deep defect in our extension of cosmopolitan and Imperial cultures. That is, that in most human things if you spread your butter far you spread it thin. But there is an odder fact yet: rooted in something dark and irrational in human ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton

... original tune, harmonized by Mr. A.H. Prendergast, and set to Father Faber's Hymn to St. Joseph, "There are many saints above," is another example of tender sentiment by an amateur that outweighs any technical defect ...
— Cardinal Newman as a Musician • Edward Bellasis

... sympathize profoundly with the claim of woman for every opportunity which she can fill," says G. Stanley Hall in Adolescence, "and yield to none in appreciation of her ability, I insist that the cardinal defect in the woman's college is that it is based upon the assumption, implied and often expressed, if not almost universally acknowledged, that girls should primarily be trained to independence and self-support; and matrimony and motherhood, if it come, will take care of itself, or, as some ...
— Vocational Guidance for Girls • Marguerite Stockman Dickson

... again, to the second capital defect or error of his system, it may be conclusively shown that he confounds, or fails at least duly to discriminate, two things which are radically different, when he speaks as if the "physical and organic laws" ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan

... must try to understand this girl of the people, with her unfortunate endowment of brains and defect of tenderness. That smile of hers, which touched and fascinated and made thoughtful, had of course a significance discoverable by study of her life and character. It was no mere affectation; she was not conscious, in smiling, of the expression upon her face. Moreover, there ...
— The Nether World • George Gissing

... deep as it is universal, as conscious as it is unspeakable; a love that can no more be reasoned about than life itself—a love whose presence is its all-sufficing proof and justification, whose absence is an annihilating defect: he who has it not cannot believe in it: how should death believe in life, though all the birds of God are singing jubilant over the empty tomb! The delight of such a being, the splendour of a consciousness rushing from the wide open doors of the fountain of existence, the ecstasy of the spiritual ...
— Unspoken Sermons - Series I., II., and II. • George MacDonald

... ne'er silent in their praise has been, And how my feet not tender are, nor tired, Pursuing still with many a useless pace Of your fair footsteps the elastic trace; And whence the ink, the paper whence acquired, Fill'd with your memories: if in this I err, Not art's defect but Love's own fault ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch

... speaker of "what to do and how to do it" fame, never speaks an hour without asking at least thirty times, "Do you understand?" but the inimitable manner in which he pokes his chin forward as he does so usually convulses his audience and makes a virtue of what would otherwise be a defect. The veteran speaker Barney Berlyn says, every little while, "you understand," but he is so terribly in earnest, and so forceful in his style, that no one but a cold blooded critic would ever ...
— The Art of Lecturing - Revised Edition • Arthur M. (Arthur Morrow) Lewis

... authority to receive them; when the military wish to unload a ship, they find that the naval authority has already ordered it away. Lord Raglan and Sir Edmund Lyons should be asked to concert between them the mode of remedying this defect. Neither can see with his own eyes to the performance of all the subordinate duties, but they can choose the best men to do it, and arm them with sufficient authority. For on the due performance of these subordinate duties hangs the welfare of the Army. Lord Raglan should ...
— Lord John Russell • Stuart J. Reid

... an income out of proportion to the cost of 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 were not affected by the public franchise and were therefore their personal property. ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee

... that Parliament was of "Kings, Lords, and Commons; that no two branches thereof could make a law," by the just and constitutional distinction between the two Houses making a law, and the providing or giving efficiency to the third executive branch of Legislature in cases of defect, whatever it may be. The report of the physicians being ordered to be printed, will be out to-morrow, when I will send it, with a few remarks. Our great days are ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham

... pursued all things with eagerness, but for a short time only; music, poetry, painting, pleasure, even the study of the Pandects. Hisfeelings were keenly alive to the enjoyment of life. His great defect was, that he was too much in love with human nature. But by the power of imagination, in him, the bearded goat was changed to a bright Capricornus:—no longer an animal on earth, but a constellation ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... interference on the part of the Creator. How that interference took place we are not informed. Very possibly it may have been the result of other laws which lie wholly out of the reach of our powers of observation. But whatever may have been its character, it does not in any way imply change or defect in the original plan, unless we know, (what we do not know, and cannot ascertain) that such interference formed no part of the original design. Everything bears the marks of progressive development, and there is nothing improbable, but rather the reverse, in ...
— The Story of Creation as told by Theology and by Science • T. S. Ackland

... relativity. As a consequence, I am guilty of a certain slovenliness of treatment, which, as we know from the special theory of relativity, is far from being unimportant and pardonable. It is now high time that we remedy this defect; but I would mention at the outset, that this matter lays no small claims on the patience and on the power of ...
— Relativity: The Special and General Theory • Albert Einstein

... cognitio, verborum interpretatio, pronuntiandi quidam sonus."[288] The method, if such it can be called, was not at all unlike that pursued in our own public schools, Eton, for example, before new methods and subjects came in. Its great defect in each case was that it gave but little opportunity for learning to distinguish fact from fancy, or acquiring that scientific habit of mind which is now becoming essential for success in all departments of life, and which at Rome was so rare that it seems audacious to claim it even ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler

... hence I would conclude that these hirundines and the larger bats are supported by some sorts of high-flying gnats, scarabs, or phaloenae, that are of short continuance, and that the short stay of these strangers is regulated by the defect of their food. ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 1 • Gilbert White

... say, monsieur, a great defect in what is always a great people. You are certainly the most highly-civilised nation on the earth; you suffer a little from the fact. If I were an English preacher my desire would be to prick the heart ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... Buddhi, should then be fixed on Prakriti. Thus merging these one after another, Yogins contemplate the Supreme Soul which is One, which is freed from Rajas, which is stainless, which is Immutable and Infinite and Pure and without defect, who is Eternal Purusha, who is unchangeable, who is Indivisible, who is without decay and death, who is everlasting, who transcends diminution, and which is Immutable Brahma. Listen now, O monarch, to the indications ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... which they so often find tedious and uninteresting.—Should the stories related inspire a love of virtue, and the lessons awaken a desire for the further acquisition of useful knowledge, the attempt, notwithstanding its defect, cannot, it is hoped, be ...
— A Week of Instruction and Amusement, • Mrs. Harley

... am not readily accessible to fear; and if there is one defect to which I must plead guilty, it is that of a curious disposition. You go the wrong way about to make me leave this house, in which I play the part of your entertainer; and, suffer me to add, young ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson

... at Charleroy. In discipline he was lenient to ordinary faults, and not careful to make curious inquiries into such things. He liked his men to enjoy themselves. Military mistakes in his officers too he always endeavored to excuse, never blaming them for misfortunes, unless there had been a defect of courage as well as judgment. Mutiny and desertion only he never overlooked. And thus no general was ever more loved by, or had greater power over, the army which served under him. He brought the insurgent 10th legion into submission by ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude

... urged Ulyth, laying her hand on the arm of her too partial friend. "My pendant has a defect in it. I bungled, and couldn't ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil

... pilfering apples; rapin[24] is the masculine of rapine. So much for myself; as for the rest of you, you are worth no more than I am. I scoff at your perfections, excellencies, and qualities. Every good quality tends towards a defect; economy borders on avarice, the generous man is next door to the prodigal, the brave man rubs elbows with the braggart; he who says very pious says a trifle bigoted; there are just as many vices in virtue as there are holes in Diogenes' cloak. Whom do you admire, the slain ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... ourselves: "Now we shall hear at last what Mr. Vaughan himself thinks on the matter," we found that he literally turned the subject off, as if not worth investigation, by making the next speaker answer, apropos of nothing, that "the traditional ascetism of the Friends is their fatal defect ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley

... the Tales were tired, in the former editions, with the interruption Dinarzade gave them: This defect is now remedied; and they will meet with no more interruptions at the end of every night. It is sufficient to know the design of the Arabian author who first made this collection; and for this purpose we retained his ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous

... of the voice, was the name given by the Jews to an oracle in the second temple, which, according to report, was destined to supply the defect of the Urim and Thummim, the mysterious oracles of former and greater days. Of Bath-Kool many stories are related. When two Rabbins went to consult this oracle concerning the fate of another Rabbin, they passed before a school, in which they heard a boy reading: "And Samuel died." On inquiry ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant

... appearance), a similar construction would have been put on the passage, which urges that lovers should not be bound by an indissoluble tie of wedlock, until mutual inspection has satisfied each of the contracting parties that the other does not labor under any grave personal defect. If it were possible to regard the passage containing this proposal as an interpolation in the original romance, it might then be regarded as an attempt to palliate Henry VIII.'s conduct to ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson

... order to test the capabilities of the phonograph. In the cases where my spelling of the word has failed to convey the sound of the word, the phonograph was perfectly understood by the Indian interrogated. This fact seemed to me to bring out a serious defect in the use of the phonetic method, which may not be confined to me alone. I doubt very much if the Indians could understand many of the words in some of the vocabularies of other Indians which have been published, if the words were pronounced as they are spelled. The records of the phonograph, ...
— Contribution to Passamaquoddy Folk-Lore • J. Walter Fewkes

... hardly imagine a better subject for romance at the present moment than the fortunes of WILLIAM OF ORANGE, and if Miss MARJORIE BOWEN'S Prince and Heretic (METHUEN) shows some traces of having been rather hastily finished it is easy to pardon this defect. The alchemist's assistant, part seer and part quack, whom she introduces into the earlier part of the story foretells the violent deaths of the young princes of the house of Nassau and the ravaging and looting of the Netherlands ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, November 25, 1914 • Various

... of things, and the names of persons, even of those who are their nearest friends and relatives. For the same reason, they can never amuse themselves with reading, because their memory will not serve to carry them from the beginning of a sentence to the end; and by this defect they are deprived of the only entertainment whereof ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray

... laughed loudly, while the sailor said that Jaime was a good boy, worthy of a better fate, with no defect other than that of being a butifarra somewhat given to the ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... will of the Dominion Parliament, and the common Ministry of Austria-Hungary is responsible to the Delegations. This is true; but these exceptions are precisely of the class which prove the rule which they are cited to invalidate. The Cabinet system of the Dominion is a defect in the Canadian Constitution, and could not work were not Canada, by its position as a dependency, under the guidance of a power beyond the reach of the Dominion Parliament. What may be the real responsibility to the Delegations of the ...
— England's Case Against Home Rule • Albert Venn Dicey

... one defect in the cooperation between buyer and seller, employer and laborer. The cooperation is largely unintended. Each is primarily thinking of his own advantage, rather than that of the other, or of the social whole; he is seeking it in terms of ...
— The Ethics of Coperation • James Hayden Tufts

... visible externally. This is the first degree of an artist of teratological development, which, since the middle ages, has become very marked in certain subjects, and has given rise to a variety in which this defect has become hereditary. Such is the origin of the breed of bulldogs. The latter were originally as large as the mastiffs. Carried to Spain under Philip II., they have there preserved their primitive characters, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 803, May 23, 1891 • Various

... consider it a very great defect, and slight as this blemish appears in Miss Lovel, her money could never blind me to the fact if I knew ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various

... torrent of self-sacrificing patriotism. Mass fanaticism and infectious enthusiasm seem to have deprived the leading class in Germany, for the moment, of all power to see, reason, and judge correctly—no new phenomenon in the world, but instructive in this case because it points to the grave defect in German education—the lack of liberty ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various

... Whewell's sketch of the contributions to science made by Cuvier: "I may observe, that he is allowed by all to have established on an indestructible basis many of the most important generalizations which zooelogy now contains; and the principal defect which his critics have pointed out has been that he did not generalize still more widely and boldly. It appears, therefore, that he cannot but be placed among the great discoverers in the studies which he pursued; and this being the case, those who look with ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various

... confec'tion, literally, made with sugar (-er); defect' (-ion, -ive); effect' (-ive); effect'ual; infect' (-ion); infec'tious; per'fect, literally, thoroughly made ...
— New Word-Analysis - Or, School Etymology of English Derivative Words • William Swinton

... clear that if we wish to reduce the number of mentally defective and socially inadequate individuals we must not only consider measures for preventing as far as possible the transmission of hereditary defect, but must also provide for the youth of the country an environment and training calculated to encourage the development of its best powers. There is no doubt that unfavourable home conditions and unsuitable educational methods conspire ...
— Mental Defectives and Sexual Offenders • W. H. Triggs, Donald McGavin, Frederick Truby King, J. Sands Elliot, Ada G. Patterson, C.E. Matthews

... would heal,—not suddenly, but by a constant, slow filling in and building up, or by the gradual development or growth of one cell upon another. Just as a great breach in a wall would be repaired by filling in brick upon brick, until the defect is effaced, so must these lesion's be removed by gradual processes. When fully repaired, the dependent, sympathetic derangements, disagreeable sensations, and all the long train of consequential symptoms are, one by ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce

... Eusapia Paladino, for example, has a depression of the left parietal bone. But, on the other hand, Mlle. Smith of Geneva, who has been studied by Professor Flournoy, seems to enjoy health as good as anybody's—even flourishing health. Perhaps, if a thorough search were made, some defect might be discovered, but the person who should not betray some inherited peculiarity probably could not ...
— Mrs. Piper & the Society for Psychical Research • Michael Sage

... to me afterwards that this defect was a serious thing and probably indicated some brain trouble which might get worse. I was too happy at our reconciliation, however, to feel any concern for the moment and presently, after tea, I begged Uncle ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts

... soft for fighting; Great Danes were too clumsy, and Greyhounds could not follow the game unless they could see it. Each breed had some fatal defect, but the cow-men hoped to succeed with a mixed pack, and the day when I was invited to join in a Mendoza Wolf-hunt, I was amused by the variety of Dogs that followed. There were several mongrels, but there were also a few highly bred Dogs—in particular, some ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton

... the proper rule, Certain it is not more, not less: Let every one serve his lot, Without defect, and ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack

... eyes. A student in my father's office, the late Henry Bayard of Delaware (an uncle of our recent Ambassador to the Court of St. James's, Thomas F. Bayard), told me one day, after conning my features carefully, that I had one defect which he could remedy. "Your eyebrows should be darker and heavier," said he, "and if you will let me shave them once or twice, you will be much improved." I consented, and, slight as my eyebrows were, they seemed to have had some expression, for the loss of them ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton

... quantities, the white and red mulberry tree being indigenous and luxuriant in the middle region of the island, and the climate so mild, that the insect could be hatched and reared under wooden sheds, without any difficulty. The great defect in the Teneriffe silk is the coarseness of the fibre, from want of dexterity in winding it off the cocoons, and in regulating the heat to which it ought to be subjected ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman

... therefore contain sufficient oxygen for the complete combustion of its carbon. It is for this reason that when used for mining purposes a nitrate is generally added to supply this defect (as, for instance, in tonite). It tends also to prevent the evolution of the poisonous gas, carbonic oxide. The success of the various gelatine explosives is due to this fact, viz., that the nitro-glycerine has an excess of oxygen, and the nitro-cotton too little, and thus ...
— Nitro-Explosives: A Practical Treatise • P. Gerald Sanford

... been introduced to Julia Byron [1] by Trevannion at the Opera; she is pretty, but I do not admire her; there is too much Byron in her countenance, I hear she is clever, a very great defect in a woman, who becomes conceited in course; altogether I have not much inclination to improve ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero

... and of largeness of composition just mentioned, but its decorative effect and picturesque variety elicit almost universal admiration. Like the neighboring faade of St. Mark's, it violates nearly every principle of correct composition, and yet in a measure atones for this capital defect by its charm of detail. Far more satisfactory from the purely architectural point of view is the faade of the P.Vendramini (Vendramin-Calergi), by Pietro Lombardo (1481). The simple, stately lines of its composition, the dignity ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Architecture - Seventh Edition, revised • Alfred D. F. Hamlin

... the war at the factory where the guns are made disclosed the fact that these parts are rigidly tested by a gauge by the Government inspectors, and that looseness is regarded as a fatal defect. Even play of half a hundredth of an inch is enough to insure the rejection of a piece. The very first thing done by the Gatling Gun Detachment, upon assembling these guns, was to obtain a set of armorers' tools and to file ...
— The Gatlings at Santiago • John H. Parker

... persons of the age,' he says of him, on but a slight and partial acquaintance), or by Wordsworth when the Lyrical Ballads are confusing all judgments, and he can pick out at sight 'She Dwelt Among the Untrodden Ways' as 'the best piece in it,' and can define precisely the defect of much of the book, in one of those incomparable letters of escape, to Manning: 'It is full of original thought, but it does not often make you laugh or cry. It too artfully aims at simplicity of expression.' I choose these instances because ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons

... is in every eye. It is called the 'punctum coecum.' It is where the optic nerve enters the retina and spreads out. It is only with one eye shut that an ordinary person can find it, for each eye supplements this defect of the other. To-morrow morning try the experiment on little Finche Torfs; on any one you meet. You will ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier

... never heard you were going. He got a letter after you had gone, and then he wrote you about the bad luck nonsense. There must have been some strange defect in ...
— The Mystery of Murray Davenport - A Story of New York at the Present Day • Robert Neilson Stephens

... at sea for the first time, considerable difficulty arises from the constant change in the plane of the instrument from the perpendicular position, in which it is absolutely necessary that it should be held, in order to obtain a correct observation. What at first appears to be a defect, however, is a real advantage, namely, that whenever it is held in the least degree out of the vertical plane, the two horizons (that seen direct, and the reflected one) cross each other, and it is only when the plane is vertical that ...
— Account of a Voyage of Discovery - to the West Coast of Corea, and the Great Loo-Choo Island • Captain Basil Hall

... party are of that sleepy order of beings, who want perpetual events to make them feel their existence: this is the defect of the cold and inanimate, who have not spirit and vivacity enough to taste the natural pleasures ...
— The History of Emily Montague • Frances Brooke

... not so occult as to justify a doubt upon that subject; and moreover, Salome, lack of astuteness is far from being your greatest defect. My motive should eloquently plead pardon for my candor, if I venture to tell you that your frequent affectation of unconsciousness of the presence of others, 'is a custom more honored in the breach ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson

... of to-day but am unshakenly confident for the future, given sufficient time to remedy defect in rails which should not take long. Chemical analyses show too high carbon and this can be rectified. Now awaiting remittance ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan

... giant, a Hungarian seven feet four inches high, brought up the rear. This enormous creature had, like some other giants, a treble, fluty voice of little power. He was a vain fellow, and not conscious of this nor any defect. Now it happened he caught sight of Giles sitting on the top of the balcony; so he stopped and began ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade

... affections, and of a sense of justice, and, although destitute of an inductive mind, is led to appreciate truth and virtue as he apprehends them. But he is subject to be swayed by every breath of opinion, has little fixity of purpose, and, from a defect of business capacity, is often led to pursue just those means which are least calculated to advance his permanent interests, and his mind is driven to and fro like a feather in the winds. This man, and that man, are continually bringing up ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

... eccentricity, but the result of an exceptional assembly of rare qualities which met for the first time in one man, and which, shining in the midst of a most corrupt society, constituted almost more an anomaly which became a real defect, hurtful, however, to himself only. His ideal of the beautiful magnified weaknesses into crimes, and physical failings into deformities. Thus it is that with the saints the slightest transgression of the laws appears at once in the light of mortal sin. St. Augustin calls the greediness ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli

... bit of Buddhism lately. It is too negative—that is almost its chief if not its only defect, as an attitude toward life. It won't make things move but it will make souls content. And I can't get away from the thought that we are here as conquerors, not as pacifists. I can't be the ...
— The Letters of Franklin K. Lane • Franklin K. Lane

... precedent creates another; that precedents soon accumulate and constitute law; that what was yesterday fact becomes to-day doctrine; that examples are supposed to justify the most dangerous measures, and that where they do not suit exactly, the defect is supplied by analogy. They felt confident that the laws which were to protect their civil rights were to grow out of their constitution, and that with it the country was to fall or flourish. They believed ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger

... his patron; for only seventy-two were sold, though the performance was much commended by some whose judgment in that kind of writing is generally allowed. But Savage easily reconciled himself to mankind without imputing any defect to his work, by observing that his poem was unluckily published two days after the prorogation of the parliament, and by consequence at a time when all those who could be expected to regard it were in the hurry of preparing for their departure, or engaged in taking leave of others upon their ...
— Lives of the Poets: Addison, Savage, and Swift • Samuel Johnson

... for me," he said sadly. "There is some defect in my nature—some want. I have no such relation to nature; it is speechless to me—mute, and I never needed more what I fail to find in myself. The war and its duties gave me the only entire happiness I have had for years." Then he added, in a curiously ...
— Westways • S. Weir Mitchell

... person of Boiardo: and it is not safe to determine a man's physique from his writings, unless perhaps with respect to the greater or less amount of his animal spirits; for the able-bodied may write effeminately, and the feeblest supply the defect of corporal stamina with spiritual. Portraits, however, seem to be extant. Mazzuchelli discovered that a medal had been struck in the poet's honour; and in the castle of Scandiano (though "the halls where knights and ladies listened to the adventures of the Paladin are ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt

... sudden outbreaking of the malcontents. Against such a disaster there is no more guarding than against the commission of more vulgar crimes; but when a government trembles for its existence, before the turbulence of popular commotion, it is reasonable to infer some radical defect in its organization. Men will rally around their institutions, as freely as they rally around any other cherished interest, when they merit their care, and there can be no surer sign of their hollowness than when the rulers seriously apprehend the ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper

... was under no delusionment as to the canker that was soon to wither all his hopes. He draws no flattering picture of the work in which his own part was so large. He recognizes that there "must have been some unheard-of defect of understanding in those who were trusted by the King with the administration of his affairs." [Footnote: Life, i. 315.] His disappointment is too great to permit him to waste words in any attempt to ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik

... patriot hates foreigners; they are only men, and nothing to him.[Footnote: Thus the wars of republics are more cruel than those of monarchies. But if the wars of kings are less cruel, their peace is terrible; better be their foe than their subject.] This defect is inevitable, but of little importance. The great thing is to be kind to our neighbours. Among strangers the Spartan was selfish, grasping, and unjust, but unselfishness, justice, and harmony ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau

... hither, haue done enough, To put him quite besides his patience. You must needes learne, Lord, to amend this fault: Though sometimes it shew Greatnesse, Courage, Blood, And that's the dearest grace it renders you; Yet oftentimes it doth present harsh Rage, Defect of Manners, want of Gouernment, Pride, Haughtinesse, Opinion, and Disdaine: The least of which, haunting a Nobleman, Loseth mens hearts, and leaues behinde a stayne Vpon the beautie of all parts besides, Beguiling ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare

... Court, had the ingenuity to relate at Madame Chapui's as an evidence of Edelsheim's intimacy with Talleyrand; only he left out the latter part, and forgot to mention the bad grace with which this impertinence of Talleyrand was received; but this defect of memory Count von Beust, the envoy of the ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... 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

... district by a criminal prosecution. It was my opinion and that of able counsel who were consulted that the cases came within the penalties of the act of the 17th Congress approved March 3d, 1823, providing for punishment of frauds committed on the Government of the United States. Either from some defect in the law or in its administration every effort to bring the accused to trial under its provisions proved ineffectual, and the Government was driven to the necessity of resorting to the vague and inadequate provisions of the common law. It is therefore my duty ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Andrew Jackson • Andrew Jackson

... without being assisted by a draught, if the outside temperature, as is often the case in the summer, happens to be higher than that of your cell, your atmosphere is stagnant, and you live in a tank of foul air. This defect might be partially remedied by leaving the cell doors open when the prisoners are out at exercise or chapel, and, as it were, refilling the tank. But keys are a fetish in prison, and the officials think it quite as necessary to lock up an empty cell ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote

... her by the hand and call me for a witness, my heart began to quake; but, to say the truth, she had little reason to take a cullian lug-loaf, milksop slave, when she may have a lawyer, a gentleman that stands upon his reputation in the country, one whose diminutive defect of law may compare with his little learning. Well, I see that Churms must be the man must ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various

... their own perspicuous and graphic language. Thence, in a great measure, the popularity and interest of their works. Michaud indulges more in lengthened quotations in his text from the old chronicles, or their mere paraphrases into his own language; their frequency is the great defect of his valuable history. But the variety and interest of the subjects render this mosaic species of composition more excusable, and less repugnant to good taste, in the account of the Crusades, than it would be, perhaps, in the annals ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various

... of a nisi prius term; and the wrong Miss Anthony has suffered ought to be charged to the vicious system which denies to those convicted of offenses against the laws of the United States a hearing before the court of last resort—a defect it is equally within the power and the duty ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... the whole texture of the character, that it can never be separated from it while life and this body of sin remain. This is undoubtedly thus far true, that its ramifications are more minute, and more universally pervading, than those of any other moral defect; so that, on the one hand, while even an anxious and diligent self-examination cannot always detect their existence, so, on the other, it is scarcely possible for its victims to be excited by an emotion of any nature with which envy will not, in some manner or ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady

... Jane Eyre, to your sentence: to-morrow, place the glass before you, and draw in chalk your own picture, faithfully, without softening one defect; omit no harsh line, smooth away no displeasing irregularity; write under it, 'Portrait of a ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte

... defect art and association amply atone. On the southern side of the Mole, not far from the underground portion of its course—"the Swallow" as it is called—stand the charming and storied seats of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various

... thoughts when first seated in the snug corner, and slowly recovering from a pleasant defect of vision—pleasant, because occasioned by the wind blowing in his eyes—which made it a matter of sound policy and duty to himself, that he should take refuge from the weather, and tempted him, for the same ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens

... private office. He was exceedingly nervous and flurried, and his wan, colorless face looked like an effaced page. In a tortuous, round-about way, he intimated that his married daughter was in great trouble, in consequence of the operation of a great weakness or defect in character which was apparently hereditary. Her mother, his wife, he said, an excellent, kind-hearted, conscientious, truthful woman, had occasionally manifested the kleptomania impulse and had been detected. Happily the crime ...
— Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations • William Howe

... mere personal ambition, and may by clever management of the party machine and with the aid of an unscrupulous majority retain power for a time even when it is not in accord with the true sentiment of the country; but under a system like that of Canada, where every defect in the body politic is probed to the bottom in the debates of parliament, which are given by the public press more fully than is the practice in the neighbouring republic, the people have a better ...
— Lord Elgin • John George Bourinot

... to the front gate, which he essayed to open. There was apparently some defect in the latch, for it refused to work. Warwick remembered the trick, and with a slight sense of amusement, pushed his foot under the gate and gave it a hitch to the left, after which it opened readily ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt

... dressed, and walked in the spring morning, first to the bread shop to buy a pound of bread from the woman who wouldn't smile ... so serious and puzzling was this defect that Fanny had once asked her: "Would you rather I ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold

... defect of the dinner was that the men were not in evening dress. (Denry registered a new rule of life: Never travel without your evening dress, because you never know what may turn up.) The girls were radiantly white. And after all there is ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett

... and economy had now been attained, there was still an important defect to be remedied, namely, the impediment to speed and to evolution under sail presented by the dragging propeller; which was accomplished by the invention of the "trunk" or "well," into which the propeller can be raised at pleasure; and there is no longer anything to prevent the construction ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... exercise of reason is not only salutary, but necessary. But one can easily conceive how the indulgence of that state of mind which produced Collins's Odes could end in an entire overthrow of the intellect, when embittered by a defect of the principal objects of his worldly ambition. He is said to have been puffed up by a vanity which prompted him to expect that all eyes would be upon him, and all voices lifted in his praise. Such was the conception of a vulgar ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins

... an imperfection of the glass lens, called its spherical aberration, which is due to the fact that the circumferential and central rays have not the same focus. The human eye labours under a similar defect, and from this, and other causes, it arises that when the naked light from fifty cells is looked at the blur of light upon the retina is sufficient to destroy the definition of the retinal image of the carbons. A long list of indictments might indeed be brought against the eye—its opacity, ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall

... but also against the insurrection of negroes; and although the same prompt obedience to orders could not be expected from them that is necessary in a regular army, yet the provincials had other advantages which compensated for that defect. They were better acquainted than strangers with the woods, and the nature of that country in which their military service was required. They were seasoned to the climate, and had learned from ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 2 • Alexander Hewatt

... to have the serious defect of the modern English school of painting. A total want of thought in the rendering of the subject, disguised under dexterous technical tricks of the brush. When you have seen one of that man's pictures, you have seen ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins

... speech to address to it. It must confine itself, as far as possible, to the simplicity of nature, and not make great what is small, nor small what is great. It is not enough that a thing be fine, it must be fitting,—neither in excess nor defect.” ...
— Pascal • John Tulloch

... take it jerked or any other way you choose, Will," said Miller. I want to say just here that patience and self-control would have cured Sampson of his stammerings. There is no excuse for anybody going through the world with such a defect, when there are so many instances of the victory of a strong and patient resolution over it. I shall give the story here as if he ...
— Queer Stories for Boys and Girls • Edward Eggleston

... stand he had yielded it, upon this or that excuse, which he was aware of trumping up. It was part of the complication that he should he unconscious of the injury he might be doing to some one besides his family and himself; this was the defect of his diffidence; and it had come to him in a pang for the first time when his mother said that she would not have the Laphams think she wished to make more of the acquaintance than he did; and then it had come too late. Since that he had suffered quite ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... condition without any natural blemish, but because of the calamity of their mother [while, of themselves, they are born without fault, like other men: thus original sin is not an innate evil but a defect and burden which we bear since Adam, but we are not on that account personally in sin and inherited disgrace]. To show that this impious opinion is displeasing to us, we made mention of "concupiscence," and, with the best intention, have termed and explained it as "diseases," that "the nature ...
— The Apology of the Augsburg Confession • Philip Melanchthon

... arrived at from a study of Sir Lambert Playfair's researches are painful to English self-respect. It is possible that our consuls were not always wisely chosen, and it was a vital defect in our early consular system that our agents were allowed to trade. Mercantile interests, especially in a Corsair state, are likely to clash with the duties of a consul. Some consuls, moreover, were clearly unfitted for their posts. Of one ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole

... 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

... story, we have a widower who is the father of five children, and is therefore looking everywhere for a woman with some bodily defect, because he knows that other women will not want to have ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky

... clearly that my representations concerning the untenableness of the basic doctrines of Christian supernaturalism are in alignment with the conclusions of outstanding authorities in the newly developed sciences of historical and biblical criticisms is indeed a defect and an attempt will here be made to remove it by a short but faithful and, as I think, convincing summary of what such authorities in these sciences have to ...
— Communism and Christianism - Analyzed and Contrasted from the Marxian and Darwinian Points of View • William Montgomery Brown

... and more noble inventions of Raphael and other great men; yet it must be honestly confessed, that in what is called knowledge of the figure, foreigners have justly observed, that Hogarth is often so raw and unformed, as hardly to deserve the name of an artist. But this capital defect is not often perceivable, as examples of the naked and of elevated nature but rarely occur in his subjects, which are for the most part filled with characters that in their nature tend to deformity; besides his ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb

... suit you; but, unless the office of 'devil' in your newspaper is a purely technical one, I think he has all the qualities required. He is very quick, active, and intelligent; understands English better than he speaks it; and makes up for any defect by his habits of observation and imitation. You have only to show him how to do a thing once, and he will repeat it, whether it is an offence or a virtue. But you certainly know him already. You are one of his godfathers; for is he ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte

... be pedantic indeed to have devoted so many words to a mere matter of name. If a drama is good it signifies but little what we call it, or whether its title be exactly appropriate. In this case, however, we have to do with a vital defect and not merely with a misnomer. A play may be good in different ways; and what the preceding criticism is intended to bring out is the fact that the strength of 'Fiesco', such as it has, does not lie in the intellectual organization of the whole. The mind ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas

... quis ... esset. The Decemvirs were to supersede temporarily both Consuls and Tribunes. 14-15. quid ... conferrent 'Should point out in the interest of all (lit. should contribute to the public good) any faults of excess or defect in the several articles.' —Stephenson. 15-17. ad rumores hominum in accordance with (ad) public opinion. 17. centuriatis comitiis. Servius Tullius divided the people into five classes, according to the value of their property. The people ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce

... story of his life would be very different from what it is. There is no doubt that the regrettable parts of the careers of both Byron and Shelley are due to lack of discipline and loving-kindness in their early years. Byron's irritability and bad temper were aggravated by a physical defect, which hindered him from excelling in athletic sports of which he was fond, and embittered all his life. Either at birth or by an accident one of his feet was malformed or twisted so as to affect his gait, and ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various

... remedy this defect; and for this purpose they took several poles of an equal length, the one end of which they fastened to the side of the house, and let the other two ends meet in the middle, by which means they formed a roof exactly like that which we commonly see upon ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day

... all with one of his eyes, though its appearance was little different from that of the other. There is amongst his prayers, one inscribed 'When my EYE was restored to its use[130],' which ascertains a defect that many of his friends knew he had, though I never perceived it[131]. I supposed him to be only near-sighted; and indeed I must observe, that in no other respect could I discern any defect in his vision; on the contrary, the force of his attention and perceptive quickness ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell

... would have been a survival of his old life when he thought he would be a minister, and before he changed and took up the law. But making light of a cause so high and noble seemed to show a want of earnestness at the core of his being. Not but that she felt herself able to cope with a congenital defect of that sort, and make his love for her save him from himself. Now perhaps the miracle was already wrought in him, In the presence of the tremendous fact that he announced, all triviality seemed to have gone out of him; she began to feel that. He sank down on the top ...
— Different Girls • Various

... PLEADING, or plea in abatement, was the defeating or quashing of a particular action by some matter of fact, such as a defect in form or the personal incompetency of the parties suing, pleaded by the defendant. It did not involve the merits of the cause, but left the right of action subsisting. In criminal proceedings a plea in ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia

... The chief defect of the first clause is such, that the noble lord has, by declaring his disapprobation of it, given a very uncommon proof of his integrity, disinterestedness, and moderation; for it is imperfect only by placing too much confidence in the admiralty, which is left in ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11. - Parlimentary Debates II. • Samuel Johnson

... 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, ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty



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