"Blemish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... explaining what you hide by saying something to his Advantage when you speak, a Merchant hurt in his Credit; and him who, every Day he lived, literally added to the Value of his Native Country, undone by one who was only a Burthen and a Blemish to it. Since every Body who knows the World is sensible of this great Evil, how careful ought a Man to be in his Language of a Merchant? It may possibly be in the Power of a very shallow Creature ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... deceived by the applause that the public gave to an acquisition so beautiful and so unique. This diamond was called the "Regent." It is of the size of a greengage plum, nearly round, of a thickness which corresponds with its volume, perfectly white, free from all spot, speck, or blemish, of admirable water, and weighs more than 500 grains. I much applauded myself for having induced the Regent to make so ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... that," she murmured with soft regret. "And I think you underestimate Giles Winterborne. Remember, I was brought up with him till I was sent away to school, so I cannot be radically different. At any rate, I don't feel so. That is, no doubt, my fault, and a great blemish in me. But I hope you will ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... farrier had examined my wounds, he said he hoped the joint was not injured; and if so, I should not be spoiled for work, but I should never lose the blemish. I believe they did the best to make a good cure, but it was a long and painful one. Proud flesh, as they called it, came up in my knees, and was burned out with caustic; and when at last it was healed, they put a blistering fluid ...
— Black Beauty • Anna Sewell
... blemish in this our Authours book, I find in his fifteenth Chapter: where he instructs his Prince to use such an ambidexterity as that he may serve himselfe either of vertue, or vice, according to his advantage, which in true pollicy is neither good in attaining the Principality nor in securing ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... case; for the authorities desired that no arrests in that connection should be made public until the significance of the fact that at the time of the tragedy the child was wearing the coat—afterward found hanging loose, without a rent or a blemish, on the tree in the valley—should be fully exploited. If it were indeed a direful instance of murder and abduction, as the sheriff now believed, he wished the miscreants to rest unwitting of the activity of the officers and the ...
— The Ordeal - A Mountain Romance of Tennessee • Charles Egbert Craddock
... but attractive. Such personal perfection as she possessed is, I am afraid, apt to make us cold-hearted and exacting as to externals in others. Evelyn could endure commonplace, but could not forgive a blemish. Once Norman Stanbury came very near, losing her favor for having a wart on his finger; another time, she banished him from her presence for weeks, for having stained his hands, beyond the power of ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... never take care of your eyebrows. They're black and lustrous, but by leaving them straggly they're a blemish. They'd be beautiful if you'd take care of them in one-tenth the time you take doing nothing. You're going to brush them ...
— Flappers and Philosophers • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... him express this sentiment when I was supposed to be reading my book: The marriage vows, he said, were the only ones a gentleman might break without great blemish to his honor. This was the atmosphere I had always lived in, and since my wedding the people of my own class that I have met do not seem to hold different views. Lord Tilchester is Babykins's lover. The Duke has passed on from several women, and, to come nearer home, there are my husband ...
— The Reflections of Ambrosine - A Novel • Elinor Glyn
... themselves in bartering for features; one was trucking a lock of grey hairs for a carbuncle, another was making over a short waist for a pair of round shoulders, and a third cheapening a bad face for a lost reputation: but on all these occasions, there was not one of them who did not think the new blemish, as soon as she had got it into her possession, much more disagreeable than ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... mingled with Enteromorpha, which together covered all those parts of the stones which received a direct light. The mimic rocks seemed draped in green velvet, and in the sunlight were studded with pearly bubbles. There was, however, one blemish: the hungry crabs had so nibbled the larger plants that it was deemed necessary to renew them, in order to secure a sufficient supply of food and oxygen. Accordingly, a fine specimen of Enteromorpha was added. It consisted of five ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... shall offer his offering up to the Lord, one he lamb of the first year without blemish for a burnt offering, and one ewe lamb of the first year without blemish for a sin offering, and one ram without blemish for peace offerings, and a basket of unleavened bread, cakes of fine flour mingled with oil, and wafers of unleavened bread ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... there is reason to suspect a strain of selfishness in Rachel's nature," said Anna Bayne; "but it's the only blemish among her many good qualities. Still, I think you do her an injustice in attributing her absence from our meetings ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... blood of Jesus Christ; 'for us' in the sense of the words in another part of the Epistle, 'Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot,' and if so, we are living examples of what Christ our Saviour has done for the ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... silently to watch her while she dipped the juice. Her eyelids were lowered. She had well-marked brows, and the high cheek-bones were lost in a general acquiline rosiness. It was a girl's face, modest and sweet, that he saw; reflecting the society of holier beings than the one behind the tree. She had no blemish of sunken temples or shrunk features, or the glaring aspect of a devotee. Saint-Castin was a good Catholic, but he did not like fanatics. It was as if the choicest tree in the forest had been flung ...
— The Chase Of Saint-Castin And Other Stories Of The French In The New World • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... her, from long association, and moving the mantel ornaments to occupy the old places more exactly. Certain eccentricities of the place had been faults; now they were beauties wherein she found no blemish. The worn hollows in the kitchen floor, so hard to wash on a Monday, seemed exactly to fit her feet. And while she stood with her elbows on the window-sash, looking out and planning her garden, Jake Preble came. Mariana was not conscious that ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... it makes men less severe upon other people's faults, and less busy and industrious in spreading them. For a man, employed at home, inspecting into his own failings, has not leisure to take notice of every little spot and blemish that lies scattered upon others. Or if he cannot escape the sight of them, he always passes the most easy and favourable construction upon them. Thus, for instance; does the ill he knows of a man proceed from an unhappy temper and constitution of body? He then considers with himself, how hard ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... ideal itself, was not, however, ideal enough. The labour of creating was construed as a blemish on the splendour of the Supreme. It was held that the Soul of Things could but loll, majestic and inert, on a lotos of azure. Then, above Brahma, was lifted Brahm, a god neuter and indeclinable; neuter as having no part ...
— The Lords of the Ghostland - A History of the Ideal • Edgar Saltus
... have to fight in order to drive away these children of our brain! Anger, ambition, revenge give birth to the most detestable thoughts, which make us blush with shame as we should at some horrible blemish. And yet they are not ours, for we have not evoked them; but they defile us nevertheless, and leave us in despair at not being masters of our own ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... situation, it shall be my hourly prayers that you may be delivered without blemish to that fair fame which has hitherto, like ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... carpenter's daughter, was born at Corbie, in Picardy, in 1380. Her parents, out of devotion to St. Nicholas, gave her the name of Colette, the diminutive of Nicholas. She was brought up in the love of humiliations and austerities. Her desire to preserve her purity without the least blemish made her avoid as much as possible all company, even of persons of her own sex, unless it was sometimes to draw them from the love of the world by her moving discourses, which were attended with ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... time of our story, for all the children were well-favored and the general public could never decide whether Nancy or Kathleen was the belle of the family. Kathleen had fair curls, skin like a rose, and delicate features; not a blemish to mar her exquisite prettiness! All colors became her; all hats suited her hair. She was the Carey beauty so long as Nancy remained out of sight, but the moment that young person appeared Kathleen left something to be desired. Nancy piqued; Nancy sparkled; Nancy glowed; Nancy occasionally pouted ...
— Mother Carey's Chickens • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... crusade directed against a Christian land. The Albigensian crusade succeeded in destroying the most dangerous and widespread popular heresy that Christianity had witnessed since the fall of the Roman Empire, and Innocent rejoiced that his times saw the Church purged of its worst blemish. But in extending the benefits of a crusade to Christians fighting against Christians, he handed on a precedent which was soon fatally abused by his successors. In crushing out the young national life of Southern France the papacy again set a people against itself. The denunciations ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... description. It had perhaps been a better apology, to have pleaded the manners of the times; for even Horace, who wrote only a few years after, has suffered his compositions to be occasionally debased by the same kind of blemish. ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... am not convinced, or it may be that I refuse to be. A man often elects to be blind when confronted with a suggestion of disaster. I want to be candid with myself. I require your assistance. While I continue the narrative, kindly see if you can discover any sign of blemish." ...
— The Flaw in the Sapphire • Charles M. Snyder
... you can point out one single blemish in Captain Headland's character, if you can produce one sufficient reason, I would obey you so far as to set him free; but, at the same time, I must tell you I could never marry another. You, however, can allege no just reason why I should not marry him, ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston
... There is one serious blemish. Sarmiento's book was written, not only or mainly to supply interesting information, but with an object. Bishop Las Casas had made Europe ring with the cruelties of the Spaniards in the Indies, and with the ...
— History of the Incas • Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa
... been disposed of, but nothing seemed to suit Hil, whose practised eye could pick out a blemish ...
— Australia Revenged • Boomerang
... property; he was strictly honourable, and was an affectionate parent. In early youth he had entered into the pleasures and dissipations of life, and licentious habits seem to have been retained to the end. But the great blemish in such a mind was his declared infidelity; it presents one of those exceptions among the persons who have been devoted to the study of nature; and it is not easy to imagine a mind apparently with such ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... not imaginary; these are things the proof of which must not be pushed to extreme lengths. I have not begotten nor given birth to my lady, though I behold her as she needs must be, a lady who contains in herself all the qualities to make her famous throughout the world, beautiful without blemish, dignified without haughtiness, tender and yet modest, gracious from courtesy and courteous from good breeding, and lastly, of exalted lineage, because beauty shines forth and excels with a higher degree of perfection upon good blood than in ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... the communicant. She receives the sacramental body and spirit of the man. And when she's got it, according to her passionate and all-too-sacred desire, completely, when she possesses her man at last finally and ultimately, without blemish or reservation in the perfection of the sacrament: then, also, poor woman, the blood and the body of which she has partaken become insipid or nauseous to her, she is driven mad by the endless meal of the marriage sacrament, poisoned by the sacred communion which was her goal and ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... with great expectancy into the political future. From defeat in 1796 he had reached the Assembly in 1797, and then passed to the State Senate in 1798; and from defeat in 1799 he passed again into the Senate in 1800. Thus far his record was without blemish. As a lad of eighteen he sided with his uncle in the contest over the Federal Constitution; but once it became the supreme law of the land he gave it early and vigorous support, not even soiling his career by a vote for the Kentucky resolutions. Unlike the Livingstons, ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... say, this becomes him, (As his composure must be rare, indeed, Whom these things cannot blemish] This seems inconsequent. ...
— Notes to Shakespeare, Volume III: The Tragedies • Samuel Johnson
... declined to comply with that most modest demand. Then the sword came out and struck at our life. "Was it matter of choice with us whether we would fight? Not unless it were also matter of choice whether we would become the very sweepings and blemish ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... real beauty. A defect in one country is a desideratum in another. Scars upon the face are, in Europe, a blemish; but here and in the Arab countries no beauty can be perfect until the cheeks or temples have been gashed. The Arabs make three gashes upon each cheek, and rub the wounds with salt and a kind of ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker
... religion as my washerwoman, and Father Tyrrell's is not the religion for my washerwoman." We sat on the terrace in the sunshine and Lady Blennerhassett asked suddenly whether the soles of our boots were, like hers, without hole or blemish. We all looked very odd as we stuck our feet out and tried to see the soles. Gilbert, offered a wicker chair, preferred the grass because, he said, there was grave danger he ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Maisie Ward
... a slave hard to sell, maybe couldn' be sold, 'cause when a man went to buy a slave he would make him strip naked and look him over for whip marks and other blemish, jus' like dey would a horse. But even if it done damage to de sale to whip him, dey done it, 'cause dey figgered, kill a nigger, breed another—kill a mule, ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves. - Texas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... pomatum and plastered close to his head. His white cravat was tied with mathematical precision, and his shirt-collar was like a wall of white enamel from his shoulders to his ears. He wore white kid gloves, which he secured from spot or blemish as much as possible by keeping the tips of the fingers pressed against each other. His speech was quicker than is customary with Western people, but he had their flat monotone and their uncompromising treatment ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... morning, delighted with her dreams, and benevolently disposed towards mankind in general. She lingered at her toilet, grew hypercritical in articles of taste, and found defects in beauty without the shadow of a blemish. Had some wicked sprite but whispered in her ear one thought injurious to the memory of her departed husband, Margaret would have shrunk from its reception, and would have scorned to acknowledge it as her own. Time, she felt and owned with ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... righteousness, by whose stripes ye are healed" (1 Pet ii:24). The precious blood of Christ has washed us from our sins. They can never come up again. Oh blessed knowledge! Cleansed by His own blood, the precious blood of the Lamb without spot and blemish! And the blessedness of all that ...
— The Lord of Glory - Meditations on the person, the work and glory of our Lord Jesus Christ • Arno Gaebelein
... its perfection and integrity, fully satisfies the conditions of artistic triumph. Are we to ignore the grandeur of a colossal statue, and the nobility of the human conceptions which it embodies, because here and there we notice a flaw in the marble, a blemish in its colour, a jagged slip of the chisel? "It is not force of intellect," as George Eliot has said, "which causes ready repulsion from the aberration and eccentricities of greatness, any more than it is force of vision that causes the eye to explore the warts in a face bright with human ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... and crippled one. No marble arose there in wonderful grace and beauty, no reclining seraph imaged the departed saint; but low down, beneath the green turf was the heart that leaped at the advent of her first-born son, and the eye that overlooked the blemish that all other eyes seemed to dwell upon, and the hand that was laid upon his head in the last sad moment. Naught else was needed to the few souls that cared for her memory. Was she not ever before them in the garb of purity and love! and yet among the boy's visions was a sacred ...
— The Elm Tree Tales • F. Irene Burge Smith
... old fortifications, which once gave it an aspect of mediaevalism, are now (by decree of 1903) being torn down, and only the quaintly picturesque Castillet remains. The rest are—at the present writing—a mere mass of crumbled bricks and mortar, and a real blemish to an otherwise exceedingly attractive, gay little city. The automobile garages are all side by side on a new-made street, on the site of one line of the old fortifications, and are suitable enough ...
— The Automobilist Abroad • M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield
... further downward, she told herself. But she caught solace from some blind belief that all women, through some vague operation of their affectional powers, could invade the darkest mires of life, if only it were done for love, and carry away no stain. In fact, what would be a blemish in time would almost prove a thing of joy and pride. And in the meantime she was glad enough to be as happy as she was, and to be near Durkin. It was not the happiness she had once looked for, ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... nourished an intensity of wife-like devotion and endurance, which no unkindness could tire, and a fixedness of resolve, and high sense of moral rectitude, which no meaner feeling had yet obtained the power to blemish. ...
— Theresa Marchmont • Mrs Charles Gore
... another of that alliance. It seems to have been this gentleman's fortune, to have learned his divinity from his uncle,[28] and his politics from his tutor.[29] It may be thought a blemish in his character, that he hath much fallen from the height of those republican[30] principles with which he began; for in his father's lifetime, while he was a Member of the House of Commons, he would often, among his familiar friends, refuse the title of Lord (as he hath done to myself), swear ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... sun itself, Galileo observed on the surface of that luminary a spot or blemish which gradually changed its shape, suggesting that changes were taking place in the substance of the sun—changes obviously incompatible with the perfect condition demanded by the metaphysical theorists. But however ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... hardly have room for her on the island. He would then send to the Game Commissioner at Fredericton for a permit, and sell the good soul to the agent for some Zoological Garden, where she would be appreciated and cared for. As for Carrots, his conduct was irreproachable, absolutely without blot or blemish, but MacPhairrson knew that he was quite unregenerate at heart. The astute little beast understood well enough the fundamental law of the Family, "Live and let live," and he knew that if he should break that law, doom would descend upon him in an eye-wink. But into his narrowed, inscrutable eyes, ...
— The Backwoodsmen • Charles G. D. Roberts
... to Aristo the tragedian; a man of good family and fortune, which neither of them receive any blemish by that profession; nothing of this kind being reputed a disparagement in ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... ascertainment of the true nature of that which is (the Self) by means of the discrimination of that (which is superimposed on the Self), they call knowledge (vidya). There being such knowledge (neither the Self nor the Non-Self) are affected in the least by any blemish or (good) quality produced by their mutual superimposition[44]. The mutual superimposition of the Self and the Non-Self, which is termed Nescience, is the presupposition on which there base all the practical distinctions—those made in ordinary life ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1 • George Thibaut
... the slave dealers regularly and exactly one lie every year, so that they fell out with one another, till at last my master lost patience with me and, carrying me down to the market, ordered the brokers to cry, "Who will buy this slave, knowing his blemish and making allowance for it?" He did so and they asked him, "Pray, what may be his blemish?" and he answered, "He telleth me one single lie every year." Now a man that was a merchant came up and said to the broker, "How ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... a very great defect, and slight as this blemish appears in Miss Lovel, her money could never blind me to the fact if I ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... and revealing in its elementary stage the same indifference to real justice, and the same blindness. Whatever the moral cause of the ancestor's drunkenness or debauch, the same punishment may be meted out in mind and body to the descendants of the drunkard or the debauchee. Intellectual blemish will almost always accompany material blemish. The soul will be attacked simultaneously with the body; and it matters but little whether the victim be imbecile, mad, epileptic, possessed of criminal instincts, ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck
... know the true ratio between Seward and Lincoln, which only the future was to make plain. By all that it did know, it ought to have given the honor to Seward, who merited it by the high offices which he had held with distinction and without blemish, by the leadership which he had acquired in the party through long-continued constancy and courage, by the force and clearness with which he had maintained its principles, by his experience and supposed natural aptitude in the higher walks of statesmanship. Yet actually ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... blemish, in contrast with that of many of his contemporaries, stands out the brilliant record ...
— The Story of Isaac Brock - Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada, 1812 • Walter R. Nursey
... that follow her; Them shall no trouble cast down; Though she slay them, yet shall they trust in her, For unsure there is nought nor unjust in her, Blemish is none, neither rust in her; Though it threaten, the night shall not swallow her, Tempest and ...
— Songs before Sunrise • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... What if there were a flaw in the offering? What if the priest were not acceptable, and she were to go back with the debt uncanceled—with reconciliation not effected? Her mind leaped forward before the speaker could reach the point to the Lamb without spot or blemish and the High Priest who "ever liveth to make intercession" for His people. Was that what it meant? And was it already accomplished? The ...
— The First Soprano • Mary Hitchcock
... Waverley Novels generally display much ingenuity, and are interestingly involved; but there is not one in the conduct of which it would not be easy to point out a blemish. None have that completeness which constitutes one of the chief merits of Fielding's Tom Jones. There is always either an improbability, or a forced expedient, or an incongruous incident, or an unpleasant break, or too much intricacy, or a hurried conclusion. They are usually languid in the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 550, June 2, 1832 • Various
... lord," persisted his son, "the absolute necessity for giving her a course of fashionable life, if it were only to remove this constitutional blemish. If it were discovered, she is ruined; to blush being, as your lordship knows, contrary to all the laws and statutes of fashion in that case made ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... Carlisle, now to be executed; and lastly, ninth, my own soul, and I am now to die for my offence. But, my lords," he added, "besides my own offence, which in its nature needs no aggravation, divers scandalous reports are given out which blemish my reputation, which is more dear to me than my life: first, that I made show of reconciliation with Turner, the which, I protest, is utterly untrue, for what I have formerly said I do again assure your good ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... those soft parts of conversation which please ladies, and finding these qualities in his friend, would often depute Cassio to go (as he phrased it) a courting for him: such innocent simplicity being rather an honour than a blemish to the character of the valiant Moor. So that no wonder, if next to Othello himself (but at far distance, as beseems a virtuous wife) the gentle Desdemona loved and trusted Cassio. Nor had the marriage of this couple made any difference in their behaviour to ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... applied the cordial. Don Benito restored, the black withdrew his support, slipping aside a little, but dutifully remaining within call of a whisper. Such discretion was here evinced as quite wiped away, in the visitor's eyes, any blemish of impropriety which might have attached to the attendant, from the indecorous conferences before mentioned; showing, too, that if the servant were to blame, it might be more the master's fault than his own, ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... standing in front of a shop in the next block, picking at a blemish on his chin and eyeing the window display. He looked up with a frown, started away as Brett ...
— It Could Be Anything • John Keith Laumer
... literary point of view the second volume of "Sylvie and Bruno" lacks unity; a fairy tale is all very well, and a novel also is all very well, but the combination of the two is surely a mistake. However, the reader who cares more for the spirit than the letter will not notice this blemish; to him "Sylvie and Bruno Concluded" will be interesting and helpful, as the revelation ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... their natures; a voice rarely lies, But Mabel Lee's voice told one tale, while her eyes Told another. Large, liquid, and peaceful as lakes Where the azure dawn rests, ere the loud world awakes, Were the beautiful eyes of the maiden. "A saint, Without mortal blemish or weak human taint," Said Maurice to himself. To himself Roger said: "The touch of her soft little hands on my head Would convert me. What peace for a world weary breast To just sit by her side ...
— Three Women • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... had been but rumour, was now made clear to sight, That nought had yet been witness'd so beautiful and bright As those two lovely damsels; 't was plain to every eye; None the slightest blemish in ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... had the denial in the story of the training of Peter? It had a very important place. Up to that last night, there was still a grave blemish in Simon's character. His self-confidence was an element of weakness. Perhaps there was no other way in which this fault could be cured but by allowing him to fall. We know at least that, in the bitter experience of denial, ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... Neece, Abandon this lascivious unchaste life; It is the onely blemish of our house; Scandall unto our name; a Curtezan! O what's more odious ...
— A Collection Of Old English Plays, Vol. IV. • Editor: A.H. Bullen
... exact connotations of Plato's and Aristotle's word, imitation. Even if we hold to the narrower meaning of imitation, there are a few poets who intimate that imitation alone is their aim in writing poetry. Denying that life has an ideal element, they take pains to mirror it, line for line, and blemish for blemish. How can they meet Plato's question as to their usefulness? If life is a hideous, meaningless thing, as they insinuate, it is not clear what merit can abide in a faithful reflection of it. Let us take the case of Robert Service, who prided himself upon the realism of ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... we deduce from the repetition of the word "man" (in Lev. xvii.) that the non-Jews can offer voluntary sacrifices, like the Israelites]; thou wilt see if they sacrifice it." Caesar sent a calf without a blemish, but in transit a blemish appeared on the large lip [the upper lip], others say on the lid of the eye (dokin (Dalet Vav Qof Yod FinalNun)) ["tela,"[112] as in Is. xl. 22 Dok (Dalet Vav Qof)], which constitutes ...
— Rashi • Maurice Liber
... of some divine mystery. 'Husbands love your wives, as Christ also loved the Church, and gave Himself for it, that He might present it to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle, but that it should be holy and without blemish.' Blessed words, which we cannot pretend to explain or understand, but can only believe and adore, and find, as we shall find, in proportion as we are loving and faithful in wedlock, that God's Spirit bears ...
— Sermons for the Times • Charles Kingsley
... descending suddenly from her high moral stand-point, "I declare that boy has stepped right on the threshold of the back-door," and she stuffed her white handkerchief into her pocket, and took down the floor-cloth to wipe off the imperceptible blemish left by Ralph's boot-heels. And Mr. White followed his nephew to the stable to request that he would be a little careful what he did about anybody in the poor-house, as any trouble with the Joneses might defeat Mr. White's nomination ...
— The Hoosier Schoolmaster - A Story of Backwoods Life in Indiana • Edward Eggleston
... past five years. No method was adopted in the work. As the translator waded through the closely printed pages of the Greek offices, what appeared at first sight to be lines worthy of translation were taken up and examined, sometimes to be cast aside again because of some unremovable blemish, at other times to be moulded to the form which they now bear. Of the forty-seven pieces, thirty-five appear for the first ...
— Hymns of the Greek Church - Translated with Introduction and Notes • John Brownlie
... they interfered with his interests, and who could completely put on the appearance of every virtue as often as it suited his purposes, is, on the Stanhopian plan, the perfect man; a man to lead nations. But are great abilities, complete without a flaw, and polished without a blemish, the standard of human excellence? This is certainly the staunch opinion of men of the world; but I call on honour, virtue, and worth, to give the Stygian doctrine a loud negative! However, this must be allowed, that, if you abstract from man the idea of an existence beyond the grave, ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... ye answer, And consider, children dear;— In our image I would make him, Free from stain, from blemish clear. ...
— Songs of Labor and Other Poems • Morris Rosenfeld
... laughed, very bitterly. "He that is without blemish among you—" he said. Then they armed completely, and went forth to ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... that my sole wish and desire is to claim the indulgence of the Court, in permitting me to have a new and distinct trial, that I may clear my character from the cloud with which it is now depressed, and which had previously been without a blemish; as I am confident, if my case was separated from other persons in the indictment, it would be the means of my acquittal. It was my intention to have appeared in Court some days since, to have made the same request which I now do of ...
— The Trial of Charles Random de Berenger, Sir Thomas Cochrane, • William Brodie Gurney
... However, others have faults, too, and, as I have said elsewhere, but it will stand repeating, it is not the absence of defects but the presence of merits which makes works and men great. It is not always well to be without blemish. A too regular face or too pure a voice lacks expression. If there is no such thing as perfection in this world, it is doubtless because it is ...
— Musical Memories • Camille Saint-Saens
... subtitles and summaries, words are often divided. A subheading of two lines should never be divided in the first line when it is possible to turn the full word over on to the next line. The shortening of the first line is never a blemish, but a too short second line following a hyphened first line is ...
— Division of Words • Frederick W. Hamilton
... daffodils and cowslips grew And hidden the March violets blew, Within the bounds of that sweet close Was trellised the bewildering rose; There was the lily over-sweet, And starry pinks for garlands meet; And apricots hung on the wall And midst the flowers did peaches fall, And nought had blemish there or spot. For in that place ...
— The Earthly Paradise - A Poem • William Morris
... landscapes, and she would not see him again until the return of spring. At length she opened the box, and looked at the fruit. The apples were certainly fair and round: she could not see a wrinkle or a blemish on any of them; their color was the same golden-red,—like the sky at dawn of a summer's day; yet she thought there must be something wrong about them. She took up one of the apples, and tasted it. She fancied that it really ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin
... the largest sum of pleasure on the whole. This, of course, will vary with the different modes of poetry;—and that splendour of particular lines, which would be worthy of admiration in an impassioned elegy, or a short indignant satire, would be a blemish and proof of vile taste in a ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... of their hatred for Mary, the Douglases would have considered it an eternal blemish on their honour if any accident should have befallen the queen while she was dwelling in their castle; and it was in order that the queen herself should not entertain any fear in this respect that William Douglas, in his quality of lord of the manor, ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... "what we regard as exaltation of the landscape may be really such, as respects only the moral or human point of view. Each alteration of the natural scenery may possibly effect a blemish in the picture, if we can suppose this picture viewed at large—in mass—from some point distant from the earth's surface, although not beyond the limits of its atmosphere. It is easily understood that what might improve ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... railroad of the State was the servant or the master of the people. He heard a senator from the national capital, whose fortunes were linked with the autocrat's, declare that leader as the most maligned figure in American politics, and that he was without a blemish or vice on his private or public life, but, unlike Pontius Pilate, Jason never thought to ask himself what was truth, for, in spite of the mountaineer's Blue-grass allies, the lad had come to believe that there was a State conspiracy to rob his own people of their rights. This autocrat was ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.
... absence from your near relations and native country, hath been tedious to you; but I can assure you that your residence in my Court hath been a contentment to myself and to those who have had the honour to converse with you in this place; and it would have been a blemish to me and to all under my government if in this time anything of injury or danger had fallen out to your person or to any of your people. I hope I may say that there hath been no such thing offered to you, and I am ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke
... way. "Ye have heard that it was said, An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." Who said this? Was it some rabbin of the olden time? It was Moses; nay, the old record says that this is the word of the Lord by Moses: "The Lord spake unto Moses, saying [among other things], If a man cause a blemish in his neighbor, as he hath done so shall it be done to him; breach for breach, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; as he hath caused a blemish in a man, so shall it be rendered unto him." (Lev. xxiv. 19,20.) So in ...
— Who Wrote the Bible? • Washington Gladden
... for which they seem to be the unconscious media, that it is inspiring to come into touch with one who rings true as a man whatever demands are made upon him; whose music is free from morbidity or carnal blemish, as pure as the winter wind, as elemental as the ocean, as uplifting as the stars. In Bach let us always remember the noble human traits; for the universal regard in which his work is held could never have come merely ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... to see the blemish in the distant neighbor's style, You can point to all his errors and may sneer at him the while, And your prejudices fatten and your hates more violent grow As you talk about the failures of the man you do not know, But when drawn ...
— A Heap o' Livin' • Edgar A. Guest
... general system of things, he could consider attraction but as an effect, whose cause at that time he did not attempt to trace. But when he afterwards began to account for it by a subtle elastic aether, this great man (if in so great a man it be not impious to discover anything like a blemish) seemed to have quitted his usual cautious manner of philosophising: since, perhaps, allowing all that has been advanced on this subject to be sufficiently proved, I think it leaves us with as many difficulties as it found us. That great chain of causes, which linking one to another even ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... playes she neuer will be knowne, And to be tauerne guest she euer hates, Shee scornes to be a streete-wife (Idle one,) Or field vvife ranging vvith her vvalking mates: She knows how wise men censure of such dames, And how with blottes they blemish their good names. ...
— The Bride • Samuel Rowlands et al
... early work of the greater artist a good half is that of a man in the throes of education: the ideas, the thoughts, the passion, the poetry, the humour, are of the best, but the expression is self-conscious, strained, ignorant. Thackeray had no such blemish. He wrote dispassionately, and he was a born writer. In him there is no hesitation, no fumbling, no uncertainty. The style of Barry Lyndon is better and stronger and more virile than the style of Philip; and unlike the other man's, whose latest writing is his ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... congratulation at their splendid luck ere they stepped out from their ambush to inspect and admire this magnificent and unique addition to their "bag." The animals were all superb specimens, in perfect condition, without a blemish; their coats smooth and glossy as satin, the horns of the males long, straight, tough, and with points as sharp as that of a bayonet. The professor was in a perfect ecstasy of delight; he declared that this was the supreme moment of his life; ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... found—I have letters that even the blind will be able to see.... I call Christianity the one great curse, the one great intrinsic depravity, the one great instinct of revenge, for which no means are venomous enough, or secret, subterranean and small enough,—I call it the one immortal blemish upon the ...
— The Antichrist • F. W. Nietzsche
... separate attacks upon that peak. He stared from the pages of the volume—Gabriel Strood. Something of his great reach of limb, of his activity, of his endurance, she was able to realize. Moreover he had a particular blemish which gave to him a particular interest in her eyes, for it would have deterred most men altogether from his pursuit and it greatly hampered him. And yet in spite of it, he had apparently for some seasons stood prominent ...
— Running Water • A. E. W. Mason
... misfortune was something more than the mere loss of money, being keenly sensitive to the fact that Selina now, just as Mrs. Hackbutt had done before, avoided noticing what she said about her husband, as they would have avoided noticing a personal blemish. ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... bed turns out not to have been well made; they have had to put her in a new place to-day. Observe, she made that bed herself, no servants being up, and had found a blemish or DEFAUT of"—word wanting: who knows what?—"in the mattresses; which I believe hurt her exact mind, more than her not very delicate body. She has got, in the interim, an apartment promised to somebody ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle
... unceasingly. A more solemn dedication of a man by himself to the poetical office cannot be imagined. Everything about him became, as it were, pontifical, almost sacramental. A poet's soul must contain the perfect shape of all things good, wise, and just. His body must be spotless and without blemish, his life pure, his thoughts high, his studies intense. There was no drinking at the 'Mermaid' for John Milton. His thoughts, like his joys, were not ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... side the water; that Russia's ill-treatment of the serf and general barbaric conditions are to be overlooked on account of the friendliness she displayed toward us in our hour of need, barbarism being on the whole a less crucial blemish than the above-mentioned peculiarities of our other ally; and that everyone should hitch his wagon to ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant
... day these eys, though clear To outward view, of blemish or of spot; Bereft of light thir seeing have forgot, Nor to thir idle orbs doth sight appear Of Sun or Moon or Starre throughout the year, Or man or woman. Yet I argue not Against heavns hand or will, nor bate a jot Of heart or hope; but still bear up and steer Right onward. What ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... not fond of bigots myself, because they are not fond of me. But what is meant by bigotry, that we should regard it as a blemish in a priest? Damien believed his own religion with the simplicity of a peasant or a child; as I would I could suppose that you do. For this, I wonder at him some way off; and had that been his only character, should have avoided him in life. But the ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the duty of a nephew to spare his uncle; and this you might well perceive by my running from you. I tell you, it was an action much contrary to my nature, for I might often have hurt you when I refused, nor are you worse for me by anything more than the blemish of your eye, for which I am sorry, and wished it had not happened; yet thereby know that you shall reap rather benefit than loss thereby, for when other beasts in their sleep shut two windows, ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... gaiters, clasp thine ankles fine In noble leather, that no dust or mire Blemish thy foot; down from thy shoulders flow Loosely a tunic fair, thy shapely arms Cased in its closely-fitting sleeves, whose borders Of crimson or of azure velvet let The heliotrope's color tinge. Thy slender throat, Encircle with a soft and gauzy band. Thy watch ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... for the rough handling, and for the easy preparation for the fruit for canning, a thick, tough skin is desirable, while for home use it is objectionable. Freedom from blemish or skin crack is also often an important quality, and we have sorts which vary greatly in these respects. The color of the skin, whether purple, red, yellow or white, is a matter of taste. In some markets the choice is given to purple fruit, like the Beauty, while in ...
— Tomato Culture: A Practical Treatise on the Tomato • William Warner Tracy
... will need great care and discretion. These points have already been dealt with at some length. But on the question of blanching it may be well to add that in order to insure perfect specimens, free from blemish, artificial means of some kind must be adopted in place of earthing up in the ordinary way. The use of strips of good quality brown paper will prove both simple and effectual. These strips need not exceed a width of five or six inches, fresh bands ...
— The Culture of Vegetables and Flowers From Seeds and Roots, 16th Edition • Sutton and Sons
... have toiled out of the murk of her childhood and her upbringing, slowly, all soiled. She felt that memory was a dirty trick played upon her. What was this decree, that she should 'remember'! Why not a bath of pure oblivion, a new birth, without any recollections or blemish of a past life. She was with Birkin, she had just come into life, here in the high snow, against the stars. What had she to do with parents and antecedents? She knew herself new and unbegotten, she had no father, no mother, ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... the low roof of the nave; so that at night the moon, rising above the southern aisle, shines through its topmost window, and casts the shadow of its tracery upon the pavement of the square. This is a constructive blemish to which the Italians in no part of the peninsula were sensitive. They seem to have regarded their church fronts as independent of the edifice, capable of separate treatment, and worthy in themselves of being made the subject ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... one of the most handsome men in the army if his calves had been in harmony with the rest of his person; but his legs were like stilts, which looked very odd in the tight breeches, called Hungarians, which were then worn by the Chasseurs. To get over this blemish, Captain B*** had acquired pads made in the shape of calves, which completed his fine appearance. You will see how these calves got me into trouble, but they were not ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... brought against Gomara in his own day; and Garcilasso tells us, that, when called to account by some of the Peruvian cavaliers for misstatements which bore hard on themselves, the historian made but an awkward explanation. This is a great blemish on his productions, and renders them of far less value to the modern compiler, who seeks for the well of truth undefiled, than many an humbler but less ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... view. [538] One can but regret this perversity, for the old Roman and other authors have unpleasantnesses enough without accentuating them. Thus in reading some sweet poem of Catullus, spoilt by perhaps a single objectionable line, we do not want our attention drawn particularly to the blemish. Unfortunately, Sir Richard now made this kind of work his speciality, and it would be idle—or rather it would be untrue—to deny that he now chose certain books for translation, not on account of their beautiful ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... noble poem reads That tells the tale of Rama's deeds, Good as the Scriptures, he shall be From every sin and blemish free. Whoever reads the saving strain, With all his kin the heavens shall gain. Brahmans who read shall gather hence The highest praise for eloquence. The warrior, o'er the land shall reign, The merchant, luck in trade obtain; And Sudras listening(42) ne'er shall ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... help thinking how different she was from Miss Laura, who loved any creature all the more for having some blemish ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders
... happily found, lying in a deep obscure hole, being wrapped in a strong linen cloth, which was waxed all over with bees wax within and without, whereby the said book was preserved fair without any blemish. ...
— Miscellanies upon Various Subjects • John Aubrey
... spirit, of great compass, and stored with refined ideas. He is a critic of the first rank and, what is his peculiar ornament, he is delivered from the ostentation, malevolence, and supercilious temper, that so often blemish men of that character. His remarks result from the nature and reason of things, and are formed by a judgment free and unbiassed by the authority of those who have lazily followed each other in the same beaten track of thinking, and are arrived only at the reputation of acute grammarians and ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson
... twenty minutes, with only three stoppages upon the way. In spite of the inclement evening it was, therefore, fairly well filled upon the occasion of which I speak. The guard of the train was a tried servant of the company—a man who had worked for twenty-two years without a blemish or complaint. His name was ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... "complete mental and bodily rest". He said he would "send something," and in a cloud of wise words disguised the fact that he did not in the least know what to do. It was not in his experience that a healthy young Hercules, sound as a bell, without spot or blemish, should behave like ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... buried their foe with tears and their own with singleness of heart and quiet joy, for that they did rest from their labours. In this manner was the great tragedy and glory of the world made to the people a present thing, transforming them to the body of the Life that hath neither spot nor blemish nor . ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... conceived. He absolutely bought her a parure of diamonds, I was obliged to say to him that I had studied to preserve her simplicity of taste, and that he must not corrupt her with too much luxury. But I was rather disappointed at their going off without a maid. It was the one blemish in the arrangements, the spot in the sun. Dear Cynthia, when I think of her, I do assure you, Molly, I make it my nightly prayer that I may be able to find you just such another husband. And all this time you have never told me who you met ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... Haarlem Tulip Society offered a prize of 100,000 guilders to whomsoever should produce a large black tulip, without spot or blemish. Van Baerle at once thought out the idea of the black tulip. He had already achieved a dark brown one, while Boxtel, who had only managed to produce a light brown one, gave up the quest as impossible, and could do nothing but spy on ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... a position for myself, despite of failures and reverses on the further side. It is an advantage in some cases to be committed. The clear large type of the Courier office did, however, show me many a blemish in my verse that had escaped me before, and broke off associations which—curiously linked with the manuscripts—had given to the stanzas and passages which they contained charms of tone and colour not ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... went to the High School. There, each girl was a lady. There, she was going to walk among free souls, her co-mates and her equals, and all petty things would be put away. Ah, if only she did not bite her nails! If only she had not this blemish! She wanted so much to be perfect—without spot or blemish, living the ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... is another kind of expression which slips into the lines of even standard authors, but which is always regarded as an oversight and a blemish. ...
— An English Grammar • W. M. Baskervill and J. W. Sewell
... and as I take it goody Seger was there though after that he sayd, I saw her there, I knew her well I know God will require her blood at my hands if I should testifie falsly. Allso bec he sd he saw her kittle, there being at so great a distance, they doubted that these things did not only weaken & blemish his testimony, but also in a great measure disable it for standing to take ...
— The Witchcraft Delusion In Colonial Connecticut (1647-1697) • John M. Taylor
... stables—steed by steed, Stallions and mares, Vahuka scanned them all, By Rituparna prayed quickly to choose. Slowly he picked four coursers, under-fleshed, But big of bone and sinew; fetlocked well For journeying; high-bred, heavy-framed; of blood To match the best, yet gentle; blemish-free; Broad in the jaw, with scarlet nostrils spread; Bearing the Avarthas, the ten true marks— Reared on the banks of Indus, swift as wind. Which, when the Raja looked upon, he cried, Half-wrathful: "What thing thinkest ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... in all Israel there was none to be so much praised as Absalom for his beauty: from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head there was no blemish in him. ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... to be trusted with government; therefore the same corruption is in all other men's hearts; even as the face in the water answereth the face out of the water so just, that there is not a spot or blemish in the one but it is in the other. I am sure Paul taught us not so when he said, "In lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves," Phil. ii. 3. Nay, the brother himself hath taken off the edge of his own argument ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... we know not how. We do not know what kind of a spot it is; perhaps it is a soup stain, perhaps it is due to a shrimp salad we had with Endymion at that amusing place that calls itself the Crystal Palace; we will not attempt to trace the origin of that swarthy blemish on the soft silk of our tie; but we have cunningly taught ourself to knot the thing so that the spot does not show. (Good, we have made that plain: we are ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... heart, and the other in the off hind leg. The prize was indeed one to be proud of; his length from tip of nose to tip of tail was nine feet eight inches, he stood three feet nine inches high, and it took eight men to carry him back to camp. The only blemish was that the skin was much scored by the boma thorns through which he had so often forced his way in carrying ...
— The Man-eaters of Tsavo and Other East African Adventures • J. H. Patterson
... so far as I can discover the facts, only one blemish on his really beautiful character. He lacked that robust, unswerving conscience which compels a man who sees a new vision of the truth to proclaim it, to champion it, and to suffer and even die for it when it comes ...
— Spiritual Reformers in the 16th & 17th Centuries • Rufus M. Jones
... committed their Opinions to Writing, they were made publick who traced more closely therein the Laws of Christ and Christianity, and were judged Persons pure, free from and innocent of that stain and blemish of depriving the Indians of their Treasures by Theft and Rapine, which Riches had contaminated and sullied the Hands, but much more the Souls of those who were enslav'd by those heaps of Wealth and Covetousness, now this obstinate and hot pursuit after ...
— A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies • Bartolome de las Casas |
