"Disadvantage" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... easy for the judge to dispense justice and not dispense with law. That is to say, before a judge can decide a case, he must be able to back up his opinion by precedent. Judges are not elected to deal out justice between man and man; they are elected to decide on points of law. Law is often a great disadvantage to a judge—it may hamper justice—and in America there must surely soon come a day when we will make a bonfire of every law-book in the land, and electing our judges for life, we will make the judiciary free. We will then require ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great Philosophers, Volume 8 • Elbert Hubbard
... to rage, but with disadvantage to the English. The Scottish archers had now an opportunity of galling their infantry without opposition; and it would appear that King Edward could find no means of bringing any part of his numerous centre or rear-guard to the support of those ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 406, Saturday, December 26, 1829. • Various
... and orderly movement of his fleet; in baffling, by sheer skill, and during long periods, the efforts of the enemy to bring him to action; in skilful disposition, when he purposely accepted battle under disadvantage; but under most favorable opportunities he failed in measures of energy, and, after achieving partial success, superfluous care of his own command prevented his blows from ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... volunteer regiments that were hotly engaged and lost heavily in Friday's battle were the Seventy-first New York and the Second Massachusetts. Both were armed with Springfield rifles, and this put them at a great disadvantage as compared with the regulars, all of whom used Krag-Jorgensen rifles or carbines with smokeless powder. In a wooded and chaparral-covered country like that around Santiago, where it was so easy to find ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan
... [1] This disadvantage is greater on the stage, since the audience neither see nor hear more of Bourbon, and only four acts of the piece are performed. In the closet it will not be so obvious, as Bourbon returns in the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19. Issue 539 - 24 Mar 1832 • Various
... invincible became my energy to surmount it. Every leisure moment was now employed in reading one thing or another. Having to support myself by manual labour, my time for reading was but little, and to overcome this disadvantage, my usual method was to place a book before me while at meat, and at every repast I read five or six pages." The perusal of Locke's 'Essay on the Understanding' gave the first metaphysical turn to ...
— Self Help • Samuel Smiles
... place, who does not see that, if the Pagans really were enabled by their religion to master their movements of personal anger and hatred, the inevitable inference will be to the disadvantage of Christianity. It would be a clear case. Christianity and Paganism have been separately tried as means of self-control; Christianity has flagrantly failed; Paganism succeeded universally; not having been found unequal to the task in any ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... forbid Bleeding after the fourth Day, if it had been omitted so long; but when no Symptoms of Suppuration had already appeared, on whatever Day of the Disorder it happened, I ordered plentiful Bleeding, the same as in recent Cases; and never found any Disadvantage, but often ...
— An Account of the Diseases which were most frequent in the British military hospitals in Germany • Donald Monro
... disinterestedness, so that he may act and judge in his government without subjecting himself to any private person—whether he need such for his temporal advancement, or, through friendship or relationship, incurs that disadvantage ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVII, 1609-1616 • Various
... commerce, was damaged in discharging pieces of artillery. It is entirely destroyed, and it was undecided whether it would be best to reconstruct it with masonry, according to the project of Don Luis de Bassecourt, or to open the bar of Guaurabo by dredging it. The great disadvantage of Puerto de Casilda is the want of fresh water, which vessels have to procure at ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V3 • Alexander von Humboldt
... are the same with those of the senate by which this law was made, is obvious beyond dispute; or where they vary, the difference is, perhaps, to our disadvantage. We have, sir, the same enemies, or, at least, have reason to apprehend the same; but have little hope of the same allies. The present war is to be carried on at a greater distance, and in more places at the same instant; ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson
... convocation. There is, however, one comfort, that under the present dispositions of the kingdom, a dislike to the proceedings of any of their lordships, even to the number of a majority, will be purely personal, and not turned to the disadvantage of the order. And for my part, as I am a true lover of the Church, I had rather find the inclinations of the people favourable to episcopacy in general, than see a majority of prelates cried up by those who are known enemies to the character. Nor, indeed, ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IX; • Jonathan Swift
... multitude is round about us still, and the people are in peril of fainting by the way. There is the multitude of misfortune, the children of disadvantage, who never seem to have come to their own. And there is the multitude of outcasts, the vast army of publicans and sinners. And there are the bewildering multitudes of Africa, and India, and China, and ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett
... Judge to determine the qualifications of the juror, that is to say, the examination of jurors in criminal cases was to have been taken out of the hands of the lawyers and required of the Judge. To compensate the defendant for whatever substantial disadvantage he might suffer, the number of his peremptory challenges was ...
— Story of the Session of the California Legislature of 1909 • Franklin Hichborn
... inspection of a wood-lot that they owned together, and had now visited their landmarks and outer boundaries, and settled the great question of cutting or not cutting some large pines. When it was well decided that a few years' growth would be no disadvantage to the timber, they had eaten an excellent cold luncheon and ...
— The Queen's Twin and Other Stories • Sarah Orne Jewett
... methods of workmanship and their attitude toward life have many points in common. The charm of style, the delicacy of touch, and felicity of phrase, are in both cases preeminent. Daudet has, however, the advantage (or, as he himself asserts, the disadvantage) of working in a flexible and highly finished language, which bears the impress of the labors of a hundred masters; while Kielland has to produce his effects of style in a poorer and less pliable language, which often pants and groans in its efforts to render ...
— Skipper Worse • Alexander Lange Kielland
... across the bank, on which the water was fast rising. Thought, there was no time for, and before my companions could have reached me, the tide would have flooded the place sufficiently to enable the alligator to attack me at a disadvantage. My only chance of escaping the monster was to hasten back to the boat, and to cross the last creek before the alligator, who appeared fully aware of my intentions. It was now, therefore, a mere matter of speed between us, and the race began. ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... child, don't promise me anything. How can a promise you might make at the present time be of any value to me? The disadvantage of it would be entirely yours. You see, my child, the most loving father could not speak more lovingly to you than I. Thank a kind providence for not having been delivered into some other artist's hands by your indiscretion. (Presses her hand.) Let it be a lesson ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... captured by a reunited nation with its king at its head. As long as our miserable divisions weaken and disgrace us, the Church fights at a disadvantage; and the hoary fortresses of the foe will not be won till Judah ceases to vex Ephraim, and Ephraim no more envies Judah, but all Christ's servants in one host, with the King known by each to be with ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... by my expedition to the headwaters of the Mississippi, I had no intention of replying, but have finally yielded to the reasoning of friends who feel that longer silence might possibly be construed to my disadvantage. ...
— Sword and Pen - Ventures and Adventures of Willard Glazier • John Algernon Owens
... became rapid and heavy. A half dozen horsemen who had ridden into the prairie had caught sight of him and now they were galloping toward him. The brightness of the night showed Ned at once that they were Mexican cavalrymen, and as he was on foot he was at a great disadvantage. ...
— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler
... advantage it gives you? The man who is standing on one foot, undecided, is quickly pulled or pushed in the way you want him to go if you yourself vigorously desire it. Even the man who stands obstinately on both feet is at a disadvantage if he does not know which way to go, and you very decidedly know which way you want ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... outside garment of all, become indispensable summer and winter, which would buy a village of Indian wigwams, but now helps to keep them poor as long as they live. I do not mean to insist here on the disadvantage of hiring compared with owning, but it is evident that the savage owns his shelter because it costs so little, while the civilized man hires his commonly because he cannot afford to own it; nor can he, in the long run, any better afford ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... quantity sufficient. I remarked to him that this would not profit much. Doing, perhaps, twelve pages a day will easily finish us, and if it prove dull, why, dull it must be. I shall, perhaps, have half a dozen to make up this night. I have against me the disadvantage of being called the Just, and every one of course is willing to worry me. But they have been long at it, and even those works which have been worst received at their appearance now keep their ground fairly enough. So we'll try our ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... and rear, Beautiful Dog was at hideous disadvantage. He launched himself sidewise; he didn't even have time to howl. He fell over his own splay feet as he ran, butted into chairs and tables, twisted, turned, whirled, dodged, but always presented just ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... a pitch near the Round Pond with which he is familiar, but this would have placed me at a disadvantage, so I insisted on unaccustomed ground, and we finally pitched stumps in the Figs. We could not exactly pitch stumps, for they are forbidden in the Gardens, but there are trees here and there which ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie
... and aunt, ladies who visited Jeanne continually, and soon became interested and attached to her; but as the master of the house was himself in the camp before Compiegne, they had the advantage or disadvantage, as far as the prisoner was concerned, of constant news, and Jeanne's trouble for ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... memorable passage, part of which I now quote, from the same source that has supplied several others of my quotations, Mr. Alexander Ireland's "Book-Lover's Enchiridion." "Writing," says Plato, "has this terrible disadvantage, which puts it on the same footing with painting. The artist's productions stand before you, as if they were alive: but if you ask them anything, they keep a solemn silence. Just so with written discourse: you would fancy it full of the thoughts it speaks: but if you ask ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams
... the butternut shares in the childhood reminiscences of those who have lived on farms or in the country where butternuts are a treat to look forward to each fall. The nuts, which mature early, have a rich, tender kernel of mild flavor. Only the disadvantage of their heavy, corrugated shells prevents them from holding the highest place in popularity, although a good variety cracks easily into ...
— Growing Nuts in the North • Carl Weschcke
... every muscle has to work against an opponent or antagonist muscle. Here we seem to come across a defect in the human machine, for the greater straight muscles in the front of the neck, which serve as opposing muscles, are not only much smaller but at a further disadvantage by being yoked to the pre-fulcral end of the lever, very close to the cup on which the head rocks. However, if the greater straight muscles lose power by working on a very short lever, they gain, in speed; we set them quickly and easily into ...
— A Book of Exposition • Homer Heath Nugent
... illiterate among our own countrymen may learn to judge from Dryden's Virgil of the most perfect epic performance. And those parts of Homer which have been published already by Mr Pope, give us reason to think that the Iliad will appear in English with as little disadvantage to that immortal poem.' ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... new system there was no appeal; it was orderly, methodical, unrelenting; it was backed by the whole force of the kingdom; it overlooked nothing; it forgot nothing; it was comparatively incorruptible. The lesser courts, with their old clumsy procedure, were at a hopeless disadvantage before the professional judges, who could use all the new legal methods. If a man suffered under these there was none to plead his cause, for in all the country there was not a single trained lawyer save those in the king's service. However we who look ...
— Henry the Second • Mrs. J. R. Green
... saw—in the way women do see without seeming to use their eyes—two men conducted to a table directly in front of her. As she sat on her host's right, at the end of the table, not opposite to him, this gave her the advantage—or disadvantage—of facing the newcomers fully, while Mr. Smith, who had faced them as they entered, would have his ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... individual put in his appearance with a saddle on his back. He asked me if he could get some supper with us and I told him to "lay to," and he then asked me if I knew him. I told him I knew him but it would not be to his disadvantage. ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... veiling of the high lights, which should range from absolutely bare glass in the highest points. He showed that, in consequence of this veiling, the light was sensibly diminished all over the picture. This veiling of the high lights was a serious disadvantage in another important particular, inasmuch as it lessened the contrast between the lights and shadows of the picture, thereby robbing it of some of its charm ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 288 - July 9, 1881 • Various
... Garden of Eden story whichever way you look at it, and it's too old for an argument at any rate," said Diavolo. "But there is no doubt about the redemption. It was a woman who managed that little affair. And, altogether, it seems to me, in spite of the disadvantage of being classed by law with children, lunatics, beggars, and irresponsible people generally, that, in the matter of who have done most good in the world, women come out a long ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... beside him. Bob, eager for the word, spoke soothingly to the dogs to keep them quiet. He was devoutly hoping that Nero would not discover any intimate friend in the crowd and insist upon a formal greeting; for Nero's affability was a distinct disadvantage ...
— Baldy of Nome • Esther Birdsall Darling
... wisdom to turn the impossibility into a reality.... North America was rich, civilized and powerful even before its emancipation from Mother England; if the colonists had not had their leader, one hundred Washingtons would have presented themselves to fill the place, and not at a disadvantage. Washington was surrounded by men as remarkable as he was, if not better: Jefferson, Madison, men of great and deep counsel; Franklin, a genius of Heaven and earth. All these and many others, no matter how great they were, or how numerous, were as one in the service ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell
... interval of three years—was only marked by the ascendency of Madame de Maintenon, and a renewed persecution, directed not against Protestants, but against those Catholics who cultivated the highest and freest religious life, and in which Bossuet appears to a great disadvantage by the side of his rival, the equally illustrious Fenelon. It was also marked by the gradual disappearance of the great lights in literature. La Fontaine died in 1695, Racine in 1699. Boileau was as good as dead; Mesdames de la Sabliere and de la Fayette, Pellisson and Bussy-Rabutin, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord
... go back to Lynbrook, but he had not known how to tell Bessy that he was coming. Lack of habit made him inexpert in the art of easy transitions, and his inability to bridge over awkward gaps had often put him at a disadvantage with his wife and her friends. He had not yet learned the importance of observing the forms which made up the daily ceremonial of their lives, and at present there was just enough soreness between ...
— The Fruit of the Tree • Edith Wharton
... Adriatic Sea, she would have a substantial monopoly of the sea-borne commerce of the Dalmatian coast and its hinterland. It was equally apparent that Italian possession of the two ports would place the new Slav state at a great disadvantage commercially, as the principal volume of its exports and imports would have to pass through a port in the hands of a trade rival which could, in case of controversy or in order to check competition, be closed ...
— The Peace Negotiations • Robert Lansing
... at a disadvantage, as I was unable to reach his face, owing to his superior grip of me; but I managed to get a leg at the back of his, and though the pressure on my windpipe was terrible, and I felt that I was weakening ...
— Hurricane Island • H. B. Marriott Watson
... one; an operation that took just four minutes by the watch. He would have tried the same experiment with the other lug, but the mast was scarce worth the risk, and he thought the holes might act as reefs, and thus diminish the strain. In these four hours, owing to the disadvantage under which le Feu-Follet labored, there was not a difference of half a knot in the distance run by the two vessels, though each passed over more than thirty miles of water. During this time they had been drawing rapidly nearer to the coast of Corsica, the mountains of which, ragged and ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... delegates permitted to each country was increased from six to twelve, with twelve alternates. A resolution was adopted urging the National Suffrage Association of each nation to prepare a comprehensive statement of the laws which place women at a disadvantage in regard to property, earnings, marriage, divorce, guardianship of children, education, industrial conditions and political rights, and to explain, when demanding their immediate enfranchisement from their respective Parliaments, ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... worth, or nearly so; and my lord, do you see—' 'I see no reason at all,' said I, 'why I should sell the animal for less than he is worth, in order that his lordship may be benefited by him; so that if his lordship wants to make an honest penny, he must find some person who would consider the disadvantage of selling him a horse for less than it is worth, as counterbalanced by the honour of dealing with a lord, which I should never do; but I can't be wasting my time here. I am going back to the —-, where ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... thus recalling the events of her early life—"a young man of Yankee birth came among us as a schoolmaster, when I was only fifteen. Our people were anxious enough to have us all taught to read English, for many had found the disadvantage of being ignorant of the language of their rulers, and of the laws. I was sent to George Wetmore's school, like most of the other young people of the neighbourhood, and remained his scholar for three years. If you were on the hill ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... bullocks on our return journey, some having got bogged, and others having lain down from weakness, never to rise. For three hundred miles we were now to depend on the ponds of the Bogan, and again to contend with the scarcity of water, a disadvantage from which we had been quite free while on the ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... try, Cecily. You will hear endless things to my disadvantage—things that I cannot contradict if you ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... faculty of averting the weariness which is ordinarily inseparable from the prolonged discussion of details. Professional associates, who willingly recognised his general superiority, sometimes confessed that in the most irksome of their contests they were placed at an exceptional disadvantage in comparison of Mr. Hope-Scott's felicitous adroitness. He excelled in dealing with skilled witnesses, who were themselves from the nature of the case supplementary advocates. The object of cross-examination, where there is little serious dispute as to the facts, ...
— Memoirs of James Robert Hope-Scott, Volume 2 • Robert Ornsby
... we had a better place. I feel at a disadvantage. If it were a man I wouldn't mind, I could act humble and brave—that sort of dope. But it never goes with a woman; you have to bully a rich woman, and I'm ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... vulnerable spot, and remain so even in man, and the need for their protection which thus exists conflicts with the prominent display required for a sexual allurement. This end is far more effectively attained, with greater advantage and less disadvantage, by concentrating the chief ensigns of sexual attractiveness on the upper and more conspicuous parts of the body. This method is well-nigh universal among animals ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... with some singular and astonishing coincidences. Human beings appear to be left in this respect, as in many others, to their own judgment. If they act discreetly, they enjoy the comfort of it; but if otherwise, they bring upon themselves a disadvantage. ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... less picturesque. They have now but little romance about them. Nearly everything in them is precise and practical. The literary artist, therefore, is likely to find in them few things to attract him, and will be, to that extent, at a disadvantage as compared with those who have preceded him. There were days when the preliminary canvassing, the nomination and the polling days, had features which invited treatment on the stage or in print. The whole atmosphere ...
— By-ways in Book-land - Short Essays on Literary Subjects • William Davenport Adams
... right wing of the Confederates, attacked on three sides at once, placed at enormous disadvantage, completely outgeneraled, had given way in confusion, was retreating, breaking, and flying. There were lines yet of dirty gray or butternut; but they were few, meagre, fluctuating, and recoiling, and there were ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... ensued, that they either quitted their quarters, or, afraid to stand behind the guns when they were fired, no aim was taken, and the shots were thrown away. Had the two ships been equally manned, the disadvantage, under all the misfortunes of the Frenchman, would have been on the side of the frigate; but the gale itself was more than sufficient employment for the undisciplined crew ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... sally, and recovering the outwork which they had lost. This the knight was chiefly desirous of avoiding, conscious that the men whom he led, being hasty and untrained volunteers, imperfectly armed and unaccustomed to discipline, must, upon any sudden attack, fight at great disadvantage with the veteran soldiers of the Norman knights, who were well provided with arms both defensive and offensive; and who, to match the zeal and high spirit of the besiegers, had all the confidence which arises from perfect discipline and the habitual ...
— Journeys Through Bookland - Volume Four • Charles H. Sylvester
... brought into contact, and if he has not sought to impose his moral system, he has, at any rate, severely criticised that of the people with whom he has been brought into contact, and compared it with his own to their disadvantage. In Japan, where there is a large foreign community, the thinking, logical Japanese has had abundant opportunities for studying not only the principles of Western religions and Western morality, but also the practice of them by Western ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery
... Saxony favoured the Austrians. The King of Prussia therefore entered Saxony, and obliged the Saxon troops at Pirna to surrender prisoners of war. He invaded Bohemia, defeated the Austrian General, and gained another victory near Prague. But attacking the Austrians at a disadvantage near Kolin, he was defeated, and obliged to raise the siege of Prague. The French now passed the Weser, and drove the Hanoverians before them. They made a stand however at Hastenbeck, under the Duke of Cumberland, where they were attacked, and forced to retreat towards Stade, and laid down ...
— A Museum for Young Gentlemen and Ladies - A Private Tutor for Little Masters and Misses • Unknown
... gradually grew weaker and at last, after three hours of argument, the judge succeeded so well that she left her work (to the temporary disadvantage of her younger son), and put on her bonnet. The two went out together, she to call on Mr. Mitrophanis, and he to find ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Polish • Various
... lodgings, it may be supposed that I lost not a moment in taking the quantity prescribed. I was necessarily ignorant of the whole art and mystery of opium-taking, and what I took, I took under every disadvantage. But I took it; and in an hour—O heavens! what a revulsion! what an upheaving from its lowest depths of the inner spirit! what an apocalypse of the world within me! That my pains had vanished was now a trifle in my eyes—this negative effect was swallowed up in the immensity of those ...
— The Opium Habit • Horace B. Day
... I said, "in answering that question I assume that the information is confidential and that it will not be used to my disadvantage. Up to now it has been a secret known ...
— John Henry Smith - A Humorous Romance of Outdoor Life • Frederick Upham Adams
... second-class passengers. The Vaterland took none such on her outward voyages, and all were on the same footing as to the fare and the freedom of the ship. The captain and the orchestra appeared at dinner in the second saloon on alternate nights, and the only disadvantage in the location was that it was very far aft; unless it could be considered a drawback that the furnishings were of plain wood and plush instead of carving, gilding, and stamped leather. In fact, as the voyage proceeded, ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... so causing it to stand out in relief upon the wall; or by sinking the design below the wall-surface and cutting it in relief at the bottom of the hollow. The first method has the advantage of being expeditious, and the disadvantage of not being sufficiently decorative. Rameses III. made use of it in certain parts of his temple at Medinet Habu; but, as a rule, it was preferred for stelae and small monuments. The last-named method lessened not only the danger of damage to the work, but the labour of the workman. ...
— Manual Of Egyptian Archaeology And Guide To The Study Of Antiquities In Egypt • Gaston Camille Charles Maspero
... debate, but Disraeli was in his place on the Treasury Bench, so that anything might happen. It pleased the Mr. Grant Duff of those days to deliver himself of a philippic, at once voluminous and violent, against the Prime Minister. He quoted the opinions of foreign critics to the disadvantage of Mr. Disraeli; he emphasised them by fine flights of his own imagination; and he illustrated his speech with a wealth of gesticulation and a variety of intonation that convulsed his scanty audience with laughter. People wondered mildly what punishment was in store for the audacious man ...
— Memoirs of Sir Wemyss Reid 1842-1885 • Stuart J. Reid, ed.
... threaten access to the West by the Great Lakes, and cut off all supplies by way of Detroit and Lake Huron for the Nor'westers. Was MacDonell scoring a point against the Nor'westers, when they were at a disadvantage? Who can answer? Selkirk had ordered him to expel the {389} Nor'westers from his lands, and if the violent contest had not begun in this way, it was bound to come in another. What MacDonell did was issue a proclamation in January of 1814, forbidding ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... as on the previous day. And again, as on the previous day, they all turned at the garden gate, and kissed their hands—evidently to the face on the window-sill, though Barbox Brothers from his retired post of disadvantage at the corner ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens
... disappointing; but the great disadvantage of not getting away was that Mr. Pulitzer's memory generally clung very tenaciously to the fact that he had given you leave, and lost the subsequent act of rescinding it. The effect of this was that for the practical purpose of getting a day off your turn was used up as soon as J. P. granted ...
— An Adventure With A Genius • Alleyne Ireland
... in the possession of a Mr. William Whittingen, who bought it at a very low price from some people named Tyler. It is true that it would cost a small fortune to repair, but, notwithstanding this disadvantage, Mr. Whittingen considered his purchase a bargain, and was more than satisfied with it. Indeed, he knew of no other house of a similar size, of such an imposing appearance, and so pleasantly situated, ...
— Scottish Ghost Stories • Elliott O'Donnell
... eliminate the errors of each observation, yet the fact remains that we compare the measures made by observers in the northern hemisphere with those made by different observers, using of course different instruments, thousands of miles away. But in this respect we are at no greater disadvantage than in observing the transit ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... Snail-shells just as though her ancestors had never known the danger of the Osmia-blocked vestibule. Once these facts are duly recognized, the conclusion is irresistible: it is obvious that, as the insect does not hand down the casual modification tending towards the avoidance of what is to its disadvantage, neither does it hand down the modification leading to the adoption of what is to its advantage. However lively the impression made upon the mother, the accidental leaves no trace in the offspring. Chance plays no part in ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre
... ourselves among ourselves, and the result of that secret comparison is estimation of ourselves, and despising others. We take our measure, not by our own real and intrinsic qualifications, but by the stature of other men's, and if we find any disadvantage in others, or any pre-eminence in ourselves, in such a partial application and collation of ourselves with others (as readily self love, if it find it not, will fancy it), then we have a tacit gloriation within ourselves, and a secret complacency ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... local impediments was thrown in the road from Hallifax to Petersburg, and precautions taken to remove the horses from the enemy's reach. Should it be possible to get arms, some militia might be brought into the field, but General Greene and myself labour under the same disadvantage, the few militia we can with great pains collect arrive unarmed, and we have not a sufficiency of weapons to put ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... should be chosen? In any case, one of the narrow dikes connecting the island city with the shore must be traversed; and on these causeways the Spaniards would fight under great disadvantage. Finally, he settled upon that leading to Tlacopan, which was much the shortest, being only two miles ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty
... infantry also. On seeing this, the consul ordered two chosen cohorts to march round the right flank of the enemy, and show themselves on their rear, before the two lines of infantry could close. The alarm which this gave the enemy, which had been thrown to a disadvantage by the cowardice of the Roman horse, restored the fight to an equality. But such a panic had taken possession of both the cavalry and infantry of the right wing, that the consul laid hold of several with his own hand, and turned ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... at disadvantage, unarmed, their very knives flung down in their eagerness to untwist the cords, they were soon overpowered. The wretch who had been reclining in Frank's arms quickly found his feet, and, ere Frank could recover from his surprise, one heavy blow flung him to the ground; whilst ...
— A Lady's Visit to the Gold Diggings of Australia in 1852-53. • Mrs. Charles (Ellen) Clacey
... wealthy, the misery of being handsome, the disadvantage of a divine moustache and a dimple in the chin, the affliction of having wavy hair and dark eyes, the forlorn condition of a man who is very clever, who never makes a bad joke, who is such "good company," ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... discern that higher power of Imagination whose crown and seal is the Beautiful. To decide this question we have, unhappily, to consider his work as lyrical, rather than dramatic, and for this reason we must study his power under disadvantage. That he possesses dramatic power will hardly be denied by those who know his "Hamlet," "The Drummer-Boy," and "The Boy and the Butterfly;" but the exigencies of life appear to prevent him from occupying himself ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... sausage-makers, leaned against shapeless timber houses which tottered upwards in a medley of sagging roofs and bulging gutters. Tignonville was strange to the place, and nine nights out of ten he would have been at a disadvantage. But, thanks to the tapers that to-night shone in many windows, he made out enough to see that he need search only the one side; and with a beating heart he passed along the row of newer houses, looking eagerly for the sign of ...
— Count Hannibal - A Romance of the Court of France • Stanley J. Weyman
... been long with my son before I discovered who that Other was.... I determined to have it out with him at once. Feeling that the situation was one for tactics, I manoeuvred for position and, to get him entirely at a disadvantage, I surprised him in his bath and taxed him with his infamy. I addressed him more in sorrow than in anger. I told him I was well aware of his personal charm, but in this instance I was bound to comment unfavourably on the use he had made ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 21st, 1917 • Various
... friend; to Rena as a woman, but not as a wife. Tryon, however, was only human, and who could tell when their paths in life might cross again, or what future temptation Tryon might feel to use a damaging secret to their disadvantage? Warwick had cherished certain ambitions, but these he must now put behind him. In the obscurity of private life, his past would be of little moment; in the glare of a political career, one's antecedents are public property, and too great a reserve ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt
... is at a terrible disadvantage in word play of this kind. On this occasion Ralph could think of ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... the bridge, and wedged him in between Oliver and the parapet, just as a second cavalier made a dart for the place. At his horse Beelzebub sprang like a fury, rearing, biting, and striking out with his fore-feet in such manner as quite to make up to his rider for the disadvantage of his low stature. The cavalier's horse recoiled in terror, rearing also, but snorting and backing and wavering, so that, in his endeavours to avoid the fury of Beelzebub, which was frightful to see, for with ears laid ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... in the vicinity of Porto Rico. The flagship was the frigate Constellation, which on February 9, 1799, encountered the French frigate, L'Insurgente, and made it strike its flag after an action lasting only an hour and seventeen minutes. The French captain fought well, but he was put at a disadvantage by losing his topmast at the opening of the engagement, so that Captain Truxtun was able to take a raking position. The American loss was only one killed and three wounded, while L'Insurgente had twenty-nine killed and forty-one wounded. On February 1, 1800, the Constellation fought ...
— Washington and His Colleagues • Henry Jones Ford
... little relieved at his narrow escape. He did not propose to be taken captive without making a strong resistance; but still, in a struggle with Mr. Fox and Joel, he felt that he would be considerably at a disadvantage. ...
— Facing the World • Horatio Alger
... wood bins have the additional advantage of being fairly good thermal insulators: one inch of wood is as much insulation as one foot of solid concrete. Composting containers also have a potential disadvantage-reducing air flow, slowing decomposition, and possibly making the process go anaerobic. Should this happen air flow can be improved by supporting the heap on a slatted floor made of up-ended Cuprinol-treated 2 x 4's ...
— Organic Gardener's Composting • Steve Solomon
... neighbour, seeing her married to this old man, fell in love with her, and importuned her for several years; but never received of her any reply save such as a virtuous woman should make. One day the gentleman bethought him that if he could take her at a disadvantage she might perchance be less harsh towards him, and, after he had for a long while weighed the danger that he might run, his love for the lady wholly banished his fears, and he resolved to find a time and place. He kept excellent watch, and so one morning, when the lady's husband ...
— The Tales Of The Heptameron, Vol. V. (of V.) • Margaret, Queen Of Navarre
... corner, whence she and the man from the Chateau watched the skirmish in silence; but the pewter cups and platters flew spinning across the floor, while the table pinned me to the ground among the ruins of my stool. Having me at this disadvantage—for at first I made no resistance the landlord began to belabour me with the first thing he snatched up, and when I tried to defend myself, cursed me with each blow for a treacherous rogue and a vagrant. ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman
... having sent fifteen horsemen into Switzerland from whence the Sr de Manille, the King's resident there, had given information of the Sr Roux de Marsilly's being there negotiating the bringing the Cantons into the Triple League by discourses much to the disadvantage of France, giving them very ill impressions of the French King's Government, who was betrayed by a monk that kept him company and intercepted by the said horsemen brought into France and is expected at the Bastille. I believe ...
— The Lock and Key Library/Real Life #2 • Julian Hawthorne
... most unfavourable moment for her safety. She had just lost her way in tacking, and the hull not moving ahead, as happens when a craft is thus assailed with the motion on her, all the power of the wind was expended in the direction necessary to capsize her. Another disadvantage arose from the want of motion. The rudder, which acts solely by pressing against the water as the vessel meets it, was useless, and it was not possible to luff, and throw the wind from the sails, as is usually practised ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... by a single phrase, the principal disadvantage which results from the constant living together of married people. Although it may be permitted to Napoleon and to Frederick to estimate the value of a woman more or less according to the number of her children, yet a husband of talent ought, according ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... yourselves. I really believe that to this circumstance may be attributed the vulgar but very general notion of your being, as a body, suspicious, distrustful, and over-cautious. Conscious as I am, sir, of the disadvantage of making such a declaration to you, under such circumstances, I have come here, because I wish you distinctly to understand, as my friend Mr. Perker has said, that I am innocent of the falsehood laid to my charge; and although I am very well aware of the inestimable value of your assistance, ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... that which pain and trouble never availed to slacken in the slightest degree.) But it was urged upon her that the advantages of education offered were such as no money could purchase for me; that it would be a disadvantage for me to grow up in a houseful of boys—and, in truth, I was as good a cricketer and climber as the best of them—that my mother would soon be obliged to send me to school, unless she accepted an offer which gave me every advantage of school without ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... our risk in the contest is not the same. It is assuredly not the same for me to forfeit your regard as for my adversary not to succeed in his indictment. To me—but I will say nothing untoward at the outset of my address. The prosecution, however, is play to him. My second disadvantage is the natural disposition of mankind to take pleasure in hearing invective and accusation, and to be annoyed by them who praise themselves. To AEschines is assigned the part which gives pleasure; that which is (I may fairly say) offensive ...
— Mosaics of Grecian History • Marcius Willson and Robert Pierpont Willson
... used for grinding coffee, will grind them extremely well. The whites of eggs should never be used in puddings for children, or persons of weak stomachs, or for those who are any way indisposed, on account of their being indigestible. Omitting them altogether would indeed be attended with no disadvantage. The yolk of an egg alone answers the same purpose, as when the white is used with it. To prove this, let two cups of batter pudding be made, one with the yolk of an egg only, the other with the yolk and white together, and the result will be, ...
— The Cook and Housekeeper's Complete and Universal Dictionary; Including a System of Modern Cookery, in all Its Various Branches, • Mary Eaton
... at a disadvantage," Mrs. Farnam agreed with a smile that was half amused and half sympathetic. "But I wonder who told her! Do ...
— The Lure of the North • Harold Bindloss
... day had passed but those grey eyes had seemed to look into hers, even as they did now; that the hours were few into which his image had not come. This meeting was so unexpected, she was so entirely unprepared for it, that she was taken at a disadvantage. It seemed to her that this man must surely know how much he had been in her thoughts, must be reading her like an open book. Her eyes fell, and the colour ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner
... would not wish you to sell at a disadvantage, but if you like to, accept of my offer I'll take it. I'm prepared to pay the ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous
... we got to angry words with one another, we had no higher authority than ourselves to appeal to when we would set one another right. Thomas, I see this more plainly every day now. Freethinkers—would-be atheists, like my former self—are at an immense disadvantage compared with Christians in this respect. A Christian has a recognised, infallible authority to which he can appeal—the will of his God, as set forth in the Word of his God. When he differs from a fellow-Christian, both can go to ...
— True to his Colours - The Life that Wears Best • Theodore P. Wilson
... this season is, of course, seen to disadvantage, but still it exhibits beauty enough to convince us what England must be when in leaf. The old gentleman's admiration of the increasing signs of what he called civilisation, as we approached London, became quite eloquent; but the first view ...
— The Ayrshire Legatees • John Galt
... I not have written, "Ralph Rattlin blackened Master Simpkin's left eye—Ralph Rattlin led on the attack upon Farmer Russel's orchard, and Ralph Rattlin fought three rounds, with no considerable disadvantage, with the long-legged pieman." Alas! I cannot even shelter myself under the mistiness of the peremptory we. I have made a great mistake. But I have this consolation, in common with other great men, that, for our mistake, the ...
— Rattlin the Reefer • Edward Howard
... remarkably compact and athletic form. His complexion was dark, but his countenance open, and his features well set and regular. Indeed his whole appearance might be termed bland and prepossessing. If he ever appeared to disadvantage it was whilst under the influence of resentment, during which his face became pale as death, nay, almost livid; and, as his brows were strong and black, the contrast between them and his complexion changed the whole ...
— Fardorougha, The Miser - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... were dirty, and, as they squatted on their heels, or lay face downwards, they looked little better than savages. Their appearance and the want of delicacy of their habits are simply abominable, and in the latter respect they contrast to great disadvantage with several savage peoples that I have been among. If I had kept to Nikko, Hakone, Miyanoshita, and similar places visited by foreigners with less time, I should have formed a very different impression. Is their spiritual ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... who will miss from these pages the connecting and completing touches of the master's hand. It may be hoped that such a disadvantage, though irreparable, is somewhat mitigated by the essential character of the work itself. The aesthetic merit of this kind of novel is in the vivacity of a general effect produced by large, swift strokes of character; and in such strokes, if they be by a great artist, force ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... single keen glance upon me while going through the ordeal of introduction. But his scrutiny labored under one disadvantage. His eyes did not encounter mine! One loses a great deal, if his object be the study of tuman nature, if ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... contention, namely, that homophones do not destroy themselves, there is prima facie evidence in the long list of survivors, and in the fact that a vast number of words which have not this disadvantage are ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 2, on English Homophones • Robert Bridges
... as the watchers could guess, a parley ensued, but if the pirates thought the prey would be an easy one they were mistaken, for the merchantman came forward suddenly, all sails set, in an effort to ram the Vulture. But the rich cargo vessel was hopelessly at a disadvantage. The pirate guns opened fire, ropes were thrown over to the peaceful ship, and with yells of triumph that carried even above the tumult of the fighting, the pirate crew leapt on board. Tiny figures could ...
— Mr. Wicker's Window • Carley Dawson
... present Marquis has almost never visited Ireland, I believe, and he is not much known even in London. People who dislike him for one reason or another readily believe anything that is said to his disadvantage as a landlord. Most people who don't like the cut of Dr. Fell's whiskers, or the way in which he takes soup, are quite disposed to listen to you if you tell them he beats his wife or plays cards too well. The campaigners are shrewd fellows, and they know this, so they start ...
— Ireland Under Coercion (2nd ed.) (1 of 2) (1888) • William Henry Hurlbert
... selections of our people for deportation. The man's evident superiority of character impressed me with no little effect, and the sincerity with which he regarded us as belonging to a race inferior to his in mental and moral strength confounded me and placed me at a disadvantage. ...
— The Ape, the Idiot & Other People • W. C. Morrow
... from the time of Boccace and of Petrarch, the Italian has varied very little; and that the English of Chaucer, their contemporary, is not to be understood without the help of an old dictionary. But their Goth and Vandal had the fortune to be grafted on a Roman stock; ours has the disadvantage to be founded on the Dutch[4]. We are full of monosyllables, and those clogged with consonants, and our pronunciation is effeminate; all which are enemies to a sounding language. It is true, that ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... was the preparation of supper. His first idea was that he would be obliged to consume the soup cold; but the prospect of such a comfortless meal was so little to his taste that he began to look about for some means of overcoming this disadvantage. What he wanted was a vessel or a receptacle of some description in which he could heat the soup and make it somewhat more palatable; and here he remembered having passed during his morning's ramble on the beach a very large shell of the species Tridacna gigas. He bethought himself of its ...
— The Missing Merchantman • Harry Collingwood
... advanced position on comity sometimes operates to the disadvantage of the denomination that espouses it. But let us be true to our ideals even if some whom we might have reached do go to heaven by another route. Other churches are preaching the gospel and those who accept it at their hands will be saved. We are in Asia to preach ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... ma Mere l' Oye of Perrault, and the Contes de Fees of Madame D'Aulnoy; those tight-laced, high- heeled tales of the 'teacup times' of Louis XIV and his successors, in which the popular tale appears to as much disadvantage as an artless country girl in the stifling atmosphere of a London theatre. From these foreign sources, after the voice of the English reciter was hushed—and it was hushed in England more than a century ago—our great-grandmothers learnt to tell of Cinderella and Beauty and the ...
— Popular Tales from the Norse • Sir George Webbe Dasent
... of his story. Moreover, it is never action that interests him, but the subtle motives that lead to or hinder it. "The Wagoner" involuntarily suggests a comparison with "Tam O'Shanter" infinitely to its own disadvantage. "Peter Bell," full though it be of profound touches and subtle analysis, is lumbering and disjointed. Even Lamb was forced to confess that he did not like it. "The White Doe," the most Wordsworthian of them all in the best meaning of the epithet, is also ...
— Among My Books • James Russell Lowell
... tried to shoot him; but the thought of the wilderness without him was upon me, and held me back. Then, too, it seemed so mean to pot him from ambush when he had come down to earth, where he was at a disadvantage; and when he clutched some of the larger fish in his talons, and rose swiftly and bore away westward, all desire to kill him was gone. There were little Cloud Wings, it seemed, which I must also find and watch. After that I ...
— Wilderness Ways • William J Long
... all of the top and bottom hackles, leaving only about six fibers sticking {64} straight out on each side. This fly will float very close to the water, and because of its sparse dressing, slightly heavy body because of the lacquer, it is not a good floater. It also has the disadvantage of being hard to see. However, it is still my second choice, and properly dressed, and fished with a very fine leader, will take many ...
— How to Tie Flies • E. C. Gregg
... have to do in order that my will may be morally good. Inexperienced in the course of the world, incapable of being prepared for all its contingencies, I only ask myself: Canst thou also will that thy maxim should be a universal law? If not, then it must be rejected, and that not because of a disadvantage accruing from it to myself or even to others, but because it cannot enter as a principle into a possible universal legislation, and reason extorts from me immediate respect for such legislation. ...
— Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals • Immanuel Kant
... matter of fact, this battery stood out of reach of harm, with the compensating disadvantage of being able to inflict none. The reef below would infallibly wreck any ship that tried to approach within the point-blank range of some 270 yards, and its extreme range of ten times that distance was no ...
— Wandering Heath • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... be fewer occasions for new houses, and the new house would be less novel in style, and so two difficulties would be overcome. For novelty of style is a drawback to effect, as tending to isolate the house; and a new house is always at a disadvantage. Nature, in any case, is slow to adopt our handiwork into the landscape; sometimes the assimilation is so difficult that it must be ruined for its original purpose before it will be accepted. Sooner ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... consulted with his friends, who with much earnestness prayed him have nothing to do with arrows. They pointed out that there his bulk would put him at a disadvantage, especially in dealing with an English archer who had an eye like a snake and a face like ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard
... places taken for granted, as though it were a part of the natural phenomena of this planet. It has so marvellously extended the facilities of conversation—that "art in which a man has all mankind for competitors"—that it is now an indispensable help to whoever would live the convenient life. The disadvantage of being deaf and dumb to all absent persons, which was universal in pre-telephonic days, has now happily been overcome; and I hope that this story of how and by whom it was done will be a ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson
... swim straight ahead, but only spin round and round like whirligigs. These cripples and weaklings seemed to have got on pretty well as long as their food-sacs lasted, but now that they had to make their own living they were at a serious disadvantage. They all disappeared after a day or two, and our friend never saw them again. They couldn't stand the real struggle ...
— Forest Neighbors - Life Stories of Wild Animals • William Davenport Hulbert
... condition of liquidity. The enormous advantages of the air actually liquefied, and so for the moment quiescent, over the air merely compressed, and hence requiring a powerful retort to hold it, are patent at a glance. But, on the other hand, the difficulty of keeping it liquid is a disadvantage that is equally patent. How the balance will be struck between these contending advantages and disadvantages it remains for the practical engineering inventors of the future—the near future, ...
— A History of Science, Volume 5(of 5) - Aspects Of Recent Science • Henry Smith Williams
... ground, but he heard the Indian yell for a third time, and again not more than a quarter of a mile away. The fact that this portion of the band had not run that day more than half as far as he was telling, and he recognized it. Perhaps the swamps had not been to his disadvantage, because on the dry ground they could use their reserves of strength and ...
— The Eyes of the Woods - A story of the Ancient Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... was first played in England, it was believed that the deal was a disadvantage, that the Declarer should disguise his hand as long as possible and use every expedient to force his adversary to be the first to show real strength. This doctrine has been found to be ridiculous. The premium ...
— Auction of To-day • Milton C. Work
... at that affair of the * * *, but dare not enlarge on the subject until you send me your direction, as I suppose that will be altered on your late master and friend's death. I am concerned for the old fellow's exit, only as I fear it may be to your disadvantage in any respect—for an old man's dying, except he has been a very benevolent character, or in some particular situation of life that the welfare of the poor or the helpless depended on him, I think it an event of the most trifling moment in the world. Man is naturally a kind, benevolent animal, ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... observe, there is an enormous difference between knowledge and education. An artist need not be a learned man, in all probability it will be a disadvantage to him to become so; but he ought, if possible, always to be an educated man: that is, one who has understanding of his own uses and duties in the world, and therefore of the general nature of the things ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume III (of 3) • John Ruskin
... way as we were to pass, only that it was at some distance from us. By this time the darksome clouds began to spread over the elements, and the night growing very dusky, made it so much the more to our disadvantage; but still the noise increasing, we were fully assured, that it was the howling and the yelling of those ravenous creatures; when presently three troops of wolves on our front appeared in sight, as though a great number of them had a design to surround us, and ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe
... mistresses are waiting to take the place of Mrs. Omicron with regard to her cook. Mrs. Omicron has to do as best she can. She has to speak softly and to temper discipline, because the supply of domestic servants is unequal to the demand. And there is still worse. The worst of all, the supreme disadvantage under which Mrs. Omicron suffers, is that most of her errors, lapses, crimes, directly affect a man in the stomach, and the man is a ...
— The Plain Man and His Wife • Arnold Bennett
... water, and others refreshing themselves from the land with such things as they could procure either for money or by force. Owing to this, our ships were all in confusion, pestered, rummaging, and every thing out of order, very light for want of ballast; and what was most of all to their disadvantage, the half of the men in every ship was sick and unserviceable. For in the Revenge, there were ninety sick; in the Bonaventure, not so many in health as could hand her mainsail, insomuch, that unless twenty men had been taken from a bark of Sir George Careys which was sunk, and appointed ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... rigid silence, and then Syme in his turn fell furiously on the other, filled with a flaming curiosity. The Marquis was probably, in a general sense, a better fencer than he, as he had surmised at the beginning, but at the moment the Marquis seemed distraught and at a disadvantage. He fought wildly and even weakly, and he constantly looked away at the railway line, almost as if he feared the train more than the pointed steel. Syme, on the other hand, fought fiercely but still carefully, in an intellectual fury, eager to solve ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... 1660, the currents of national feeling no longer circulated so freely through this distant member of the body politic, and thought in America became more provincial. The English dissenters, though socially at a disadvantage as compared with the Church of England, had the great benefit of living at the center of national life, and of feeling about them the pressure of vast bodies of people who did not think as they did. In New England, for many generations, ...
— Initial Studies in American Letters • Henry A. Beers
... hold him in no way dishonoured if he breaks the vow that has thus been dishonourably extorted from him. It was a trick and a base one, and I would tell Duke William so to his face. What will men think of Norman faith when guests are thus tricked to their disadvantage?" ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty
... advanced, a sharp fire of musketry was opened on them from the Pegu side. On this, Captain Tarleton, seeing the disadvantage under which they laboured from being beneath the enemy's fire, with no effectual means of returning it, landed with the boats' crews of HMS Fox, and was shortly after joined by Captain Neblett and the boats' crews of the Phlegethon,—in all about ...
— Our Sailors - Gallant Deeds of the British Navy during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... man of cold, clear-sighted, self-seeking temperament. In almost all English histories dealing with this period his steadiness and solid unshowy qualities are contrasted with Essex's flightiness and failure, to the natural disadvantage of the latter. This, however, is not perhaps quite the last word upon the matter, and it is only fair to Essex that this ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless
... one disadvantage in English in our having synonyms of which some are derived from Saxon and others from Latin. Ordinary readers are apt to forget that in our translation of the Bible we may use two different words for what in the original is expressed ...
— Holy in Christ - Thoughts on the Calling of God's Children to be Holy as He is Holy • Andrew Murray
... must be put an end to; but no manager who procures the Lord Chamberlain's licence for a play can be punished in any way for producing it, though a special tribunal may order him to discontinue the performance; and even this order must not be recorded to his disadvantage on the licence of his theatre, nor may it be given as a judicial reason for ...
— The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet • George Bernard Shaw
... Unfortunately he possessed neither a sense of humour nor a sense of tragedy sufficient to meet such a situation. For the first time in my life I beheld him at a disadvantage; for I had, somehow, managed at length to force him out of position, and he was puzzled. I was quick ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... to be told. Sir, when people watch me narrowly, and I do not watch myself, they will find me out to be of a particular county[467]. In the same manner, Dunning[468] may be found out to be a Devonshire man. So most Scotchmen may be found out. But, Sir, little aberrations are of no disadvantage. I never catched Mallet in a Scotch accent[469]; and yet Mallet, I suppose, was past five-and-twenty before he ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... furious at the man's infamous lie, for he was still several guldens to the good, and even more so at the disadvantage he had taken over me. Here we were alone in a wild and dangerous district, miles from home, and not ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... that I entertained the deepest reverence for my patron; I admired his abilities, and considered him as formed for the benefit of his species. I should in my own opinion be the vilest of miscreants, if I uttered a whisper to his disadvantage. But this did not avail: I was not fit for him; perhaps I was not good enough for him; at all events, I must be perpetually miserable so long as I continued to live ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... magnetic tension. The lightness of this rigging did not exclude the use of heavy tackle, the cabrias of the Spanish galleon, and the cameli of the Roman triremes. The helm was very long, which gives the advantage of a long arm of leverage, but the disadvantage of a small arc of effort. Two wheels in two pulleys at the end of the rudder corrected this defect, and compensated, to some extent, for the loss of strength. The compass was well housed in a case perfectly square, and well balanced by its two copper frames placed horizontally, ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... here,' returned the other, 'at your desire, holding myself bound to meet you, when and where you would. I have not come to bandy pleasant speeches, or hollow professions. You are a smooth man of the world, sir, and at such play have me at a disadvantage. The very last man on this earth with whom I would enter the lists to combat with gentle compliments and masked faces, is Mr Chester, I do assure you. I am not his match at such weapons, and have reason to believe that ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... of Jeypore, told in a previous chapter, is not unusual. His case is only one of thousands, for nearly every native prince and wealthy Hindu has broken caste again and again without suffering the slightest disadvantage, which ...
— Modern India • William Eleroy Curtis
... herald, that his enterprise was not designed against him; that he had other enemies in view, and that he had undertaken this war in the name of God, who was with him; that for this reason he advised Josiah not to concern himself with this war, for fear lest it otherwise should turn to his disadvantage. However, Josiah was not moved by these reasons: he was sensible that the bare march of so powerful an army through Judea, would entirely ruin it. And besides, he feared that the victor, after ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... there, trying to quench his fiery face with his drink of water, the comparison between the orator and the crowd of attentive faces turned towards him, was extremely to his disadvantage. Judging him by Nature's evidence, he was above the mass in very little but the stage on which he stood. In many great respects he was essentially below them. He was not so honest, he was not so manly, he was not so good-humoured; he substituted cunning ...
— Hard Times • Charles Dickens*
... 'sowing their wild oats'—even sowing them in the obscure parts of their own town? Is it not because they know that their sisters and girl friends are ignorant and helpless; so that when they are ready to pick a wife, they will be at no disadvantage? Here is Celeste; she knows that Roger has been 'wild,' but no one has hinted to her what that means; she thinks of things that are picturesque—that he's high-spirited, and brave, and free with his ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... the ground, lately painted straw color. Three great Balm o' Gilead trees towered over it. A long wood-shed led from the house to a new stable, with a gilt vane and cupola, which showed off somewhat to the disadvantage of the two larger barns beyond it; for the latter were barns of the old times, high-posted with roofs of low pitch, and weathered from long conflicts with storms. Around them, like stunted children, clustered ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... been obsessed by the idea that having no Latin was a disadvantage in the world, and Archie Garvell had driven the point of this pretty earnestly home. The literature I had read at Bladesover had all tended that way. Latin had had a quality of emancipation for me that I find it difficult to convey. And suddenly, when I had supposed all learning ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... Bammiuk and Solomon accompanied us as far as the North Ikkerasak (the Esquimaux name for a strait) between Cape Mugford Island, in 58 deg. N. latitude, and the mountains of Kaumayok. Their being in company retarded our progress, but in the sequel proved no disadvantage. ...
— Journal of a Voyage from Okkak, on the Coast of Labrador, to Ungava Bay, Westward of Cape Chudleigh • Benjamin Kohlmeister and George Kmoch
... The coolies shrieked at him, Prior issued ultimatums at him, the Japanese servants stood on dry land fifteen feet away and talked about him, but he only snuggled deeper into his mud bath. When there is no more of a mule to hit than his ears, he has you at a great disadvantage, and when the coolies waded in and tugged at his head, we found that the harder they tugged, the deeper they sank. When they were so far out of sight that we were in danger of losing them too, we ordered them to give up the struggle and unload the cart. Before we ...
— Notes of a War Correspondent • Richard Harding Davis
... which the new large capitalist-monopolists are made responsible. But the class in question was itself only a symptom of the general economic change. The seeming scarcity of money, though but the consequence of the increased demand for a circulating medium, was explained, to the disadvantage of the hated monopolists, by a crude form of the "mercantile" theory. The new merchant, in contradistinction to the master craftsman working en famille with his apprentices and assistants, now often ...
— German Culture Past and Present • Ernest Belfort Bax
... having the virtue, through the impulse of a passion, whether of sorrow that he wishes to cast off, or again of anger. Thirdly, through choice, not indeed of a due end, but of some temporal advantage to be obtained, such as honor, pleasure, or gain, or of some disadvantage to be avoided, such as blame, pain, ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... in the shoulder, and in a moment more of the mutineers ran off, feeling that they were at a disadvantage. ...
— The Rover Boys on Land and Sea - The Crusoes of Seven Islands • Arthur M. Winfield
... that they are disabled from taking their food on the wing. The purpose of the enormous bill here becomes evident; it is to enable the Toucan to reach and devour fruit whil remaining seated, and thus to counterbalance the disadvantage which its heavy body and gluttonous appetite would otherwise give it in the competition with allied groups of birds. The relation between the extraordinarily lengthened bill of the Toucan and its mode of ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... after, tea-time, for these two women were sincerely fond of one another. The irritating fact that Edith was eighteen years younger than her guest made Eglantine feel sometimes a desire to guide, even to direct her, and if she had the disadvantage in age she wanted at least the privilege of gratifying ...
— Love at Second Sight • Ada Leverson
... he was taken at a great disadvantage, and thinking it advisable not to risk the lives of the party by any rash act on his part, he said: "I see now that you have the best of me, but who ...
— The Life of Hon. William F. Cody - Known as Buffalo Bill The Famous Hunter, Scout and Guide • William F. Cody
... am doing wrong, but I felt I must warn you. Now don't ask me any questions, but take it as a fact that Hallam has sent up somebody to locate your silver as soon as it can be done. He seems to consider he has you at a disadvantage because you have not put ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... but he might, if so, make another discovery from what I had said; which might be to my own disadvantage: since, if he had so much reason to be satisfied with himself, he would see what an ungenerous person he spoke to, who, when he seemed to give himself airs of humility, which, perhaps he thought beneath him to assume, had ...
— Clarissa, Volume 3 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... garment depended from one arm. He was thinking with lightning-like rapidity. Harboro had courage enough—that he could tell—but he didn't behave like a man who knew very many tricks with a gun. Nevertheless he, Fectnor, would be under a disadvantage in this test of skill which was being forced upon him. When he turned he would need just a second to get a perfect balance, to be quite sure of his footing, to get his bearings. And that one second might make all the difference in the outcome of the ...
— Children of the Desert • Louis Dodge
... its picturesque features, which may attract an eloquent writer, but the field has in a large measure been already occupied with great fidelity and ability by that accomplished historian, Francis Parkman, of Boston. The subsequent history, under the English regime, labours under the disadvantage of want of unity, and being for the most part a record of comparatively insignificant political controversy. To the outside world such a history has probably no very great attraction, and consequently could bring an author ...
— The Intellectual Development of the Canadian People • John George Bourinot
... innocent investment in Marconi shares was perhaps the most stupid thing in Lloyd George's public life. He gave his explanation with vigor and clearness, but, nevertheless, I fancy he must have kicked himself privately about the whole thing. Notwithstanding, however, the disadvantage at which he had placed himself, opponents found that now, as on other occasions, it was not a pleasant exercise to attack the Welshman. He had a horrid habit of defending himself by hitting back, and he usually hit very much harder ...
— Lloyd George - The Man and His Story • Frank Dilnot
... one disadvantage," he remarked casually. "When it is attached to a mine or torpedo it can not be disconnected without firing it. It is attached." He turned to the others. "It is needless to discuss the matter further just now. If you will follow me? We ...
— Elusive Isabel • Jacques Futrelle
... enemy's. However, the oldest of his officers entreated him to proceed immediately to the attack, and at last prevailed. It was not indeed very dark; for the moon, though near her setting, gave light enough to distinguish objects. But it was a great disadvantage to the king's troops, that the moon was so low, and on the backs of the Romans; because she projected their shadows so far before them, that the enemy could form no just estimate of the distances, but thinking them at hand, threw their ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... brother, Robert, of his right of succession to the crown of England. The latter afterwards coming over to England, upon a friendly visit to him, and Henry, being suspicious that this circumstance might turn to his disadvantage, called together the great men of the realm, and spoke to them ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 530, January 21, 1832 • Various
... used to pay its Tribute to the Lord once a Year at least in good Metheglin, for the Entertainment of the Guests, and its Wax converted into beneficial Plaisters for sick Neighbours, is now used for the sealing of Deeds to his Disadvantage. ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson |
