"Failing" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... realised that there was nothing more to say. Pixie was Pixie. As well try to move a mountain from its place, as persuade that sweet, loving, most loyal of creatures to draw back from a solemn pledge. Something might be done with Stanor perhaps, or, failing Stanor, through that erratic person, his uncle. She must consult with Geoffrey and Bridgie, together they might insist upon a period of waiting and separation before a definite engagement was announced. ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... of the husband. The instant he submits to marriage, his wife obtains a large and inalienable share in his property, including all he may acquire in future; in most American states the minimum is one-third, and, failing children, one-half. He cannot dispose of his real estate without her consent; He cannot even deprive her of it by will. She may bring up his children carelessly and idiotically, cursing them with abominable manners and poisoning their nascent minds against ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... silence was broken by the metallic tongue that dirged out "twelve." The last stroke of the bronze hammer echoed drearily; the old year lay stark and cold on its bier; Munin flapped his dusky wings with a long, sepulchral, blood-curdling hoot, and the dying man opened his dim, failing eyes, and fixed them for the ...
— Macaria • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... left his swinging bush. The meadow lark had gone to find his mate in a distant field. The twittering bluebirds had finished their tasks. The woodpecker had ceased from his labor. The sunshine was failing fast. Faint and far away, through the still twilight air, came the long, clear, whistle of another train that was following swiftly the iron ways to ...
— Their Yesterdays • Harold Bell Wright
... the voice of the wind every savage, primeval menace alternated with every wail of human grief and anguish which has echoed through the ages. All desolation in the heart of man, "I am without refuge!" shrieked in its high cries, and, as if failing to find adequate expression in these, it summoned its chorus of demons and rang with the despairing fury of all damned and discordant things, until one bowed and covered the ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... commission, composed of native Bohemians and Austrians. Of these, twenty-seven, and of the common people an immense number, expired on the scaffold. The absenting offenders were summoned to appear to their trial, and failing to do so, condemned to death, as traitors and offenders against his Catholic Majesty, their estates confiscated, and their names affixed to the gallows. The property also of the rebels who had fallen in the field was seized. This tyranny might have been borne, as it affected individuals only, ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... year was perhaps the most eventful of all. At the very beginning of the fall term the high school gymnasium was destroyed by fire. Failing to secure an appropriation from either the town or state, the four classes of the girls' high school pledged themselves to raise the amount of money required to rebuild the gymnasium. In "Grace Harlowe's Senior Year at High School" the story of the senior class bazaar, ...
— Grace Harlowe's First Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... suspect the lusty Moor Hath leap'd into my seat: the thought whereof Doth, like a poisonous mineral, gnaw my inwards; And nothing can or shall content my soul Till I am even'd with him, wife for wife; Or, failing so, yet that I put the Moor At least into a jealousy so strong That judgement cannot cure. Which thing to do,— If this poor trash of Venice, whom I trash For his quick hunting, stand the putting on, I'll have our ...
— Othello, the Moor of Venice • William Shakespeare
... less frequent the chokings and other pains to which she was liable; besides, in the life of complete inertia which she led she attached to the least of her sensations an extraordinary importance, endowed them with a Protean ubiquity which made it difficult for her to keep them secret, and, failing a confidant to whom she might communicate them, she used to promulgate them to herself in an unceasing monologue which was her sole form of activity. Unfortunately, having formed the habit of thinking ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... be? He replied, 'his life was at stake if it took air, but he found her a lady of such uncommon candour, and good sense, that he should make no difficulty in committing his life and hope to her keeping.' All women are naturally fond of being trusted with secrets; this was Mrs. Thomas's failing: the Dr. found it out, and made her pay dear for her curiosity. 'I have been, continued he, many years in search of the Philosopher's Stone, and long master of the smaragdine-table of Hermes Trismegistus; the green and red dragons of Raymond Lully ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... of faithful work in the store he had won out at last. Looking back, he saw his own progress toward this hill of elation no longer as a sometimes sordid and always gray decade of worry and failing enthusiasm and failing dreams, years when the moonlight had grown duller in the areaway and the youth had faded out of Olive's face, but as a glorious and triumphant climb over obstacles which he had determinedly surmounted by unconquerable ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... Exploration Company," had an office at Pilgrim's Rest. Edward Simpson, formerly of Port Elizabeth, was the manager. Simpson died at Pretoria about fifteen years ago. He was a good friend to me, but was, unwittingly, the occasion of my failing to make a very rich "strike." The company was carrying on prospecting operations in the vicinity of a high saddle on one of the subsidiary ranges north of the Mac Mac Divide. I was engaged at the usual remuneration of an ounce of gold per week, and instructed to ...
— Reminiscences of a South African Pioneer • W. C. Scully
... Fort was besieged by the French again. During the interval, some of the houses had been made bomb-proof, and in these the women and children were lodged, but St. Mary's Church was used as a barrack, and its steeple as a watch-tower. Lally, the French commander, failing to capture Madras, had to march away with his hopes baffled; but, notwithstanding its bomb-proof roof, the church, as also its steeple, had been badly damaged during the destructive siege, and the ...
— The Story of Madras • Glyn Barlow
... heal the sick one who lies on the floor, feeble and unable to rise, thin and shrivelled like a floating log. Have pity from your heart and prevent my soul from parting from my skin and my bones from failing away. This sickness is very severe and I am unable to ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... O failing Dot! There is no place for it in all your husband's visions; why has its shadow ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens
... chap. 320, relative to idle, vagabond, free negroes, providing for their sale or banishment from the State. All persons interested, are hereby notified that the aforesaid laws, in particular, will be enforced, and all officers failing to enforce them will be presented to the Grand Jury, and those who desire to avoid the penalties of the aforesaid statutes are requested to conform to ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... But, had he only known it, he thereby took the most efficacious step towards winning her esteem. The gloves had been nearly fatal to him; but those words,—"I feel it so that I can't tell you," redeemed the evil that the gloves had done. He went away, however, saying nothing more then, and failing to strike while ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... strewed the surface of the sea, forgetting that they could crush her to pieces. Then she dived deeply under the dark waters, rising and falling with the waves, till at length she managed to reach the young prince, who was fast losing the power of swimming in that stormy sea. His limbs were failing him, his beautiful eyes were closed, and he would have died had not the little mermaid come to his assistance. She held his head above the water, and let the waves drift ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... opposition, whose policy gradually became more generally Conservative and less distinctively Protectionist as the hopelessness of reversing the measures adopted in 1846 made itself apparent. In 1855 he was asked to form an administration after the resignation of Lord Aberdeen, but failing to obtain sufficient support, he declined the task. It was in somewhat more hopeful circumstances that, after the defeat of Lord Palmerston on the Conspiracy Bill in February 1858, he assumed for the second time the reins ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... ashamed now to be simply natural. Either they have ceased to love, or to believe in the dignity of loving. The great barrier to all real greatness in this present age of ours is the fear of ridicule, and the low and shallow love of jest and jeer, so that if there be in any noble work a flaw or failing, or unclipped vulnerable part where sarcasm may stick or stay, it is caught at, pointed at, buzzed about, and fixed upon, and stung into, as a recent wound is by flies, and nothing is ever taken seriously or as it was meant, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... from the chair by striking my head, is failing. I have to hit much more violently, and I do not succeed perhaps more than once in a dozen trials. My head is quite sore where I have so repeatedly struck it. I must use ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London
... During her periods of suffering and depression, she continually mentioned the Spaniard's name. Failing his person, she desired to have his portrait. Alarmed at his wife's condition, the President agreed to write a letter himself to the author of all this trouble, who soon sent the lady a handsome sweetmeat-box ornamented with his crest and ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... shrinking by the door the eyes of a dozen women fastened upon her, each with keen scrutiny. The sensitive color stole into her delicate cheeks. As the proprietress of the office began to question her, she felt her courage failing. ...
— The Mystery of Mary • Grace Livingston Hill
... reports from their several commanders, the probabilities and possibilities as they appeared to each member of the group, together with many other topics, relevant and irrelevant, were discussed, interspersed with the usual number of anecdotes from the never-failing supply with which the President's mind was stored. It was a most interesting study to see these men relieved for the moment from the surroundings of their onerous official duties. The President, of course, was the centre of the group—kind, genial, ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... followers, also the horses and mules, Jew and Jewess aforesaid, together with all goods and chattels to them pertaining, be, within an hour after the delivery hereof, delivered to us, or to those whom we shall appoint to receive the same, and that untouched and unharmed in body and goods. Failing of which, we do pronounce to you, that we hold ye as robbers and traitors, and will wager our bodies against ye in battle, siege, or otherwise, and do our utmost to your annoyance and destruction. Wherefore may God have you in his keeping.—Signed by us upon the eve of St Withold's day, under ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... a valuable strategic point for the enemy to hold, and consequently a valuable one for us to possess ourselves of. We ought to have seized it immediately after the fall of Donelson and Nashville, when it could have been taken without a battle, but failing then it should have been taken, without delay on the concentration of troops at Pittsburg landing after the battle of Shiloh. In fact the arrival of Pope should not have been awaited. There was no time from the battle ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... terrible temper that was very easily roused, and, in those days, he also periodically drank a great deal more than was good for him, and when under the influence of drink behaved more like a devil than a man. She was very young and gauche, failing often to do what was required of her from mere nervousness. He was exigent and made no allowance for her youth and inexperience, and her life was one long torture. And yet in spite of it all she loved him. Even in speaking of it she insisted that the fault was hers, that ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... her chin in his palm, trying to free herself from his pitiless staring. Failing that, she began to sob angrily without any tears ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... long, Miss Olive," she said, in a choked voice—at moments of excitement it was still "Miss Olive" with Deb—"she is failing fast, dear soul; the fever's gone and left her as weak as a new-born babe. I always said my mistress was only fit to be among the angels!" and Deb gave an expressive sniff as she filled her kettle. Olivia felt a dull pain at her heart at this speech, but she would ...
— Doctor Luttrell's First Patient • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... of the river was like a mighty sigh that Grief in the beginning had sighed among her sisters, and that could not die like the echoes of human sorrow failing on earthly hills, but was as old as time and the pain in ...
— Fifty-One Tales • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... impossible to eradicate—tried everything, but all in vain—was beginning to despair, but still hopeful that patience might overcome the difficulty—patience combined with affectionate treatment, but it was in vain—after trying to persuade his fellow-pupils one by one, and failing, he threatened them savagely if they dared to betray him, and then he escaped from the grounds, and has not ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... The principle of the Navigation Acts was reaffirmed, with some modifications, after the Restoration, which made no difference to England's commercial and colonial policy. A second Dutch war accordingly broke out in 1664, and this time the Dutch, besides failing in their original design, lost the New Netherland colony they had established in North America. Portions of it became New York, so named after the future James II, who was Duke of York and Lord High ...
— The History of England - A Study in Political Evolution • A. F. Pollard
... first look fell upon the urn of his murdered Mother. In place of her name of glory another word was standing now: 'INFAMY!' 'Infamy,'—he looked again; he shrieked aloud, 'Infamy;' and started from his seat with the last effort of his failing strength. 'Infamy!' shouted the thousands from before, behind, from either side. 'Infamy' sounded from the ceilings of the Palace, the Hall of the Throne, the deep mines and limitless Treasury! Some among the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... view is accepted, we should then have our second Rule of Philosophy violated, as we should have matter revolving in more rarefied matter, and failing to impress upon that rarefied condition of matter the motion either partially or wholly which it itself possesses; and such a result being contradictory to all experience cannot be admitted from a ...
— Aether and Gravitation • William George Hooper
... ought not to have taken it—Jenkins being away—did not surprise him in the least; it was very much in the line of the Yorkes to do so. To scold or punish Roland for it, would have been productive of little good, since he was sure to do it again the very next time the temptation offered itself. Failing temptation, he would remain at his post steadily enough. No; it was not Roland's escapade that Mr. Galloway was considering; but the very narrow radius that the affair of the letter appeared to be drawing itself into. If Roland was absent, he could not have had half the town in, ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... its embodiment in a unique personality. The world naturally thinks of the personality before it thinks of the principle. It has, at least, so much unconscious courtesy left as to honor a noble woman, even when failing to rightly apprehend a noble cause. To afford this feeling its proper expression, to render more tangible all vague sympathy, to crystallize the growing sentiment in favor of human freedom, to give youth the opportunity to ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... to be grateful to her, and I blamed myself for not loving her spontaneously, as I had loved, as I still fought against loving Rachel. I think now that I had no reason to be grateful to her. If she had not been always by my side, so faithful, so watchful, so never-failing with her worldly lesson, I think I should have found a way out of the darkness of my trouble. I think I should have softened a little when Rachel met me in the gallery, twined her soft arm round my neck, and asked me why we two should ...
— The Late Miss Hollingford • Rosa Mulholland
... is precisely in this debatable ground of low motives and noble emotions; in the struggle, ever failing yet ever renewed, to carry truth and justice into the administration of human society; in the establishment of states and in the overthrow of tyrannies; in the rise and fall of creeds; in the world of ideas; ...
— Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists • James Anthony Froude, Edward A. Freeman, William Ewart Gladstone, John Henry Newman and Leslie Steph
... things by halves. Colonel Barker sent to Paris to get some mosquito netting to keep the flies off those soldiers, and failing to find any in the whole city he bought $10,000 worth of white net, such as is used for ladies' collars and dresses—ten thousand yards at a dollar a yard—and sent it down to the hospital where it was used over the ...
— The War Romance of the Salvation Army • Evangeline Booth and Grace Livingston Hill
... its round, events had occurred which tested the sustaining power of their faith in God, and the joy of the Lord proved to be indeed their strength, keeping their hearts from failing in an hour of sore anxiety ...
— Elsie at Nantucket • Martha Finley
... them full of kindness. A terrible thing, Mr. McLean, is curiosity. The Bible says that the love of money is the root of all evil, but we must ask Mr. Dishart if love of money is not a misprint for curiosity. And you won't find men boring their way into other folk's concerns; it is a woman's failing, essentially a woman's." This was the doctor's pet topic, and he pursued it until they had to part. He had opened his door and was about to enter when he saw Gavinia passing on her way home ...
— Sentimental Tommy - The Story of His Boyhood • J. M. Barrie
... almost annual voyages hitherward, at one of the most emergent periods of his enterprise, he was seized on board his vessel in France with a violent illness, and reduced, as Mr. Parkman says, to that "most miserable of all conflicts, the battle of the eager spirit against the treacherous and failing flesh." Mr. Parkman has known well what these words mean. In his case, as in that of Champlain, it was not from the burden of years and natural decay, but from the touch of disease in the period of life's full vigor in its midway course, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... those called Sindhus, and those also that are called Sauviras, and the heroic dwellers of the country of the five rivers. And on a golden car unto which were yoked red steeds, the high-souled Drona, bow in hand and with never-failing heart, the preceptor of almost all the kings, remained behind all the troops, protecting them like Indra. And Saradwat's son, that fighter in the van,[110] that high-souled and mighty bowman, called also Gautama, conversant with all modes of warfare, accompanied by the Sakas, the Kiratas, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... sorrow and tears had reddened Maren's eyes with inflammation and turned her eyelids, but her neighbors only took it as another sign of her hardened witchcraft. Her sight was failing too, and she often had to depend upon Ditte's young eyes; and then it would happen that the child took advantage of ...
— Ditte: Girl Alive! • Martin Andersen Nexo
... we lay blame on the few fine gifts that should gild our lives. But Cuckoo had been very pretty and had soon learnt the first foul lesson of her mtier, to wake swift desire. As time went on and she wasted her gift of beauty along the pavements of London, she found this poor power failing in strength and in certainty. As to the power of wakening that slower, deeper, kindred, yet opposed desire of love, Cuckoo had never known whether she possessed it. She had had many lovers, but nobody to love her really, and this in days of her beauty, or at any rate her gracious ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... if you will—was never my failing. I answered firmly, "I was sorry that my letter was unsatisfactory, unadvised it was not; for I had given the proposal his goodness had made me, my instant and anxious attention, and it was with no small pain that I found myself obliged ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... nasty kick if you didn't look out. Highly providential was the appearance on the scene of Corny Kelleher when Stephen was blissfully unconscious but for that man in the gap turning up at the eleventh hour the finis might have been that he might have been a candidate for the accident ward or, failing that, the bridewell and an appearance in the court next day before Mr Tobias or, he being the solicitor rather, old Wall, he meant to say, or Mahony which simply spelt ruin for a chap when it got bruited about. The ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... as the visions of enthusiasm the observations "made by the quickening and teaching Spirit!" It was supposed that he would not be able to raise money without the aid of parliament. But "he had been inured to difficulties, and never found God failing when he trusted in him." The country would willingly pay on account of the necessity. But was not the necessity of his creation? No: it was of God; the consequence of God's providence. It was no marvel, if men who lived on their masses ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... should I have lived in your remembrance! My mother too! How could you have consoled her! I cannot express my own abhorrence of myself. Whenever I looked towards the past, I saw some duty neglected, or some failing indulged. Every body seemed injured by me. The kindness, the unceasing kindness of Mrs. Jennings, I had repaid with ungrateful contempt. To the Middletons, to the Palmers, the Steeles, to every common ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... Seward that he could not receive them; that he did not see in the Confederate States a rightful and accomplished revolution and an independent nation; and that he was not at liberty to recognize the commissioners as diplomatic agents, or to hold correspondence with them. Failing in this direct application, they made further efforts through Mr. Justice Campbell of the Supreme Court, as a friendly intermediary, who came to Seward in the guise of a loyal official, though his correspondence with Jefferson Davis soon revealed a treasonable intent; and, replying ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... licentious but irresistibly funny assault upon Euripides. The tragedian, learning that the women in council assembled are debating on the punishment due to his misogyny, implores the effeminate poet Agathon to intercede for him. That failing, he dispatches his kinsman Mnesilochus, disguised with singed beard and woman's robes, a sight to shake the midriff of despair with laughter, to plead his cause. The advocate's excess of zeal betrays him; he is arrested: and the remainder of the play is occupied by the ludicrous devices, ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... between the two. Their gods were continually in an abominable quarrel about some interest that involved human welfare, and for that very reason their theory of mind was nothing but a confused mass of childish stories. They had no starting point from which to reason. They, failing to separate between mind and matter, were led into endless theories about what they denominated the animal and intellectual soul. The idea of one of their own poets that we are God's offspring was of no avail, in science, to them, because ...
— The Christian Foundation, Or, Scientific and Religious Journal, - Volume I, No. 10. October, 1880 • Various
... now, and he wakened, oppressed with the dreariness of it all. He replenished his failing fire and then sat down to dream again, but this time he was not alone, for Nannie sat by the cheery little blaze—not across the way, but close by his side. She had all her brilliant beauty, all her tantalizing, bewitching ways, but he no longer feared to touch ...
— The Gentle Art of Cooking Wives • Elizabeth Strong Worthington
... year puts on, When failing leaves falter through motionless air Or numbly cling and shiver to be gone! How shimmer the low flats and pastures bare, As with her nectar Hebe Autumn fills The bowl between me and those distant hills, And smiles and shakes abroad her misty, ...
— Selections From American Poetry • Various
... useless, Mr. Kringle," warned, the Professor, failing to find a pulse. The boys were standing about fanning the victim, having one by one dumped the contents of their canteens ...
— The Pony Rider Boys in New Mexico • Frank Gee Patchin
... on the influence of the sense of smell in man; on idiots smelling their food; on Laura Bridgman; on the development of the vocal organs; moral sense failing in incipient madness; change of mental faculties at ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... fishing, the cottage was tidied up, and the tea ready, and the whole place shining like a new pin. From that time for five years he lodged here with my father, looking after the house and tilling the garden. And all the time he was steadily failing; the hurt in his head spreading, in a manner, to his limbs. My father watched the feebleness growing on him, but said nothing. And from first to last neither spake a word about the drummer, John Christian; nor did any letter reach them, nor word of ...
— The Boy Scouts Book of Stories • Various
... Half-past five—he had once called later than that when he wanted to find her alone. Something told her that he would come to-day. He would be anxious to know what she thought of his book. She was in that state of mind when people trust in intuitions, failing positive evidence. Surely in some past state of existence she had sat in that chair, surrounded by the same objects, thinking the same thoughts, and that train of ideas had been completed by the arrival ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... their part in the result which we are about to consider. Some time before 1830 Mr. Cooper had been drawn into a land speculation at Canton, in the suburbs of Baltimore. Failing of support from his partners, he had been obliged to buy them out, and to assume the whole burden of the enterprise. Just at that time there was great popular expectation of the future importance of Baltimore. A little earlier, there had ...
— Peter Cooper - The Riverside Biographical Series, Number 4 • Rossiter W. Raymond
... own price, practically, and for eight years we have been restoring the house and gardens to their Seventeenth Century beauty. Sardou was our neighbor, and his wonderful chateau at Marly, overlooking the valley and terraces of St. Germain, was a never-failing surprise to us, so full was it of beauty and charm, so flavored with the personality of its owner. Sardou was of great help to us when we finally purchased our house. His fund of information never failed us, there seemed to be no question he could not answer. He was quite the most erudite man I have ...
— The House in Good Taste • Elsie de Wolfe
... Islands declared that, whereas, in the collection of taxes by the alcaldes-mayor of the provinces of these islands, and by their notaries and officials, there is great excess and disorder, from failing to observe his Majesty's royal tariffs, whence arise many difficulties and obstacles to the service of God our Lord, and of his Majesty: therefore, to remedy these evils, they ordered, and they did ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume XI, 1599-1602 • Various
... means of performing it. Now every means to ensure success is provided; another is to reap the credit; while it is probable that I, with the capital ships, might be ordered to cruise in such a manner as to prevent his failing in this attempt. To fit out his ships for this service I have been kept here,[5] and even now have their Lordships' directions, at least in terms, to obey him. He is to judge of what he wants for his expedition; he is to make his demands, and I am to comply ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... "Has my daughter been under the care of one of the Irish ladies?" And then, as he saw that his visitors suspected a joke, though failing to understand it, "You're very ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... treading upon other people's toes Chichikov had become fully aware; wherefore he stepped cautiously, and, throughout, allowed his host to take the lead. As a matter of fact, Sobakevitch himself seemed conscious of his failing, for at intervals he would inquire: "I hope I have not hurt you?" and Chichikov, with a word of thanks, would reply that as yet he had sustained ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... head were strengthened when, just before 6 o'clock, a messenger came from Mrs. Cinch loaded with inquiries. Mr. Cinch's life was as regular as the movements of the stars. He had gone home at 4:30 P.M. for twenty years. Bob was really alarmed. He made a careful search throughout the stables. That failing to give him the slightest clew, he went ...
— Tin-Types Taken in the Streets of New York • Lemuel Ely Quigg
... appears that Thurrawaddi is meeting with success in his summons for men. No resistance shewn to his authority hitherto except by one Myoowoon. Our Myoowoon has absented himself, and the Myoowook determined on surrender. Bayfield under all circumstances, and failing authentic intelligence of Mr. Kincaid, ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... retribution must follow. If you can in any way, whether by suggestion or otherwise, assist me to lay my hands upon the culprit, or culprits, I strongly advise you to do so, for your own sakes; for, failing the actual guilty parties, you, senores, are the persons who will have to pay the penalty." And, so saying, George passed on and into his own cabin, leaving the hostages almost ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... controversy with us? Or are we indulging ourselves in anything about which we have doubt? Are we withholding anything from GOD which is His due—ourselves, our property, our children; or, it may be, our testimony? Or, if none of these things are hindering us, are we failing to accept, by faith, the filling of the SPIRIT; perhaps only asking, but not receiving also? Is it that we are neglecting the prayerful study of GOD'S Word, and thus grieving the SPIRIT by whom it was inspired? ...
— Separation and Service - or Thoughts on Numbers VI, VII. • James Hudson Taylor
... our reverend entertainer suited the character remarkably well. Amid the welcome of a Count Palatine he did not for an instant forget the gravity of the Church dignitary. All his toasts were gracefully given, and his little speeches well made, and the more affecting that the failing voice sometimes reminded us that our aged host laboured under the infirmities of advanced life. To me personally the Bishop was very civil, and paid me his public compliments by proposing my health in the most ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... coolest manner in the world, deliberately surveyed me through it, when, in an instant, a broad smile of amusement—the smile which I by this time knew so well— overspread his otherwise inanimate features. I glanced hurriedly behind me to see if I could discover the cause of his risibility, and, failing to do so, turned round again, just in time to see him, with his eye- glass still bearing straight in my direction, bend his head and speak a few words to his fair companion. Thereupon she, too, glanced in my direction, looked ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... Japan in 1905 following the Russo-Japanese War. Five years later, Japan formally annexed the entire peninsula. Following World War II, Korea was split with the northern half coming under Soviet-sponsored Communist domination. After failing in the Korean War (1950-53) to conquer the US-backed Republic of Korea (ROK) in the southern portion by force, North Korea (DPRK), under its founder President KIM Il-so'ng, adopted a policy of ostensible diplomatic and economic "self-reliance" as a ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... weary of hiding in the swamp, tried it and came staggering back to the camp with a bullet hole in his foot. Roger reasoned that Garman's cat-and-mouse tactics were calculated to break his nerve or to provoke a fight which could have only one result. Failing in this the trap had but to be maintained and the ...
— The Plunderer • Henry Oyen
... bird flies home, nor knows his loss, So Rustum knew not his own loss, but stood Over his dying son, and knew him not. But, with a cold, incredulous voice he said: 'What prate is this of fathers and revenge? The mighty Rustum never had a son.' And with a failing voice Sohrab replied: 'Ah yes, he had! and that lost son am I, Surely the news will one day reach his ear, Reach Rustum, where he sits, and tarries long, Somewhere, I know not where, but far from here; And pierce him like a stab, and make him leap ...
— Lyra Heroica - A Book of Verse for Boys • Various
... have liked the money immensely, but she would have missed something she had taught herself to regard as rather rare. There is another remark I remember her making, a remark to the effect that of course if she could have chosen she would have liked him to be Shakespeare or Scott, but that failing this she was very glad he wasn't—well, she named the two gentlemen, but I won't. I daresay she sometimes laughed out to escape an alternative. She contributed passionately to the capture of the second manner, foraging for him further afield than he could conveniently go, gleaning ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... proved a labor of considerable magnitude, since what had been done showed evidence of the late author's failing strength, and when, in a conference with the publishers, it was proposed to combine the two books of Mr. Butterworth, the Story of the Hymns and the Story of the Tunes, in one volume, the task ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... interesting than his account, in the introduction to the "Fortunes of Nigel," of how he worked, how he planned, and found all his plots and plans overridden by the demon at the end of his pen! But Sir Walter was failing when he began those literary confessions; good as they are, he came to them too late. Yet these are not confessions which an author can make early. The pagan Aztecs only confessed once in a lifetime—in old age, when they had fewer temptations to fall to their old loves: ...
— Essays in Little • Andrew Lang
... injections containing laudanum often afford great relief. The strength must be kept up by milk punches, eggs, beef tea, oatmeal gruel, etc. In spite of the best care and treatment, however, dysentery is likely to prove fatal. In the case of nurslings, the dam should be placed in a healthy condition or, failing in this, milk should be had from another ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... that her uncle was dead. They did not tell her what she was soon to learn—that he had died rich, and that, failing other heirs, she and her grandfather had inherited ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... me, or I shall grow idle. That is the failing of over-big men," Havelok said; and he took the loaves and left the palace with the two market ...
— Havelok The Dane - A Legend of Old Grimsby and Lincoln • Charles Whistler
... an IMF stand-by agreement in August 2000, Nigeria received a debt-restructuring deal from the Paris Club and a $1 billion credit from the IMF, both contingent on economic reforms. Nigeria pulled out of its IMF program in April 2002, after failing to meet spending and exchange rate targets, making it ineligible for additional debt forgiveness from the Paris Club. In the last year the government has begun showing the political will to implement the market-oriented reforms ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... of accident. This is the curious mythical account; incorrect in some unessential particulars, but in the main and singular part of it well-founded. Elector Friedrich, according to Pollnitz and others, after failing in many methods, had sent 100,000 thalers (say 15,000 pounds) to give, by way of—bribe we must call it,—to the chief opposing Hofrath at Vienna. The money was offered, accordingly; and was refused by the ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. I. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Birth And Parentage.—1712. • Thomas Carlyle
... only he had been afflicted with one iota of the curiosity apportioned by time to Lot's wife, that man might have been alive even to this day. But he neither turned his head nor pricked his ears, thereby failing to note that with the lightning methods of the eel the comely flower had in some miraculous way slipped from her all enveloping sheath of draperies to stand revealed a wiry, glistening-with-oil youth, who, without a moment's pause, with knife in teeth, and as silently as a lizard, ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... the same reason, before a crowd of people, and then himself. A soldier killed a girl for the same reason while I was passing in front of Santo Thomas. A coachman, in November, 1841, tried to kill another man, because of a love affair; and, failing in the attempt, killed himself. Filipino sailors have committed many cruelties, and have a reputation throughout the entire Indian Sea as turbulent fellows and assassins. The [insurance] companies of Bengal do not insure at full risk a vessel in which ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... be understood that not all this information was communicated by the aunt, who had too much of the family failing herself to appreciate it thoroughly in others. But as time went on, Archie began to observe an ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... speech, but that he did not know what to say, and begged Henry to supply him with the necessary materials. He advised him to strike out something new, and having received his assurance that he should be able to recollect anything that he learned by heart, and that he was not afraid of his courage failing, Henry composed for him the speech which Duncombe delivered. But knowing the slender capacity of his man, he was not satisfied with placing the speech in his hands, but adopted every precaution which his ingenuity suggested to avert the ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... a never-failing source of joy to us to see the procession pass on the way to their rooms at night. First came a dog; then Miss Williams, with a candle; then Jack; then another dog; and finally, Mrs. Wotton, with her candle ...
— The Stark Munro Letters • J. Stark Munro
... good a husband as ever broke the world's bread;" and Sheelah "was as good a poor man's wife as ever threw a gown over her shoulders." Notwithstanding all this caution, their little quarrels took wind; their unhappiness became known. Larry, in consequence of a failing he had, was the cause of this. He happened to be one of those men who can conceal nothing when in a state of intoxication. Whenever he indulged in liquor too freely, the veil which discretion had drawn over ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... history. I am the son of honourable parents, who gave me a first-rate education, as far as literature and languages went, with which education I endeavoured, on the death of my father, to advance myself to wealth and reputation in the big city; but failing in the attempt, I conceived a disgust for the busy world, and determined to retire from it. After wandering about for some time, and meeting with various adventures, in one of which I contrived to obtain a pony, cart, and certain tools used by smiths and tinkers, I came to this place, where I ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... Watchman! what of the night? The night is stormy and dark; men's hearts are failing them for fear; those who see clearly in the day time, now grope helplessly in the dark; the blind are leading the blind; society is at a stand still, waiting and watching for the coming day. Yet afar off in the east the patriot's eye may even now see the first faint streaks ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No. V, May, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... be more striking than to find this here. We are inclined to look upon bad temper as a very harmless weakness. We speak of it as a mere infirmity of nature, a family failing, a matter of temperament, not a thing to take into very serious account in estimating a man's character. And yet here, right in the heart of this analysis of love, it finds a place; and the Bible again and ...
— Addresses • Henry Drummond
... especially necessary during the last months of pregnancy for the general health of the mother and child, but imprudence during the early months may cause abortion in many women. The progressive enervation of women in easy circumstances has no doubt rendered them less adapted to procreation. This failing should be corrected by progressive ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... caught wildly at her failing courage, and drew herself up to her full height. Perhaps she ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... long afternoon while they both knitted socks and read the boys' letters and heard the latest news of Allister and Ellen and Mary and discussed at great length the never-failing virtues of Gavin. John drove the guest home in the cutter round by the road, for Mrs. Lindsay could not bear the sight of Elspie walking away over the drifts, though as a matter of fact, Elspie in her youthful spirits ...
— In Orchard Glen • Marian Keith
... be alone. I didn't know exactly how to work it. Then I remembered how people had remarked that I had changed very much in twenty years, and that for a homely boy I had grown to be a remarkably picturesque-looking man. I trusted to Tidd's failing ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... generation." All this would be impossible if women generally would recognise the primary fact that because a man is immoral that it is no reason why he should become syphilitic. We all want to abolish sin, but failing that we must cease wanting to poison the sinner. We must actively work to save him from the penalties of his folly, for that is the only way in which we can save his victims and succeed ultimately in ...
— Safe Marriage - A Return to Sanity • Ettie A. Rout
... waiting a few moments, proceed cautiously (expecting to meet the other train, which is generally running as much faster, to make up lost time, as the cautious train is slower) until they have met and passed; the one failing to reach the half-way point between stations being required to back,—a dangerous expedient always,—an example of which operation was furnished at the disaster on the Camden and Amboy Railroad near Burlington; the delayed train further being ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... Varr and Miss Copley very long to recover from the perturbation they had shown when she finished reading him the bit of folklore relating to the Monk. Both of them were highly efficient in the art of self-repression, or failing that, knew how to mask an inner emotion behind their normal outward semblance. When they presently left the study for the luncheon table, Simon wore his usual frown above knitted brows, while Miss ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston
... the complexion of his broad strong face had reddened and coarsened from lack of exercise and sleep; his brown hair was thinning and grizzling fast. Nevertheless a man saw much to admire in the ungainly head and long-limbed frame, and did not think any the better of a woman's intelligence for failing to perceive it. ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... come in personal contact with them. It had been so even in the case of her father whom she idolized, and had been one of the small items in stepmother's list against her. But she had heard so much upon the subject then, and of its enormity, that she had set herself to overcome the failing, since failing it was. And had poor Moses known it, she would almost rather have borne his pain herself than to have helped him turn upon his back as she did. To do more for him than this was impossible, and again she besought him to say how ...
— The Brass Bound Box • Evelyn Raymond
... tract of water; and he descried his antagonist still fighting with the waves: he was holding by a spar too weak to support his weight, but capable of assisting him in swimming. His powers were apparently failing him, as he looked up to his more fortunate enemy: He stretched out his hand to him, ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. I. • Thomas De Quincey
... ought to have gone to Palestine in search of the ideal model, but then my father's failing health kept me within a brief railway run of the Parsonage. Besides, I understood that the dispersion of the Jews everywhere made it possible to find Jewish types anywhere, and especially in London, to which flowed all the streams of the Exile. But long days of hunting ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill
... smirkingly, "has been here in an awful state of mind! She has cried so to herself, that her eyes were flooded, as soon as she dried her tears. 'It's only to-day that I've come,' she said, 'and I've already been the cause of the outbreak of your young master's failing. Now had he broken that jade, as he hurled it on the ground, wouldn't it have been my fault? Hence it was that she was so wounded at heart, that I had all the trouble in the world, before I ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... failing to find the Diamond in the servants' rooms or boxes) had led him, it appeared, to an entirely new conclusion. Still sticking to his first text, namely, that somebody in the house had stolen the jewel, our experienced officer was now of the opinion that the thief (he was wise enough not to ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... failing to cease, had then led them into great distress, into the affrighted period of expectancy following the crime. They thus came to think of the corpse of the drowned man extended on a slab at the Morgue. Laurent, by a look, told Therese all the horror he had felt, and the latter, ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... distinctly state what he proposes in a given case, in order that the Queen may know as distinctly to what she is giving her royal sanction. Secondly, having once given her sanction to such a measure that it be not arbitrarily altered or modified by the Minister. Such an act she must consider as failing in sincerity towards the Crown, and justly to be visited by the exercise of her constitutional right of dismissing that Minister. She expects to be kept informed of what passes between him and Foreign Ministers before important decisions are taken based ...
— The English Constitution • Walter Bagehot
... ease, 5 Seats of my youth, when every sport could please, How often have I loiter'd o'er thy green, Where humble happiness endear'd each scene; How often have I paus'd on every charm, The shelter'd cot, the cultivated farm, 10 The never-failing brook, the busy mill, The decent church that topp'd the neighbouring hill, The hawthorn bush, with seats beneath the shade, For talking age and whisp'ring lovers made; How often have I bless'd the coming day, 15 ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... farmer's sharp-tongued little wife speak of this and that in the discourse, he began to think it might be so. No doubt the preacher spoke somewhat fast or slow, a little too loud or too soft. And he was not "stirring" enough, said the farmer's wife; a failing which no one had ever laid ...
— Jackanapes, Daddy Darwin's Dovecot and Other Stories • Juliana Horatio Ewing
... my good lord. Five talents is his debt, His means most short, his creditors most strait: Your honourable letter he desires To those have shut him up; which, failing, ...
— The Life of Timon of Athens • William Shakespeare [Craig edition]
... left behind, and the Express was approaching the picturesque Highlands, a source of never failing delight to tourists. West Point, the site of the famous United States Military Academy, is on the left bank of the Hudson in the very bosom ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... heart-broken, with nothing but old age around him; that no branch would again spring from the family tree, and that on his death-bed he should not have that last consolation of pressing his dear ones, for whom he struggled and made so many sacrifices, in his failing arms, and who were sobbing with grief, but that soon he should be the prey of indifferent and greedy heirs, who were discounting his approaching ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... cried Margaret, in her turn failing to appreciate the Western point of view. "He tried to help put it out at first in the building where he was, and when he saw that was impossible, he went to work getting out his books and papers. They were very, very valuable; no money could have bought some of them, he ...
— Three Margarets • Laura E. Richards
... out and the new husband and wife bow to all the Dhanwars, who are subsequently regaled with liquor and goats' flesh, and the marriage is completed. Polygamy is permitted but is not common. A husband may divorce his wife for failing to bear him issue, for being ugly, thievish, shrewish or a witch, or for an intrigue with another man. If a married woman commits adultery with another man of the tribe they are pardoned with the exaction of one feast. If her paramour is a Gond, Rawat, Binjhwar or Kawar, he is allowed to ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... of some self-created deception?" and I was wretched till I considered that in her I saw the Divine Nature itself, and that her passion was a stream straight from the Highest. The love of woman is, in other words, a living witness never failing of an actuality in God which otherwise we should never know. This led me on to connect it with Christianity; but I am ...
— Mark Rutherford's Deliverance • Mark Rutherford |
