"Imperfect" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Visited," with that stanza, "But thou that didst appear so fair:" [1] than which I think no lovelier stanza can be found in the wide world of poetry. Yet the poem, on the whole, seems condemned to leave behind it a melancholy of imperfect satisfaction, as if you had wronged the feeling with which, in what preceded it, you had resolved never to visit it, and as if the Muse had determined, in the most delicate manner, to make you, and scarce make you, feel it. Else, it is far superior to the other, which has but one ...
— The Best Letters of Charles Lamb • Charles Lamb
... also reduce the size and weight of the brain.[7] Dr. Arthur Keith when dealing with the so-called Piltdown skull in his book "The Antiquity of Man" says to the same effect that the size of brain is a very imperfect index of mental ability in that we know that certain elements enter into the formation of the brain which take no direct part in our mental activity, so that a person who has been blessed with a great robust body and strong, massive limbs requires a greater outfit of mere tracts and nerve cells ...
— The Black Man's Place in South Africa • Peter Nielsen
... keep up the vital processes which closely resemble combustion, of which oxygen is the prime supporter. If the supply is insufficient, the fire of life wanes. The healthy condition of the lungs also requires that they be completely expanded by the air inhaled. The imperfect breathing of many persons fails to accomplish the required inflation, and the lungs become diseased for want of their natural action. Full, deep breathing and pure air are as essential to health, happiness, and the right performance of our duties, whether individual, ...
— How To Behave: A Pocket Manual Of Republican Etiquette, And Guide To Correct Personal Habits • Samuel R Wells
... state by the thirty-fourth abbot, Anthony Bohier, who, in the annals of the convent, bears the character of having been "a magnificent restorer and repairer of ancient monasteries." Admirable as is the structure, the original design of the architect was never completed. The western front remains imperfect; and this is the more to be regretted, as that part is naturally the first that meets the eye of the stranger, who thus receives an unfavorable impression, which it is afterwards difficult wholly to banish. The intention was, that the ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman
... 2: The purpose of human law is to lead men to virtue, not suddenly, but gradually. Wherefore it does not lay upon the multitude of imperfect men the burdens of those who are already virtuous, viz. that they should abstain from all evil. Otherwise these imperfect ones, being unable to bear such precepts, would break out into yet greater evils: thus ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... and grace to improve it to the full. For it is scandalous that a bird of the crow's cloth should be a thief; and so, although I reckon him among my friends,—in truth, because I do so,—I am always able to take it patiently when I see him chastised for his fault. Imperfect as we all know each other to be, it is a comfort to feel that few of us are so altogether bad as not to take more or less pleasure in seeing a neighbor's character improved under a course of moderately ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... became lambs—such transformations occur in last agonies; tigers lick the crucifix; when the dark portal opens ajar, belief is difficult, unbelief impossible. However imperfect may be the different sketches of religion essayed by man, even when his belief is shapeless, even when the outline of the dogma is not in harmony with the lineaments of the eternity he foresees, there comes in his last hour a trembling of the soul. There is something which will ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... Northumberland, accompanied Mr. Desbarres. He has made a draught of Harbour Grace and the Bay of Carbonera, both of which are in a great measure commanded by the Island, which lies off a point of land between them. Hitherto we have had a very imperfect knowledge of these places, but Mr. Cook, who was particularly careful in sounding them, has discovered that ships of any size may lie in safety both in Harbour Grace ...
— The Life of Captain James Cook • Arthur Kitson
... been turned awry. He looked at her searchingly; and as he looked the mere man in him asserted itself for a moment. She was dressed in coarse garments; it struck him that her grief had a touch of commonness about it; there was something imperfect in the dramatic setting. His recent experiences had had a kind of grandeur about them; it was not thus that he had remembered her in the hour when he had called upon her in the plains, and the Indian had heard his cry. He felt, and was ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... to be dwelt on in speaking, as to be equivalent to a dissyllable—[Symbol: written as a U-shape, below the line], is characteristic of the solemn Glendower: but the imperfect line ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... says, p. 243. of his work "that not one of the books of the New Testament, nor all of them together, were intended to be a forensic defence of Christianity. On the contrary, the historical books are brief, and imperfect memoirs, which were not designed, nor supposed to contain all the faces, and which do not set forth, nor profess to set forth the evidences of the religion. The Epistolary parts are the counsels, instructions and affectionate sentiments which the occasions of the infant churches, ...
— Five Pebbles from the Brook • George Bethune English
... what purpose do we feel! why within our limited sphere of action, our short and imperfect existence have we such boundless capacity for enjoying and suffering? no doubt for some good purpose. But I cannot think as I used to think: my ideas are perplexed: it is all pain of heart and confusion of mind; a sense of bitterness, and wrong, and sorrow, ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... human nature is imperfect, and frailty so common, we must expect in every family some occasion to arise that will tax the patience and the love of the parent to the uttermost. No rule can be given that will meet every crisis; common sense, justice, forbearance, faith and love may be used in vain; and reproof, ...
— Parent and Child Vol. III., Child Study and Training • Mosiah Hall
... with the material world, or rather, with a certain portion of it. For we by no means sense all that is sensible, and, as I have already indicated, our sense impressions are often delusive. The gamut of our senses is very limited, and also very imperfect both as to extent and quality. Science is continually bringing new instruments into our service, some to aid the senses, others to correct them. The microscope, the microphone, the refracting lens are instances. It ...
— Second Sight - A study of Natural and Induced Clairvoyance • Sepharial
... our neighbours. Our own cathedrals are mouldering by unregarded dilapidation. It seems to be part of the despicable philosophy of the time to despise monuments of sacred magnificence, and we are in danger of doing that deliberately, which the Scots did not do but in the unsettled state of an imperfect constitution. ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... it was thought best to enlarge many points which in the allotted space could have hardly more than mention. Acting on this wish, the monograph has been nearly doubled in size, but still must be counted only an imperfect summary, since facts in these lines are in most cases very nearly unobtainable, and, aside from the few reports of Labor Bureaus, there are as yet almost no sources of full information. But as there is no existing manual of reference on this topic, the student of social questions will accept ...
— Women Wage-Earners - Their Past, Their Present, and Their Future • Helen Campbell
... company of Norman men and women, you will, I know, extend a kindly greeting, if only because of their nationality. To your courtesy, possibly, you will add the leaven of interest, when you perceive—as you must—that their qualities are all their own, their defects being due solely to my own imperfect presentment. ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd
... only heard imperfect reports of it; but it is said that she gave offence some eighteen months ago to an old woman who had held an office of trust in the family, and who, after some incoherent threats, disappeared. This peculiar affection ...
— Phantastes - A Faerie Romance for Men and Women • George MacDonald
... of the elements which we have, so far, examined, and that will be now described and will bring to an end this series of observations. A piece of close and detailed work of this kind, although necessarily imperfect, will have its value in the future, when science along its own lines ...
— Occult Chemistry - Clairvoyant Observations on the Chemical Elements • Annie Besant and Charles W. Leadbeater
... earlier Elizabethan prose, if we except the name of Hooker, in whom it culminates, is to a great extent the history of curiosities of literature—of tentative and imperfect efforts, scarcely resulting in any real vernacular style at all. It is, however, emphatically the Period of Origins of modern English prose, and as such cannot but be interesting. We shall therefore ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... it to speedy irretrievable disaster. We are probably all agreed that the conduct of a small grocery does not require fineness of intellect; most English readers, I think, will follow me in believing that success in such a sphere of life implies at least an imperfect intellectual development. On the other hand enterprises truly Rhodian do call for ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... soul of the true artist for ever labors to evolve the beautiful. This is what the thought of a picture means to him—how to express beauty, which he finds underlying even the imperfect individual of Nature's decaying birth. To the high insight this is always discernible. None are so fallen that some ray of God's light may not touch them, and this possibility, the faith in light for ever, radiates from the spirit of the artist, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... be the duty I owe Your Imperial Majesty to express my firm, clear, and profound conviction that economic prosperity of the people even when coupled with a somewhat imperfect military organisation will be more useful in case of war than the most complete military preparedness combined with economic weakness. In the latter case, the people, however eager they may be to sacrifice both their life and property, can bring ...
— The Shield • Various
... could fight and triumph. But the Christian faith was obscured and enfeebled, it clung to the vessel's rigging instead of defending its powerful hull; the flood was rising meanwhile, and the dikes were breaking one after, another. The religious belief of the Savoyard vicar, imperfect and inconsistent, such as it is set forth in Emile, and that sincere love of nature which was recovered by Rousseau in his solitude, remained powerless to guide the ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... to believe that this ambition appealed to her. Nay, at times it certainly did so, for she liked the brilliant and the commanding. On the other hand, it seemed imperfect as an ideal of life. In its undercurrents her thought was always more ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... propounded, except by the assurance that books of which they had recommended him to study parts were dangerous to faith as wholes. But as they could not prove the fallacies alleged to exist in such books, their warnings availed nothing. He had been converted to dogmatism by imperfect reasoning; by larger and deeper reasoning he found his way beyond dogmatism. He passed from the church after an open declaration that its tenets were not based upon true reason or fact; and that he felt ...
— Kokoro - Japanese Inner Life Hints • Lafcadio Hearn
... removed unto Euelme, and some of them returned to Woodstock the Sunday se'nnight after, (the book of Valuations wanting something that was for haste left imperfect,) but lodged not in any of those rooms where they had lain before, and yet were not unvisited (as they confess themselves) by the devil, whom they called their nightly guest; Captain Crook came not untill ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... before his howls ceased, and the lodgers were placated with cookies the very next day—but that, too, was "good business"! Her "respectability" had become a deep satisfaction to her. She occasionally referred to herself as "a perfect lady." Her feeling about "imperfect" ladies was of most virulent disapproval. But she had no more spirituality than a hen. Her face was as good-humored, and common, and pretty as ever; and she had a fund of not too refined, but always funny, stories to tell Maurice; ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland
... "Stay, you imperfect speakers, tell me more: By Sinol's death, I know I am thane of Glamis; But how of Cawdor? the thane of Cawdor lives, A prosperous gentleman; and, to be king Stands not within the prospect of belief, No more than ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... habitually, or even only occasionally, raided. In some quarters, especially from north-east round to north-west, our present understanding of the terms of ancient geography, used by Semitic scribes, is very imperfect, and, when an Assyrian king has told us carefully what lands, towns, mountains and rivers his army visited, it does not follow that we can identify them with any exactness. Nor should the royal records ...
— The Ancient East • D. G. Hogarth
... those who had sorrowed and suffered before her, Passions long extinguished, and hopes long dead and abandoned, As the emigrant's way o'er the Western desert is marked by Camp-fires long consumed, and bones that bleach in the sunshine. Something there was in her life incomplete, imperfect, unfinished; As if a morning of June, with all its music and sunshine, Suddenly paused in the sky, and, fading, slowly descended Into the east again, from whence it late had arisen. Sometimes she lingered in towns, till, urged by the fever ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... himself for the same purpose into lower worlds, and we call that part a personality, because the Latin word persona means a mask, and this personality is the mask which the ego puts upon himself when he manifests in worlds lower than his own. Just as the ego is a small part and an imperfect expression of the Monad, so is the personality a small part and an imperfect expression of the ego; so that what we usually think of as the man is only in truth a fragment ...
— A Textbook of Theosophy • C.W. Leadbeater
... uttering of the words, which were accompanied by a gesture, they came forth out of the porch of the palm wood by the margin of the sea and full in front of the sun, which was near setting. Before them the surf broke slowly. All around, with an air of imperfect wooden things inspired with wicked activity, the crabs trundled and scuttled into holes. On the right, whither Attwater pointed and abruptly turned, was the cemetery of the island, a field of broken stones from the bigness of a child's hand to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... very much of the nimbus which they carry about with them elsewhere. At home you hear them whistle and shout, and bully their servants and domestics, and see them immersed in everyday household affairs. You see them eat and drink and look bored. You see them with imperfect or unaccomplished toilets, and often with muddy boots, especially when they look after their own horses. You begin to realize that ideals also are as much subject to the petty necessities of life as ordinary ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... question—to think, that is, as Wagner thought; these millions to make sublime sacrifice of themselves that Wagner's art-schemes might prosper. All this, be it noted, was to be the barest basis and beginning of the perfect State. How this point could be reached by our imperfect human race was a question he scorned to discuss: he simply assumed that it could be reached, and proceeded to further argument. The point had to be attained in the first place; then humanity—by which he meant German humanity—was ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... we seem to have little chance of understanding, we may obtain a broad conception of the way in which the earth and its living inhabitants came to be what they are. No one is more conscious than the writer that this account is extremely imperfect. The limits of the volume have permitted me to use only a part of the material which modern science affords, but if the whole of our discoveries were described the sketch would still remain very imperfect. The evolutionary conception of the world ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe
... beat high and thick within him as he came into the royal apartments. His education abroad, conducted, as it had been, on a narrow and limited scale, had given him but imperfect ideas of the grandeur of a Court; and the philosophical reflections which taught him to set ceremonial and exterior splendour at defiance, proved, like other maxims of mere philosophy, ineffectual, ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... that Renaissance was not a man; that renaissance was a term used to signify what was at best but an imperfect rejuvenation of art. The guide said that after Titian's time and the time of the other great names we had grown so familiar with, high art declined; then it partially rose again—an inferior sort of painters ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... such punishment would do much to deter ignorant and incompetent men from seeking high commands in the field. But the discipline of the volunteer army of a republic must, it appears, inevitably be, especially in respect to officers of high rank, quite imperfect, although it may become in respect to the great mass of the troops, as ours ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... West the canons were of importance as having been used by Dionysius Exiguus in his collection. That the Canon of Holy Scripture was settled at this council is a traditional commonplace in theology, but hardly borne out by the facts. The council only drew up one of the several imperfect lists of sacred books which appeared in antiquity. The following canons show the influx of heathenism into the Church, resulting from the changed status of ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... as it is, it agrees with the spirit of Humanism, bent ever on harmonising the two great traditions of the past. Of the workmanship little need be said, except that it is wholly Lombard, distinguished from the similar work of Della Quercia at Bologna and Siena by a more imperfect feeling for composition, and a lack of monumental gravity, yet graceful, rich in motives, and instinct with a certain wayward ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... methods of striking a light were very primitive, just as they were in Europe; many families possessed no adequate means, or very imperfect ones. If by ill fortune the fire in the fireplace became wholly extinguished through carelessness at night, some one, usually a small boy, was sent to the house of the nearest neighbor, bearing a shovel or covered pan, or perhaps a broad strip of green bark, on which to bring back coals for relighting ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... was upon her, tainted as she is with that Vampire baptism. "Well," said I to myself, "if it be that she sleep all the day, it shall also be that I do not sleep at night." As we travel on the rough road, for a road of an ancient and imperfect kind there was, I held down my ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... sailed in the fleet under Keeling, in 1615, which carried out Sir Thomas Roe, already related in Sect. IV. of this chapter; and the present short article almost exclusively relates to the new factory at Cranganore on the Malabar coast, in which Hawes was left as one of the factors. This is a very imperfect and inconclusive article, yet gives some idea of the manners and customs ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... hurried past the visitor with averted face. It was well done, and, thus disguised by the thick veil, another man than Paul Harley might have failed to recognize one of whom he had never had more than an imperfect glimpse. But if Paul Harley's memory did not avail him greatly, ...
— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer
... the Nith, and much more than in the Trough of the Clyde, a great portion of the ground was uncultivated, but the hills being less wild, the river more stately, and the ground not heaved up so irregularly and tossed about, the imperfect cultivation was the more to be lamented, particularly as there were so many houses near the river. In a small enclosure by the wayside is a pillar erected to the memory of Dr. Smollett, who was born in a village at a little distance, which we could see at the same time, and where, ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth
... her Lord Gerald mounted the attic stairs. It was for the first time in her life, and she was so imperfect in the geography of the upper floor, that she had to open one or two doors before she found 'the barrack,' with Bernard lying kicking his heels fiercely at the beam across the low room. The amazing presence of Geraldine suspended this occupation. 'How did ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... friendly a friendship, that they continually advised together in all their studies, and particularly in what concerned these books of Polity—this Dr. Spencer, the Three perfect books being lost, had delivered into his hands—I think by Bishop Whitgift—the imperfect books, or first rough draughts of them, to be made as perfect as they might be by him, who both knew Mr. Hooker's handwriting, and was best acquainted with his intentions. And a fair testimony of this may appear by an ...
— Lives of John Donne, Henry Wotton, Rich'd Hooker, George Herbert, - &C, Volume Two • Izaak Walton
... mushroomlike bodies (cotyledons), each 2 to 3 inches in diameter, and attached by a narrow neck. (Pls. XII, XIII.) When fully everted, it is further recognizable by a large, undivided body hanging from the vulva, and two horns or divisions which hang down toward the hocks. In the imperfect eversions the body of the womb may be present with two depressions leading into the two horns. In the cases of some standing the organ has become inflamed and gorged with blood until it is as large as a bushel basket, its surface has a dark-red, bloodlike hue, and ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture
... was not afraid to travel alone in so dreary a place, adding, that if his countrywomen were to be overtaken by a stranger like him, on the wilds of a mountain, they would scream and fly; all which he acted very vividly, by way of making out his imperfect speech, and trying her courage ...
— Feats on the Fiord - The third book in "The Playfellow" • Harriet Martineau
... In concluding this imperfect sketch, I may remark that I have omitted many things concerning the natural history and habits of the Salmon, fearing to trespass too much on the patience of my readers; but I have wished, in addition to communicating some facts in the natural history of this fish, ...
— Essays in Natural History and Agriculture • Thomas Garnett
... never seen the effect of a panic upon a multitude can have but an imperfect idea of such a thing. The best disciplined troops have been enervated and made cowards by it. Armies have been routed by it, even where no enemy appeared to furnish an excuse. Like electricity, it operates instantly; like sympathy, it is ...
— A sketch of the life and services of Otho Holland Williams • Osmond Tiffany
... that the really fine and poignant irony came in. Through her intercourse with Jane and Laura, Rose offered herself for comparison, and showed flagrantly imperfect. But for that, owing to Tanqueray's superhuman powers of abstraction, she might almost have passed unnoticed. As it was, he owned that her incorruptible simplicity preserved her, even at her worst, from ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... foreign conquest, he was seeking to divert his attention from urgent matters at home; that he had seen a vision of impending ruin; and that his actions were the frantic efforts of a man to turn a steed, over which he has imperfect control, from the gulf he sees yawning ahead. The only other explanation is that Wolsey sacrificed England's interests in the hope of securing from Charles the gift of the ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... lecture on geography, which, though very imperfect, has yet exceeded the usual limits of our lessons; many interesting circumstances relating to the various countries I have mentioned, have been entirely omitted, as I was fearful that by telling you too much on the subject I should prevent ...
— A Week of Instruction and Amusement, • Mrs. Harley
... is true that I have never cared greatly for 'On the Heights,' which in its dealing with royalties seems too far aloof from the ordinary human life, and which on the moral side finally fades out into a German mistiness. But I speak of it with the imperfect knowledge of one who was never able to read it quite through, and I have really no right to speak of it. The book of his that pleased me most was 'Edelweiss,' which, though the story was somewhat too catastrophical, seemed to me admirably good and true. I still think it very ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... one with its vigorous colorful revelation of poor children swarming in feverish activity like vivid ants in alleys of red sand. From the tenement windows leaned rotund, moon-shaped mothers, as constellations of this sordid heaven; women like dark imperfect jewels, women like vegetables, women like great ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... much may be learned from the records of failures as from those of success. Where a device has been once fairly tried and found to be imperfect or impracticable, the knowledge of that trial is of advantage in further investigation. Regardless of the lesson taught by failure, however, it is an almost every-day occurrence that some device ...
— Steam, Its Generation and Use • Babcock & Wilcox Co.
... glad to see him the first leisure day—as she has something of consequence to communicate and is sorry to hear that he has been so much indisposed as to deprive his friends of the pleasure of his company for this last fortnight—May you enjoy every happiness this imperfect estate affords is the ...
— As I Remember - Recollections of American Society during the Nineteenth Century • Marian Gouverneur
... intents and purposes, the country was a virgin wilderness whose camping sites were many and open to the first comer. Only after their households had been long established as squatters did these pioneers awake to an imperfect understanding that further formality was required before these, their homes, could be legally their own. Living isolated these men, even then, blundered in their applications or in the proving up of their claims. Such might be legally subject to eviction, but Bob in his recommendations gave ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... us? who rather double honour gain From his surmise proved false; find peace within, Favour from Heaven, our witness, from the event. And what is faith, love, virtue, unassayed Alone, without exteriour help sustained? Let us not then suspect our happy state Left so imperfect by the Maker wise, As not secure to single or combined. Frail is our happiness, if this be so, And Eden were no Eden, thus exposed. To whom thus Adam fervently replied. O Woman, best are all things as the will Of God ordained them: His creating hand Nothing imperfect or deficient left Of all that ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... edification is the object intended in the study of those languages, that end is more easily and more effectually accomplished by a thorough acquaintance with English literature, than by the very imperfect knowledge which college exercises give of the classics. Tugging at the Chained Prometheus, with the aid of grammar and lexicon, may be good intellectual discipline, but how many of the subjects of that discipline ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... tenor and the composer of "The Death of Nelson." Lamb praised him again in his Elia essay "Imperfect Sympathies," and later wrote an amusing article on Braham's recantation of Hebraism (see "The Religion of Actors," Vol. I.). "Kais," composed by Braham and Reeve, was produced at Drury Lane, February ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... on questions of domestic and foreign policy had resulted in the growth of the Federalist and Republican parties, but party organization was imperfect. In 1796 Adams (Federalist) was elected President, and ...
— A Brief History of the United States • John Bach McMaster
... from the wagon, and saw by the light of the lantern the imperfect and yet peculiar marks of Snowfoot's rather smooth-worn shoes, and ...
— The Young Surveyor; - or Jack on the Prairies • J. T. Trowbridge
... psalm-tune. 'Excuse me, minister,' said the precentor, 'but I've got a kittlin' in my throat this morning.' 'Kittlin'!' hissed the holy man in scornful wrath: 'it's mair like a big tom-cat.' Ladies and gentlemen, after these few and decidedly imperfect remarks, I resume my seat, merely expressing the hope that our friend will feel himself as much at home here as the deil did ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... He plunged the girl into Vasari, he locked up her time and her thoughts in grammars, dictionaries, commentaries, all the works of all the scholiasts of Italian art, kept her bending double over the ungrateful toil, the ennui and labor of translating Italian words, groping in the darkness of her imperfect knowledge. The whole burden of the book fell upon her; when he had laid out her task, he would leave her tete-a-tete with the volumes bound in white vellum, to go and ramble about the neighborhood, paying visits, gambling at some ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... same question, raising his voice still more each time; and three times I made him the same reply, always in the same respectful manner. "Oh, you fool!" said he at last, "you do not understand, then."—"That arises evidently, Monseigneur, from your Excellency's imperfect explanations!" Upon which he explained that he was speaking of a new carriage which had come from Paris that very day, a fact of which I was entirely ignorant. I was on the point of explaining this to his Excellency; but without deigning to listen, ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... sufferedst thou not the jewellers complete the lattice-work of the oriel, [530] so there might not remain a place in thy palace [531] defective?" "O King of the Age," answered Alaeddin, "I left it not imperfect but of my free will, nor did I lack of ableness to complete it. However, I could not brook that Thy Grace should honour me [with thy presence] in a palace [532] wherein there was somewhat lacking; wherefore, so thou mayst know that it was not for lack of ableness ...
— Alaeddin and the Enchanted Lamp • John Payne
... author at the fifth repetition than she had at the first. Of their parts individually they know but very little; of the play as a whole they are absolutely ignorant. On the first representation, by which the reputation of a play is decided, they are so confused and imperfect, owing partly to their imbecility but more still to their indolence, that the sense of the author is mutilated, his characters travestied, and his piece rather burlesqued than performed. The reality of the scene depends on the passions excited in the actor listening ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... character would be imperfect indeed if it contained no word concerning his genius as a coloniser. One of his main determinations, early in life, was "to discover and conquer unknown lands, and take possession of them in the Queen's ...
— Some Diversions of a Man of Letters • Edmund William Gosse
... stated in De Anima iii, 7, movement is twofold. One is "the act of something imperfect, i.e. of something existing in potentiality, as such": this movement is successive and is in time. Another movement is "the act of something perfect, i.e. of something existing in act," e.g. to understand, to feel, and to will and such like, also to have delight. ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... applied to the first hole on the left, and the fore-finger of the right to the lowest hole on that side. In this manner, though the notes are only three, they produce a pleasing, yet simple music, which they vary much more than one would think possible, with so imperfect an instrument. Their being accustomed to a music which consists of so few notes, is, perhaps, the reason why they do not seem to relish any of ours, which is so complex. But they can taste what is more deficient than their own; for, we observed, that they used to be well pleased ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... is too full of repose, and the Ottoman race has become too degenerate through indulgence, to exhibit many striking specimens of physical beauty. The face is generally fine, but the body is apt to be lank, and with imperfect muscular development. The best forms I saw in the baths were those of laborers, who, with a good deal of rugged strength, showed some grace and harmony of proportion. It may be received as a general rule, that the physical ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... practical builder despite a parental command to follow art—such a tale can at least claim the merit of originality. Mr. J. D. BERESFORD would be fully justified in claiming this and much more for An Imperfect Mother (COLLINS). Here is an interesting, fascinating and certainly unusual story, in which only two characters are of any real moment, Cecilia, the imperfect mother, embodiment of the artist temperament, egotistical almost to inhumanity, who abandons ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 31, 1920 • Various
... lie buried in darkness and oblivion. As we have had an opportunity of acquiring some knowledge of one of the most valuable and flourishing of the British settlements in that quarter, we propose to present the world with a particular, but imperfect, detail of its most memorable ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 1 • Alexander Hewatt
... the base. So thought Sir Charles Hay, who was put under arrest for saying that all the money was being spent in fighting sham battles and planting out cabbages. However, a reconnaissance of Louisbourg had been made by Gorham of the Rangers, whose very imperfect report induced Holbourne and Loudoun to get ready to sail. But, just as they were preparing to begin, too late, a Newfoundland vessel came in with captured French dispatches which showed that Admiral La Motte had united his three squadrons in Louisbourg harbour, ...
— The Great Fortress - A Chronicle of Louisbourg 1720-1760 • William Wood
... old, plucky, honest, vigorous and straightforward style. He died in June, 1868, from a paralytic stroke, and was succeeded by his nephew, the present Raja. What Sir JAMES BROOKE might have accomplished had he not been hampered by an opposition based on ignorance and imperfect knowledge at home, we cannot say; what he did achieve, I have endeavoured briefly to sketch, and unprejudiced minds cannot but deem the founding of a prosperous State and the total extirpation of piracy, slavery and head-hunting, a monument worthy ...
— British Borneo - Sketches of Brunai, Sarawak, Labuan, and North Borneo • W. H. Treacher
... sees in infinite longing for some higher greatness which it has either lost or otherwise cannot reach, finds the art, and the humanity, and the creations, and the affections which seem to others so exquisite most imperfect and ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... VII., and of her second or third husband (for, if I don't mistake, she had three); but indeed, my lord, these things are so much out of my memory at present, that I speak with great diffidence. I cannot even recollect any thing else to your lordship's purpose; but I flatter myself, that these imperfect notices will at least be a testimony of my readiness to obey your lordship's commands, as that I am, with great respect, my lord, your lordship's ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... hot-headed and even froward. There was something, he saw, in this idea of the melting-pot, if only the mingling could be managed by gods that saw the future. You couldn't make a wonder of a bell if you poured your metal into an imperfect mould. The mould must be flawless and the metal cunningly mixed; and then how clear the tone, how resonant! It wasn't the tarantella only that led him this long wandering. It was the quality of the dancers; and through all the changing steps and measures Anne and Lydia, too, ...
— The Prisoner • Alice Brown
... restraints, slaughter and bondage were the usual results of war, the idea of property was but very partially defined, and though there were strong indeterminate sentiments of right there is no word in Homer signifying law. Upon the whole, though a very imperfect, it was a wonderful and noble ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... it comes from the loom is in an imperfect condition for use. When worsted fabrics leave the loom they require but few and simple finishing operations, and in this respect differ much from woolen cloths, which require elaborate finishing operations. The finishing processes of woolen and worsted cloths are ...
— Textiles • William H. Dooley
... the coloured almanack given away at Christmas by the local grocer; on the advertisement of Jones' soap, and thinks with discontent of Polly Perkins, who in a natural way is as pretty a girl as can be looked for in this imperfect world. Thus it is that woman has had to take to shorthand and typewriting. Modern woman is ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome
... creature, whole and great, God's image, praising God whose type it is; We are imperfect worms, vile families, That in its belly have our low estate. If we know not its love, its intellect, Neither the worm within my belly seeks To know me, but his petty mischief wreaks:— Thus it behoves us to be circumspect. Again, ...
— Sonnets • Michael Angelo Buonarroti & Tommaso Campanella
... ragged, bare-headed boy or two lying on the grass on the upper side of the Green. It came to pass that late one Saturday afternoon, at the commencement of August, in the year 1866, I was standing where the street opens on this Green, or imperfect square. My eyes were fixed on the dilapidated house, the appearance of which awakened in my mind all kinds of odd ideas. "A strange-looking place," said I to myself at last, "and I shouldn't wonder if strange things have been done ...
— Romano Lavo-Lil - Title: Romany Dictionary - Title: Gypsy Dictionary • George Borrow
... page 985, "were the first who invented the science of the stars, and gave names to the planets, not at random and without meaning, but descriptive of the qualities which they conceived them to possess; and it was from them that this art passed, still in an imperfect state, ...
— The Ruins • C. F. [Constantin Francois de] Volney
... wisdom a little while unto thyself. Thus grows the fruit; first, the seed must be buried in the earth for a little space; there it must be hid and slowly grow, that it may reach maturity. But if it produce the ear before the jointed stalk, it is imperfect—a thing from the garden of Adonis. Such a sorry growth art thou; thou hast blossomed too soon: the winter cold will wither ...
— The Golden Sayings of Epictetus • Epictetus
... added to the general excitement, without stirring up any of the courage which makes brave men face disaster. Public credit was shaken; commercial operations were stunned; wage-earners were thrown out of employment; the forces of crime found themselves released even from those imperfect bonds which then kept them in check. The King and his brother did, indeed, prove their courage in danger and their readiness of expedient; and they were well helped in their efforts to cope with the calamity by many of the leading nobility. But as a whole ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... the study of languages, together with the imperfect material and the complicating conditions that have arisen by the spread of civilization over the country, combine to make the problem ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... been variously christened. Some believe it to be the fragment of a Niobe; others of a Diana. It is generally allowed to be a noble sample of Greek sculpture. Hereabouts, also, is the well-known imperfect statue of Icarus (113), brought in fragments from the Acropolis. The urn marked 122 is a sepulchral vessel, with figures in bas-relief; 123 is a sepulchral column, with an Athenian name upon it; and then the visitor will pass rapidly the fragments ...
— How to See the British Museum in Four Visits • W. Blanchard Jerrold
... the unspoken question, cried from the eyes that were on mine in a thousand tones. I could trace the play of her face but dimly by the light of the smoky lantern, but her eyes I seemed to see bright and near. I had looked for scorn there, and, it might be, amusement. I seemed to see (perhaps the imperfect light played tricks), besides lure and raillery, reproach, sorrow, and, most strange of all, a sort of envy. Then came a smile, and ever so lightly her finger moved in beckoning. The song came no more through the closed ...
— Simon Dale • Anthony Hope
... majority may have in common—that dominant interest, let us say, in line and mass. Such being the case, this Tuscan quality comes to an end with the local art of the middle ages, and can no longer be found, or only imperfect, after the breaking up and fusion of the various schools, and the arising of eclectic personalities in the earliest sixteenth century. After the painters born between 1450 and 1460, there are no more genuine Tuscans. Leonardo, once independent ...
— Laurus Nobilis - Chapters on Art and Life • Vernon Lee
... accounted for. It is far easier to indulge in broad generalizations than to devote oneself to a close study of nature or man. It is not the rules, it is the exceptions which ought to retain our attention, for only exceptions will teach us how imperfect are ...
— Belgium - From the Roman Invasion to the Present Day • Emile Cammaerts
... first range of hills, till his further course was interrupted by a river running north, which is a curious circumstance, being in the mountains. He described it as wide as the Thames at Kingston. Some native iron he found, and also an imperfect limestone, and the dung of an unknown animal. Samples of everything he there found will be sent by the GREENWICH (whaler), and I did hope to have been able to add something farther from another journey he was about undertaking, and for which purpose I had established a chain of depots ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... his own safety from treachery, he proceeded to a learned and reverend father of the church, to whom he communicated frankly who he was, and what was his object. Burr was master of the Latin language, and had an imperfect knowledge of the French. The priest was an educated man, so that a conversation was held with but little difficulty. He endeavoured to dissuade Burr from the enterprise. Spoke of it as impossible to accomplish. He represented the distance as great, and ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... the wide field of theology confined themselves to the points at issue at the moment. And as a text-book for instruction, it was obvious that while on some points they were precise and clear, on others they were vague and imperfect. The first five Articles left no room for doubt. When the compilers came to the controversies of their day, for all their strong language, they left all kinds of questions unanswered. For instance, they actually ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... and that one of the principal objects which we have in view in meeting together from time to time is to learn what should be thought, and what ought to be known; and by comparing our own judgments of things with those of our neighbours, to arrive at a just modification of our rough and imperfect ideas. ...
— Interludes - being Two Essays, a Story, and Some Verses • Horace Smith
... It is not even sufficient to have learned the Caribee or Carina, the Guamo, the Guahive, the Jaruro, the Ottomac, the Maypure, the Salive, the Marivitan, the Maquiritare, and the Guaica, ten dialects, of which there exist only imperfect grammars, and which have less affinity with each other than the Greek, German, ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... his existence getting now and then from Almayer a venomous glance which I observed with great surprise. In the course of the whole evening he ventured one single remark which I didn't catch because his articulation was imperfect, as of a man who had forgotten how to speak. I was the only person who seemed aware of the sound. Willems subsided. Presently he retired, pointedly unnoticed—into the forest maybe? Its immensity was there, within three hundred ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... taken off again, leaving the imprinted design behind. It is well to have the ink fairly thick, and rely on warmth to impart the necessary fluidity; otherwise the design may come away with the paper in patches, and be imperfect. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1157, March 5, 1898 • Various
... a Connecticut hardware merchant of an inventive turn of mind, went to a store to buy a life preserver. He could find only imperfect ones, but they drew his attention to the study of rubber, and presently he was thinking of it by day and dreaming of it by night. Rubber became a passion with him. He felt sure some way could be found to make it firm yet flexible regardless of temperature, ...
— The Romance of Rubber • United States Rubber Company
... File of one greene in yeares; as being aged under eight. Hence, worthy Reader, shew not thy self too-too-rigid a Censurer. This his version is little dignified, and therefore likely will it appears to thee much imperfect. It ought to be his own, or why under the Title is his name written? Peradventure thou wilt say, what is it to me? yet heare: Such is it really, as that I presume the Author may therein be rendred faithfully: with this courteously be then satisfied.—This small Treatise in its use, will ...
— George Washington's Rules of Civility - Traced to their Sources and Restored by Moncure D. Conway • Moncure D. Conway
... An imperfect sketch of the scene at the house of Colonel Burr was published in the year 1802, in a pamphlet under the signature of Aristides. The following is extracted from it. The note of reference here given is also extracted. Its correctness was never publicly denied by either of ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... respecting this first dramatic production of American genius, and the pleasure which it has already afforded in the theatres of New York and Maryland, persuade Mr. Wignell that his excuses on this occasion will be acceptable to the public and that even in so imperfect a dress, the intrinsic merit of the comedy will contribute to the amusement and command the approbation of the audience." Of Wignell and his associates, an excellent impression may be had from a first hand description by W. B. ...
— The Contrast • Royall Tyler
... said Mamba, and then endeavoured to tell something of his doings in English; but his knowledge of that language was so very imperfect that they could make nothing of it. They understood him, however, when he cautiously and lovingly drew the Testament from its hiding-place and ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne
... with an air of relief. "Then that sufficiently accounts for my very imperfect recollection of the affair"—with a glance at George to direct the latter's attention to the explanation. "Proceed, Senor Montalvo," continued the Governor; "tell us all that you know ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... so imperfect in the light of the nineteenth century, was very noble in the dark days of the seventeenth. Upon the arrival of Goetwater at New Amsterdam, the clergy of the Reformed church remonstrated against his being permitted to preach. The governor, adhering to his policy ...
— Peter Stuyvesant, the Last Dutch Governor of New Amsterdam • John S. C. Abbott
... union was, therefore, a response to obvious and pressing necessity. However slow or imperfect may have been the adjustment of internal organizations to the conditions of the trade, still the groove was defined and consequently the amount of possible floundering largely limited. Not so with the next step, namely the national federation ...
— A History of Trade Unionism in the United States • Selig Perlman
... while shaving; never did I use such unsatisfactory shoe-polish. I finally gave up in despair my effort to appear genteel, and devoted myself to the bouquet. I cut almost flowers enough to dress a church, and then remorselessly excluded every one which was in the least particular imperfect. In making the bouquet I enjoyed the benefit of my nephews' assistance and counsel and took enforced part ...
— Helen's Babies • John Habberton
... fresh and sweet, and not too much salted. Coffee A, or granulated sugar is best for all cakes. Much care should be taken in breaking and separating the eggs, and equal care taken as regards their freshness. One imperfect egg would spoil the entire lot. Break each egg separately in a teacup; then into the vessels in which they are to be beaten. Never use an egg when the white is the least discolored. Before beating the whites, ...
— Recipes Tried and True • the Ladies' Aid Society |
