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Blemish   /blˈɛmɪʃ/   Listen
Blemish

noun
(pl. blemishes)
1.
A mark or flaw that spoils the appearance of something (especially on a person's body).  Synonyms: defect, mar.






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"Blemish" Quotes from Famous Books



... debility of mind, and even badness of heart concealed under a splendid exterior! The fairest of the species, and of the sex, often want sincerity; and without sincerity every other qualification is rather a blemish, than a virtue, or excellence. Sincerity operates on the moral, somewhat like the sun on the natural world; and produces nearly the same effects on the dispositions of the human heart, which he does on inanimate objects. ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous

... the telephone, and lay back with a whimsical smile, twisting his mouth. "The frosted ones are mine," he said to himself, "there will be no blight or spot or blemish on ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung

... off hind leg. The prize was indeed one to be proud of; his length from tip of nose to tip of tail was nine feet eight inches, he stood three feet nine inches high, and it took eight men to carry him back to camp. The only blemish was that the skin was much scored by the boma thorns through which he had so often forced his way in carrying ...
— The Man-eaters of Tsavo and Other East African Adventures • J. H. Patterson

... It is a great blemish upon the Upanishads, that while there are subtle, and in some respects sublime, utterances to be found here and there, the great mass is fanciful and often puerile, and in many instances too low and prurient to bear translation into the English language. This is ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood

... help being noticed is the number of persons whose eyes are not on the same level. When this does not amount to an actual disfigurement, it is still a blemish which prevents many a young girl from being classed as a beauty. This and the peculiar notched or cleft teeth seem to point to an hereditary taint. Also unmistakable signs of a greater or lesser admixture of black blood are numerous. As a rule, ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street

... he, or the Lucases, have pitched on any man within the circle of our acquaintance, whose name would have given the lie more effectually to what they related? Mr. Darcy, who never looks at any woman but to see a blemish, and who probably never looked at you in his life! ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen

... and lives a respectable life ever after on this side the water; that Russia's ill-treatment of the serf and general barbaric conditions are to be overlooked on account of the friendliness she displayed toward us in our hour of need, barbarism being on the whole a less crucial blemish than the above-mentioned peculiarities of our other ally; and that everyone should hitch his wagon ...
— The Opinions of a Philosopher • Robert Grant

... that thou may'st see How much thy gifts my care engage, I've sent the cherish'd flow'r to thee Without a blemish, but ...
— Poems • Sir John Carr

... laughed, very bitterly. "He that is without blemish among you—" he said. Then they armed completely, and went forth to battle against the ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell

... experience of Shakespeare, and as one might expect in this case it does not accelerate but retard the action of the drama; it is, indeed, altogether foreign to the drama, an excrescence upon it and not an improvement but a blemish. Moreover, the reflective, disillusioned, slightly pessimistic tone of the narrative is alien and strange to the optimistic temper of the play; finally, this garb of patient sadness does not suit Claudio, who should ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris

... the State, if Sicily and Africa were visited by some injury to their crops. A vulnerable point in the Gracchan system of sale was exhibited in the fact that no inquiry was instituted as to the means of the applicants. This blemish was vigorously brought home to the legislator when the aged noble, Calpurnius Piso surnamed "the Frugal," the author of the first law that gave redress to the provincials, and a vigorous opponent of Gracchus's scheme, gravely advanced on the occasion of the first distribution ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge

... was standing in front of a shop in the next block, picking at a blemish on his chin and eyeing the window display. He looked up with a frown, started away as ...
— It Could Be Anything • John Keith Laumer

... land. The Albigensian crusade succeeded in destroying the most dangerous and widespread popular heresy that Christianity had witnessed since the fall of the Roman Empire, and Innocent rejoiced that his times saw the Church purged of its worst blemish. But in extending the benefits of a crusade to Christians fighting against Christians, he handed on a precedent which was soon fatally abused by his successors. In crushing out the young national life of Southern France the papacy again set a people against itself. The denunciations ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various

... take care of your eyebrows. They're black and lustrous, but by leaving them straggly they're a blemish. They'd be beautiful if you'd take care of them in one-tenth the time you take doing nothing. You're going to brush them so ...
— Flappers and Philosophers • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... That hates to have her dignity profaned With any relish of an earthly thought: Oh, then how proud a presence doth she bear. Then is she like herself, fit to be seen Of none but grave and consecrated eyes: Nor is it any blemish to her fame, That such lean, ignorant, and blasted wits, Such brainless gulls, should utter their stol'n wares With such applauses in our vulgar ears: Or that their slubber'd lines have current pass ...
— Every Man In His Humour • Ben Jonson

... previously translated Schleiermacher's "Essay on St. Luke," and was thus the first to introduce German theology into England; wrote a "History of Greece," which, though superior in some important respects, was superseded by Grote's as wanting in realistic power, a fatal blemish in a history; was a liberal man, and bishop of St. David's for half ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood

... is your mercy, that after all your hardships and difficulties you may sit down, and, if the Lord give His blessing, may reape some fruits of your past services. Do not think it a blemish or underrating of your past services, that you are now disbanded; but look upon it as of the Lord's appointing, and with cheerfulness submit thereunto; and the blessing of the Lord be upon you all, and ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin

... that the animal is called on to perform. Unsoundnesses interfere with the use of the part or the use of the animal for a certain work; blemishes do not. Such a basis for the classification of diseases does not enable us to place certain diseased conditions of the limbs in the unsound, or the blemish class at all times. A curb may, if it produces lameness, be classed as an unsoundness. If it does not cause the animal to go lame, and the enlargement on the posterior border of the hock is small, ...
— Common Diseases of Farm Animals • R. A. Craig, D. V. M.

... earl of Veer, {168} whose father, during the pregnancy of his mother, the daughter of Henry of Essex, having laboured to procure a divorce, on account of the ignominy of her father, the child, when born, had the same blemish in its eye, as the father had got from a casual hurt. These defects may be entailed on the offspring, perhaps, by the impression made on the memory by frequent and steady observation; as it is reported ...
— The Itinerary of Archibishop Baldwin through Wales • Giraldus Cambrensis

... water lapping of the water in the greatest of African lakes. He was lying beside a creek that was papyrus-fringed with curtains of feathery green. A cloud of lake flies hung dark in the distance. The soft lake haze redeemed landscape and waterscape now from overclarity of outline the besetting blemish, as some might think, of its mid-day. Isaka was really ill that morning. He could hardly stir hand or foot. An askari came and looked at him, and said something to his German officer. The latter came and laid his hand not unkindly on ...
— Cinderella in the South - Twenty-Five South African Tales • Arthur Shearly Cripps

... sun, From taint and blemish free— Great William Stow was there for one, And George ...
— Black Beetles in Amber • Ambrose Bierce

... translator waded through the closely printed pages of the Greek offices, what appeared at first sight to be lines worthy of translation were taken up and examined, sometimes to be cast aside again because of some unremovable blemish, at other times to be moulded to the form which they now bear. Of the forty-seven pieces, thirty-five appear for the ...
— Hymns of the Greek Church - Translated with Introduction and Notes • John Brownlie

... ideal of the negro are not very prominent in him. His lips are not thicker than the lips of many a roast-beef-loving John Bull. His nose is not flat, and his heels do not protrude unnecessarily. True, his hair is woolly, but that is scarcely a blemish. It might almost be regarded as the crisp and curly hair that surrounds a manly skull. His skin is black—no doubt about that, but then it is intensely black and glossy, suggestive of black satin, and having no savour of that dirtiness which is inseparably connected ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne

... bending, 210 Doth testify that you exceed her far, To whom you offer, and whose nun you are. Why should you worship her? her you surpass As much as sparkling diamonds flaring glass. A diamond set in lead his worth retains; A heavenly nymph, belov'd of human swains, Receives no blemish, but ofttimes more grace; Which makes me hope, although I am but base, Base in respect of thee divine and pure, Dutiful service may thy love procure; 220 And I in duty will excel all other, As thou in beauty dost exceed Love's mother. Nor heaven nor thou were made to gaze upon: As ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe

... Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon unto Jerusalem, and besieged it. . . . And the king spake unto Ashpenaz the master of his eunuchs, that he should bring certain of the children of Israel, and of the king's seed, and of the princes; children in whom was no blemish, but well favoured, and skilful in all wisdom, and cunning in knowledge, and understanding science, and such as had ability in them to stand in the king's palace, and whom they might teach the learning and the tongue of the Chaldeans. . . . Now among these were of the children of Judah, Daniel, ...
— The Astronomy of the Bible - An Elementary Commentary on the Astronomical References - of Holy Scripture • E. Walter Maunder

... curious to know whence it proceeded, I ascended the steps, and, lifting up my head, saw a diamond as large as the egg of an ostrich, lying upon a low stool; it was so pure that I could not find the least blemish in it, and it sparkled with so much brilliancy that when I saw it by daylight I could not endure ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Anonymous

... Pickwick, in fact, merely returned from his agreeable junketting to have this gentleman expelled. Despotism of this sort always leads to discontent and parties—hence the "dissensions." Mr. Pickwick, from his treatment of Blotton, must have been a Tory of the old Eldon school. Here was his blemish. He had no toleration for others, and had an undue idea of his own position. We can trace the whole thing perfectly. He was a successful man of business—an export merchant apparently—being connected with an agent at Liverpool whom he had "obliged." ...
— Pickwickian Studies • Percy Fitzgerald

... of size and proportion, and drawing plans of sections of circles, you'll find I'm your man. And then in choosing your wood you may rely fully upon me. Staves of the holm oak felled in winter, without worm-holes, without either red or white streaks, and without blemish, that's what we must look for; you may trust my eyes. I will stand by you with all the help I can, in both deed and counsel; and my own masterpiece will be none the worse for it." "But in the name of all ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann

... erst had been but rumour, was now made clear to sight, That nought had yet been witness'd so beautiful and bright As those two lovely damsels; 't was plain to every eye; None the slightest blemish in either ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb

... is in Salem Village a spirit full of contentions and animosities, too sadly verifying the blemish which hath heretofore lain upon them, and that some complaints brought against Mr. Parris have been either causeless and groundless, or unduly aggravated, we do, in the name and fear of the Lord, solemnly warn them to consider, whether, if they continue to devour one another, ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham

... in 1380. Her parents, out of devotion to St. Nicholas, gave her the name of Colette, the diminutive of Nicholas. She was brought up in the love of humiliations and austerities. Her desire to preserve her purity without the least blemish made her avoid as much as possible all company, even of persons of her own sex, unless it was sometimes to draw them from the love of the world by her moving discourses, which were attended with a singular blessing from almighty ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... pronounced that, when standing close to the wall on which the relief is fixed, one can see the Virgin's second eye—unduly prominent and much too near to the nose. This is a needless and distracting mannerism, though, of course, the blemish is only noticeable from one point of view, being quite invisible as one sees the relief from the front, or in a photograph. The Berlin Museum has another large Madonna comparable for its scale and rich ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford

... patriotic thinking and action he invites into his world Samuel Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Alexander Hamilton. They remind him that he is a product of the past and that it devolves upon him to pass on to posterity without spot or blemish the heritage that has come to him through the patriotic service and sacrifice of ...
— The Vitalized School • Francis B. Pearson

... own particular choice has never yet been equalled. Such fanciful and silly people, when time and experience have something allayed their ardour, will often find their dainty taste offended at discovering a mole on the bosom, or a yellow shade in the neck, or any other trifling bodily blemish, which was as visible before marriage as after, had they looked with the same scrutinizing eyes. Be resolute in repelling every emotion of anger or disgust. Never permit a choleric or bitter expression to escape you; for wedded love ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... receives the sacramental body and spirit of the man. And when she's got it, according to her passionate and all-too-sacred desire, completely, when she possesses her man at last finally and ultimately, without blemish or reservation in the perfection of the sacrament: then, also, poor woman, the blood and the body of which she has partaken become insipid or nauseous to her, she is driven mad by the endless meal of the marriage sacrament, poisoned by the sacred communion which was her goal and her ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence

... the fair face of Beauty is not regarded as a blemish, but the very contrary, by Asiatics—or by Europeans either, else why did the ladies of the last century patch their faces, if not (originally) to set off the clearness of their complexion by contrast with the little black wafer?—though ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston

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

... in the Caffre kingdom of Sofala. We have seen that these kings of Sofala were regarded as gods by their people, being entreated to give rain or sunshine, according as each might be wanted. Nevertheless a slight bodily blemish, such as the loss of a tooth, was considered a sufficient cause for putting one of these god-men to death, as we learn from the following passage of an old Portuguese historian: "It was formerly the custom of the kings of this land to commit suicide by taking poison when any disaster or natural ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... building? Or what if one is misjudged, or it may be too pitilessly judged, and one's co-operation despised and the help one brought becomes a source of weakness? Or suppose that the fine scheme one made lies shattered or wrecked by one's own act, or through some hidden blemish one's offering is rejected and flung back and one ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells

... oil-priming was once laid, the design could neither be altered nor, if lost, recovered; a color laid too opaquely in the shadow destroyed the inner organization of the picture, and remained an irremediable blemish; and it was necessary, in laying color even on the lights, to follow the guidance of the drawing beneath with a caution and precision which rendered anything like freedom of handling, in the modern sense, totally impossible. ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin

... dependants, which were numerous over his extensive property; he was strictly honourable, and was an affectionate parent. In early youth he had entered into the pleasures and dissipations of life, and licentious habits seem to have been retained to the end. But the great blemish in such a mind was his declared infidelity; it presents one of those exceptions among the persons who have been devoted to the study of nature; and it is not easy to imagine a mind apparently with such powers, scarcely acknowledging a Creator, and when noticed, only ...
— Selections from Previous Works - and Remarks on Romanes' Mental Evolution in Animals • Samuel Butler

... as much earnestness and interest as those who are engaged in the greater works do their parts. If your part is not done well, there will not be completeness in the divine plan. A single stitch dropped shows a blemish in the garment. In the sight of God the most menial task is as sacred as that of the highest order, and when well done as greatly meets ...
— How to Live a Holy Life • C. E. Orr

... drenched with pomatum and plastered close to his head. His white cravat was tied with mathematical precision, and his shirt-collar was like a wall of white enamel from his shoulders to his ears. He wore white kid gloves, which he secured from spot or blemish as much as possible by keeping the tips of the fingers pressed against each other. His speech was quicker than is customary with Western people, but he had their flat monotone and their uncompromising treatment ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay

... and Discreet, and endeavour'd truly to cure her of so violent a Disease, which must, she knew, either end in her death or destruction, told her, She would take care of that matter, that it should not blemish her Honour; and so leaving her a while, after they had resolved on this, she left her in a thousand Confusions, she was now another Woman than what she had hitherto been; she was quite alter'd in every Sentiment, ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn

... of real affection to repay you for the faithfulness of years; who, though she takes the retribution of a wrong into her hands and executes it in the face of heaven, never will forget the honorable name you give into her keeping or blemish it by any act of hers. I can promise no more. Will ...
— Pauline's Passion and Punishment • Louisa May Alcott

... United States was "one of the most skilful works which human intelligence ever created; one of the most perfect organizations that ever governed a free people." Experience had shown that its main defect was the doctrine of State sovereignty. This blemish was avoided in the Canadian constitution by vesting all residuary powers in the central government and legislature. The Canadian system would also be distinguished from the American by the recognition of monarchy and of the ...
— George Brown • John Lewis

... solemnly affirmed in the Gospel that He came not to destroy but to fulfil the law. And therefore He who is the bridegroom of the Church wished that its form should be resplendent with chastity, so that in the day of Judgment, when He should come again, He might find it without spot or blemish, as He taught by His Apostle. And by the rule of its ordinances which may not be gainsaid, we who are priests and Levites are bound from the day of our ordination to keep our bodies in soberness and modesty, so that in those sacrifices which we offer daily to ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.

... gentlewoman in Suffolk, who being with child and passing by a butcher who was killing his meat, a drop of blood sprung on her face, whereupon she said her child would have a blemish on its face, and at the birth it was found ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous

... genius, in the sombre, the awful, and the fierce, DANTE. When the age of chivalry flourished, all breathed of love and courtesy; the great man was the great lover, and the great author the romancer. It was from his own age that MILTON derived his greatest blemish—the introduction of school-divinity into poetry. In a polemical age the poet, as well as the sovereign, reflected the ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli

... exceed that of other Countries, which amounteth vnto 18. foote. And it is likewise obserued by strangers, that the Cornish miles are much longer then those about London, if at least the wearinesse of their bodies (after so painefull a iourney) blemish not the coniecture of their mindes. I can impute this generall enlargement of saleable things, to no cause sooner, then the Cornish mans want of vent and money, who therethrough, to equall others in quality of price, is driuen to exceed ...
— The Survey of Cornwall • Richard Carew

... felt sympathy and sorrow for Henry Surface's son, and not repulsion, for he had read it in her face. But she could not forgive him a personal dishonor. And he was glad that, so believing, she would do as she had done; it was the perfect thing to do; to demand honor without a blemish, or to cancel all. Never had she stood so high in his fancy as now when she had ordered him out of her life. His heart leapt with the knowledge that, though she would never know it, he was her true mate there, in their ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... chicken. He seems to have a permanent distortion of the spine, and his crop is one-sided; and if there is any such thing as blind staggers, he has them. Besides, he has a strong and increasing tendency not to grow. This, however, I reckon a beauty rather than a blemish. It is the one fatal defect in chickens that they grow. With them, youth and beauty are truly inseparable terms. The better they are, the worse they look. After they are three weeks old, every day detracts ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various

... aspect of mediaevalism, are now (by decree of 1903) being torn down, and only the quaintly picturesque Castillet remains. The rest are—at the present writing—a mere mass of crumbled bricks and mortar, and a real blemish to an otherwise exceedingly attractive, gay little city. The automobile garages are all side by side on a new-made street, on the site of one line of the old fortifications, and are suitable enough ...
— The Automobilist Abroad • M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield

... of strength that was needed for the sacrifice. One might perhaps think this lament a blemish of weakness in a picture of fortitude; but the impression is just the opposite, I believe; for force is measured ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker

... last moment, when all the preparations were completed, Old Sophy stooped over her, and, with trembling hand, loosed the golden cord. She looked intently; for some little space: there was no shade nor blemish where the ring of gold had encircled her throat. She took it gently away and laid it in the casket which held ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... declined to comply with that most modest demand. Then the sword came out and struck at our life. "Was it matter of choice with us whether we would fight? Not unless it were also matter of choice whether we would become the very sweepings and blemish ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various

... cordial. Don Benito restored, the black withdrew his support, slipping aside a little, but dutifully remaining within call of a whisper. Such discretion was here evinced as quite wiped away, in the visitor's eyes, any blemish of impropriety which might have attached to the attendant, from the indecorous conferences before mentioned; showing, too, that if the servant were to blame, it might be more the master's fault than his own, since, when left to himself, ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville

... why she was homely. It was her straight hair and those dreadful freckles. Mary had beautiful long black curls, and Ellen had brown wavy hair, and both of them tanned a lovely even brown with never a spot or blemish. Well, she would cure both maladies, see if she wouldn't! Mary said Joanna Falls washed her face and hands every night of her life in tansy and buttermilk. Christina would do the same, and she would buy some of that pink complexion cure that was in the corner store window, ...
— In Orchard Glen • Marian Keith

... prevent you from going on with your usual treatment. . . . As for the blemish you have on your eye, and which is lessening almost daily, the opacity and the size are both growing less ...
— Self Mastery Through Conscious Autosuggestion • Emile Coue

... exultant feeling in his middle-aged heart as he scampered along the deck. The girl had wonderful dark auburn hair and brown eyes, with a milk-white skin that sun and wind had sought in vain to blemish. And for all her girlhood she was a woman—bred from a race (his own people) to whom danger and despair merely furnished a tonic for their courage. What a mate for a man! And she had looked at ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne

... word that signifies a Frenchman, as a lion is the emblem of the English nation. Such a device in so noble a pile of building looks like a pun in an heroic poem; and I am very sorry the truly ingenious architect would suffer the statuary to blemish his excellent plan with so poor a conceit. But I hope what I have said will gain quarter for the cock, and deliver him out of the ...
— Essays and Tales • Joseph Addison

... black velvets and silks, with their white accompaniments, finely set off the exceeding fairness of her neck and shoulders, which, though unwhitened artificially, were without a speck or blemish of the least degree. The gentle, thoughtful creature she had looked from a distance she now proved herself to be; she held also sound rather than current opinions on the plastic arts, and was the first intellectual woman he had seen there that night, ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy

... say?—many even of these illustrious names have descended to us disfigured by some traits of satire by which they became characterized, human ingratitude taking pleasure in thus recognising them; and if, in the crowd, the glory of some names is come down to us without spot or blemish, we shall find that they who have borne them have lived far from the society of their contemporaries; like those statues which are found entire beneath the soil in Greece and Italy, and which, by being hidden in the bosom of the earth, have escaped uninjured, ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre

... frequent use of warm baths. But the embittering circumstance of his life,—that, which haunted him like a curse, amidst the buoyancy of youth, and the anticipations of fame and pleasure, was, strange to say, the trifling deformity of his foot. By that one slight blemish (as in his moments of melancholy he persuaded himself) all the blessings that nature had showered upon him were counterbalanced. His reverend friend, Mr. Becher, finding him one day unusually dejected, endeavoured to cheer and rouse him, by representing, in their brightest colours, all ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore

... unfit to be trusted with government; therefore the same corruption is in all other men's hearts; even as the face in the water answereth the face out of the water so just, that there is not a spot or blemish in the one but it is in the other. I am sure Paul taught us not so when he said, "In lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves," Phil. ii. 3. Nay, the brother himself hath taken off the edge of his own argument (if it ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie

... high-actioned mare, the down foot slipped, and t'other was too high to be back in time for her to recover, and over both of us went kerlash in the mud. I was skeered more about her than myself, lest she should git the skin of her knee cut, for to a knowing one's eye that's an awful blemish. It's a long story to tell how such a blemish warn't the hoss's fault, for I'd rather praise than apologize for a critter any time. And there is one thing few-people knows. Let the cut come which way it will, the animal is never so safe afterwards. ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... reads That tells the tale of Rama's deeds, Good as the Scriptures, he shall be From every sin and blemish free. Whoever reads the saving strain, With all his kin the heavens shall gain. Brahmans who read shall gather hence The highest praise for eloquence. The warrior, o'er the land shall reign, The merchant, luck in trade obtain; ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI

... from nose to tail. A trap set as above described, would of course catch its victim by the head or neck, and the fur would be more or less injured at the very spot where it should be particularly free from blemish. ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson

... unpleasant disposition (duri mores et injucunda consuetudo) could so far provoke; nor could any sane man believe him to be so infirm of character that sensual allurements would have led him to dissolve a connexion in which he had passed the flower of youth without stain or blemish, and in which he had borne himself in his trial so reverently and honourably."[125] I consider this entirely true in a sense which no great knowledge of human nature is required to understand. The king's personal dissatisfaction was great: if this had ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude

... concupiscence holds sway; no restraints are exercised and the reins are given to lust, so that its nature and passion are given free expression, just as if this were a provision of nature, when the fact is it is a pest to be healed, a blemish to be removed. But there is none to heal and deliver, so the gentiles decay and go to ruin through evil lust. "Lust of concupiscence" would be, with us, "evil lust." The conclusion ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther

... heightened by a luxuriant growth of Confervae mingled with Enteromorpha, which together covered all those parts of the stones which received a direct light. The mimic rocks seemed draped in green velvet, and in the sunlight were studded with pearly bubbles. There was, however, one blemish: the hungry crabs had so nibbled the larger plants that it was deemed necessary to renew them, in order to secure a sufficient supply of food and oxygen. Accordingly, a fine specimen of Enteromorpha was added. It consisted of five or six delicate fronds about five ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various

... cut them continually, in but a little while they would be more numerous than ever. This had not been a matter of great moment, for miracles were a little thing in those days, but for an ancient law of Eri that none who had any blemish of body could sit upon the throne; and as a grey hawk was a wild thing of the air which had never sat at the board, or listened to the songs of the poets in the light of the fire, it was not possible to think of one in whose hair its feathers grew as other than marred and blasted; nor could ...
— The Secret Rose • W. B. Yeats

... signify, that none would serve His turn but the body and soul of His appointed Christ, the Mediator of the new covenant (John 1:29). 2. This sacrifice must not be lame nor deformed; it must have no scar, spot, or blemish; to signify, that Jesus Christ was to be a complete sacrifice by covenant (1 Peter 1:19). 3. This sacrifice was to be taken out of the flock or herd; to signify, that Jesus Christ was to come out of the race of mankind, according to covenant ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... flower, Lost, faded, broken, dead within an hour. And as good lost is seld or never found, As fading gloss no rubbing will refresh, As flowers dead lie wither'd on the ground, As broken glass no cement can redress, So beauty blemish'd once, for ever's lost, In spite of physic, painting, pain and ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various

... remains of him we owe, not to an admiring disciple, but to a clergyman to whom his theories were detestable; and his biographer allows that the most malignant scrutiny had failed to detect a blemish in his character—that, except so far as his opinions were blameable, he had lived to outward appearance free from fault. We desire, in what we are going to say of him, to avoid offensive collision with popular prejudices; still less shall we place ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude

... her legs hanging just short of the floor. Her daughter paced up and down the long room like a colt snorting impatiently to be put through its paces. She had the beauty of a classic type, without spot or blemish, but her joints looked too heavy and her neck was thrust without grace between her large shoulders. Anyone who looked into the future would have been able to predict for her, with some certainty, an honourable career as a tragedian ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt

... injury and serious inflammatory derangement, and the capsular ligament is liable to be distended from excessive secretion of synovia. The latter process may be almost noninflammatory, and attended with little inconvenience or importance other than a blemish to the animal, which in cattle is not serious. It may occur on the back part of the leg above the fetlock or on the inner and fore part of the hock, corresponding in its location to windgalls and bog spavin of the horse. Continuous support by bandages will generally force reabsorption, ...
— Special Report on Diseases of Cattle • U.S. Department of Agriculture

... also bit off Hyrcanus's ears with his own teeth, as he fell down upon his knees to him, that so he might never be able upon any mutation of affairs to take the high priesthood again, for the high priests that officiated were to be complete, and without blemish. ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus

... replied the Quaker. 'I took him into my house out of compassion, he being an orphan; but as the chaise is waiting, I will bid thee farewell.' 'I am afraid I must stop your journey for the present,' said the surgeon; 'that boy has exactly the same blemish in the eye which a boy had who was in company with the man at Horncastle, from whom my friend received the forged notes, and who there passed for his son.' 'I know nothing about that,' said the Quaker, 'but I am determined ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow

... meanness of persecuting a mere boy: one whose foot was not yet firmly fixed on the second round of the great ladder upon which he himself towered so securely and so high!—And yet—had not this same belittling blemish been the bugbear of his own, generous existence? Was anything impossible in one whom he had known again and again to stoop to the pettiest forms of ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter

... considerable mental gifts, and be able to gauge the feelings of others. Still we can hardly assent to the proposition that "it takes a wise man to make a fool." A man may be witty without having any constructive power of mind. It is easier to find fault than to be faultless, to see a blemish than to produce what is perfect—a pilot may point out rocks, but not be able to steer a ...
— History of English Humour, Vol. 1 (of 2) - With an Introduction upon Ancient Humour • Alfred Guy Kingan L'Estrange

... and the wooing of a commonplace girl by two foolish suitors and another as commonplace as herself—gave Shakespeare little opportunity for poetry and none for the portrayal of the types of character most congenial to his temperament. The greatest blemish on the play, however, from the standpoint of a student of Shakespeare, is that the man called Falstaff is not Falstaff at all, that this Falstaff bears only an outward resemblance to the Falstaff of the historical plays. If we may misquote ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken

... blue pencil or standardized phrase has left too deep a wound or gross a blemish I have had to rewrite. And, as I have rarely succeeded in recovering the original idea, I have had to borrow from my later thought. Of such patching I have been as thrifty as possible: also, I have not attempted ...
— Pot-Boilers • Clive Bell

... holy, harmless, undefiled; a lamb without blemish and without spot. This is the lowest trait in His character. Yet it is a great thing for any one to remain innocent in a world like this, with a nature ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker

... did not know what he had found. I shall tell you what it was. It was a solid piece of good luck without flaw or blemish, and it was almost the only piece I ever heard tell of. Yes; that was what it was—a solid piece of good luck; and as for Jacob Stuck, why, he was not the first in the world by many and one over who has failed to know ...
— Twilight Land • Howard Pyle

... personal beauty, to so high a degree, that it seemed as though nature had taken pleasure in forming in her person a perfectly finished work. But those fine qualities were rendered less brilliant through a blemish rarely seen in one so highly endowed, which was that, far from giving the law to those who had a particular admiration for her, she transfused herself so thoroughly into their sentiments that she no longer recognised ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies

... three reasons. First, on account of the purpose for which it was offered, wherefore it is written (Malach. 1:8): "If you offer the blind in sacrifice, is it not evil?" and it behooved sacrifices to be without blemish. Secondly, on account of contempt, wherefore the same text goes on (Malach. 1:12): "You have profaned" My name, "in that you say: The table of the Lord is defiled and that which is laid thereupon is contemptible." Thirdly, on account of a previous vow, whereby a man has bound himself to offer ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas

... ever-honour'd name To blemish now: it ill deserves your blame, A bowl of generous wine sufficed the guest; In vain the queen the night refection press'd; Nor would he court repose in downy state, Unbless'd, abandon'd to the rage of Fate! A hide beneath the portico ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope

... that to sneer shows wisdom, That a gibe outvalues a reason, That slang, such as thieves delight in, Is fit for the lips of the gentle, And rather a grace than a blemish, Thick-headed public! ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various

... derned anxious to sell for?" demanded Anderson Crow, listening from a distance to see if he could detect a blemish in the horse's breathing gear. At a glance, the buggy ...
— The Daughter of Anderson Crow • George Barr McCutcheon

... to think of such as these? Of some we perhaps say within ourselves, "Would that there had been but a little amendment of this blemish! A little more of strength and purpose against that fault! If only this besetting hardness had not been the spoiler of his life, that great heedlessness, that fatal procrastination, this too frequent sin! Oh! but for this or that which marred ...
— The Life of the Waiting Soul - in the Intermediate State • R. E. Sanderson

... long process of time, employed under skilful hands, had succeeded in obliterating the scars which remained as the marks of her fall. These were now considerably effaced, and the lost organ of sight no longer appeared so great a blemish, concealed, as it was, by a black ribbon, and the arts of the tirewoman, who made it her business to shadow it over by a lock of hair. In a word, he saw the same Margaret de Hautlieu, with no very different style of expression from that which her face, partaking of the ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott

... mention of conversion, Rebekah burst into tears, for Samuel had unintentionally touched her sore spot: there were rumors in the town that her family was not without blemish. ...
— In Those Days - The Story of an Old Man • Jehudah Steinberg

... walks down the middle of the passage, are monuments, tombs, and sculptured figures that are exquisitely wrought and are full of grace and beauty. They are new and snowy; every outline is perfect, every feature guiltless of mutilation, flaw, or blemish; and therefore, to us these far-reaching ranks of bewitching forms are a hundred fold more lovely than the damaged and dingy statuary they have saved from the wreck of ancient art and set up in the galleries of Paris for the worship of ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... pair of skates the way they looked to me back then, Before I'd turned from boyhood's gates and marched into the world of men; I'd like to see a jackknife, too, with those same eager, dancing eyes That couldn't fault or blemish view; I'd like to feel the same surprise, The pleasure, free from all alloy, that has forever passed away, When I was just a little boy and had ...
— The Path to Home • Edgar A. Guest

... he said; and afterwards I found out from Peter Benny that he'd covered his poor body with tattoo marks—his body that I've a-washed hundreds o' times, and loved to feel his legs kickin' agen' me. Beautiful skin he had as a child; soft as satin the feel of it, and not a blemish anywhere. 'Tis hard to think of it criss-crossed with them nasty marks. But there! thank the Lord God he's safe, this passage! Read me what he says, there's a kind soul; but you'll have to bear a child afore ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... and were replaced with new ones as soon as they began to look rusty or decayed; monuments were kept upright, railings intact and bright, the rose-bushes and shrubbery trimmed, trained, and free from blemish, the walks clean and smooth and graveled. But that day is gone by. Our descendants have forgotten us. My grandson lives in a stately house built with money made by these old hands of mine, and I sleep in a neglected grave with invading ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... will be knowne, And to be tauerne guest she euer hates, Shee scornes to be a streete-wife (Idle one,) Or field vvife ranging vvith her vvalking mates: She knows how wise men censure of such dames, And how with blottes they blemish their ...
— The Bride • Samuel Rowlands et al

... one blemish," said I, sweetly, "upon an otherwise perfect character. And it is true," I continued, after an interval of meditation, "that I have, in my time, encountered some very foolish women. There was, for instance, Elena Barry-Smith, who threw me over for Warwick Risby; and ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al

... prince of Wales, after a lingering illness, died in the forty-sixth year of his age; and left a character illustrious for every eminent virtue, and, from his earliest youth till the hour he expired, unstained by any blemish. His valor and military talents formed the smallest part of his merit: his generosity, humanity, affability, moderation, gained him the affections of all men; and he was qualified to throw a lustre, not only on that rude age in ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume

... God, etc. Forasmuch as we have been given to understand, that many persons, as well of the city aforesaid, as others coming to the said city, being smitten with the blemish of leprosy, do publicly dwell among the other citizens and sound persons, and there continually abide; and do not hesitate to communicate with them, as well in public places as in private; and that some of them, ...
— The Leper in England: with some account of English lazar-houses • Robert Charles Hope

... men, felt keenly the value of health, is evidenced not only by his own practice, but by his oft repeated warnings to his nephew when choosing a wife to see that whatever other qualities she might have she be healthy. The blemish of nearsight he considered a no small defect and sufficient to render a young woman unworthy of entry into the proud family of the Buonarroti. To his own father he wrote: "Look to your life and health, for a man does not come back again to patch ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86

... of many phases of humanity, charming in his wit and without the blemish of malice, presents with his pencil as much of his social philosophy as he could give with his pen in a hundred novels. In spite of its title and origin, a collection of Mr. Du Maurier's sketches covers any society; and in looking it over one is only too content ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier

... object the worst That may be told, and utter all it can; It cannot find a blemish to be enforced Against him, other than he was a man, And built of flesh and blood, and did live here, Within the region of infirmity; Where all perfections never did appear To meet in any one so really, But that his frailty ever did bewray ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... a dignity without blemish, O my Lord as far as Heaven, O King of the white angels, wilt Thou stay for me till I ...
— The Latin & Irish Lives of Ciaran - Translations Of Christian Literature. Series V. Lives Of - The Celtic Saints • Anonymous

... therefore no reason he should keep the bargaine; this was often the case with the Farmers of the Customes; He was infinitely inclined to peace, but more out of feare then conscience, and this was the greatest blemish this King had through all his Reign, otherwise might have been ranked with the very best of our Kings, yet sometimes would hee shew pretty flashes of valour which might easily be discerned to be forced, not naturall; ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various

... deny that The Ring and the Book, in its perfection and integrity, fully satisfies the conditions of artistic triumph. Are we to ignore the grandeur of a colossal statue, and the nobility of the human conceptions which it embodies, because here and there we notice a flaw in the marble, a blemish in its colour, a jagged slip of the chisel? "It is not force of intellect," as George Eliot has said, "which causes ready repulsion from the aberration and eccentricities of greatness, any more than it is force of vision that causes the eye to explore the warts in a face bright with human ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley

... get them so far excavated that I can turn them down enough to hitch above where I intend to cut them off; by this method I often get almost the entire root. I have three particular points in this; good root, a stem without any blemish, and a rapid growing tree. This is seldom to be got where most people recommend trees to be taken from—isolated ones on the outside of the woods; they are generally scraggy and stunted; and to get ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 324, March 18, 1882 • Various

... tell you is the truth. Nay, to us who, after the examples of ancient philosophers, delight in boys, defects are often pleasing. Alcaeus was charmed with a wart on a boy's knuckle; but a wart is a blemish on the body; yet it seemed a beauty to him. Q. Catulus, my friend and colleague's father, was enamored with your fellow-citizen Roscius, on whom ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero

... after an anxious period of indecision finally made his choice. After having satisfied himself that there was no concealed blemish in his apple he proffered a nickel in payment and extended a trembling hand for the change. The Syrian dropped a penny in it, and turned away with a suspiciously ...
— The Deaves Affair • Hulbert Footner

... ye likewise, which keep the rushy lake, Where none do fishes take; Bind up the locks the which hang scattered light, And in his waters, which your mirror make, Behold your faces as the crystal bright, That when you come whereas my love doth lie, No blemish she may spy. And eke, ye lightfoot maids, which keep the deer, That on the hoary mountain used to tower; And the wild wolves, which seek them to devour, With your steel darts do chase from coming near; Be also present here, ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various

... that a long list of allegorical monstrosities was in some sort the result of his example. Charmed with certain of his works, and possessed just then by particular memories it deemed deserving of monumental celebration, the nation rushed recklessly to its stone-cutters. The terrible works which blemish and blister the walls of our cathedrals and churches were the consequences. Verrio and Laguerre had long set the fashion of disfiguring ceilings and staircases with their incomprehensible compositions. Roubiliac carved similar parabolic productions ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook

... Rituparna prayed quickly to choose. Slowly he picked four coursers, under-fleshed, But big of bone and sinew; fetlocked well For journeying; high-bred, heavy-framed; of blood To match the best, yet gentle; blemish-free; Broad in the jaw, with scarlet nostrils spread; Bearing the Avarthas, the ten true marks— Reared on the banks of Indus, swift as wind. Which, when the Raja looked upon, he cried, Half-wrathful: "What thing thinkest thou to do? Wilt thou betray me? How should sorry beasts, Lean-ribbed ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson

... exasperation. Were all women at heart, then, no better than Indian squaws? A string of beads outweighed the sacrifices of friends and the chance of a crown! There was a blemish in his idol, since at all costs she must glitter. Wogan, however, was the ...
— Clementina • A.E.W. Mason

... something to his Advantage when you speak, a Merchant hurt in his Credit; and him who, every Day he lived, literally added to the Value of his Native Country, undone by one who was only a Burthen and a Blemish to it. Since every Body who knows the World is sensible of this great Evil, how careful ought a Man to be in his Language of a Merchant? It may possibly be in the Power of a very shallow Creature to lay the Ruin of the best Family in the most opulent ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele

... not too ripe; pick off the stalks, and put them into wide-mouthed glass bottles, taking care not to put in any but what are whole, and without blemish; shake them well down (otherwise the bottles will not be half full when done); stop the bottles with new soft corks, not too tight; set them into a very slow oven (nearly cold) four or five hours; the slower they are done the better; when they begin to shrink in the bottles, ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner

... eyes, though clear To outward view, of blemish and of spot, Bereft of light, their seeing have forgot: Nor to their idle orbs doth sight appear Of sun, or moon, or star, throughout the year, Or man, or woman. Yet I argue not Against Heaven's hand or will, nor bate a jot Of heart or hope; ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee

... to weep when I think of my beautiful sisters—the one with her laughing rosy cheeks, the other pale as ivory, save for one little black spot, which no man surely could call a blemish. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 8, 1917 • Various

... that, were you endowed with the superior force which the vain name of man supposes, and could accomplish the basest purpose of your heart, I would falsely take guilt to myself; or imagine I had received the smallest blemish, from impurity which never reached my mind? That I would lament, or shun the world, or walk in open day oppressed by shame I did not merit? No!—For you perhaps I might weep, but for myself I would not shed a tear! ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft

... with such hard exigents,[1] think that royalty is a fair mark, that crowns have crosses when mirth is in cottages; that the fairer the rose is, the sooner it is bitten with caterpillars; the more orient[2] the pearl is, the more apt to take a blemish; and the greatest birth, as it hath most honor, so it hath much envy. If then fortune aimeth at the fairest, be patient Rosalynde, for first by thine exile thou goest to thy father: nature is higher prize than wealth, and the love of one's parents ought to be more precious than all dignities. ...
— Rosalynde - or, Euphues' Golden Legacy • Thomas Lodge

... on a fallen tree and, without giving the least warning of his intention, launched his spear at McEntire and lodged it in his left side. The person who committed this wanton act was described as a young man with a speck or blemish on his left eye That he had been lately among us was evident from ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench

... himself to the poetical office cannot be imagined. Everything about him became, as it were, pontifical, almost sacramental. A poet's soul must contain the perfect shape of all things good, wise, and just. His body must be spotless and without blemish, his life pure, his thoughts high, his studies intense. There was no drinking at the 'Mermaid' for John Milton. His thoughts, like his joys, ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell

... son-in-law has a hare-lip?" Now a hare-lip in Korea is not merely such an undesirable addition to one's countenance as to make a Mrs. Wiggs happy because of being without it, but under the old dispensation no one with a harelip, or other like facial blemish, could be presented at court and thereby introduced into the Four Hundred of this capital city. Therefore the father waxed thoughtful from his topknot to the end of his long-stem pipe. "I tell you what I'll do," he finally said to his wife. "We'll go ahead with the ceremony, ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe

... commonly sell at Rome for two hundred nummi, if they are well made, of good colour, without blemish, and of good breed: some times they even bring a thousand nummi, and there is a report that recently L. Axius, a Roman of the equestrian order, declined that sum, refusing to sell for less ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato

... Thomas May was set down, Dr. Hoxton expressed his trust that it would pass through the school as free from the slightest blemish as those of Richard, Norman, ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge

... day, a straight-grained shake of pine, free from knot or blemish, had been well smoothed down with the draw-shave, and on its fair surface, writ large, was the beloved name of the New England poet, ...
— The Boy Settlers - A Story of Early Times in Kansas • Noah Brooks

... School. There, each girl was a lady. There, she was going to walk among free souls, her co-mates and her equals, and all petty things would be put away. Ah, if only she did not bite her nails! If only she had not this blemish! She wanted so much to be perfect—without spot or blemish, living ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence

... would never give him such a squeeze again. So he prepared a great whip and with it he severely thrashed the trees. Up to this time the birch had been the most beautiful of trees. Its great trunk was of the purest white, without any blemish or blotch upon it. But ever since the thrashing Nanahboozhoo gave it it has had to carry the marks of that terrible whipping; and that is why the white birch tree is so covered ...
— Algonquin Indian Tales • Egerton R. Young

... child they found him without scratch or blemish, save for a curious and inflamed disfiguration on his left arm, just below the shoulder. Though this soon healed, it was long before its mystery was explained; but when Truman Flagg saw it, he pronounced it to be the tattooed ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore

... reader's attention even when he offends his taste. He impaired the literary merit of "Perigrine Pickle," but at the same time added to its dissolute character and its immediate popularity by the forced insertion of the licentious "Memoirs of a Lady of Quality." Now a serious blemish, these memoirs formed at the time an added attraction to the book. They were eagerly read as the authentic account of Lady Vane, a notorious woman of rank, and were furnished to Smollett by herself, in the hope, fully gratified, ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman

... out liquor three times as before. The three pieces of dried fish are first placed on the tympan, the high rack above the fire-place, then removed and tied to the ridge-pole of the house, amidst shouts of Ho, hoi, hoi, hoi. The poor then sacrifice a fowl, and the rich a pig without blemish (uba tlem), to u Suid nia and ka Iaw-bei (the spirits of deceased ancestors of the family), and present them with dykhot, or pieces of flesh. Two or three days afterwards, the bride, accompanied by her ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon

... the play I speak with diffidence. It seems admirable to me, the apparently undue length of some scenes hardly constituting a blemish, as it was probably intended to give the actors considerable latitude of choice and excision. Several versions of the text have been preserved; it is from the longer of the two more familiar ones that the translation in this volume has been made. In the warm discussion over ...
— Translations of Shakuntala and Other Works • Kaalidaasa

... the other side, who admitted, in moments of expansion which they probably regretted afterwards, that he might, after all, be as devoted to his country as they were. For years now his life had been without blemish. It was impossible to believe that even in his youth he could have sown any wild oats; terrible to think that these wild oats might now be coming home ...
— Happy Days • Alan Alexander Milne

... are these two parables, that if we had regarded repetition as a formidable blemish in our lessons, we would not have proposed to expound them separately and successively. The two lines are coincident throughout their whole length, except at one point; but there the diversity is broadly marked, amounting in one aspect to a specific contrast. ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot

... you say: How if I feel that I am not prepared? Answer: That is also my scruple, especially from the old way under the Pope, in which a person tortured himself to be so perfectly pure that God could not find the least blemish in us. On this account we became so timid that every one was instantly thrown into consternation and said to himself: Alas! you are unworthy! For then nature and reason begin to reckon our unworthiness in comparison with the great and precious good; and then it appears ...
— The Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther

... that wild animals always begin with, and that it is also the first choice of our men. Were it not a wise arrangement that only the strongest males should continue the breed, one could hardly help pitying the solitary buffalo expelled from the herd for some physical blemish, or on account of the weakness of approaching old age. Banished from female society, he naturally becomes morose and savage; the necessary watchfulness against enemies is now never shared by others; disgusted, he passes into a state of chronic war with ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone

... she asked. "Thus shalt thou see thyself, without blemish or fault even for this crown of hair to the heel of thy foot. But I fear me the sight will change all thy thoughts and incline thee to scorn ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason

... historian describes one of the Sultans as being an exalted character, pure, upright, and virtuous. He regrets that this admirable man did blind his only son and have three brothers bowstringed (strangled). But it was "the only blemish on his character"! Happy Turkey, ...
— The Great Round World And What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 22, April 8, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various

... Every blemish on the beauty of a vocal tone, every fine shade of quality which detracts from its perfection, indicates to the critical hearer some faulty action of the singer's vocal organs. The more faulty the musical character of the singer's tones the more pronounced is this impression of ...
— The Psychology of Singing - A Rational Method of Voice Culture Based on a Scientific Analysis of All Systems, Ancient and Modern • David C. Taylor

... pains, in constructing it, to secure a pleasant impression. It is not a mere invention, but a compound of the words smile and eyelash. A smile suggests good humor; eyelashes soften the expression and are the only features that never blemish a face. Hence Smilash is a sound that should cheer and propitiate. Yet it exasperates. It is really very odd that it should have that effect, unless it is that it raises expectations which I ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw



Words linked to "Blemish" :   blackhead, bemire, soil, smear, scrape, spoil, check, scar, blot, scratch, smudge, grime, damage, nick, wart, mole, crack, dent, begrime, visual aspect, appearance, ding, stigma, milium, comedo, burn, mangle, chip, pit, deflower, vitiate, verruca, smirch, birthmark, pock, dirty, whitehead, mark, chatter mark, gouge, colly, burn mark, slur, impair, nevus, maul, daub



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