"Defect" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... The principal defect pervading the "Lectures," and one which most readers will be disposed to view in an opposite light, appears to be, a charity too broad, a catholicity too expansive, to be easily reconciled with a consistent position among the mystic witnesses. Their author, ...
— Notes On The Apocalypse • David Steele
... having been rebuilt in 1822-1824, when, however, the old material was worked in again as far as possible, and the old quadripartite groining adhered to. It may be noticed that the vaulting is carried out very systematically and correctly, the only defect being that the wall-ribs die into the vaulting surfaces, instead of being brought down to the clerestory sill. The plough-share surfaces (as they are called) are nevertheless well cut back to concentrate the lateral pressures against the external buttresses. ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: Southwark Cathedral • George Worley
... there is no load on the turbine, to be sure that the governor controls the machine with the throttle wide open. It might be that the main poppet valve has sustained some injury not evident on inspection, or was leaking badly. Should there be some such defect, steps should be taken to regrind the valve to its ...
— Steam Turbines - A Book of Instruction for the Adjustment and Operation of - the Principal Types of this Class of Prime Movers • Hubert E. Collins
... is also the third. With the dull it will pass for wit, with some it will pass for scorn,—and even the witty will not be enabled to point out the difference, without running the risk of being considered invidious. It will cover every defect with a defect still greater; for who can call small beer tasteless when it is sour, or dull when it is bottled and has ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... result of eccentricity, but the result of an exceptional assembly of rare qualities which met for the first time in one man, and which, shining in the midst of a most corrupt society, constituted almost more an anomaly which became a real defect, hurtful, however, to himself only. His ideal of the beautiful magnified weaknesses into crimes, and physical failings into deformities. Thus it is that with the saints the slightest transgression of the laws appears at once in the light of mortal sin. St. Augustin calls the greediness ...
— My Recollections of Lord Byron • Teresa Guiccioli
... coated in large sheets and cut afterward—a practice somewhat common in this industry. The disadvantage of the ordinary plan is that minute fragments of glass are liable to settle upon the sensitive film and to cause spots and scratches during the packing operations; any defect of this kind renders a plate worthless to the photographer. When any breakages take place in the cutting, it is best that they should occur at the outset, and not after the plate has been coated with emulsion. The cutting when necessary is effected by the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 647, May 26, 1888 • Various
... by it and starve. In short, the said Union was no pupil of Amboyne; could not put itself in the place of these hungry men, and realize their dilemma; it could only see the situation from its own point of view. From that intellectual defect sprang a crime. On a certain dark night, Thomas Wilde, one of these contribution-men, was burning bricks all by himself, when a body of seven men came crawling up to within a little distance. These men were what ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... occasioned her grief,—but had simply felt compassion for her as for one summoned, in a regular course of providential and human dispensation, to face an affliction, heavy in itself, but not heavy from any special defect of equity. Consequently their very sympathy, being so much built upon the assumption that an only child had offended to the extent implied in his sentence, oftentimes clothed itself in expressions which she felt to be not consolations ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... the sense of sin. This should be present in all approach to God, in all service; accompanying the recognition of our Christian standing. Our sense of sin is far too slight and weak; this defect is at the root of much feebleness in popular religion. The sense of sin must embrace not outward acts ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... leeward quarter-boat; the weather one, from the shortness of the davits, would not clear the ship's side, but turned over on her bilge, dipping in the water, and was rendered ineffective when most wanted. This defect in the davits was afterwards remedied by the substitution of other and longer ones, which had formerly belonged to H.M. steam vessel Thunderbolt, wrecked at Algoa Bay ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray
... the Royal Academy of History. He justly commends it for the purity and harmony of its diction. The loyalty of the chronicler seduces him sometimes into a swell of panegyric, which may he thought to savor too strongly of the current defect of Castilian prose; but it more frequently imparts to his narrative a generous glow of sentiment, raising it far above the lifeless details of ordinary history, and ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... in affairs of business is an intrusive evil of times out of joint. Now, since matters of life and liberty were in the balance, the primitive denizens of Witch-Face Mountain felt that the admission of Narcissa Hanway's testimony to consideration and credibility evinced an essential defect in the law of the land, and the fallibility of all human reasoning. What distorted impression might not so appalling an event make upon one so young, so feminine, so inexperienced! What exaggerated wild thing might she not say, unintentionally ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... Emerson a year prior to his own death, this defect of memory was very noticeable, and extended even to the names of common objects, so that in talking he would use quaint, roundabout expressions to supply the place of missing words. He would call a ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... professed to return my devotion. Now, her mother had a great fondness for Society ways and fads, and we were not the best of friends in consequence, but I thought we loved each other too well for that defect in my character to make any difference. The wedding-day was at last fixed. I had presented her with funds to buy her trousseau, as they were not at all well off, when a young sprig of English nobility visited the Colonies, and became acquainted with them. ...
— Australia Revenged • Boomerang
... habituation to Obedience, truly, it was beyond measure safer to err by excess than by defect. Obedience is our universal duty and destiny; wherein whoso will not bend must break: too early and too thoroughly we cannot be trained to know that Would, in this world of ours, is as mere zero to Should, and for most part as the smallest of fractions even to Shall. Hereby was laid for ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... very commonplace, but since the Picts went out of fashion, very necessary to mortals the most sublime. I ought to apologize for his coming. You threatened to leave me yesterday because of a defect in your wardrobe. Mr. Fairthorn wrote to my tailor to hasten hither and repair it. He is here. I commend him to your custom! Don't despise him because he makes for a man of my remote generation. Tailors are keen observers and do not grow out of date ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and my mode of life were in some degree changed. It is indescribable how providently Bendel continued to conceal my defect. He was everywhere before me and with me; foreseeing everything, hitting on contrivances, and, where unforeseen danger threatened, covering me quickly with his shadow, since he was taller and bulkier than I. Thus I ventured myself again among men, and ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... that which was only intended as a jest, and got myself exiled for my pains. But I saw my error. I overcame my vanity, and I obtained my recall, by making the amende honorable, and by promising myself to overcome this defect; and the consequence is, that I am so thoroughly cured, that I now laugh at the very thing which, three or four days ago, would have almost broken my heart. But Raoul is in love, and is loved in return; he cannot laugh at the reports which disturb his happiness—reports ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... were mean, while many were superb; and of the mosque-like larger buildings, which occasionally appeared, and which were supposed to be rural temples, some were grand and imposing. A profusion of bold sculpture, was the prevailing characteristic, and perhaps defect, of all. The inhabitants, who thronged the wayside in great numbers, appeared excited with surprise and exultation, on beholding the large company of strangers apparently in the custody of their military, while the disarmed condition of the latter, and the ...
— Memoir of an Eventful Expedition in Central America • Pedro Velasquez
... and no one, therefore, could feel surprised at the enthusiastic love of the delighted mother for her handsome, nobly-promising boy. But that which did astonish me, though no one else, for it seemed that I alone noticed it, was a strange defect of character which began to develop itself in Mr Arbuthnot. He was positively jealous of his wife's affection for their own child! Many and many a time have I remarked, when he thought himself unobserved, an expression of intense pain flash from his fine, expressive eyes, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 438 - Volume 17, New Series, May 22, 1852 • Various
... of domestic order and the reign of law, in the Southern States. The lack of moral courage among the physically brave men of the South has already been indicated and illustrated. It was something of this same defect that held back the slave-masters from the condescension, as they esteemed it, of establishing any relation whatever with the negro in his new condition of freedom. Such action was frowned upon by ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... may be gathered from the above description that the definition of the types implies many vague moments. Especially in regard to the G-type are very different definitions indeed accepted, even at Harvard.[6] It is also a defect that the definitions do not directly give quantitative characteristics of the spectra. None the less it is possible to substitute for the spectral classes a continuous scale expressing the spectral character of a ...
— Lectures on Stellar Statistics • Carl Vilhelm Ludvig Charlier
... adds, ' First then let me speak of Hariot's method, of which frequent mention will have to be made in the following pages; so that the reader may understand why some things are stated and some passed over: here I cannot but complain, that I find it a serious defect that his Commentators have so completely transformed it [the Praxis] that they not only do not retain his orderbut not evenhis language.' Again he writes, ' But not even those well-thought-out and necessary to be known matters, which have been delivered to us, have been handed down ...
— Thomas Hariot • Henry Stevens
... lines that nothing but thought can draw, and in the eyes that peculiar clear depth of shining that comes only when fires of pain have burned into the soul, and purified it, and made it luminous? The shadows of the great trees above her flickered over her face, and did their best to make up the defect, and her long lashes threw a beautiful shade around the bright brown eyes. A young life that suffering has never touched has a wonderful charm in its exemption. It is only when suffering fails in its work that something is missed in the face it ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 3, March, 1886 - Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 3, March, 1886 • Various
... to the obligations of duty. In the act of parliament which passed in 1745, the reward of twenty thousand pounds had been only held out to the ships belonging to any of his majesty's subjects, while his majesty's own ships were excluded. Another, and more capital defect in this act was, that it confined the reward to such ships alone as should discover a passage though Hudson's Bay. By a new law, which passed in 1776, both these deficiencies were effectually remedied. It was now enacted,—'That if any ship, belonging to any of his majesty's subjects, ...
— Narrative of the Voyages Round The World, • A. Kippis
... recovery. I had the curiosity to wish to inform myself personally of the fact and of these circumstances, and after having interrogated the lady herself, those who had witnessed her cure, and the physicians who had attended her, I remained fully convinced of the truth of the fact. I, I repeat, whose defect is not that of being too credulous, as it sufficiently appears by what ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... tongue, compared with the idiom of the savage, seems adapted rather for reflection than for the senses or imagination. The rhythm of popular verse is so delicate, so rapid, so precise, that it is no easy matter to defect it with our eyes; but do not imagine it to have been equally difficult for those living populations who listened to, instead of reading it; who were accustomed to the sound of it from their infancy; who themselves ...
— The Book of Old English Ballads • George Wharton Edwards
... letters, as f, b, and d. No word begins with an l. The same observation has been made on the Mexican tongue, though it is overcharged with the syllables tli, tla, and itl, at the end or in the middle of words. The Chaymas substitute r for l; a substitution that arises from a defect of pronunciation common in every zone.* (* For example, the substitution of r for l, characterizes the Bashmurie dialect of the Coptic language.) Thus, the Caribbees of the Orinoco have been transformed into ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... interest aroused by the Duchess's effigy is purely artistic, that of her husband excites curiosity rather than admiration. The head is strangely poised, much as if the artist intended to suggest the fact of decapitation; obliquity of vision, a defect hereditary in the Montmorencys, is also indicated, adding singularity. The half-recumbent figure by the Duke's side, is of rare pathos and beauty. Almost angelic in its resignation and religious fervour is ...
— East of Paris - Sketches in the Gatinais, Bourbonnais, and Champagne • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... intervals, leaving a bare surface of rocks between them devoid of vegetation. There was little of geological interest; gneiss and syenite predominated, with extremely large crystals of hornblende in the latter rock, that would have afforded handsome slabs had not the prevailing defect throughout Cyprus rendered all blocks imperfect through innumerable cracks and fissures. A peculiar greenish and greasy-looking rock resembling soapstone was occasionally met with in veins, and upon close examination I discovered it to be the base of asbestos. The ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... and sticking his umbrella upright in the road, he sketched the steps and gestures. All his criticisms of the present, all his regrets for the past, struck me as temperate and sensible. The short term of office of the Resident he thought the chief defect of the administration; that officer having scarce begun to be efficient ere he was recalled. I thought I gathered, too, that he regarded with some fear the coming change from a naval to a civil governor. I am sure ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a gentle smile, "I was too proud, I had been spoiled, and was probably too deeply impressed with a sense of my own worth; and this defect is not conducive to pleasant relations with one who is distrustful and low-spirited. But our interests were always the same, and his hastening to France, to enroll himself with all his brother Frenchmen, for the defence of his country, is worthy of the king's character. It is only by ...
— Queen Hortense - A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era • L. Muhlbach
... or serious internal soiling, torn leaves, etc. But in the case of drawing out books for home reading, the rule might embarrass any reader, however well disposed, if too strictly construed. A reader finding any serious defect in a library volume used at home, should simply place a mark or slip in the proper place with the word "damaged," or "defective" written on it. Then, on returning the book to the library, his simple statement of finding ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... his rank his townsmen indulged this defect, and would not distress him by remarking on it, till another preacher of those parts, actuated by a private pique, came on one occasion to tantalize him, and said, "I have seen you in a dream; may it prove fortunate!" He asked: "What have you seen?" He replied: ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... overflows from couplet to couplet, giving the romantic poet a greater latitude for expression than was possible in the old models. "Vacation" is not distinguished by any strikingly novel idea, but is in general a very clever piece of light work. The only substantial defect is in the eighth line, where the word "resort" is so placed, that the accent must fall wrongfully upon the ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... man at sight of a forest conflagration. Giving up dry disputation, have recourse to Sruti and Smriti, and seek thou, with the aid of thy reason, the knowledge of the Undecaying One that is without a second. One's search (after this knowledge) becometh futile from defect of means. Therefore, should one carefully strive to obtain that knowledge by aid of the Vedas. The Vedas are the Supreme Soul; they are His body; they are the Truth. The soul that is bounded by the animal organism ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... insensible to the present outcry against the triviality and meanness, both of thought and language, which some of my contemporaries have occasionally introduced into their metrical compositions; and I acknowledge that this defect, where it exists, is more dishonourable to the Writer's own character than false refinement or arbitrary innovation, though I should contend at the same time, that it is far less pernicious in the sum of its consequences. From such verses the Poems in these volumes will ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... reasoning that elucidates the pre-cancerous stage of cancer, or tread in the path followed by Sir Lionel Beale, in finding that the cause of disease depends on a blood change and the developmental defect, or the tendency or inherent weakness of the affected part or organ; to fully appreciate the inherent etiological factors that reside in man, and which constitute the tendency to disease or premature decay and death, we must also be able to follow ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... monks who are horrified, as at some prodigy, if they stammer, or repeat even a syllable in the Canon of the Mass,[16] though this may be a natural defect of the tongue, or an accident, and is not a sin. Again, there is no priest who does not confess that he was distracted, or failed to read his Preparatoria, or other old-womanish trifles of the kind. There was one who, even when he was at the altar celebrating, ...
— Works of Martin Luther - With Introductions and Notes (Volume I) • Martin Luther
... admired his suppleness, and said to herself, as she dragged him after her through the labyrinth of fancy, "He loves me!" Butscha, in common with the other spectators of what we must call a stage scene, was struck with the radiant defect of all egoists, which Canalis, like many men accustomed to perorate, allowed to be too plainly seen. Whether he understood beforehand what the person he was speaking to meant to say, whether he was not listening, or ...
— Modeste Mignon • Honore de Balzac
... teacher is able to obtain from the great majority of those who present themselves for examination. I wish to take a hint in education from the Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Agriculture, who regards the cultivation of too much land as a great defect in our New England farming. I hope that our Medical Institutions may never lay themselves open to the kind of accusation Mr. Lowe brings against the English Universities, when he says that their education ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... believe that I am well made, and possess what nine tenths of the world would call a handsome face. In height I am five feet eleven. My hair is black and curling. My nose is sufficiently good. My eyes are large and gray; and although, in fact they are weak a very inconvenient degree, still no defect in this regard would be suspected from their appearance. The weakness itself, however, has always much annoyed me, and I have resorted to every remedy—short of wearing glasses. Being youthful and good-looking, I naturally dislike these, and have resolutely refused to ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... animal economy. He had a good knowledge of obstetric operations. His ideas in relation to pathology did not proceed much further than the belief that disease was due to corruption of the humors. He was more scientific and accurate when he taught that paralysis results from a defect in the nerves. ...
— Outlines of Greek and Roman Medicine • James Sands Elliott
... constitutes a "relative" impediment and needs a special dispensation and provisoes, such as a guarantee to bring up the children in the Roman faith to give it validity. Another impediment is based on the presumption of want of consent, "the nullity being caused by a defect of consent." "This defect," says the Catholic Encyclopedia, "may arise from the intellect or the will; hence we have two classes. Arising from the intellect we have: insanity; and total ignorance, even if in confuso of what marriage ...
— A Short History of Women's Rights • Eugene A. Hecker
... state rights in its ultra phases. "An extreme jealousy of power," he said, "is the attendant of all popular revolutions, and has seldom been without its evils. It is to this source we are to trace many of the fatal mistakes which have so deeply endangered the common cause; particularly that defect—a want of power ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... sunlight, a faint touch of color in her cheeks, he suddenly realized the significance of her words. Her bosom was rising and falling quickly. Her plain black dress, simply made though it was, showed no defect of figure. Her throat was soft and white. The curve of her body was even graceful. The revelation of these things came as a shock to Arnold, yet it was curious that he found ...
— The Lighted Way • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... world who cannot rest; who are so constituted that they can only take their leisure in the shape of a change of work. To this fairly numerous class belonged Mr. J. Preston Peters, father of Freddie's Aline. And to this merit—or defect—is to be attributed his almost maniacal devotion to that rather unattractive species of curio, the ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... begun, Lewis XIV directed LOUIS DE VEAU to finish it, by making the additions and embellishments which have brought it to its present state. These deviations from the first plan have destroyed the proportions required by the strict rules of art; but this defect would, probably, be overlooked by those who are not connoisseurs, as the architecture, though variously blended, presents, at first sight, an ensemble ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... observe several deficiencies in the letters of the first word, viz. in the first 'E;' also in the 'N,' the second part being short; and a slight defect in the letter 'A.' With respect to the second word, the first six letters were very perfect: the others, with the exception of the 'M,' mere strokes; but in number sufficient to make up the word: and they had the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 77, April 19, 1851 • Various
... admits that he is unable to recognize his own son in face, features, manner, or speech. Good! If I could pick up some rascal whose—er—irregularities didn't quite fill the bill, and could say—Ged!—that he was reforming. Reforming! Ged, Star! That very defect would show the hereditary taint, demn me! I must think of this seriously. Ged, Star! the idea is—an inspiration of humanity and virtue. Who knows? it might be the saving of the vagabond,—a crown of glory to the old man's age. Inspiration, did I say? Ged, ...
— Two Men of Sandy Bar - A Drama • Bret Harte
... necessities of the Roman provinces and allies. Any arrangement that was practicable, would have obtained an influence for these parties, either dangerous to the supreme section of the empire, or else nugatory for each of themselves. It is a separate consideration, that through total defect of cheap instruments for communication, whether personally or in the way of thought, public opinion must always have moved in the dark: what I chiefly assert is, that the feuds bearing at all upon public interests, never did turn, or could have turned, upon any collution of ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v1 • Thomas de Quincey
... where others worshipped with open devotion, he did not so much as bend the knee. And, over and above this serious defect, he was critical of her actions and inclined to keep ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... Princess, but she must be a true Princess. So he travelled through the whole world to find one, but there was always something against each. There were plenty of Princesses, but he could not find out if they were true Princesses. In every case there was some little defect, which showed the genuine article was not yet found. So he came home again in very low spirits, for he had wanted very much to have a true Princess. One night there was a dreadful storm; it thundered and lightened and the rain streamed down in torrents. It ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various
... impracticable. In some women the supply of milk, although at first abundant, yet in the course of a few weeks undergoes so considerable a diminution as to become altogether insufficient for the child's support; while in other cases, although its quantity continues undiminished, yet from some defect in its quality it does not furnish the infant with proper nutriment. Cases of the former kind are not unusual in young, tolerably healthy, but not robust women; while instances of the latter are met with chiefly among those who have given birth to several children, whose health is ...
— The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases • Charles West, M.D.
... 14, National Gallery, or in the curved portico of No. 30; but still these are not points to be taken into consideration as having anything to do with artistical rank, just as, though we should say it was disgraceful if a great poet could not spell, we should not consider such a defect as in any way taking from his poetical rank. Neither is there anything particularly belonging to architecture, as such, which it is any credit to an artist to observe or represent; it is only a simple and clear field for the manifestation of his knowledge of ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... several instances, by unanimous vote, rejected ballots of whole towns, free from any suspicion of unfairness, by reason of a defect in form only of the return, the committee conceived themselves the more strongly bound to reject ballots where the defect was substantial, and the conduct at least questionable; especially as the law regards the custody of enclosures containing the ballots as a trust ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... worthy of your arms. He is now no more his sceptre has passed to a woman and a child, and you dare not attack their infancy and weakness. How inglorious would be your conquest, how shameful your defeat! and yet the event of war is in the hand of the Almighty." Avarice was the only defect that tarnished the illustrious character of Mahmud; and never has that passion been more richly satiated. [811] The Orientals exceed the measure of credibility in the account of millions of gold and silver, such as the avidity ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... flanks near enough to report its position to the commander in chief. He underwent a heavy fire, but handled his frail ships so skillfully as to escape serious loss. At the same time the constant maneuvering he was forced to perform or a defect in the British system of communication made his reports of bearing seriously inaccurate. Whatever the cause, this error created a difficulty for the commander in chief, who, fifty miles away, was trying to locate the enemy for ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... gets out of the business; glad to close the intolerable rumor, at some cost of money. For all tongues were wagging; and, in defect of a TIMES Newspaper, it appears, there had Pamphlets come out; printed Satires, bound or in broadside;—sapid, exhilarative, for a season, and interesting to the idle mind. Of which, TANTALE EN PROCES may still, for the sake of that PREFACE to it, be considered to have an ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle
... expand their souls with knowledge, only to find that content will not dwell in the great house they have built. To number the varieties of human endeavour to escape discomfort would be to enumerate all the modes of such life as does not know how to live. All seek the thing whose defect appears the cause of their misery, and is but the variable occasion of it, the cause of the shape it takes, not of the misery itself; for, when one apparent cause is removed, another at once succeeds. The real cause of his trouble is a something the man has not perhaps recognized ...
— Hope of the Gospel • George MacDonald
... boat, which was but a small craft that had been unstrung the day before, in order that the ship's carpenter might examine some fancied defect in the rudder. Fortunately a pair of oars had been left in her, and these Pharaoh now took in hand, bidding me steer for the volcanic flame, which played over the peak ...
— In the Days of Drake • J. S. Fletcher
... the fiddle strings with his thumb, and screwing up the keys. His sense of melody was in a mood to overlook many a defect, and he presently thrust the fiddle under his chin and began to saw it. Then he led ...
— Dwellers in the Hills • Melville Davisson Post
... harder and more skilfully than the workman of any other country; and he might be more comfortable and independent in his circumstances, were he as prudent as he is laborious. But improvidence is unhappily the defect of the class. Even the best-paid English workmen, though earning more money than the average of professional men, still for the most part belong to the poorer classes because of their thoughtlessness. In prosperous times they are not accustomed to make provision for adverse times; ...
— Thrift • Samuel Smiles
... at first abundant, fails suddenly, owing to some accidental or constitutional defect; and this failure becomes habitual. In all these circumstances, the proper resort is to a sucking bottle, or a hired nurse. I generally prefer the latter. The cases which seem to me to admit of the former, will be pointed out in ...
— The Young Mother - Management of Children in Regard to Health • William A. Alcott
... on him, and considered him awhile, till she was assured of him, when she came up to him and said, "Indeed the place is honored and illumined with thy presence, O Sherkan! How didst thou pass the night, O hero, after we went away and left thee? Verily, lying is a defect and a reproach in kings; especially in great kings: and thou art Sherkan, son of King Omar ben Ennuman; so henceforth tell me naught but truth, and strive not to keep the secret of thy condition, for falsehood engenders hatred and enmity. The arrow of destiny hath fallen upon thee, and it behooves ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... other respect, with Macaulay. The Englishman thinks little of nature; as he himself says of Dante, 'He leaves to others the earth, the ocean, and the sky; his business is with man.' Indeed, the absence of a true and universal sympathy is the one vast defect of Macaulay. No position is so high that it may not be overshadowed by the giant form of his violent partisanship, no character so small that it may not be raised to the semblance of greatness by ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... other fear, than bodements 250 To be belated in a loyal purpose— At the command, Prince! of my king and thine, Hither I came; and now again require Audience of Queen Zapolya; and (the States Forthwith convened) that thou dost shew at large, 255 On what ground of defect thou'st dared annul This thy King's last and solemn act—hast dared Ascend the throne, of which the law had named, And conscience should have ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... of the two writers Morgan and Chubb in part supply the defect left in Tindal, the omission on the part of deism to show that Christian truths were a republication of natural religion; the former especially attacking the claims of the Jewish religion to be divine, the latter the claims ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... has been told by his grandson; but there is a rather curious defect of materials for so recent a biography. He kept, it seems, no letters,—a weakness, if it be a weakness, for which one is rather apt to applaud him in these days: but, on the other hand, nobody ever indulged more persistently in the habit of washing his dirty linen in public. Not even his idol ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... windows had no pullies; and Dr. Johnson, who was constantly eager for fresh air, had much struggling to get one of them kept open. Thus he had a notion impressed upon him, that this wretched defect was general in Scotland; in consequence of which he has erroneously enlarged upon it in his Journey. I regretted that he did not allow me to read over his book before it was printed. I should have changed very ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... even women), if they happened to be walking behind her. When they quickened their steps, and, passing on, looked back at her face, they lost all interest in Fanny from that moment. Painters would have described the defect in her face as "want of colour." She was one of the whitest of fair female human beings. Light flaxen hair, faint blue eyes with no expression in them, and a complexion which looked as if it had never been stirred by a circulation of blood, produced an effect ...
— Blind Love • Wilkie Collins
... arrival from the glost-kiln. A delicate piece of ware is in peril every second. It may be dropped and broken; chipped in handling; its clay body may crack when exposed to the heat; the colors in the decoration may fire out unsatisfactorily; or at the very end there may be a defect in ...
— The Story of Porcelain • Sara Ware Bassett
... may have given grounds for the contrary opinion: But it is as certain at the same time that Rosinante's continency (as may be demonstrated from the adventure of the Yanguesian carriers) proceeded from no bodily defect or cause whatsoever, but from the temperance and orderly current of his blood.—And let me tell you, Madam, there is a great deal of very good chastity in the world, in behalf of which you could not say more for ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... of Oxford, and Owen belong to a very curious type of humanity, with many excellent and even great qualities and one fatal defect—utter untrustworthiness. Peace be with two of them, and may the political death of the third ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 3 • Leonard Huxley
... a picture in the best light, that all its beauties may be revealed, she placed each one of her subjects in the most favorable aspect, studied her closely, searched out every fine point which might be heightened, and pondered over every defect which might be concealed. She had the rare gift of knowing how to embellish nature, how to bring forth all the capacities of a face and form, and how to modify the fashion of the day to the requirements of the wearer, instead of slavishly ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... before, were hastened to hanging with their wounds bleeding. For the State found it had been neglected so long, as nothing could be thought cruelty which tended to the putting of it down. As for the second defect, pretended in our law, that it hath provided no remedy for lies and fillips, it may receive like answer. It would have been thought a madness amongst the ancient lawgivers to have set a punishment upon the lie given, which in effect is but a word of denial, a negative of another's saying. ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... experience in contrast to the often illusory conclusions of the reason, and of the value of induction; but he does not conceal from himself the fact that observation is merely the first step in the process of cognition, leaving the chief role for the understanding. This, supplementing the defect of experience—the impossibility of observing all cases—by its a priori concept of law and with its inferences overstepping the bounds of experience, first makes induction possible, brings the facts established ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... for thinking so is this: I have heard a bobolink with an instrument so defective that its song was broken and inarticulate in parts, and yet it sang with as much apparent joy and abandon as any of its fellows. I have also heard a hermit thrush with a similar defect or impediment that appeared to sing entirely to its own satisfaction. It would be very interesting to know if these poor singers found mates as readily as their more gifted brothers. If they did, the Darwinian theory of "sexual selection" in such matters, according to which the finer songster ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs
... plants to be sold as greens. The seed is sown broadcast at the rate of ten pounds and upwards to the acre. Seed of the Savoy cabbage is usually sown for this purpose, which may be sometimes purchased at a discount, owing to some defect in quality or purity, that would render it worthless for planting for a crop of ...
— Cabbages and Cauliflowers: How to Grow Them • James John Howard Gregory
... foul, stinking, and rank eructations; from the lungs, filthy and putrid exhalations arising from imposthumes, ulcers or abscesses, or from vitiated blood or serum. Besides these there are also other various diseases; as lipothamia, which is a total faintness of body, and defect of strength; paralysis, which is a loosening and relaxation of the membranes and ligaments which serve for motion; epilepsy; permanent infirmity arising from apoplexy; certain chronical diseases; the iliac passion; rupture; besides ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... managing the affairs which his master intrusted to him, adventured in a little business on his own account; and thinking, I suppose, that the late Earl of Etherington had forgotten fully to acknowledge his services, as valet to his son, he supplied that defect by a small check on our house for L.100, in name, and bearing the apparent signature, of the deceased. This small mistake being detected, Mr. Solmes, porteur of the little billet, would have been consigned to the custody of a Bow-street officer, but that I found means to relieve him, on condition ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... with any idea of moral evil; neither do we see how, starting from such a dogma, he can ever vindicate and uphold his own theory of human liberty. On such theistic principles all sin must be simply defect, and all defect must be absolutely fatuitous.' Eclecticism was a beautiful but frail levee, opposed to the swollen tide of skepticism, and, as in every other crevasse when swept away, it only caused the stream ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... from one side to the other of him marvelling. Not a defect, not even a blemish could I discover. The animal was fairly a perfect specimen of horseflesh. And I could not help speculating as to its use. Old Man Hooper had certainly never appeared with it in public; the fame of such a beast would have spread ...
— The Killer • Stewart Edward White
... and became the cause of by far the greatest portion of the nation's calamities. Theoretically the eldest son—some say the eldest relative—of the monarch succeeded him, when he had no blemish constituting a radical defect: the supreme power, however, alternating in two families. To secure the succession, the heir-apparent was always declared during the life of the supreme king; but this constitutional arrangement caused, perhaps, more crimes and wars than any other social institution among the Celts. The truth is ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... any army accustomed, as those of Europe now are, to move at sixty miles an hour, would have been ennuye'd to death before they could have marched from the Rhenish, the Maritime, the Alpine, or the Pyrenean frontier upon the capital of France. The French people, however, were indignant at this defect of communication in their territory, and said, without the least show of reason, that they would have preferred that the five hundred and seventy-five thousand billions of francs which had been expended upon the fortifications should ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... been just like Mr. Humphreys to lose sight entirely of such a matter, and very natural for her, in her grief and confusion of mind, and inexperience, to be equally forgetful. She wrote immediately to Mr. Humphreys and supplied the defect, and hope brightened again. Once before she had written, on the occasion of the refunding her expenses. Mr. Lindsay and his mother were very prompt to do this, though Ellen could not tell what the exact amount might be; they took care to be on the safe side, and sent more than enough. ...
— The Wide, Wide World • Elizabeth Wetherell
... me every word. The way is, to take a box, which holds four, for yourself and company. The fixed price is a gold ducat. I thought the house very low and dark; but I confess, the comedy admirably recompensed that defect. I never laughed so much in my life. It began with Jupiter's falling in love out of a peep-hole in the clouds, and ended with the birth of Hercules. But what was most pleasant, was the use Jupiter made of his metamorphosis; ...
— Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M—y W—y M—e • Lady Mary Wortley Montague
... them, because his introspection in reporting what he sees proceeds on the imperfect and distorted images coming in from his defective eyesight. So a man given to exaggeration, who is not able to report truthfully what he remembers, can not be a good botanist, since this defect in introspection will render his ...
— The Story of the Mind • James Mark Baldwin
... occasionally installed, and in some cases cars were even fitted with sails. Of all these methods, the horse was the most popular: he sent out no sparks, he carried his own fuel, he made little noise, and he would not explode. His only failing was that he would leave the track; and to remedy this defect the early railroad builders hit upon a happy device. Sometimes they would fix a treadmill inside the car; two horses would patiently propel the caravan, the seats for passengers being arranged on either side. So unformed ...
— The Railroad Builders - A Chronicle of the Welding of the States, Volume 38 in The - Chronicles of America Series • John Moody
... for our safety and the safety of the Constitution, that these politico-sentimental gentlemen represent only a certain theory of the Constitution, and not the Constitution itself. Their leading defect is an incapacity to adjust their profound legal intellects to the altered circumstances of the country. Any child in political knowledge is competent to give them this important item of political information,—that ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... foreign "floats," and that, by his own laches, he had lost his claim, which he now spread along the Sacramento River for 400 miles. Finding out, after an expenditure of several thousand dollars, the defect, he got a new claim from the late President Lombardini of thirty miles square, which he will probably now pin tight in Sonora. The defect of our two last treaties with Mexico was in not having a clause inserted reducing all titles to land to six ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... yourself camping by an unknown brook, and are deputed to catch the necessary trout for breakfast, it is wiser to choose the surest bait. The crackle of the fish in the frying-pan will atone for any theoretical defect in your method. But to choose the surest bait, and then to bring back no fish, is unforgivable. Forsake Plato if you must,—but you may do so only at the price of justifying yourself in the terms of Aristotelian arithmetic. The college ...
— Fishing with a Worm • Bliss Perry
... had to a certain extent picked up the accent of the vulgar. It was impossible, considering her surroundings and associations, to be otherwise. But proper treatment and proper companions would soon rid her of this defect. ...
— Madame Flirt - A Romance of 'The Beggar's Opera' • Charles E. Pearce
... cases could B compel A to pay him any money, because the contract between them lacks consideration. But A would be responsible to an innocent purchaser, because there is nothing on the face of the paper to indicate the defect. And he would be responsible even to a purchaser who knows the paper to be accommodation, because by signing he binds himself to pay if B does not, and his signature is what enables the sale to ...
— Studies in Civics • James T. McCleary
... of the editors should have noticed this defect, which I have no doubt will hereafter be removed by the adoption of a simple change, that very happily illustrates ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 201, September 3, 1853 • Various
... and destined for him the fairest page in the volume of faithful history, I ask so much confidence only as may give firmness and effect to the legal administration of your affairs. I shall often go wrong through defect of judgment. When right, I shall often be thought wrong by those whose positions will not command a view of the whole ground. I ask your indulgence for my own errors, which will never be intentional; and your support against ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... the author of the Canons of Criticism, would add the following, to supply what he deemed a defect in the poem: ...
— Select Poems of Thomas Gray • Thomas Gray
... 20,000; and remember that their mobility made one man of them equal to at least two of our reduced 11,000—could, if not have taken Ladysmith, at least have put us to great loss and discomfort. But the Boers have the great defect of all amateur soldiers: they love their ease, and do not mean to be killed. Now, without toil and hazard they could ...
— From Capetown to Ladysmith - An Unfinished Record of the South African War • G. W. Steevens
... the defect in your policy. It is the existence of your system of slavery that makes you all this trouble." "As I told you of Miss Chandler, so it is with you, because you never lived in a slave State, and know ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... keep house for Rufus. And here are some directions for him that I must carry home. Don't come, Dr. Warden; I shall never cure you of thinking we cannot stir without an escort. You will want to put a little public spirit into this dear Ave. That's her one defect; and when you are one of us, she will be forced to give us ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... cohesion. This cause, which came in aid of its first foundation, would probably continue; and would diminish the intensity of the power in the same proportion as it promoted its extension. This monarchy would be absolute only by the personal presence of the monarch; elsewhere, from mere defect of organization, it would and must betray the total imperfections of an elementary state, and of a first experiment. More by the weakness inherent in such a constitution, than by its own strength, did ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... certainly a very small business, Herbert. I think some men become meaner by indulgence of their defect." ...
— Do and Dare - A Brave Boy's Fight for Fortune • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... of the world, for had not Nobunaga emerged victorious the whole course of Japanese history might have been changed. At the outset, no definite programme seems to have been conceived on Nobunaga's side. He had no allies, and the numerical inferiority of his troops was overwhelming. The latter defect was remedied in a very partial degree by the resourcefulness of Hideyoshi. In his boyhood he had served for some time under a celebrated chief of freebooters, by name Hachisuka Koroku,* and he persuaded that chieftain with his fifteen hundred followers to march to the aid of the Owari ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... something," said Aramis, who thought he had pierced not merely through a defect in the harness, but through ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... turf throughout the heat and drought of summer. The soil is a Jurassic limestone: the rain penetrates the porous rock, and sinks through cracks and fissures, to reappear above the base of the mountain in a full-grown stream. This is a defect in the Generoso, as much to be regretted as the want of shade upon its higher pastures. Here, as elsewhere in Piedmont, the forests are cut for charcoal; the beech-scrub, which covers large tracts of the hills, never having the chance of growing ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... he adhered to his own opinion with that tenacity which, on other occasions, was his best quality, but in this case his worst defect. ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... the Aryan speech soon saw the defect, and the Greeks supplied symbols for several new sounds at a very early day.(8) But there the matter rested, and the alphabet has remained imperfect. For the purposes of the English language there should certainly have been ...
— A History of Science, Volume 1(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... "our Pindarick madness" is well known. The "first and obvious defect" of Dryden's Threnodia "is the irregularity of its metre." The "lax and lawless versification" of this type of poetry, he wrote in the Life of Cowley, "concealed the deficiencies of the barren, and flattered the laziness of the idle." One cannot but wonder therefore at his praise ...
— A Pindarick Ode on Painting - Addressed to Joshua Reynolds, Esq. • Thomas Morrison
... not waste your time by wishing and dreaming, but go earnestly to work. Let nothing discourage you. If you have no books, borrow them; if you have no teachers, teach yourself; if your early education has been neglected, by the greater diligence repair the defect. Let not a craven heart or a love of ease rob you of the inestimable benefit ...
— The Jericho Road • W. Bion Adkins
... in a literary gathering may possibly turn out to be the poet whose lyrics have been compared to Shelley, or the prose writer whose mellifluous periods have been compared to those of Plato, so the most dignified man in the room may turn out to be the writer of a book whose defect is a noticeable lack of dignified style. It was hard, indeed, for those who knew Hake in the flesh to believe that the ‘Memoirs of Eighty Years’ was written by him. I suppose I shall be expected to say a word about the famous intimacy between Hake and Borrow. After ...
— Old Familiar Faces • Theodore Watts-Dunton
... mention is that universal defect which was in all their schemes, that they could not agree about their chief good, or wherein to place the happiness of mankind, nor had any of them a tolerable answer upon this difficulty, to satisfy a reasonable ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D. D., Volume IV: - Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Volume II • Jonathan Swift
... certainly were wiser than I was. But I observed that even the good artisans fell into the same error as the poets;—because they were good workmen they thought that they also knew all sorts of high matters, and this defect in them overshadowed their wisdom; and therefore I asked myself on behalf of the oracle, whether I would like to be as I was, neither having their knowledge nor their ignorance, or like them in both; and I made answer to myself and to the ...
— Apology - Also known as "The Death of Socrates" • Plato
... carefully determined, by the methods employed during the former years, at a sufficient number of points. The longitudes have been estimated by the use of chronometers, but the sudden recall of the party left the latter part of the task incomplete. Any defect arising from the latter cause may be considered as in a great degree compensated by the connections referred to with the work of Major Graham and the ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... as agreeable as its name, or as the pretty, if rather chocolate-box-school, picture on its wrapper. One small defect I find in the dissipation of its interest. Beginning with one hero, it goes on with another; and the result is some confusion for the reader who has backed the wrong horse. But Mr. E. M. SMITH-DAMPIER might very justly retort that this is ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, May 3, 1916 • Various
... having no disease in our plants. Any two-year-old plant in our field that doesn't bloom, we dig it up and throw it away, and that will nip any trouble in the bud, and then you will not get any strain that is not blooming. If we see any other defect, any that won't head good, we take it up and throw it away. That one point I think all of you can well follow, and that is, to dig up every two-year-old plant that doesn't bloom and throw it away, that is, during the ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various
... against them, for there is between us one common name and appellation, one faith and necessary body of principles common to us both; and therefore I am not scrupulous to converse and live with them, to enter their churches in defect of ours, and either pray with ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... are many individuals in this, as in other countries, remarkable for natural grace and genteel bearing; but the class which is pre-eminent in these respects, is very small and ill-defined. The great national defect is a want of sprightliness and vivacity, and an impartial insouciance in their intercourse with all classes and conditions of men. For if inequality has its evils, it has also its charms; as the prospect of swelling mountains and lowly vales ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 378, April, 1847 • Various
... honourable Chester, more it fits To make apparent sins of mighty men, And on their persons sharply to correct A little fault, a very small defect, Than on the poor to practise chastisement: For if a poor man die, or suffer shame, Only the poor and vile respect the same; But if the mighty fall, fear then besets The proud heart of the mighty ones, his mates: ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... out myself what many readers will consider the principal defect of the work. This book is written to favor no particular views, and in composing it I have entertained no designs of serving or attacking any party; I have undertaken not to see differently, but to look further than parties, ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... burn on it, and by their pale smoke curled, Like shoots of all the Green Things, the God of this bright World Shall see the Boy's desire to pay his debt of praise. The Boy turns round about, seeking with careful gaze An altar meet and worthy, but each table and chair Has some defect, each piece is needing some repair To perfect it; the chairs have broken legs and backs, The tables are uneven, and every highboy lacks A handle or a drawer, the desks are bruised and worn, And even ...
— Men, Women and Ghosts • Amy Lowell
... had blurred his outline and make-up before; now I got a closer, although a side, view of his person. He was a short man, much thicker at the middle than he was at either end—a defect all the more apparent by reason of a long-tailed, high-waisted, unbuttonable black coat which, while it covered his back and sides, would have left his front exposed, but for his snowy white waistcoat, which burst like a ball of ...
— Forty Minutes Late - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith
... [113] This much-criticised defect has been only partially overcome in our methods of education through "object" lessons, and, if we may call them so, evolutionary methods, showing to the child "wie es eigentlich gewesen." Cf. J. Dewey, "The School and ...
— Essay on the Creative Imagination • Th. Ribot
... tolerable view, was long and narrow in shape, consisting of two towers connected by walls, The nearer tower, through which lay the entrance, was roofless, and in every way seemed to be more ruinous than the inner one, which appeared to be perfect in both its stories. This defect notwithstanding, the place was so strong that my heart sank lower the longer I looked; and a glance at Maignan's face assured me that his experience was also at fault. For M. d'Agen, I clearly saw, when I turned to him, that he had never until this ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... person, pronounce to him another doom,—that every wish he may conceive, every effort he can make, shall be little better than vain. Even to every talent and virtuous impulse which he may feel working in his bosom, obstacles stand in impracticable array; not from a defect of essential title to success, but from a positive external law, unreasoning and irreversible.' * * 'The elevation of a degraded class of beings to the privileges of freemen, which, though free, they can never enjoy, and to the prospects of a happy immortality.' * * 'They again most ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... now to be slightly touched. Tragedy dealing with the discords of life must present painful spectacles; and is saved to art only by its just ending. Comedy, which similarly deals with discords, is endurable only while these remain painless. Both imply a defect in order, and neither would have any place in a perfect world, which would be without pity, fear, or humour, all of which proceed from incongruities in the scheme. Tragedy and comedy belong alike to low civilizations, ...
— Heart of Man • George Edward Woodberry
... are bred, though otherwise excellent, are small—a defect that should easily be remedied. The cattle, too, are rather on the small side, and this again, by more careful attention to breeding, could be ...
— Spinifex and Sand - Five Years' Pioneering and Exploration in Western Australia • David W Carnegie
... socialist ignores this fact, and insists that the laborer shall receive a share of wealth which shall be adequate to his needs. As we shall have occasion to point out in the next chapter, this attitude of the socialist indicates a fundamental defect in his theory. Socialism pays more attention to who shall eat and how much shall be eaten, than it does to the more fundamental question of how food is to be produced, and how much can actually be produced. ...
— Problems in American Democracy • Thames Ross Williamson
... the gum on the back of postage-stamps, and one hushes it up; but if he be deaf the visitor must be warned. My bat had a certain looseness in the shoulder, so that, at any quick movement of it, it clicked. If I struck the ball well and truly in the direction of point this defect did not matter; but if the ball went past me into the hands of the wicket-keeper, an unobservant bowler would frequently say, "How's that?" And an ill-informed umpire would reply, "Out." It was my duty before the game began to take the visiting umpire on one side and give him ...
— Once a Week • Alan Alexander Milne
... valuing it presented some serious difficulties. Its size made it a phenomenon in the diamond market; its colour placed it in a category by itself; and, to add to these elements of uncertainty, there was a defect, in the shape of a flaw, in the very heart of the stone. Even with this last serious draw-back, however, the lowest of the various estimates given was twenty thousand pounds. Conceive my father's astonishment! He ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... The defect in this plan was that there were not enough troops to carry it out. As we had underestimated the offensive vigour which the enemy was able to develop before the army could reach South Africa, so ...
— London to Ladysmith via Pretoria • Winston Spencer Churchill
... summer day. The ventilation depending entirely on temperature, without being assisted by a draught, if the outside temperature, as is often the case in the summer, happens to be higher than that of your cell, your atmosphere is stagnant, and you live in a tank of foul air. This defect might be partially remedied by leaving the cell doors open when the prisoners are out at exercise or chapel, and, as it were, refilling the tank. But keys are a fetish in prison, and the officials think it quite as necessary to lock up an empty cell ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... Apparent and Border on Genius. Their Influence on Religious Eroticism.—These persons are not always afflicted with paranoia or other grave psychoses, but often hereditary and constitutional psychopaths who are only half-crazy or simply hysterical, and who may, in spite of this defect, possess a certain degree of intellectual power, an energetic will and the fire of enthusiasm. Things then take an essentially different course, even when they rest ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... that term in its largest sense—which have not been either slightly touched upon, or fully treated, by Wordsworth. In his poetry, therefore, we behold an image of what, to his eye, appears to be human life. Is there, or is there not, some great and lamentable defect in that image, marring both the truth and beauty of the representation? We think there is—and that it lies ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... routine of their office, losing sight of the end in their exclusive devotion to what is only the means—teaching the THING, but failing to instruct the PERSON—eager to pour in knowledge, but neglecting to bring out mind.' Is there not indicated in these words a real and a very grave defect of the manner in which subjects are now presented, studied, recited, and finished up in our schools? We think there is. And then, what is the effect of this study and teaching, with so much less thought toward the end than about the material?—what ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... who are insanely jealous of their husbands, and, more rarely, men who are jealous of their wives. Jealousy may be explained as innate vanity and selfishness or as a defect in temperament, but at any rate, it is a condition which is far ...
— The Spinster Book • Myrtle Reed
... of explaining ultimate principles should be esteemed a defect in the science of man, I will venture to affirm, that it is a defect common to it with all the sciences, and all the arts, in which we can employ ourselves, whether they be such as are cultivated in the schools ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley
... One defect, however, does seem inherent in a purely classical education—namely, a too exclusive emphasis on the past. By the study of what is absolutely ended and can never be renewed, a habit of criticism towards the present and the future is engendered. The qualities in which the present excels are qualities ...
— Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays • Bertrand Russell
... flights before Lamb, the latter stopped him at once by jangling his metaphysics into jokes. It was in conversation with Coleridge, begun at school and continued afterward at frequent meetings, that Lamb first ventured to try his own powers and was prompted to literary activity. But for a slight defect in his speech, he would probably have followed Coleridge to the University with the intention of going into the Church. A delightful clergyman he would have been, if he had duly undertaken the office, and one would have walked ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... thing a young Lover is? Or is it so long since you were one your self, you have forgot it? 'Tis well he wanted Words. [Enter Euphemia and Lovis.] But yonder's Euphemia, whose Beauty is sufficient to excuse every Defect in the whole Family, tho each were a mortal sin; and now 'tis impossible to guard my self longer from those ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... and his army face to face with death. Her husband could no longer restrain himself from questioning her. Then she told him that his vizier, bribed by the enemy, had poisoned the food and water in order to destroy him and his army, and that his son had a constitutional defect which would have prevented him from living three days if she had not put him in the fire. The she-bear, who was no other than a trusty old nurse, brought back his daughter at her call; but the queen herself disappeared, ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... great defect in this beautiful city is the want of proper sewerage. In some of the principal streets the water is suffered to lie in open drains on each side of the street, ...
— A Journey in Russia in 1858 • Robert Heywood
... though they were old acquaintances. Unless when talking to his father, everything in his manner, tone, conversation was free, unfettered by convention, fresh, if at times startling. This was his great charm, and at the same time his great defect, for it revealed his want of qualities no ...
— The Ghost Girl • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... in which the Bush is rather inconspicuous. But Claude might well reply, that what he intended was not a history, nor a homily, but a picture; that the name was added for convenience' sake, as he might name his son, John, without meaning any comparisons with the Evangelist. It is no defect, but a merit, that it requires nothing else than ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... feet three inches tall, with regular features, lofty forehead, and piercing eyes,—blond and gigantic as a viking. It was difficult, indeed, for a man so superlatively handsome not to be vain, and the endeavour upon his part to conceal the defect was not in evidence. Although an unpopular and unruly schoolboy, who refused to go to college, he had received a good education, learning much from a scholarly father, a college-bred man, and an ornament to the United States District Court for more than ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... writers on the Hebrew worship and ritual tells us that it was the custom for the priest to whom the service pertained, having selected a lamb from the flock, to inspect it with the most minute scrutiny, in order to discover if it was without physical defect, and then to seal it with the temple seal, thus certifying that it was fit for sacrifice and for food. Behold the Lamb of God presenting himself for inspection at the Jordan! Under the Father's omniscient scrutiny ...
— The Ministry of the Spirit • A. J. Gordon
... rear of it. In such design the main surface (which is then the tail surface as well as the principal lifting surface) must be set at a less angle than the forward stabilizing surface, in order to secure a longitudinal dihedral. The defect of such design lies in the fact that the main surface must have a certain angle to lift the weight—say 5 deg.. Then, in order to secure a sufficiency of longitudinal stability, it is necessary to set the forward stabilizer at about 15 deg.. Such a large angle of incidence results in a very ...
— The Aeroplane Speaks - Fifth Edition • H. Barber |
