"Disadvantage" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... stimulating and elevating these people into the rank of substantial farmers, tended "to fill the country with an independent industrious yeomanry."[31] True as this was, it did not mean that producers on a plantation scale were at a disadvantage. Settlers of every type, in fact, adopted the crop as rapidly as they could get seed and ginning facilities, and newcomers poured in apace to ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... for a few scenes, I did not consider it necessary." Plainly, the chuckly Mr. Burns was taken at a disadvantage. ...
— Jean of the Lazy A • B. M. Bower
... boats advanced, a sharp fire of musketry was opened on them from the Pegu side. On this, Captain Tarleton, seeing the disadvantage under which they laboured from being beneath the enemy's fire, with no effectual means of returning it, landed with the boats' crews of HMS Fox, and was shortly after joined by Captain Neblett and the boats' crews ...
— Our Sailors - Gallant Deeds of the British Navy during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... for the voice of thunder in which Kenny, at a disadvantage, would be sure to disinherit his son and, waiting, glanced a trifle wryly at the littered studio. What Brian lost by chronic disinheritance lay ever before the eye, particularly now when Kenny, in one of his periods of insolvency, was posted downstairs ...
— Kenny • Leona Dalrymple
... cheerfully faced, for it does not destroy the chances for happiness and success. It is cause for neither discouragement nor despair. It will demand patient devotion and courageous effort to overcome the disadvantage, but what mother is not willing to show these in large measure for her child when the future holds assurance of comfort ...
— What the Mother of a Deaf Child Ought to Know • John Dutton Wright
... one disadvantage that I see in your having him as an intimate friend," said Uncle Brunton, "and that is, he is now very differently situated in position to you as regards wealth, and you might find him a companion more liable to lead you into expense than any ...
— Life in London • Edwin Hodder
... our mother tongue presents equal difficulties to Italian manufacturers and men of affairs. The so- called mineral water we use at table is specially still and dead, and we think it may have been compared to its disadvantage with other more sparkling beverages, since every bottle bears a printed label announcing, "To Distrust of the mineral waters too foaming, since that they do invariable ...
— Penelope's Postscripts • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... hours," he murmured. He picked up his hat and withdrew, via the general office. Half an hour later, Bryce looked out and saw him draped over the counter, engaged in animated conversation with Moira McTavish. Before Ogilvy left, he had managed to impress Moira with a sense of the disadvantage under which he laboured through being forced, because of circumstances Mr. Cardigan would doubtless relate to her in due course, to abandon all hope of seeing her at the office—at least for some time to come. Then he spoke feelingly of the unmitigated horror of being a stranger in a strange ...
— The Valley of the Giants • Peter B. Kyne
... change, when preserved in wooden casks. No water carried to sea becomes putrid sooner than that of the Thames. But the mode now adopted in the navy of substituting iron tanks for wooden casks, tends greatly to obviate this disadvantage. ...
— A Treatise on Adulterations of Food, and Culinary Poisons • Fredrick Accum
... at which the boat may arrive at the different places above mentioned may vary an hour, more or less, according to the advantage or disadvantage of wind and tide, those who wish to come on board will see the necessity of being on the spot an hour before the time. Persons wishing to come on board from any other landing than these here specified can ...
— The Hudson - Three Centuries of History, Romance and Invention • Wallace Bruce
... i.e., for every once the shed is opened, there is naturally not this tendency, but this alleged diagonally woven cloth frays just as easily as any other piece of cloth without selvedge, so in either case there is not only no advantage but distinct disadvantage taking the diagonal "beaming" into consideration. We must give the Egyptians credit for using the least laborious of two methods, that is if the second one were known ...
— Ancient Egyptian and Greek Looms • H. Ling Roth
... General Smuts and his burghers had left it. At first I was rather in the dark as to what it all meant until we discovered that the British had won Smuts' position, and from it were firing upon us. We fell down flat behind the nearest "klips" and returned the fire, but were at a disadvantage, since the British were above us. I never heard where General Smuts and his burghers finally got to. On our left we had Commandant Kemp with the Krugersdorpers; on the right Field-Cornet Koen Brits. The British tried alternately to get through ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... the method is that some varieties which cannot be propagated in any other way readily grow under artificial heat from single-eyes. Well-grown vines so propagated are as good as those grown by any other method, but the great disadvantage is that unless much care and skill are used, vines from these cuttings are poor and quite worthless. It is also a more expensive method than growing from long ...
— Manual of American Grape-Growing • U. P. Hedrick
... than by drawing his sword, bracing his shield, and preparing for defence. Magued, though an apostate, and a fierce warrior, possessed some sparks of knightly magnanimity. Seeing his adversary dismounted, he disdained to take him at a disadvantage, but alighting, tied his horse to ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, June 1844 - Volume 23, Number 6 • Various
... an aunt who, never married," warned La Hontan. "She was an excellent woman, but she turned like fruit withered in the ripening. The fantastic airs of her girlhood clung to her. She was at a disadvantage among the married, and young people passed her by as an experiment that had failed. So she was driven to be very religious; but prayers are cold comfort for the want ...
— The Chase Of Saint-Castin And Other Stories Of The French In The New World • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... copper. The finishing touch was given to the structure by piling several big boulders over the upper row of shingles along the ridge pole, for greater stability and to prevent boisterous Boreas from playing any of his rude tricks to its disadvantage. ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... was dependent upon Tyope and upon the chief of the Delight Makers, because both belonged to his clan. He very soon began to display an utter flexibility to the desires of the two last-mentioned individuals, to the disadvantage of those who did not ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... as a rule accompanied by a small detachment of regulars and to this fact may be attributed their comparative small loss of life. While they lost but few of their number, still they were compelled to work at great disadvantage and frequently brought to a full stop by the presence of war parties in numbers too great ...
— The Story of the First Trans-Continental Railroad - Its Projectors, Construction and History • W. F. Bailey
... feelings of revulsion having been mastered, I determined to make the most of my opportunities, as I have always felt that the naval officer is at a great disadvantage in war as compared with his military brother, in that he but rarely has a chance of accustoming himself to the unpleasant spectacle ...
— The Diary of a U-boat Commander • Anon
... "Primitive Eucharist" was to be distributed with all the ancient forms of celebrating the sacrifice of the altar, which he says, "are so noble, so just, sublime, and perfectly harmonious, that the change has been made to an unspeakable disadvantage." It was restoring the decorations and the mummery of the mass! He assumed even a higher tone, and dispersed medals, like those of Louis XIV., with the device of a sun near the meridian, and a motto, ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... Andrews jumped off, clasped our hands in ecstasy, congratulating us that our difficulties were now all over; that we had the enemy at such a disadvantage that he could not harm us, and exhibited every sign of joy. Said he, "Only one more train to pass, and then we will put our engine to full speed, burn the bridges after us, dash through Chattanooga, and on to Mitchel at Huntsville." The ...
— Daring and Suffering: - A History of the Great Railroad Adventure • William Pittenger
... any rate, I feel just as great a call to be there as Tom's father can feel—just as pressing a demand and desire. There may have been foul play. At any rate, the thing was done by an active agency, and Tom was taken in some way at a disadvantage. There was no fair fight, I'll swear. He was evidently kneeling, calmly enough looking out of the window, when he died, and the blow must have been a coward's blow, struck from ...
— The Grey Room • Eden Phillpotts
... world, incapable of being prepared for all its contingencies, I only ask myself: Canst thou also will that thy maxim should be a universal law? If not, then it must be rejected, and that not because of a disadvantage accruing from it to myself or even to others, but because it cannot enter as a principle into a possible universal legislation, and reason extorts from me immediate respect for such legislation. I do not indeed as yet discern on what this respect ...
— Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals • Immanuel Kant
... upon me, and he smiled, and said, 'If I did not fear to distress thee too much, {19b} I would shew thee that which thou seekest.' Upon this I became anxious and sorrowful; and when the man perceived it, he said, 'If thou wouldst rather that I should shew thee thy disadvantage, than thine advantage, I will do so. Sleep here to-night, and in the morning, arise early, and take the road upwards through the valley, until thou reachest the wood, through which thou camest hither. ...
— The Mabinogion Vol. 1 (of 3) • Owen M. Edwards
... Scotch peasants and artizans have been improved within the last thirty or forty years, since the exceptions have become more and more common?—Was it by want of strict morals that the Puritans were distinguished to their disadvantage from the rest of Englishmen during the reigns of Elizabeth, James I. Charles I. and II.? And that very period, which the Barrister affirms to have been distinguished by the moral vigor of the great mass of Britons,—was it not likewise the period when ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... source of inequality as between trade and trade. Its fundamental effect is to transfer capital and labour from the objects on which they can be most profitably employed in a given locality, to objects on which they are less profitably employed, by endowing certain industries to the disadvantage of the general consumer. Here, again, the Liberal movement is at once an attack on an obstruction and on an inequality. In most countries the attack has succeeded in breaking down local tariffs and establishing relatively large Free Trade units. It is only in England, ...
— Liberalism • L. T. Hobhouse
... a harmonious means to the realization of our purpose is desirable or advantageous, and whatever either partially contradicts or wholly destroys it is disadvantageous. Advantage and disadvantage being, then, only relative terms, dependent upon the aim or purpose which we happen to have in view, a habit which may be advantageous to one man under certain circumstances may be disadvantageous to another man, or even to the same man, under other circumstances. Education must, then, accustom ...
— Pedagogics as a System • Karl Rosenkranz
... which, although as yet applied only under circumstances of a peculiar character and generally rebuked with severity by the moral sense of the community, is yet so very licentious and, in a Government depending wholly on opinion, so very alarming that the impression made by it to our disadvantage as a people is anything but surprising. Under such circumstances it is imperatively due from us to the people whom we represent that when we go into the money market to contract a loan we should tender ...
— 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
... Lautrec; "'twas your Majesty yourself: I several times warned you that, if I were not helped with money, there was no means of retaining the men-at-arms, who had served for eighteen months without a penny, and likewise the Swiss, who forced me to fight at a disadvantage, which they would never have done if they had received their pay." "I sent you four hundred thousand crowns when you asked for them." "I received the letters in which your Majesty notified me of this money, but the money ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... for silver, or for gold, or for the sovereign authority, made as foolish requests as if they prayed that they might play or fight, or desired any other thing whose event is uncertain, and that might be likely to turn to their disadvantage. ...
— The Memorable Thoughts of Socrates • Xenophon
... boxer, strong, and agile, and where he struck the larger man he left his mark; but in the contracted floor space of the submarine he was at a disadvantage. But he fought on, striking, ducking, and dodging—striving not only for his own life, but that of the girl whom he loved, who, seated on the 'midship trimming tank, was watching the fight with pale face ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... life, there are no maxims of conduct, such as youth above all things craves for, in Coleridge's teaching. Apart from the intrinsic difficulties of the task to which he invites his disciples, it labours under a primary and essential disadvantage of postponing moral to intellectual liberation. Contrive somehow or other to attain to just ideas as to the capacities and limitations of the human consciousness, considered especially in relation to its two important and eternally distinct functions, the Reason and the Understanding: ...
— English Men of Letters: Coleridge • H. D. Traill
... no occasions when an international language would be naturally used when any variation from standard usage would not be a distinct disadvantage as tending to unintelligibility. In short, a neutral language consciously learned as a means of communication with strangers is not on an equal footing with, or exposed to the same influences as, a mother tongue used by people every day under ...
— International Language - Past, Present and Future: With Specimens of Esperanto and Grammar • Walter J. Clark
... accompanied us as far as the North Ikkerasak (the Esquimaux name for a strait) between Cape Mugford Island, in 58 deg. N. latitude, and the mountains of Kaumayok. Their being in company retarded our progress, but in the sequel proved no disadvantage. ...
— Journal of a Voyage from Okkak, on the Coast of Labrador, to Ungava Bay, Westward of Cape Chudleigh • Benjamin Kohlmeister and George Kmoch
... demanded to be pardoned for having neglected my advice, and misconstrued the motives of it. I had not less reason to intreat his forgiveness in my turn, for having weighed his character with so little detail, and so hastily decided to his disadvantage. ...
— Italian Letters, Vols. I and II • William Godwin
... moved towards the hall, Adrian gathered that rumour had reached a quarter where he had much at stake; but it did not occur to him that this would be to his disadvantage. Byng was a man of the world. Besides, he had his own reasons for feeling no particular fear where Byng was concerned. His glance ran from Byng's face to that of Jasmine; but, though her eyes met his, there ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... laboring under the disadvantage of a reputation for disloyalty during the war, and kept out of power for most of the time during the period, were forced into a defensive position where they could complain or criticize, but not present a program of constructive achievement. ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... of disappointment, and, dropping the bloodhound, rushed forward, knife in hand, to attack Cibolo. At the same moment the hound sprang forward, and the two dogs became engaged in a desperate conflict. This would have terminated to the disadvantage of the hound, but, in another moment, all four—mulatto, zambo, hound, and wolf—were assailing Cibolo both with knives and teeth. The latter, seeing himself thus overmatched, and having already received several bad cuts, ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... stand upon the foot-plates, through the kindness of engine-driving friends now far away, there was a difficulty in looking out ahead: the current of air was so tremendous, and particles of dust were driven so viciously into one's eyes. But advancing civilization has removed that disadvantage. A snug shelter is now provided for the driver: an iron partition arises before him, with two panes of glass through which to look out. The result is that he can maintain a far more effectual look-out; and that he is in great measure protected from wind and ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... as with his skin. The Orthodox live at peace with the Tatars. And the Tatars are superior to the Russians in this, also, that they all stick by each other; whereas a Russian, Hospodi pomilui! [Lord have mercy] thinks of himself alone, which is a disadvantage," said my humble philosopher. ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... inhospitable as was the desert, they might move round the army at the Atbara fort and so capture Berber after all. Once they were behind the Egyptians, these accursed ones were lost. The railway—that mysterious source of strength—could be cut. The host that drew its life along it must fight at a fearful disadvantage or perish miserably. Besides, he reminded Mahmud—not without reason—that they could count on help in ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... Greek school, so that the elder brother's education left him merely a Macedonian Slav, who could have become with equal facility a Serb or a Bulgar; the younger brother had the advantage of a Bulgarian school, but the disadvantage of having his Slav nationality narrowed down into that of Bulgaria. These two brothers should set an example, renounce the name of Serb and Bulgar, and call themselves simply Yugoslav. At Resan the Serbian authorities are certainly trying to smooth away these wretched divisions. No longer, ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... walnut-orchards consist of seedling trees grown from nuts of unknown parentage. The result is a great diversity in the types of trees and in the size and shape of the nuts, and this diversity is an obvious disadvantage to the industry. The cause lies in the enormous difficulties attached to grafting or budding of these trees, which make this method very expensive and to a ...
— Species and Varieties, Their Origin by Mutation • Hugo DeVries
... letter from the Libraries was received by the Publishers on the very day of their Council meeting. This may or may not have been accidental, but at any rate it put the Publishers at a disadvantage. The Council meetings of the Publishers' Association, being dominated by knights and other mandarins, are apt to be formal and majestic in character. You can't blurt out whatever comes into your head at a Council meeting of the Publishers' ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... continued to indite words of wisdom in the shades of Chappaqua. But they have chosen otherwise; and I am willing, for one, to leave my colored fellow-citizens to the unbiased exercise of their own judgment and instincts in deciding between them. The Democratic party labors under the disadvantage of antecedents not calculated to promote a rapid growth of confidence; and it is no matter of surprise that the vote of the emancipated class is likely to be largely against it. But if, as will doubtless be the case, that vote shall be ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... we are obliged to use tubes of glass, porcelain, or copper, instead of gun-barrels; but glass has the disadvantage of being easily melted and flattened, if the heat be in the smallest degree raised too high; and porcelain is mostly full of small minute pores, through which the gas escapes, especially when compressed by a column of water. For these ...
— Elements of Chemistry, - In a New Systematic Order, Containing all the Modern Discoveries • Antoine Lavoisier
... that they had arrived too late to help Will o' th' Green by way of warning. The outlaw's foes were upon him, and seemingly had the robber and his band at a disadvantage. ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... time we had camped for supper and a lonely looking half starved individual put in his appearance with a saddle on his back. He asked me if he could get some supper with us and I told him to "lay to," and he then asked me if I knew him. I told him I knew him but it would not be to his disadvantage. ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... assuring herself with her own eyes, got blood on her white gloves, had to change them. As she descended she was putting on the fresh pair—a new pair. How vastly more than even the normal is a man's disadvantage in a "serious" interview with a woman if she is putting on new gloves! She is perfectly free to seem occupied or not, as suits her convenience; and she can, by wrestling with the gloves, interrupt him without speech, distract his attention, ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... detention at the camp of Ali, one of their chiefs, has contributed to confirm it. Park, however, so far from endeavouring to conciliate his captors, endeavoured, by his own confession, to appear as contemptible as possible in their eyes; and yet, with this disadvantage, the greater part of the miseries he endured proceeded from the climate and the irritation ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny
... opportunity to shape the battle which had begun without plan into a brilliant victory for Rome.' 5. signorum ( manipulorum) companies, i.e. with some 3500 men. 13. loco premebantur they (i.e. the phalanx) began to feel the disadvantage of position. —Rawlins. 16. in medio caesi cut down ...
— Helps to Latin Translation at Sight • Edmund Luce
... good-humor.. "You can't make me believe that 'All England' took to me suddenly of its own accord,—it is not so romantic, so poetry-loving, so independent, or so generous as THAT! How was my 'celebrity' first started? If my book,—which has all the disadvantage of being a poem instead of a novel,—has so suddenly leaped into high favor and renown, why, then, some leading critic or other must have thought that ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... Mary. 'I am afraid of its being too large. But certainly Hunter's Hall is a long way from the town, and that is a disadvantage.' ...
— Grandmother Dear - A Book for Boys and Girls • Mrs. Molesworth
... and striving in every way to gain for himself an education. Owing to the remote region where he lived and the constant moves that were made by his family, he had less than a year's schooling in the entire course of his life,—but his eagerness to learn counterbalanced this disadvantage and when he reached young manhood he knew as much as many who had been to the finest schools in the country from their earliest ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards
... be able to add that the late government of the State of Mexico had sufficient firmness to suppress this abominable festival of the Church, much to the pecuniary disadvantage of the saint and his priesthood. Indeed, there is now no public gambling, not even in the city of Mexico, except the lottery of the Academy of Fine Arts, and the lottery which is monthly drawn to promote the ...
— Mexico and its Religion • Robert A. Wilson
... Something else was perceptible which might perhaps have been dispensed with; to wit, the odour of a very savoury meal, a meal in which fried onions had no insignificant part. But before the visitor could comment to herself upon this disadvantage attaching to flats, ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... richly on the patio roof which the lightning illumined, and as we descended that stately stair, with its walls ramped and foliaged over with heraldic fauna and flora, I felt as never before the disadvantage of not ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... embarrassed manner as he approached me that he had something to say, or some proposition to make, without exactly knowing how best to set about it. It seemed to me that he had unexpectedly found himself in some way at a serious disadvantage, but was anxious above all things to prevent my discovering his predicament. Then he was civil, which I had learned to accept as an unerring indication that he wished to inveigle me into consciously or unconsciously rendering ...
— The Castaways • Harry Collingwood
... which I told thee. I turned and found her eyes fixed upon me. She blushed and looked down, and then again bent them toward me. I was heated and daring. We exchanged looks, and said—! Volumes could not repeat how much!—But surely neither of us said any thing to the other's disadvantage. ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... girl's love. I watched them with the keen and angry eyes of jealousy. I followed them in their walks; I played the eavesdropper, and caught up the words of their innocent conversation, endeavoring to turn them to their disadvantage. By degrees I came to hate Norman; and what equals in intensity a brother's hate? It surpasses the ...
— The Three Brides, Love in a Cottage, and Other Tales • Francis A. Durivage
... not improve afterwards, for he rubbed the hair off his face by constantly trying to get through either the seed or water hole, and every time he—for the sake of exercise—whisked round the cage, it was to the disadvantage of his tail, which daily grew more and more like that ...
— Quicksilver - The Boy With No Skid To His Wheel • George Manville Fenn
... evidence is afforded by parts or organs of an important and uniform nature occasionally varying so as to acquire, in some degree, the character of the same part or organ in an allied species. I have collected a long list of such cases; but {163} here, as before, I lie under a great disadvantage in not being able to give them. I can only repeat that such cases certainly do occur, and ...
— On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection • Charles Darwin
... and without loss of time he put it down in writing, in order to take the Duke's opinion upon it. There was one flaw, indeed, in the chain which he could not but see, and which he feared might be used by an enemy to the Duke's disadvantage. He could prove, that after Lady Laura had been carried away the Duke had no opportunity whatever of disclosing the plot until it was already discovered; but unfortunately, between the time of the meeting in Leadenhall-street and the period at which ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... threaten access to the West by the Great Lakes, and cut off all supplies by way of Detroit and Lake Huron for the Nor'westers. Was MacDonell scoring a point against the Nor'westers, when they were at a disadvantage? Who can answer? Selkirk had ordered him to expel the {389} Nor'westers from his lands, and if the violent contest had not begun in this way, it was bound to come in another. What MacDonell did was issue a proclamation in January of 1814, forbidding taking provisions from Selkirk's territory ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... aid from anyone. This, unfortunately, is not generally the case with inventors; indeed, many are often barely able to stand the expense incident to taking out the patent. Patentees laboring under this disadvantage are frequently tempted to part with a small interest in their patents for the sake of securing sufficient funds to carry on the promotion of their inventions and sale of the patent; and in doing this the inexperienced patentee is apt to make the fatal mistake of assigning to another ...
— Practical Pointers for Patentees • Franklin Cresee
... an example of Oblique Halving with the upper piece running through (Fig. 28, 4). This joint is used in similar positions to Fig. 31, and has in some cases the disadvantage of showing end grain at the top of the frame. The sketch shows the ...
— Woodwork Joints - How they are Set Out, How Made and Where Used. • William Fairham
... with the muscles in biting hard substances; indeed the exertion of these muscles is very powerful in common mastication, as appears from the pain we receive, if a bit of bone is unexpectedly found amongst our softer food; and further appears from their acting to so great mechanical disadvantage, particularly when we bite with the incisores, or canine teeth; which are first formed, and thence are ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... of their hides, and hastened away before the night should set in, lest some other encounter might overtake him of a similar character, when the disadvantage of darkness might decide the victory in a way more advantageous to the roamers of the forest. Of this feat Ben Wheaton never ceased to boast; reciting it as the most appalling passage of his hunting life. The animal had found him while ...
— A Sketch of the History of Oneonta • Dudley M. Campbell
... those men who desire to know my own private opinion on every particular subject have more curiosity than is necessary. For the force of reason in disputation is to be sought after rather than authority, since the authority of the teacher is often a disadvantage to those who are willing to learn; as they refuse to use their own judgment, and rely implicitly on him whom they make choice of for a preceptor. Nor could I ever approve this custom of the Pythagoreans, ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... water, and not to be swept away, I was able to realize instantly what had occurred. I had been mistaken; Kirby had not fled down the river; instead he had craftily waited this chance to attack us at a disadvantage. Convinced that we would decide to make use of the rowboat, which he had left uninjured for that very purpose, and that we would venture forth just so soon as the night became dark enough, he had hidden the stolen craft in some covert along shore, to await our coming. Then he sprang on us, as the ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish
... clusters over the high wall. The prospect was very different from that which extended before Dr Rider's window. Instinctively he marvelled within himself whether, if Dr Marjoribanks were to die—people cannot live for ever even in Carlingford—whether it might not be a disadvantage to a man to live so far out of the world. No doubt it was a temptation of the Evil One. Happily the young man did not take sufficient time to answer himself, but walked forward briskly through the mazy old passages of the old inn, to a room from which sundry noises issued. Dr Rider walked ...
— The Doctor's Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... itself perfectly suitable to the circumstances of the country. The superiority of one country over another in a branch of production often arises only from having begun it sooner. There may be no inherent advantage on one part, or disadvantage on the other, but only a present superiority of acquired skill and experience. A country which has this skill and experience yet to acquire may, in other respects, be better adapted to the production than ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... that it would be a disadvantage to go as a soldier," Dick said, after a pause; "but what disguise would you ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty
... that number among our present party, as, with the exception of our three selves and Bremen and Swanevelt, I do not believe that there is one man here who would face a lion; so that when we do attack one, it will be at a disadvantage. ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat
... that the servant's report pronounced me to have been convalescent for several days past: and was asked why, under these circumstances, I had never even written. I was warned that my silence had been construed greatly to my disadvantage; and that if it continued longer, the writer would assert his daughter's cause loudly and publicly, not to my father only, but to all the world. The letter ended by according to me three days more of grace, before the ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... his ears. The coolies shrieked at him, Prior issued ultimatums at him, the Japanese servants stood on dry land fifteen feet away and talked about him, but he only snuggled deeper into his mud bath. When there is no more of a mule to hit than his ears, he has you at a great disadvantage, and when the coolies waded in and tugged at his head, we found that the harder they tugged, the deeper they sank. When they were so far out of sight that we were in danger of losing them too, we ordered them to give up the struggle and unload ...
— Notes of a War Correspondent • Richard Harding Davis
... that they would not reckon any small or temporary disadvantage, which might arise from the abolition, to be a sufficient reason against it. It was surely not any slight degree of expediency, nor any small balance of profit, nor any light shades of probability on the one side, rather than on the other, which ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson
... with prunes which render it palatable, confection of senna, syrup of senna, and the sweet essence of senna are generally very readily taken by children, but all have the disadvantage of being liable to gripe. The German liquorice powder, as it is called, which is composed of powdered senna, liquorice powder, fennel, and a little sulphur with white sugar, is freer from this drawback than any other preparation, and when mixed with a ...
— The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases • Charles West, M.D.
... way through all those years. It was a nauseous process. He quite understood that Charles Gould had got sick of it and had left the old path to back up that hopeless attempt at reform. The doctor did not believe in the reform of Costaguana. And now the mine was back again in its old path, with the disadvantage that henceforth it had to deal not only with the greed provoked by its wealth, but with the resentment awakened by the attempt to free itself from its bondage to moral corruption. That was the penalty of ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... her own child, whether if she ever dreamed of what might have been, she saw in her fancy a son more worthy than this. And, after all, he did not ask the boon for his own advantage. He had bravely struggled to give up Hilda rather than let her risk the smallest worldly disadvantage or reproach through him. He asked for this for Hilda's sake, not for his own, and would it not be a thousand times better that Hilda, and Hilda's children, should still be Sigmundskron than wear a name black with ill- shed blood? Since she was to have ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... and me at a disadvantage that we had no excuses of the kind for running away from the grammar school. Dr. Jessop was a little pompous, but he was sometimes positively kind. There was not even a cruel usher. I was no dunce, nor was Fred-though he was below me in class—so that we had not even a grievance in connection with ...
— A Great Emergency and Other Tales - A Great Emergency; A Very Ill-Tempered Family; Our Field; Madam Liberality • Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing
... having heard somewhat to her disadvantage," replied the King—"but your ain looks gang far to contradict the ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... asserting its prerogative under the most unlikely conditions. People had in Carl, could they have understood it, the spectacle, under those superficial braveries, of a really heroic effort of mind at a disadvantage. That rococo seventeenth-century French imitation of the true Renaissance, called out in Carl a boundless enthusiasm, as the Italian original had done two centuries before. He put into his reception of the aesthetic achievements ...
— Imaginary Portraits • Walter Pater
... Grady was at a disadvantage, and he knew it. Breathing hard, his face red, his little eyes darting about the room, he took it all in—the members of the committee; the boss, figuring at the table, with an air of exasperating coolness about his lean back; and last of all, James, standing in the shadow. It was the sight of ...
— Calumet 'K' • Samuel Merwin
... some person he dislikes, but the only way he can himself take part in the priming and pointing of a new one is by acting as its target. In brief, his personal contact with humor tends to fill him with an accumulated sense of disadvantage, of pricked complacency, of sudden and crushing defeat; and so, by an easy psychological process, he is led into the idea that the thing itself is incompatible with true dignity of character and intellect. Hence his deep suspicion of jokers, ...
— Damn! - A Book of Calumny • Henry Louis Mencken
... uncomfortable state of suspense in which the Gewandhaus public did you the honor to leave you. To tell the truth, this decrescendo of applause, at the third movement of your Symphony, surprises me greatly, and I would have wagered without hesitation that it would be the other way. A great disadvantage for this kind of composition is that, in our stupid musical customs, often very anti-musical, it is almost impossible to appeal to a badly informed public by a second performance immediately after the first; and at Leipzig, ...
— Letters of Franz Liszt, Volume 1, "From Paris to Rome: - Years of Travel as a Virtuoso" • Franz Liszt; Letters assembled by La Mara and translated
... Dwelling upon none with the eyes of intimacy, and passing swiftly from this to that, I find each but the harmless variant of a species; if I lingered or came too near, doubtless old apprehensions would oppress me still. It is a disadvantage of this outlook that the fascination of detail is lost, and that I have less sense for the personal in life. But if I grow old I shall regain the interest in particular things and persons with which age is ...
— Apologia Diffidentis • W. Compton Leith
... blow down the doors of the Chateau, and in the explosion three of Bellecour's servants—who had stood too near—were killed. Over the threshold they swarmed into the dark gulf of the great hall to the foot of the staircase. But here they were at a disadvantage. The light of the burning stables, shining through the open doorway, revealed them to the defenders, whilst they themselves looked up into the dark. There was a sudden cracking of pistols and a few louder reports from the guns, and the mob ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... merely to give us a momentary relief from our alarm, and we determined we would sift the matter to the bottom, and no more expose ourselves to be taken at such disadvantage. We went again to the poem, with our eyes open, and our moral sense as keenly awake as a genuine wish to understand our feelings could make it. We determined that we would really know what we did feel and what we did not. We would not be lightly scared away from ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... equal terms, I am afraid," said the young man with a laugh; "that is"—and he corrected himself—"I shall be altogether at a disadvantage. You know these people, and I don't. I am afraid, too, that many of them regard the land-owning class with disfavour; still I'll put up the best fight I'm able, and I am sure we shall have a jolly good time! I am glad ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... proudly happy; but a flame of embarrassment burned my cheeks, as she handed him the picture wherein I showed to such disadvantage, with the question, "Now, doesn't she look lovely?" and heard ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton
... anything but my own plight and of oceans of unexplained noise to right and left. I knew there were galloping horses, and men yelling; but knowledge that the Turkish military rifle I was using must be wrongly sighted, and that my enemy had no such disadvantage, ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... For neither could they retire to the rear, since their opponents were behind them, nor were they able to flee anywhere else in a hostile land. But as well as they could under the circumstances, they arrayed themselves for battle and tried to drive back their assailants; but being at a great disadvantage in numbers they were vanquished, and all of them together with Glones were destroyed. Now when the son of Glones learned of this, being deeply grieved and at the same time furious with anger because he had not been able ...
— History of the Wars, Books I and II (of 8) - The Persian War • Procopius
... King of England and his marshals had properly divided the fleet, they hoisted their sails to have the wind on their quarter, as the sun shone full in their faces, which they considered might be of disadvantage to them, and stretched out a little, so that at last they got the wind as they wished. The Normans, who saw them tack, could not help wondering why they did so, and said they took good care to turn about, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... you mean. A farmer may find use for every form there is in that book; and if he does not, it will be no disadvantage to him to ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... her not a whit, but continued to behave with the mingled kindness of a father and devotion of a servant. His respect and trustful sympathy showed, without word said, that he, if no other, believed nothing to her disadvantage, but was as much her humble friend as ever; and to the hitherto self-reliant damsel, the blessedness of human sympathy, embodied in the looks and tones of the hard-handed mechanic, brought such healing and such schooling ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... Alfonso, "that is part of labor's stock in trade. Some labor organizations argue that the 'end justifies the means.' Our men were probably kept advised of father's plans, and strikes often are timed so as to put capital at the greatest disadvantage, and force, if possible, a speedy surrender to labor's demands. 'Like begets like,' mother, so the college professor told us when he lectured on Darwin. It was Darwin, I think, who emphasized ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... Nugent, truthfully. The situation had developed so rapidly that it had caught him at a disadvantage. He had a dim feeling that, having been the cause of Miss Kybird's losing one young man, the most elementary notions of chivalry demanded that he should furnish her with another. And this idea was clearly uppermost in the minds of her parents. He ...
— At Sunwich Port, Complete • W.W. Jacobs
... sustains a loss of a cent for each degree it may be under proof ... and the disadvantages are increased in proportion to the extent of land carriage. If a distance of seventy miles, the price of carriage per gallon will be about six cents, paying the same price for weak or strong ... not only the disadvantage of paying for the carriage of feints or water, but the loss in the casks, which tho' small apparently at first view, yet if nicely attended to, will amount in the course of the year to a sum of ...
— The Practical Distiller • Samuel McHarry
... reconcilement to my Lord." It was an awkward thing for one who had been so intimate with Essex to be so deep in the counsels of those who hated him. He complains that many people thought him ungrateful and disloyal to his friend, and that stories circulated to his disadvantage, as if he were poisoning the Queen's ear against Essex. But he might argue fairly enough that, wilful and wrong-headed as Essex had been, it was the best that he could now do for him; and as long as it was only a question of Essex's disgrace and enforced ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... the portfolio of the Finance Minister in the new Cabinet, he arranged for borrowing a small instead of a large amount, thereby exposing his country to risks more serious than the public realized. For it was a heavy disadvantage on the eve of the most exhausting struggle ever entered upon by the French people, whose strongest position was weakened as no ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... second, for no less than twenty-three years Ben Jonson allowed the verses to appear as Raleigh's without protest; in the third, where they differ from the earlier version it is always to their poetical disadvantage. They were found, as the editor of 1641 says, amongst Jonson's papers, and I would suggest, as a new hypothesis, that the less polished draft in the Underwoods is entirely Raleigh's, having been copied by ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... please, child, don't promise me anything. How can a promise you might make at the present time be of any value to me? The disadvantage of it would be entirely yours. You see, my child, the most loving father could not speak more lovingly to you than I. Thank a kind providence for not having been delivered into some other artist's hands by your indiscretion. ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various |
