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More "Imperfect" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... system of operation. Individual effort was pronounced, but it lacked method. The Germans have, however, profited from the lessons taught by their antagonists, and now are emulating their tactics, but owing to their imperfect training and knowledge the results they ...
— Aeroplanes and Dirigibles of War • Frederick A. Talbot
... should, if possible, be freshly picked for preserving, canning, and jelly making. No imperfect fruit should be canned or preserved. Gnarly fruit may be used for jellies or marmalades by cutting out defective portions. Bruised spots should be cut out of peaches and pears. In selecting small-seeded fruits, like berries, for canning, those ...
— Canned Fruit, Preserves, and Jellies: Household Methods of Preparation - U.S. Department of Agriculture Farmers' Bulletin No. 203 • Maria Parloa
... at this important crisis in our affairs, be inopportune, and, if properly executed, can hardly fail to be of real service. Such a work is now attempted—would it were by another and abler hand—which, imperfect as it is, may at least offer some useful suggestions, give a right direction to political thought, although it should fail to satisfy the mind of ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson
... way in silence to a point of the eminence, without the buildings, where the eye might overlook the palisadoes that hedged the sides of the acclivity, and command a view beyond of all that the dusky and imperfect light would reveal. ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... predecessors, whose productions, on religious themes especially, striking as many of them are, with situations and motives of the deepest effect, are not sustained at the same impressive elevation, nor disposed with that consummate judgment which leaves nothing imperfect or superfluous in the dramas of Calderon. 'The Constant Prince' and 'The Physician of his own Honour', which Mr. Mac-Carthy has translated, are noble instances representing two extremes of ...
— The Two Lovers of Heaven: Chrysanthus and Daria - A Drama of Early Christian Rome • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... first and a second stanza consistent with the metrical scheme of stanzas 3 and 4. The two stanzas thus recovered are printed here immediately below the poem as edited by Mrs. Shelley. It need hardly be added that Mr. Locock's restored version cannot, any more than Mrs. Shelley's obviously imperfect one, be regarded in the light ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... of Catherine's possibilities and of Mrs. Penniman's ministrations. He, nevertheless, at the end of six months, accepted his sister's permanent presence as an accomplished fact, and as Catherine grew older perceived that there were in effect good reasons why she should have a companion of her own imperfect sex. He was extremely polite to Lavinia, scrupulously, formally polite; and she had never seen him in anger but once in her life, when he lost his temper in a theological discussion with her late husband. With her he never discussed theology, nor, indeed, discussed ...
— Washington Square • Henry James
... nature, being Himself most perfect, wished to show in the imperfection of the material the way to add and to take away; in the same manner wherein the good sculptors and painters are wont to work, who, adding and taking away in their models, bring their imperfect sketches to that final perfection which they desire. He gave to man that most vivid colour of flesh, whence afterwards there were drawn for painting, from the mines of the earth, the colours themselves for the counterfeiting of all those things that are required for pictures. It is true, indeed, ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Volume 1, Cimabue to Agnolo Gaddi • Giorgio Vasari
... that this obviously imperfect system was disfigured by many abuses. On the whole, it worked passably well, and if its organic faults helped to discredit it, there is no denying that it saved the Japanese from complications which would inevitably have arisen ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... with rights of succession. Under the Empire the taxes had been lower, but they had been unfairly distributed and had fallen chiefly upon the poor, the nobility being exempt from the greater part of them. The collection was imperfect, much was embezzled or poorly applied; relatively little came into the imperial treasury. The Prussians, on the contrary, divided the country into small districts, appraised every acre of land, and in a few years abolished almost all exemptions. The ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... called upon by the President of the United States to do. It was a herculean task; practically impossible with any large degree of efficiency in view of the almost insurmountable obstacles to be contended with. But step by step the imperfect machinery was set up, and it began to function in the home camps. Then the overseas work was introduced by the first troops going to France, and ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok
... he is but as a babe in swaddling clothes.—Listen to me, Morton. I will speak to thee in the worldly language of that carnal reason, which is, for the present, thy blind and imperfect guide. What is the object for which thou art content to draw thy sword? Is it not that the church and state should be reformed by the free voice of a free parliament, with such laws as shall hereafter prevent the executive government from spilling the blood, torturing ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... creatures I had seen, but not all in the same fashion of garb, nor all with wings. There were also the effigies of various animals and birds, wholly strange to me, with backgrounds depicting landscapes or buildings. So far as my imperfect knowledge of the pictorial art would allow me to form an opinion, these paintings seemed very accurate in design and very rich in colouring, showing a perfect knowledge of perspective, but their details not arranged according to the rules ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... impression from geography lessons: Mediterranean not more than three inches wide, on the map; Switzerland only a few more inches away. These sizable masses of salt are described in the Amer. Jour. Sci., 3-3-239, as "essentially imperfect cubic crystals of common salt." As to occurrence with hail—that can in one, or ten, or twenty, instances be ...
— The Book of the Damned • Charles Fort
... more unwise would it be if numerous other observations had evinced traces of skill and goodness in the fish's structure. The true and the safe conclusion would be to suspend an opinion which could only be unsatisfactorily formed upon imperfect data; and to rest in the humble hope and belief that one day all would appear for ...
— The Fallen Star; and, A Dissertation on the Origin of Evil • E. L. Bulwer; and, Lord Brougham
... what, between him and us, are his bare dues, we may be selfish, mean, sordid to excess, without infringing any one else's rights, without the smallest dereliction of our duty to others. True, ethical writers are in the habit of speaking of 'duties of perfect and imperfect obligation,' but of these 'ill-chosen expressions,' as Mr. Mill,[14] with abundant reason, styles them, the latter, more particularly, is of a slovenliness which ought to have prevented its being used by any 'philosophic jurists.' What some of these mean ...
— Old-Fashioned Ethics and Common-Sense Metaphysics - With Some of Their Applications • William Thomas Thornton
... card—I had but one—and he no sooner saw the name than he was in a rapture. I am rather glad that you have got the next door, as the locality is highly respectable. Tell Hen that I copied the Runic stone on the Castle Hill, Edinburgh. It was brought from Denmark in the old time. The inscription is imperfect, but I can read enough of it to see that it was erected by a man to his father and mother. I again write the direction for your next: George Borrow, Esq., Post Office, Tobermory, Isle of Mull, Scotland. God bless you ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... freedmen: for this is certainly true, that all those are not citizens who are necessary to the existence of a city, as boys are not citizens in the same manner that men are, for those are perfectly so, the others under some conditions; for they are citizens, though imperfect ones: for in former times among some people the mechanics were either slaves or foreigners, for which reason many of them are so now: and indeed the best regulated states will not permit a mechanic to be a citizen; but if it be allowed them, we cannot then attribute the virtue ...
— Politics - A Treatise on Government • Aristotle
... wanton, nor indeed would any woman indulge for its own sake in such folly with a stranger who hung between life and death. What she had done was done because irresistible impulse, born of knowledge, or at least of memories, drove her on, though mayhap the knowledge was imperfect and the memories were undefined. Who save Ayesha could have known anything of Leo in the past? None who lived upon ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... human were in head and heart. It was a grand, high-thoughted, pure-lived, unique course that was run in those sequestered vales. The closer one gets to the man, the greater he proves, the truer, the simpler; and it is a benediction to the race, amid so many fragmentary and jagged and imperfect lives, to have one so rounded and completed, so august ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... whose microscopic eye was changed for one similar to that of man; and you are wholly unable to associate what you now see with your former knowledge. But those beings who are before you, and who appear to you almost as imperfect in their functions as the zoophytes of the Polar Sea, to which they are not unlike in their apparent organisation to your eyes, have a sphere of sensibility and intellectual enjoyment far superior to that of the inhabitants of your earth. Each of those tubes which appears ...
— Consolations in Travel - or, the Last Days of a Philosopher • Humphrey Davy
... vineyards of Los Angeles. In the vicinity of Provo an attempt has been made to cultivate the tea-plant; and on the Santa Clara several hundred acres have been devoted to the culture of cotton, but with imperfect success. Flax, however, is raised in considerable quantity. The fields are rarely fenced with rails, and almost never with stones. The dirt-walls by which they are usually surrounded are built by driving four posts into the ground, which support a case, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, No. 19, May, 1859 • Various
... him the ruthless, the daring, the ambitious—so nigh greatness, yet debarred from it; so near to wealth, yet excluded from possessing it; a political Tantalus, ready to do or dare anything to terminate his necessities and assert his imperfect claims." ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... for the same purpose into lower worlds, and we call that part a personality, because the Latin word persona means a mask, and this personality is the mask which the ego puts upon himself when he manifests in worlds lower than his own. Just as the ego is a small part and an imperfect expression of the Monad, so is the personality a small part and an imperfect expression of the ego; so that what we usually think of as the man is only in truth a fragment ...
— A Textbook of Theosophy • C.W. Leadbeater
... mythology, I have really been discussing questions of more general interest which concern the gradual evolution of human thought from savagery to civilization. The enquiry is beset with difficulties of many kinds, for the record of man's mental development is even more imperfect than the record of his physical development, and it is harder to read, not only by reason of the incomparably more subtle and complex nature of the subject, but because the reader's eyes are apt to be dimmed by thick mists of passion and prejudice, which cloud in a ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... Gibbon informs us that "he seldom trampled on a prostrate enemy, and he seems to promise, that on the payment of a tribute, the least guilty of his unbelieving subjects might be indulged in their worship, or at least in their imperfect faith" (Vol. V, p. 129), and this, of course, would be the natural tendency of his followers. The Armenian and the Greek churches survived, and still exist in that portion of the world, but they have indeed been greviously tormented. "The proud Moslem, glorying in his prophet and religion, ...
— The Revelation Explained • F. Smith
... tight-fitting garments of black cloth, upon which was daubed in white paint the figure of a skeleton; and each of their faces had been blacked, and then drawn over with the representation of a skull. Seen by an imperfect light, they exactly ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... as the authors the imperfections of the work, but when one considered that it had to be gathered piecemeal from old letters, personal recollections, imperfect newspaper reports, mere scraps of material which never had been put into shape as to time and place, the result was remarkable. They were indeed correct in their assertion that no one but the actual participants ever could have described the early ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... in Dublin and Cork. But why are those so neglected and imperfect? and why are not similar or better institutions in Belfast, Derry, Galway, Waterford, and Kilkenny? Why is there not a decent collection of casts anywhere but in Cork, and why are they in a garret there? And why have we no gallery of Irishmen's, or any other men's, ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... disappointed too. At any rate, many complaints of smashed dishes, imperfect wiping, and inadequate sweeping of corners reached Miss Bowes, who urged patience, harangued the culprit, and shook her head, half laughing and half sighing, over the domestic catastrophes. Though strictly confined to the kitchen regions, the orphan took ...
— For the Sake of the School • Angela Brazil
... torrents of eloquence on the Sabbath, and felt the force of a nature exceptionally rich and strong in its conception of religious truths and human needs, only to find him on the morrow floundering hopelessly in the mire of rudimentary science, or getting, by repeated perusals, but an imperfect idea of some author's words, which it seemed to her he ought to have ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... for you all the sentiments you can desire. What has been done must merit, it seems to me, the approbation of the impartial public and of posterity. But what remains to be done is too great and too worthy of you for you to give up the task of contributing and to leave imperfect a work which cannot fail to make you forever dear to your country. I am, therefore, persuaded that you will continue your attention to an object so important. In this case, I look upon success as certain and I already share, in advance, the glory and satisfaction ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... me up in front of her, and before I could put a question we were pacing briskly down the hill. At the bottom we struck into a cross-road leading to Uncle Carter's plantation. Cousin Molly Belle was laughing too heartily to speak distinctly, and I joined in with all my heart, with a very imperfect appreciation of the extent of the practical joke. Mr. Frank Morton would not have to walk home. He had only to go to his brother's house when he missed Snap and borrow a horse, and Snap would be sent back safely to ...
— When Grandmamma Was New - The Story of a Virginia Childhood • Marion Harland
... Osmanli government by the jealousy of the European states, and the establishment of a Greek empire at Constantinople: the former, the only expedient which can be adopted for the moment, but in its nature temporary, imperfect, and liable to intrigue: the latter, natural, secure, and lasting. It is to this event that all the rational hopes of European politicians should be finally directed. Yet, while the Turk retains possession we must adhere to him; ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... matters, it is the intensity of the inner impulse towards what is high and true which differentiates. The more we live by that, the less are we inclined to argue and dispute about it. The base, the impure desire is only the imperfect desire; if it is gratified, it reveals its imperfections, and the soul knows that not there can it stay; but it must have faced and tested everything. If the soul, out of timidity and conventionality, says 'No' to its eager impulses, it ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... further add that the obligations I refer to are imperfect obligations in the sense that no sanctions are provided for against any party which shall have failed loyally and effectively to co-operate in protecting the Covenant and resisting every act of aggression. It should, however, be emphasised ...
— The Geneva Protocol • David Hunter Miller
... imperfect notice of one of the most remarkable of our early writers, we cannot but echo the regret expressed by one of his biographers, that "What ought most to be lamented is, that we are able to say so very little of one in his own time so famous, ...
— The Ship of Fools, Volume 1 • Sebastian Brandt
... and allowing for some notable exceptions, Sydney Smith seems to have had only an imperfect sympathy. He held that they could not be trusted to deal fairly and reasonably with men, subject to their jurisdiction, who dared to maintain independence in thought ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... I turned my back on the home of my childhood, and gayly started off to seek my fortune in the world, with no other foundation to build upon than a slender frame, an imperfect education, a vivid imagination, ever picturing charming castles in the air, and a goodly share of quiet energy and perseverance, modified by an excess of diffidence, which to this day I have never been ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper
... that a landscape is imperfect without figures; and as that is the case in a picture, it is most probably so in a magazine article; and the reader might complain if I were to neglect giving some slight outlines of the figures ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, February 1844 - Volume 23, Number 2 • Various
... girl there is pledged to mate only with the very pick of physical masculine perfection. Their pledge is to build up a new, god-like race on earth, which ultimately will dominate, crush out, survive, and replace all humanity which has become degenerate. Nothing mentally or physically or politically imperfect is permitted inside that wire fence. My eye-glasses bar me out; your shanks exclude you—also your politics, because you're ...
— The Gay Rebellion • Robert W. Chambers
... man is always awkward and miserable when placed between two women to whom he is making love. But Rousseau had never seen Mr. Churchill, and had but an imperfect idea of the dexterity, the ambiguity, that in our days can be successfully practised by an accomplished male coquette. Absolutely to blind female jealousy may be beyond his utmost skill; but it is easy, as every day's practice shows, to keep female vanity pleasantly perplexed by ocular ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... sent alone To drift upon the moonless sea; A lute whose leading chord is gone; A wounded bird that hath but one Imperfect wing to soar upon, Are like me Oh loved one, ...
— The Gentleman from Everywhere • James Henry Foss
... speed under steam alone, at sea, was 8.6, and under sail alone, 10.1 knots; her mean performance under steam and sail, 8.226; and considering the imperfect form of boiler employed, and the small amount of fuel consumed, it may be doubted if this has since been much excelled. She worked and steered well under canvas or steam alone, or under both combined; was dry and weatherly, but pitched heavily, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... disclose the secret of their distance. We are able to give some answer to the question—How far are the stars? though it must be confessed that our reply up to the present moment is both hesitating and imperfect. Even the little knowledge which has been gained possesses interest and importance. As often happens in similar cases, the discovery of the distance of a star was made independently about the same time by two or three astronomers. The ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... god.[1228] In these cases it retains to a great extent its character as an object of nature. So the Greek Selen[e] and the Roman Luna, standing alongside of the lunar gods proper, probably indicate an early imperfect ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... a sort of endless band of bottles sliding along an inclined glass trough made slippery with running water. At one end a girl held them up to the light, put aside any that were imperfect and placed the others in the trough; the filling was automatic; at the other end a girl slipped in the cork and drove it home with a little mallet. Each tank, the little one for the vivifying ingredients and the big one for distilled water, had a level indicator, and inside I had a float arrangement ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... idolatry. They thus demonstrated their own apostacy; and the fact that their system of gods was a counterfeit, a mythical system. They were destitute of any standard of right and wrong, having no conceptions of the divine character which were not drawn from their own imperfect and corrupt lives. The divine character, as revealed in the revelation of Christ, and presented to us as God manifest in the flesh, is at once the very opposite of the characters given in the myths. The distance between the two is the distance between ...
— The Christian Foundation, April, 1880
... divide that attention which is ever insufficient when thou art the object. O, my Aaron, how impatient I am to welcome thy return; to anticipate thy will, and receive thy loved commands. The clock strikes eleven. No stage. My letter must go. I have been three hours writing, or attempting to write, this imperfect scrawl. The children desire me to speak their affection. Mamma will not be forgot; she ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... this deep pessimism at its darkest. The imperfect, that is everywhere. That is all that you can see or work at. That is the warp and woof of all your occupations and institutions, your politics, your science, your religion. They are all nearly as ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... intelligent vocal teacher there is something peculiarly fascinating about the study of tone-production. In listening to any faulty singer we feel with the utmost precision what is wrong with the voice. Each imperfect tone informs us clearly and definitely just where the wrong muscular contraction is located. It seems so easy to tell the singer what to do in order to bring the tone out perfectly. Under the influence of the mechanical idea we try ...
— The Psychology of Singing - A Rational Method of Voice Culture Based on a Scientific Analysis of All Systems, Ancient and Modern • David C. Taylor
... Metropolitan Agency of the Farmers and Ranchers' Insurance Company. Moreover, the Italian barber who rented the quondam back parlor was given to practicing on the mandolin; and when Abe, Morris and J. Blaustein entered the Metropolitan Agency a very imperfect rendition of Santa Lucia came through the partition and made conversation difficult ...
— Potash & Perlmutter - Their Copartnership Ventures and Adventures • Montague Glass
... the long letter which I wrote about laying out grounds, in which the expression must have been left imperfect. I like splendid mansions in their proper places, and have no objection to large or even obtrusive houses in themselves. My dislike is to that system of gardening which, because a house happens to be large or splendid, and stands ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... any added love for humanity, not one. On the other hand, in papers and periodicals, even in books, are great multitudes of verses, unexceptionable in sentiment and helpful in influence, which bear so little of the true poetic afflatus, are so careless in construction or so faulty in diction, so imperfect in rhyme or rhythm, so much mingled with colloquialisms or so hopelessly commonplace in thought, as to be unworthy of a permanent place in a book like this. They would not bear reading many times. They ...
— Poems with Power to Strengthen the Soul • Various
... present state of disrepute. Astrology is too vast, both mathematically {FN16-1} and philosophically, to be rightly grasped except by men of profound understanding. If ignoramuses misread the heavens, and see there a scrawl instead of a script, that is to be expected in this imperfect world. One should not dismiss ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... But according to Bayle he was an indefatigable book-collector, and notable for having set the fashion of buying books in the first edition. Most people thought, said D'Israeli, that the first edition was only an imperfect essay, 'which the author proposes to finish after trying the sentiments of the literary world.' Bayle was on the side of Ancillon. There are cases, as he remarked, in which the second edition has never appeared; and at any rate the ...
— The Great Book-Collectors • Charles Isaac Elton and Mary Augusta Elton
... Does any decent ordinary man or woman agree with it? Ask the man in the street. Turn the pages of our literature. Refer to Chaucer or Spenser, to Shakespeare or Milton, refer to Fielding or Burns or Scott or Tennyson. Some of these men were very imperfect; but they all knew the difference between lust and love; and it is because they can tell us at least something of that which is precious, enduring, ethereal, and divine in love that we read their pages ...
— Birth Control • Halliday G. Sutherland
... only the most secret thoughts of the few men who directly brought it about, but also the prejudices and preconceptions of the public opinion in each nation. There is nobody who possesses these qualifications. But in the absence of such a historian these imperfect notes are set down in the hope that they may offer a counterpoise to some of the wilder passions that sweep over all peoples in time of war and threaten to prepare for Europe a future even worse than its ...
— The European Anarchy • G. Lowes Dickinson
... quite another type. At the time of the discovery of gold in California the northwestern portion of the state was almost unknown territory. For seven hundred miles, from Fort Ross to the mouth of the Columbia, there stretched a practically uncharted coast. A few headlands were designated on the imperfect map and a few streams were poorly sketched in, but the great domain had simply been approached from the sea and its characteristics were mostly a matter of conjecture. So far as is known, not a white man lived in all California ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... however, the majority of people are wholly oblivious to the fact that such psychic faculties exist, and even those who possess them, i.e., who have them in something like working efficiency, are conscious of having but an imperfect ...
— How to Read the Crystal - or, Crystal and Seer • Sepharial
... with the sake-stick of any living man; however, this morning Shinondi has brought me, as a very valuable present, the stick of a dead man! This morning the man who sold the arrows brought two new ones, to replace two which were imperfect. I found them, as Mr. Von Siebold had done, punctiliously honest in all their transactions. They wear very large earrings with hoops an inch and a half in diameter, a pair constituting the dowry of an Aino bride; but they would not ...
— Unbeaten Tracks in Japan • Isabella L. Bird
... discovery of printing or of the discovery of America by assembling the fresh triumphs of European art, so wonderful to us in their decay, with the still more novel productions of Portuguese India and Spanish America. But the length of sea—voyages prosecuted in small vessels with imperfect knowledge of winds and currents, and the difficulties of land-transportation when roads were almost unknown, would have restricted the display to meagre proportions, particularly had Vienna been the site selected. Few visitors could have attended from distant countries, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... artist's natural delight in a true and newly found method, partly from a still more respectably artistic desire not to do the work negligently. As for the unhealthiness of atmosphere which has been generally and not unjustly charged upon him, it is, in part, no doubt the result of imperfect temperament and breeding: but it is also as closely connected with his very method as are the merits thereof. You cannot "consider so curiously" without considering too curiously. The drawbacks of his work are obvious, and they were likely to be, and were, exaggerated. ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... upon, the peasant boy merely as her protege, her pet, her fine, intelligent dog! they believed Claudia secure in her pride and Ishmael absorbed in his studies. They were three-quarters right, which is as near the correct thing as you can expect imperfect human nature to approach; that is, they were wholly right as to Claudia and half right as to Ishmael. Claudia was secure in her pride; and half of Ishmael's soul—the mental half—was absorbed ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... is very imperfect:—but it pretends also to be very harmless; it can innocently instruct those who are more ignorant than itself! To which ingenuous class, according to their wants and tastes, let it, with all good wishes, and hopes to meet afterwards in fruitfuler ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle
... preliminary acquaintance with the range of variation exhibited by human structure in general—a subject which has been but imperfectly studied, while even of what is known, my limits will necessarily allow me to give only a very imperfect sketch. ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... its clearest point of view (as the similarity between the action of the smallpox and the cow-pox matter is so obvious) it will be necessary to consider what we sometimes observe to take place in inoculation for the smallpox when imperfect variolous matter is made use of. The concise history on this subject that was brought forward respecting what I had observed in this neighbourhood [Footnote: Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolae Vaccinae, p.56 of the original article]. I perceive, by a reference since made ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... in Geology; it is thus in Biology; it is thus in Philology. Here we find this characteristic repeated. Nicknaming, the inheritance of nicknames, and to some extent, the misinterpretation of nicknames, go on among us still; and were surnames absent, language imperfect, and knowledge as rudimentary as of old, it is tolerably manifest that results would arise like ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... revered martyr St. Vitus. We may, therefore, ascribe it to accident merely, and to a certain aversion to this demoniacal disease, which seemed to lie beyond the reach of human skill, that we meet with but few and imperfect notices of the St. Vitus' dance in the second half of the fifteenth century. The highly colored descriptions of the sixteenth century contradict the notion that this mental plague had in any degree diminished in its severity, and not a single fact is to be found which ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... relation to political society. It is unnecessary here to explain his system: his mind is too original to admit of comparison without injustice; yet the speculations of our own Coleridge, who on philosophical principles makes the state to be the realisation of the church, will perhaps give some imperfect conception of the character ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar
... can be secured by setting a full-length mirror into the panels of one of the doors—a fashion both pretty and convenient. Have a care that all mirrors are of plate glass, for the foreshortened, distorted image which looks back at one from an imperfect looking-glass has a depressing effect ...
— The Complete Home • Various
... was then new to me, and I had made but imperfect preparations, so that when we rounded the pier to the west, and met the short, snappish sea in the bay, every wave clashed over me, and in ten minutes I was wet to the skin, while a great deal of water entered the fore-compartment of the yawl through the hole for the ...
— The Voyage Alone in the Yawl "Rob Roy" • John MacGregor
... remarked, that his health and his physique are neither of them of a kind to aid him in the tremendous task which belongs to him by right of birth, it is easily explainable that his self-assertive ways and imperious manners should often be mistaken for posing and posturing. Moreover, his imperfect left arm—a misfortune which has been a source of great distress to him ever since his birth—is but another one of those physical troubles which his pride makes him anxious to conceal, this only adding to his stilted ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... distinguished by his prudence, his activity, and every other virtue, your favourite Cato has my highest approbation. I can likewise applaud his speeches, considering the time he lived in. They exhibit the out-lines of a great genius; but such, however, as are evidently rude and imperfect. In the same manner, when you represented his Antiquities as replete with all the graces of Oratory, and compared Cato with Philistus and Thucydides, did you really imagine, that you could persuade me and Brutus to believe you? or would you seriously degrade those, whom none of the Greeks themselves ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... in; so did Stubbs, with a good ear and voice, but an imperfect acquaintance with the music. Leon and the guitar were equal to the situation. The actor dispensed his throat-notes with prodigality and enthusiasm; and, as he looked up to heaven in his heroic way, tossing the black ringlets, it seemed to him that the very stars contributed a dumb applause ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 4 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... indulgences experienced at their hands. These same grateful acknowledgements are due to my fellow citizens generally, whose support has been my great encouragement under all embarrassments. In the transaction of their business I can not have escaped error. It is incident to our imperfect nature. But I may say with truth my errors have been of the understanding, not of intention, and that the advancement of their rights and interests has been the constant motive for every measure. On these considerations ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... virtuous woman, and that the whole honour of women consists in reputation; and since thy wife's is of that high excellence that thou knowest, wherefore shouldst thou seek to call that truth in question? Remember, my friend, that woman is an imperfect animal, and that impediments are not to be placed in her way to make her trip and fall, but that they should be removed, and her path left clear of all obstacles, so that without hindrance she may run her course freely to attain the desired perfection, which consists ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... dear eyes, and rare complete — Being heavenly-sweet and earthly-sweet — I marvel that God made you mine, For when he frowns, 'tis then ye shine."*3* Almost equally felicitous are these lines of 'Acknowledgment': "Somehow by thee, dear Love, I win content: Thy Perfect stops th' Imperfect's argument."*4* But the cleverest thing that Lanier has written of woman occurs in his 'Laus Mariae': "But thou within thyself, dear manifold heart, Dost bind all epochs in one dainty fact. Oh, Sweet, my pretty sum of history, I leapt the breadth of time ...
— Select Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... five sides, as tall as the arcade. It showed signs of extreme dilapidation by the eighteenth century, and the wags wrote squibs about the broken statues of the Virgin and bishops by Pol Mansellement (or Mosselmen, see Chap. X.), in elegiacs as imperfect as their subject. So the Duke of Montmorency-Luxemburg, the Governor of Rouen and Normandy in 1728, magnanimously offered for the restoration of the fountains all those three thousand livres which the echevins had presented to him in a purse of cloth of gold. ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... knows that, imperfect as he may be—downright sinful as he may often have been—he is not bad at bottom. At heart, he knows for certain he has capacities for improvement which would come at once into being if only they had the opportunity for development. And he knows that the other could make those opportunities—could ...
— The Heart of Nature - or, The Quest for Natural Beauty • Francis Younghusband
... exemplary punishment, according to the practice of ordinary justice, the resources of the penal code would all have been placed at the disposal of the political tribunals. But the weapon with which they are intrusted is an imperfect one, and it can never reach the most dangerous offenders, since men who aim at the entire subversion of the laws are not likely to murmur at ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... of the most remarkable and most difficult figures of the Maya manuscripts, and shows, at the same time, how imperfect must be the information we have received in regard to the Maya mythology, since from the frequency of his representations he is obviously one of the most important deities and yet can be identified with none of the ...
— Representation of Deities of the Maya Manuscripts • Paul Schellhas
... something of Campion's for a collection of the finest work. For an historical book of representative poetry the question would be easy enough, for there Campion should appear by his glorious lyric, Cherry Ripe, by one or two poems of profounder imagination (however imperfect), and by a madrigal written for the music (however the stanzas may flag in their quibbling). But the work of choosing among his lyrics for the sake of beauty shows too clearly the inequality, the brevity of the ...
— Flower of the Mind • Alice Meynell
... fall ill and die, kith or kin can seldom reach them. Again, as French is persistently spoken in the home, and German only learnt under protest at the primary school, the young annexe enters upon his enforced military service with an imperfect knowledge of the latter language, the hardships of his position being thereby immensely enhanced. No one here hinted to me of any especial severity being shown to French conscripts on this account, but we can easily understand the disadvantage under which they labour. I visited ...
— East of Paris - Sketches in the Gatinais, Bourbonnais, and Champagne • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... whole, owing to the circuits, the obstacles, and the imperfect observations, the journey had been extended by fully one-fifth, and now that they had reached Mount Ikirangi, they ...
— In Search of the Castaways • Jules Verne
... sat conversing for some time before the fire, and then the latter pointed out to him which was his bed—one made up near the fire, for the sake of its warmth; and then the ferryman retired to the next room, a place which was merely divided by an imperfect partition. ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... became a little quieter, I heard him and my father discussing the price of cocoons, the superiority of good cocoons to cocalons, dupions, and soufflons; which last, I need not tell you, are very imperfect cocoons; dupions have two threads, and confuse one with another; and pointed cocoons are apt to break in the winding. But all these, as you know, are turned to account by the silk-spinner, and worked ...
— Jacques Bonneval • Anne Manning
... these two men. Being the boy in the class of whom the Head entertained the greatest hopes, I began at once secretly to translate them. I made a Danish version of the second and fourth books of the Aeneid Danicised a good part of the Songs and Epistles of Horace in imperfect verse. ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... "I have always admired," he says, "the prudence and philosophical reserve shown by M. Arago in resisting the temptations to give a theory of the effect he had discovered, so long as he could not devise one which was perfect in its application, and in refusing to assent to the imperfect theories of others." Now, however, the time for theory had come. Faraday saw mentally the rotating disk, under the operation of the magnet, flooded with his induced currents, and from the known laws of interaction ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... reflecting like mother-of-pearl or opal, a thousand fanciful shades and changes, is not the result beautiful? Some families into which I have entered, some persons with whom I have talked, have left a most delightful impression upon my mind; and I have talked, by means of imperfect English, French, and interpretations, with a good many. They have made my heart bleed over the history of this most beautiful country. It is truly mournful that a people with so many fine impulses, so much genius, appreciation, and effective power, should, by the influence of ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... prouder," said he, "of my animal origin; to be a lineal descendant of inferior beings than to have emerged imperfect from the hand of a stupid God. I feel the same satisfaction that a nobleman feels in speaking of his ancestors when I think of our remote forefathers, those men-beasts, exposed like the animals to all the cruel ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... the materials used. It is well to number the entry, and to give a corresponding number to the book. It should be at once collated, and any special features noted, such as pages that need washing or mending. If the book should prove to be imperfect, or to have any serious defect, the owner should be communicated with, before it is pulled to pieces. This is very important, as imperfect books that have been "pulled" are not returnable to the bookseller. Should defects only be discovered after the book ...
— Bookbinding, and the Care of Books - A handbook for Amateurs, Bookbinders & Librarians • Douglas Cockerell
... Physical or Animal instincts inviting him in the opposite direction. These latter instincts are not wrong in themselves, in a purely animal nature, but are made manifest as urging him in the direction of the shadow or Imperfect when they come in contact, and therefore in competition, with the Spiritual. Neither the Spiritual nor the Physical can be said to possess Free-will; they must work in opposite directions, but this competition ...
— Science and the Infinite - or Through a Window in the Blank Wall • Sydney T. Klein
... records of nearly all the great civilizations, and they hold a most prominent place in the various sacred books of the world. In nearly all of them is revealed the conception of a Creator of whom man is an imperfect image, and who literally and directly created the visible universe with ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... literature and for students of the manners of the commonality of the period it was seen by a colleague, who wondered why he did not know it. After purchasing it he found the reason why—the Bodleian Library alone possessed a copy of the work (imperfect); later a copy of the first part (only) appeared in the last portion of the sale of the great Huth Collection. The present text is taken from ...
— The Ten Pleasures of Marriage and The Confession of the New-married Couple (1682) • A. Marsh
... present state of imperfect understanding it is quite possible," said Fo-Hi smoothly. "But if he refuses to achieve greatness he must have greatness thrust upon him. Van Rembold, I seem to recall, hesitated for some time to direct ...
— The Golden Scorpion • Sax Rohmer
... then clear: (1) The attainment of our desires for perfection, the satisfaction of our passion for the infinite, is forbidden to us on earth by the limitations of life. We are made imperfect; we are kept imperfect here; and we must do all our work within the limits this natural imperfection makes. (2) We must, nevertheless, not cease to strive towards the perfection unattainable on earth, but which shall be attained hereafter. Our destiny, the God within ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... earth, which assembled its wise men peaceably together to form a fundamental constitution, to commit it to writing, and place it among their archives, where every one should be free to appeal to its text. But this act was very imperfect. The other States, as they proceeded successively to the same work, made successive improvements; and several of them, still further corrected by experience, have, by conventions, still further amended their first forms. My own State has gone on so far with its premiere ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... by Dionysius Exiguus in his collection. That the Canon of Holy Scripture was settled at this council is a traditional commonplace in theology, but hardly borne out by the facts. The council only drew up one of the several imperfect lists of sacred books which appeared in antiquity. The following canons show the influx of heathenism into the Church, resulting from the ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... an one troop out, about the dinner hour, wreathed with flowers and in their holiday best, to picnic with their kinsman on the public wayside. The application of these outlandish penalties, in fact, transfers the sympathy to the offender. Remember, besides, that the clan system, and that imperfect idea of justice which is its worst feature, are still lively in Samoa; that it is held the duty of a judge to favour kinsmen, of a king to protect his vassals; and the difficulty of getting a plantation thief first caught, then ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... present the biographical material available is extremely scanty, and if it were not for the kindness of M. Scherer, who has allowed the present writer access to certain manuscript material in his possession, even the sketch which follows, vague and imperfect as it necessarily is, would have ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... and reptiles (such as snakes and lizards); and as the country never abounds with either, they are necessarily often perfectly destitute; and the water as frequently failing, coupled with the entire absence of any degree of pre-thought or providence on their part, and their imperfect means of procuration, they are almost constantly in an abject state of wretchedness. Their weapons are primitive, singular, and even, as savage specimens, ineffective. Their natural characteristics are cowardice, indolence, deceit, cunning, ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro
... learn more lessons, and to study what their brothers are taught, in addition to what their mothers were taught; then it is to be hoped, at least by physiologists and patriots, that the scheme will sink into that limbo whither, in a free and tolerably rational country, all imperfect and ill- considered schemes are sure to gravitate. But if the proposal be a bona fide one: then it must be borne in mind that in the public schools of England, and in all private schools, I presume, which take their tone from them, cricket and football ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... knowne to be a humorous Patritian, and one that loues a cup of hot Wine, with not a drop of alaying Tiber in't: Said, to be something imperfect in fauouring the first complaint, hasty and Tinder-like vppon, to triuiall motion: One, that conuerses more with the Buttocke of the night, then with the forhead of the morning. What I think, I vtter, and spend my malice in my breath. Meeting two such Weales men ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... and in a line with it; in the large cows it is four inches long, and two and a half wide, and the hair within it always of a lighter color than that surrounding it. Cows of this mark are always imperfect. In the bastards, the skin on the escutcheon is usually reddish; it is smooth to the touch, ...
— Soil Culture • J. H. Walden
... Armed with imperfect knowledge, cursed with the rudiments of an imagination, hampered by the intense selfishness of the lower classes, and unsupported, by any regimental associations, this young man is suddenly introduced to an enemy who in eastern lands is always ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... occasional visits to Scarborough, my attention was drawn to the imperfect design of the lifeboats of the period; the frequent shipwrecks along the coast indicating the necessity for their improvement. After considerable deliberation, I matured a plan for a metal lifeboat, of a cylindrico-conical or chrysalis form, to be propelled by a screw at each end, turned by sixteen ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... He went on to show what the children of such a Father must needs be—to show that, however sinful, and erring, and lost, yet the Father had sent to tell them that the doctrine of wrath was of old time; that the eye for the eye, and the tooth for the tooth, was the teaching of an imperfect knowledge; that a faith which was truly childlike knew the Creator only as a parent; and that out of such faith alone arose the life that ...
— Trumps • George William Curtis
... several interesting points of observation. Thus, their quality proves that charcoal was the fuel invariably employed, and the large percentage of metal left in them shows that the process then in use of extracting the iron was very imperfect. They are said to vary in richness according as they belong to an earlier or later period—so much so, that some persons have ventured on this data to specify their relative ages; but other causes may have produced this difference. As to their quantity, it was once so great, that, although ...
— The Forest of Dean - An Historical and Descriptive Account • H. G. Nicholls
... mode of life in his usual place of residence was practically limited to the five days between the coming of the Spaniards and his capture. Our knowledge of the facts is in the main derived from what these soldiers reported upon slight and imperfect means of observation. Bernal Diaz and Cortes have left us an extraordinary description, not of his residence, but of his daily life, and more particularly of the dinner, which will now be considered. It is worth the attempt to take up the pictures of these and succeeding authors, and see whether ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan
... expectations. They found the Texian militia encamped before the town, which, as well as its adjacent fort of the Alamo, was held by the Mexicans, the Texians were besieging it in the best manner their imperfect means and small numbers would permit. An amusing account is given by Mr Ehrenberg of the camp and proceedings of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... of the judiciary, experimental and imperfect as it was even in the infancy of our existing Government, is yet more inadequate to the administration of national justice at our present maturity. Nine years have elapsed since a predecessor in this office, now not the last, the citizen ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... Keltie, in his "History of the Scottish Highlands." Even Lieutenant-General Samuel Graham, who was a captain in the 76th, in his "Memoirs," gives but a slight account of his regiment. So a very imperfect view can only ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... her mental activity, which converted everything into knowledge, doubtless drew from me, as it did from other sources, many of its materials. What I owe, even intellectually, to her is, in its detail, almost infinite; of its general character a few words will give some, though a very imperfect, idea. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard
... work, and whenever the captain and his mates took an observation, I took one also, although I was, I must own, at first very far from correct. Sometimes my observation was imperfect; at other times I made mistakes in ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... abhorred his sight; 10 All animals before him ran, To shun the hateful sight of man. 'Whence is this dread of every creature? Fly they our figure or our nature?' As thus he walked in musing thought, His ear imperfect accents caught; With cautious step he nearer drew, By the thick shade concealed from view. High on the branch a pheasant stood, Around her all her listening brood; 20 Proud of the blessings of her nest, She thus a mother's care expressed: 'No dangers here shall ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... whip. Peace being restored, the animals were removed to a respectful distance, and I was introduced to the fishmonger as the greatest young politician ever known in that part of the country. The major, it must here be recorded, otherwise this history would be imperfect, was scrupulous not to admit that a young politician, however brilliant his capacity, could be equal to an old one. In this he differed but little from many other great military politicians ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... been a hasty creature. He never had any brains, and had never felt the lack of them. He was one of those men who are called "strong," because of their imperfect control over themselves. His appetites and his mental states ruled him. He was impatient of any restraint; whatever he wanted to do he wanted urgently to do and would touch no alternatives. He ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... a loss, had not the strength of mind to persevere further. He had a vague apprehension that some imperfect knowledge of the previous night's unhappy business had reached her; and, unable to remedy the evil without telling more than he dared, he went into the mill, where his father still was, looking doleful enough, what with his concern at events and the extra quantity of ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... shake off the horror inspired by this dreadful action, Leonard ran to the pit, and, gazing into it, beheld him by the imperfect light struggling in the horrible mass in which he was partially immersed. The frenzied man had now, however, begun to repent his rashness, and cried out for aid. But this Leonard found it impossible to afford ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... wild, imperfect rest, Which these bewilder'd spirits share! Welcome this tumult of the breast, After the shudder ...
— Poems • Matilda Betham
... many congees to the great and inferior personages by whom he was surrounded, admired the heterogeneity of the group, and regretted that their imperfect creation precluded the possibility ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... the Surveys, and the Laws of the Nation. Introduced New and Republican Usages. Moses' Law in Advance of Modern Social Science. Testimony of the Jewish Nation. Testimony of Christ. The Lost Books. The Law Abolished by the Gospel. The Imperfect Morality of Old Testament. Polygamy, Slavery, and Divorce. The Education of the World a Gradual ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... at all, but was naturally gifted as an orator. He was quite logical and allegorical in his manner of speaking. I have heard several white people remark, who had listened to his speeches through the imperfect interpreters, that he was as good a speaker as any orator who had ...
— History of the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians of Michigan • Andrew J. Blackbird
... down upon the shaft, and pondered the question deliberately in my mind; at length I concluded that he had come by them by one of those numerous casualties which occur upon the roads, of which I, being a young hand upon the roads, must have a very imperfect conception; honestly, of course—for I scouted the idea that Slingsby would have stolen this blacksmith's gear—for I had the highest opinion of his honesty, which opinion I still retain at the present day, ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... along an exposed boundary. In consequence of the long wars between Scotland and England, to the Scotch barons having estates near the Border were given the Wardenships of the Marches, offices of great power and dignity; and their clans, accustomed only to the imperfect military organization demanded by the irregular but persistent hostilities of the time and place, developed a lawless spirit. Prohibited from agriculture by their exposed location, they left their fields waste, and lived by pillage and ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... the development of our soul. Admit that we are not always absolutely free to choose between good and evil, if you would be indulgent towards the guilty—that is to say, just even as Heaven is just; for there is infinite mercy in God's judgments; otherwise His justice would be imperfect. ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... of the committee, in apparent explanation of the lack of any official mention of the injuries alleged, declares that "the fact that the records of the War Department are often imperfect works great hardship to men who apply for pensions;" and his conviction of desertion and the lack of proof to sustain his allegations as to his injuries are disposed of as follows ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... of the Gauls of Galatia with the natives always remained very imperfect; for towards the end of the fourth century of the Christian era they did not speak Greek, as the latter did, but their national tongue, that of the Kymro-Belgians; and St. Jerome testifies that it differed very little from that which was spoken ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... same question, raising his voice still more each time; and three times I made him the same reply, always in the same respectful manner. "Oh, you fool!" said he at last, "you do not understand, then."—"That arises evidently, Monseigneur, from your Excellency's imperfect explanations!" Upon which he explained that he was speaking of a new carriage which had come from Paris that very day, a fact of which I was entirely ignorant. I was on the point of explaining this to his Excellency; but without deigning to listen, ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... within, by intuition and not by simple analysis. It is our own personality in its flowing through time—our self which endures" (p. 8). The rest of Bergson's philosophy consists in reporting, through the imperfect medium of words, the knowledge gained by intuition, and the consequent complete condemnation of all the pretended knowledge derived ...
— Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays • Bertrand Russell
... with the opposite feelings? Instead of taking the contrast between the words and the acts as a proof that this psalm is wrongly ascribed to the period in question, let us rather be thankful for another instance that imperfect faith may be genuine, and that if we cannot rise to the height of unwavering fortitude, God accepts a tremulous trust fighting against mortal terror, and grasping with a feeble hand the word of God, and the memory of all his past deliverances. It is precisely this conflict of faith and fear which ...
— The Life of David - As Reflected in His Psalms • Alexander Maclaren
... years of age, one of the Six Nations. His mode of locomotion was by a large wooden bowl, in which he sat and moved forward by advancing first one side of the bowl and then the other, by means of his hands. The nodules or "adventitious joints" were the result of imperfect ossification, or, in other words, of ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... speak Arabic in the house of a Moor,' but I don't know what the application is where we are concerned, unless you are suggesting I have misinterpreted your perfect English, or else you are subtly criticising my imperfect Spanish. You are too deep for me, Don Carlos, and I will leave Myra to try and fathom you. Beware of him, Myra!" she added smilingly, as she ...
— Bandit Love • Juanita Savage
... this individual may furnish some idea of the personal appearance of a whole race, it may be well to detain the narrative, in order to present it to the reader, in our hasty and imperfect manner. Would the truant eyes of Alston or Greenough turn, but for a time, from their gaze at the models of antiquity, to contemplate this wronged and humbled people, little would be left for such inferior artists as ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... whole of his time and attention to the improvement of glasses—put into his hand a short treatise on the subject, and on the important assistance which may be afforded by a judicious selection of spectacles to naturally imperfect or overstrained eyes. Bob, in the mean time, was amusing himself with reading bills, pamphlets, and newspapers, ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... one in "The Essays of Elia" volume which had not appeared in the "London Magazine"—is a pretty bit about "Valentine's Day." This is followed by an inquiry into the existence of "Imperfect Sympathies," the writer declaring that he had been trying all his life—without success—to like Scotsmen, and that he had the same imperfect sympathy with Jews. The Scotsmen are too precise, too matter ...
— Charles Lamb • Walter Jerrold
... They have remained in manuscript more than two hundred years, and in the mean time appear to have escaped the notice of scholars, as not even extracts from them have, so far as we are aware, found their way into print. The author was a native of France, and had an imperfect knowledge of the English language. The journals, with the exception of the last in the volume, are, however, written in that language, and, as might be anticipated, in orthography, in the use of words, and in the structure of sentences, conform to no known standard of English ...
— Voyages of Peter Esprit Radisson • Peter Esprit Radisson
... musical reader may feel on hearing that James Ollerenshaw was equal to performing the Hallelujah Chorus on a concertina (even one inlaid with mother-of-pearl) argues on the part of that reader an imperfect acquaintance with the Five Towns. In the Five Towns there are (among piano scorners) two musical instruments, the concertina and the cornet. And the Five Towns would like to see the composer clever ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett
... food. In the form of white flour, however, it is an imperfect, unbalanced food, on account of its deprivation of the valuable phosphates which exist in the bran. Rickets and malnutrition generally are the outcome of the habitual use of white flour, unless the loss of mineral matter is counter ...
— Food Remedies - Facts About Foods And Their Medicinal Uses • Florence Daniel
... a subject, rather than on the continuity of its expression. As thoughts surge to his mind, he fills the heavens with them, crowds them in, if necessary, but seldom arranges them, along the ground first. Among class-room excuses for Emerson's imperfect coherence and lack of unity, is one that remembers that his essays were made from lecture notes. His habit, often in lecturing, was to compile his ideas as they came to him on a general subject, in scattered notes, and when on ...
— Essays Before a Sonata • Charles Ives
... openings are arched irregularly above, and generally quite shallow, being governed very much in contour and depth by the quality of the rock. The work of excavation has not been an extremely great one, even with the imperfect implements that must have been used, as the shale is for the ...
— Aboriginal Remains in Verde Valley, Arizona • Cosmos Mindeleff
... science.[16] All apparent contradictions in the statement of the Deific nature by different ages, nations, churches, points of view, are but fractional and imperfect expressions of one essential unity, from which they all proceed—crude endeavors or distorted parts, to be regarded both as distinct and united. In short (to put it in our own form, or summing up,) that thinker or analyzer or overlooker who by an inscrutable combination ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... first, inflammation of the cornea, or imperfections of the lens—the cornea is often so scarred as to make vision imperfect; second, myopia, or progressive shortsightedness, a condition in which the axis of the eye gradually grows longer. This lengthening is accompanied by stretching of the eyeball, and such children always run the risk of the inner and most important part of the wall of the eye, the retina ...
— Five Lectures on Blindness • Kate M. Foley
... account of Lodge and his works is very imperfect. See the Shakespeare Society volume, 1853, ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... Pushkin would necessarily be imperfect, which left out of all consideration his drama on the subject of Boris Godunov. Here he has used Shakespeare as his model. Up to this time the traditions of the Russian stage—such as they were—were wholly French. The piece is undoubtedly very clever, ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various
... the first place, they know their own country, and that is a decided advantage where bare veldt is concerned. An Englishman on the same ground would make mistakes, and probably sight his rifle at 200 yards; but the Boer puts his up to 500 yards and kills his game, whilst the Englishman, with his imperfect knowledge of the country, misses it. When the Dutch first settled in South Africa, they were compelled either to shoot their dinner or go without. So they began straight away by shooting their dinner—and ...
— The Boer in Peace and War • Arthur M. Mann
... commentators (and following them the historians) understand the imperfect {ediokon} to express the mere purpose to attempt, and suppose that this purpose was actually hindered by the Lacedemonians, but for a mere half-formed purpose the expression {mekhri Thessalies} ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 2 (of 2) • Herodotus
... rose, and afforded them a shadowy imperfect view of the surrounding objects. The prospect was gloomy and vast, and not a human habitation met their eyes. They had now lost every trace of the fugitives, and found themselves bewildered in a wild and savage country. Their only remaining care was to extricate ...
— A Sicilian Romance • Ann Radcliffe
... of Britain by the English our authorities are scant and imperfect. The only extant British account is the "Epistola" of Gildas, a work written probably about A.D. 560. The style of Gildas is diffuse and inflated, but his book is of great value in the light it throws on the state of the island at that time, and above ...
— History of the English People, Volume I (of 8) - Early England, 449-1071; Foreign Kings, 1071-1204; The Charter, 1204-1216 • John Richard Green
... is the only indisputable axiom in philosophy; there are no grotesques in nature; not anything framed to fill up empty cantons and unnecessary spaces: in the most imperfect creatures, and such as were not preserved in the ark, but, having their seeds and principles in the womb of nature, are everywhere where the power of the sun is—in these is the wisdom of His hand discovered; out of this rank Solomon chose the object ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... Mr. Charles Knight, who, according to his preface, succeeded "at an advanced period of the year to the duties which had previously been performed by a gentleman of acknowledged taste and ability." This may account for the imperfect state of some of the engravings; but the apology is not so requisite for the execution of the literary portion of the present volume. Our extracts must be short, for we have other claimants to our attention. The Housekeepers, a Shandean extract, is ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, No. - 288, Supplementary Number • Various
... of them so reported, in the Lecture or the Letter, as to prove that the disease may not have been carried by the practitioner. I strongly suspect that it was so carried in some of these cases, but from the character of the very imperfect evidence the question can never be ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... and absurd to hold that the Creator would have given us the faculty of reason, or that the Redeemer would in so many varied forms of argument and persuasion have appealed to it, if it had been useless or impotent. I believe that the imperfect human understanding can be effectually exerted only in subordination to, and in a dependent alliance with, the means and aidances ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... measures. The opening should be in as dependent a position as possible in order that the drainage may be thorough. If tension recurs after opening has been made, as by the blocking of the tube, or by its imperfect position, or by its being too short, there is likely to be a fresh formation of pus, and without delay the whole procedure must be gone through again. ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... like some Christians, think the time is near when Deity shall appear to destroy all unbelievers in their respective religions. For myself, I cannot but believe that the world has only yet begun. It is impossible that the Creator should destroy the world in its present imperfect state. No—the world will go on yet thousands of years on years in the path of improvement unto (shall I say?) perfection. At any rate, I belong to those whose aspirations are for the future and not for the past. I am not enamoured with Hebrew patriarchal innocence, or Grecian classic polish ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... ready to shelve the subject. But this attitude of weariness is also transitional. There must be some thoroughfare to firm ground and clear vision. It must be found in agreement, first of all, on the real meaning of a term so variously and vaguely used as miracle. In the present imperfect state of knowledge it may be impossible to enucleate miracle, however defined, of all mystery. But even so will much be gained for clear thinking, if miracle can be reasonably related to the greater mystery which all accept, though none understand,—the mystery of life. ...
— Miracles and Supernatural Religion • James Morris Whiton
... Hemlock Baths, Radium Baths, Light Baths, Heat Baths, Bran and Needle Baths, Tar and Birdsdown Baths,—all sorts of baths; and he devoted his mind to the development of that system of curative treatment that was still imperfect when he died. And sometimes he would go down in a hired vehicle and a sealskin trimmed coat, and sometimes, when his feet permitted, he would walk to the Pantiles, and there he would sip chalybeate water under the eye ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... authoritative features and thoughtful forehead;—these and more than a score more of the brethren stood eying their visitor, questioning him earnestly and trying to make out his meaning from his imperfect English gruntings. And they spoke one to another of the action that should be taken on his message, or commented with pious exclamations on the mercy of the Lord in thus raising up for them protectors even in the ...
— The History of the United States from 1492 to 1910, Volume 1 • Julian Hawthorne
... Greek to the Indian, owing to his imperfect knowledge of English. But he understood that the law would lay hold of him if he did not obey this Sahib, and so sat still. "I know not anysing," he ...
— The Opal Serpent • Fergus Hume
... the moribund will exclaim with a shudder; such is the ever- present horror of their dreadful and dreary times of sickness, always aggravated by suspicions of witchcraft, the only cause which their imperfect knowledge of physics can assign to death— even Van Helmont asserted, "Deus non fecit mortem." The peoples, who, like those of Dahome, have a distinct future world, have borrowed it, I cannot help thinking, from Egypt. ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... in bicycle bearings. And among the twenty or more operations used in making steel balls, perhaps the most important was that of inspecting them after final polishing so as to remove all fire-cracked or otherwise imperfect balls ...
— The Principles of Scientific Management • Frederick Winslow Taylor
... you fine, man," I cried; "I would sooner go tramping the glens with you any day than Master Gordon; but that's a weakness of the imperfect and carnal man, that cares not to have a conscience at his coat-tail every hour of the day: you have your own parts and he his, and his parts are those that are not very common on our side ...
— John Splendid - The Tale of a Poor Gentleman, and the Little Wars of Lorn • Neil Munro
... Greek writer of the 3rd century, wrote a curious miscellany of a book entitled "Deipnosophistae, or the Suppers of the Learned," extant only in an imperfect state. ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... very imperfect translation of Father Vincent de Paul's quaint narrative, is published at the request of the leading clergy of Antigonish County, that section of Eastern Nova Scotia in which the holy Trappist so long ...
— Memoir • Fr. Vincent de Paul
... that she was to be the wife of his transcendently gifted and desirable self, could stoop to look at a Sicilian music-master, would have struck him as superlatively comic, though his sense of humour was imperfect, to say the least ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... to observe these Rules of proving the Quality of the AETHER, as the imperfect Sorts have been found to disagree with the Stomach, and produce other bad Effects, besides disappointing the Patient's Expectation. The AETHER that has the foremention'd Properties, (for there are Preparations ...
— An Account of the Extraordinary Medicinal Fluid, called Aether. • Matthew Turner
... are as full of food, not for the understanding only, but far more for the heart and the will, to-day as ever they were. The world may think that it has left the teaching of Jesus behind, but in reality the teaching is far ahead, and the world's practise is but slowly creeping towards its imperfect attainment. The Gospel is the guide of the race, and each generation gathers something more from it, and progresses in the measure in which it follows Christ; and as for the race, so for the individual. Each of Christ's scholars finds his own ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... nothing more. A difficulty does not destroy a thesis that is solidly founded. Once a truth is clearly established, not all the difficulties in the world can make it an untruth. A difficulty as to the truth revealed argues an imperfect intelligence; it is idle to complain that we are finite. A difficulty regarding the infallible Church should not make her less infallible in our mind, it simply demands a clearing away-Theological difficulties should not surprise a novice in theological matters; they are only misunderstandings ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... statistics the average product is about two thousand pounds to the acre, which is double the average quantity produced in the cotton-growing States of this Union. The modes of cultivation are very crude and imperfect, especially at any distance from the large and populous centres, but the amazing fertility of the soil insures good and remunerative returns to the farmer or planter even under these unfavorable circumstances. Water is the great, we may say the only, fertilizer—none other is ever used, and ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou
... Dermott prefixed a note to his edition of the Ahiman Rezon, in which he asserts that "Past Masters of warranted lodges on record are allowed this privilege (of membership) whilst they continue to be members of any regular lodge." And it is, doubtless, on this imperfect authority, that the Grand Lodges of America began at so early a period to admit their Past Masters to seats in the Grand Lodge. In the authorized Book of Constitutions, we find no such provision. Indeed, Preston ...
— The Principles of Masonic Law - A Treatise on the Constitutional Laws, Usages And Landmarks of - Freemasonry • Albert G. Mackey
... the night, the ramparts had been raised to the height of six or seven feet, with a small ditch at their base, but it was yet in a rude and very imperfect state. Being in full view from the northern heights of Boston, it was discovered by the enemy, as soon as daylight appeared; and a determination was immediately formed by General Gage, for dislodging our troops from ...
— The Yankee Tea-party - Or, Boston in 1773 • Henry C. Watson
... about to unfold, yet none of them consciously acted on a definite system. The sentiments which this situation inspired only revealed to them incomplete fragments of a vast system; just as the scientific men of the sixteenth century found that their imperfect microscopes did not enable them to see all the living organisms, whose existence had yet been proved to them by the logic of ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac
... everything that has been invented to advance civilization is now being used to destroy it. Our one consolation is that however imperfect we may have been as a nation, we know that our cause is just and because of this we believe that in the end we will and must win. The right has always been more powerful than the wrong, even more powerful than might and it will ...
— Twenty-Five Years in the Black Belt • William James Edwards
... said, laughing; "that's as bad as Galli! Poor Grassini has quite enough sins of his own to answer for without having his wife's imperfect housekeeping visited upon his head. As for the tea, it will be ready in a minute. Katie has been making some Devonshire ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich
... ire, his sandy locks he tore, Our from his lips flew such a sound confused, As lions make in deserts thick, which roar; Or as when clouds together crushed and bruised, Pour down a tempest by the Caspian shore; So was his speech imperfect, stopped, and broken, He roared and thundered when he should ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... working classes of this country. But I need not tell honourable gentlemen present, who are so practically acquainted with this district, that that loss of seven millions in wages per annum is a very imperfect measure of the amount of suffering and loss which will be inflicted on this community three or four months hence. It may be taken to be 10,000,000 pounds; and that 10,000,000 pounds of loss of wages before the next spring is by no means ...
— Home-Life of the Lancashire Factory Folk during the Cotton Famine • Edwin Waugh
... have said, appeared that obscure first volume at Bhowanipore. The "Sheaf gleaned in French Fields" is certainly the most imperfect of Toru's writings, but it is not the least interesting. It is a wonderful mixture of strength and weakness, of genius overriding great obstacles and of talent succumbing to ignorance and inexperience. That it should have been performed ...
— Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan • Toru Dutt
... If the human mind were to attempt to examine and pass a judgment on all the individual cases before it, the immensity of detail would soon lead it astray and bewilder its discernment: in this strait, man has recourse to an imperfect but necessary expedient, which at once assists and demonstrates his weakness. Having superficially considered a certain number of objects, and remarked their resemblance, he assigns to them a common name, sets them ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 2 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... was standing on the planks a woman plainly but neatly dressed came from the house. She addressed me in very imperfect English, saying that she was the mistress of the house and should be happy to show me about. I thanked her for her offer, and told her that she might speak Welsh, whereupon she looked glad, and said in that tongue that she could speak Welsh ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... convent was their greatest object in life. But Violante was not aware that if the beauty had been there the devotional aspirations would not have been there! That, which causes more deeply implanted in her nature than she knew of were impelling her to desire and to yearn for, the imperfect teaching of the world around her had led her to imagine to be unattainable save by the gifts of personal beauty. And, knowing that if that were so there was no hope for her, her bruised heart had sought the only refuge which seemed to be ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... community spirit in the schools and the introduction of the direct teaching of citizenship. The methods are not mutually exclusive; their operations are distinct. The school which does not develop community spirit, which does not fit into its place in the work of training the complete man, is obviously imperfect. The same cannot be said of the school which does not provide direct instruction in citizenship; for teaching may be given in so many indirect ways. Some consideration of what has happened in this connection both in England and America will perhaps ...
— Cambridge Essays on Education • Various
... to trace to their sources some of the chief currents and cross-currents of the great confused movement which is stirring the stagnant waters of Indian life—the steady impact of alien ideas on an ancient and obsolescent civilization; the more or less imperfect assimilation of those ideas by the few; the dread and resentment of them by those whose traditional ascendency they threaten; the disintegration of old beliefs, and then again their aggressive revival; the careless diffusion ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... not the God in whose image he is made possess the same power? If the old theological rule be true - "There is nothing in man which was not first in God" (sin, of course, excluded) - then why should not this imperfect creative faculty in man be the very guarantee that God possesses it ...
— Glaucus; or The Wonders of the Shore • Charles Kingsley
... "This old imperfect tale, New-old, and shadowing Sense at war with Soul Rather than that gray King, whose name, a ghost, Streams like a cloud, man-shaped, from mountain peak, And cleaves to cairn and cromlech still; or him Of Geoffrey's book, or ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... be bought ripe and sound; it is poor economy to buy imperfect or decayed kinds, as they are neither satisfactory nor healthy eating; while the mature, full flavored sorts are invaluable ...
— Twenty-Five Cent Dinners for Families of Six • Juliet Corson
... religion, who, she learned from Urfried, had penetrated into this godless castle. She watched the return of the supposed ecclesiastic, with the purpose of addressing him, and interesting him in favour of the prisoners; with what imperfect success the reader has ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... come from within and not through the instrumentality of imperfect individuals, such as ...
— The Planet Mars and its Inhabitants - A Psychic Revelation • Eros Urides and J. L. Kennon
... woman; but really methinks they that disturb their heads with any other rule of Playes besides the making them pleasant, and avoiding of scurrility, might much better be employed in studying how to improve men's too imperfect knowledge of that ancient English Game which hight long Laurence: And if Comedy should be the picture of ridiculous mankind I wonder anyone should think it such a sturdy task, whilst we are furnish'd with ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... workman to gratify his inclination for the indulgence of a species of luxury; and, by a sort of instinct, he now and then takes a peep at those scenes of which he before entertained, from hearsay, but an imperfect idea. ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... me, my dear boy; why not go to Madame? I am the most ignorant, the most imperfect, the least spiritual of our number. For the last three days," he added, with a shrewd little glance, "Madame and my other friends have read ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac
... but on experiment and in practice; yet I like to have it well before me here that, after all, The Tragic Muse makes it not easy to say which of the situations concerned in it predominates and rules. What has become in that imperfect order, accordingly, of the famous centre of one's subject? It is surely not in Nick's consciousness—since why, if it be, are we treated to such an intolerable dose of Sherringham's? It can't be in Sherringham's—we have for that altogether an excess ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... both at the abode of the recluses and at the seminary: by the recluses were written the famous Greek and Latin grammars, and by the nuns, the famous Memoirs of the History of Port-Royal and the Image of the Perfect and Imperfect Sister; a model farm was cultivated, and here the peasants were taught improved methods of tillage. During the time of the civil wars the convent became a resort where charity and hospitality were extended to ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... of Lord Byron arose neither from depravity of heart—for nature had not committed the anomaly of uniting to such extraordinary talents an imperfect moral sense—nor from feelings dead to the admiration of virtue. No man had ever a kinder heart for sympathy, or a more open hand for the relief of distress; and no mind was ever more formed for enthusiastic admiration ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... verb and dormiebat below are in the imperfect tense to denote a state of things existing at the past time indicated ...
— Ritchie's Fabulae Faciles - A First Latin Reader • John Kirtland, ed.
... Emperor to destroy all historical literature in 213 B.C. This being so in the matter of a dozen eclipses, there still remain two dozen for specialists to experiment upon, not to mention comets and other celestial phenomena. From this collateral evidence, imperfect though it be, we are reasonably entitled to assume that the three expanded versions of Confucius' history are trustworthy, or at the very least written in ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... experiments of Dewar—the idea that the phenomenon of the liquefaction of air would not be, owing to certain peculiarities, the exact converse of that of vaporization—led to the employment of very imperfect apparatus. M. Claude, however, by making use of a method which he calls the reversal[8] method, obtains a complete rectification in a remarkably simple manner and under extremely advantageous economic conditions. Apparatus, of surprisingly reduced dimensions but of great ...
— The New Physics and Its Evolution • Lucien Poincare
... walked with it into the house; her comprehension of Gregoire in no wise advanced by the newly acquired knowledge that he was liable to "raise Cain" during her absence—a proceeding which she could not too hastily condemn, considering her imperfect apprehension of ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin
... Scholar suggests that he also lived some time in Rome. He seems to have known some Latin, since he could converse with boatmen on the Po; but his only clear reference (A Slip of the Tongue,) implies an imperfect knowledge of it; and there is not a single mention in all his works, which are crammed with literary allusions, of any Latin author. He claims to have been during his time in Gaul one of the rhetoricians who could command high fees; and his descriptions of himself as resigning ...
— Works, V1 • Lucian of Samosata
... mail does not leave until tomorrow afternoon. I left Paris only day before yesterday noon, but it seems to me a week. I have seen very beautiful castles—Chambord, of which the enclosure (torn out of a book) gives only an imperfect idea, corresponds, in its desolation, to the fate of its owner (I hope you know it belongs to the Duke of Bordeaux). In the wide halls and magnificent rooms, where so many kings kept their court, with their mistresses and their hunting, the Duke's only furniture consists now of the children's ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... satisfactorily explained. He traced the various forms and phenomena of the world to numbers as their basis and essence. The "Monad," or UNIT, he regarded as the source of all numbers. The number TWO was imperfect, and the cause of increase and division. THREE was called the number of the whole, because it had a beginning, middle, and end; FOUR, representing the square, is in the highest degree perfect; and TEN, as it contains the sum of the first three prime numbers (23510. ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... the present state of horticulture among us is quite imperfect, affording but an indistinct glimpse of the ample field which invites our view, it would scarcely be pardonable, were we to overlook a branch of rural industry in which horticultural success is interested, and without which the practical pleasures and family-comfort of rural ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... down his forehead from its effects. The men had stripped off the leg of his trousers, and revealed bones protruding near the knee. But little blood flowed from the wound where the ball had penetrated, and I considered it, with my imperfect knowledge of surgery, as looking decidedly bad for ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... It were a shame to us if one so radiantly lofty in intellect, so devoted to human liberty and well-being, so ready to dare and to endure for the upraising of her sex and her race, should perish from among us, and leave no memento less imperfect and casual than those we now have. We trust the more immediate relatives of our departed friend will lose no time in selecting the fittest person to prepare a Memoir, with a selection from her writings, for the press.[A] America ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... friend. Friendship is the communion of such souls, although they may be absent from one another. The highest friendship may grow more perfectly when friends are separated, then it is unmixed with the alloy of imperfect thought and action. Then it is nourished by the past, for only the past buries all faults; it is encouraged by the future, for only the future veils the awkwardness and shortcomings of the present. The character of friendship is determined by ...
— Questionable Amusements and Worthy Substitutes • J. M. Judy
... left incomplete, and Mozart's widow entrusted to Suessmayer the task of finishing the imperfect portions. But the greatest part of it is the ...
— Among the Great Masters of Music - Scenes in the Lives of Famous Musicians • Walter Rowlands
... bless you, my dear brother. Nothing would be such a satisfaction to me as to be able to talk all this over with you, instead of this slow and imperfect communication. ...
— Memoirs of the Courts and Cabinets of George the Third - From the Original Family Documents, Volume 1 (of 2) • The Duke of Buckingham and Chandos
... thou the writing: thine it is. For who Burnished the sword, blew on the drowsy coal, Held still the target higher, chary of praise And prodigal of counsel - who but thou? So now, in the end, if this the least be good, If any deed be done, if any fire Burn in the imperfect page, the ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... but what man that has studied women will not own that there is, at least while the down of first youth is not brushed away, in the eye and cheek of zoned and untainted Innocence, that which survives not even the fruition of a lawful love, and has no (nay, not even a shadowed and imperfect) likeness in the face of guilt? Then, too, had any worldlier or mercenary sentiment entered her breast respecting me, would Isora have flown from the suit of the eldest scion of the rich house of Devereux? and would she, poor and destitute, the daughter ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... capsized right on top of you; multiply the quantity of falling water a million times, and suppose the descent of the water to be continued for from three to six or seven minutes, and you will then have an imperfect conception of the sort of drenching that we received on the occasion of which I am now speaking. The decks were flooded in an instant, and before I could wriggle into my oil-skins I was soaked to the ...
— The Pirate Slaver - A Story of the West African Coast • Harry Collingwood
... General Robinson's division to remain in reserve at the Seminary, and to throw up a small semicircular rail intrenchment in the grove in front of the building. Toward the close of the action this defence, weak and imperfect as it was, proved to be of ...
— Chancellorsville and Gettysburg - Campaigns of the Civil War - VI • Abner Doubleday
... 1846. He had not come to America without some prospect of employment beside that comprised in his immediate scientific aims. In 1845, when his plans for a journey in the United States began to take definite shape, he had written to ask Lyell whether, notwithstanding his imperfect English, he might not have some chance as a public lecturer, hoping to make in that way additional provision for his scientific expenses beyond the allowance he was to receive from the King of Prussia. Lyell's answer, written by his wife, was ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... matter what the land be now, Greece—our Greece—must live for ever. Her language lives; the children of Europe learn it, even if they halt it in imperfect numbers. The greater the scholar, the humbler he still bends to learn the words of wisdom from her school. The poet comes to her for all his fairest myths, his noblest mysteries, his greatest masters. The sculptor looks at the broken fragments of her statues, ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... part which comes next of this true and wonderful history has nothing to go upon but the confused and imperfect recollections of a ...
— The Fairchild Family • Mary Martha Sherwood
... else do indulge their sins?—A. They that choose rather to walk by the imperfect lives of professors than by the holy Word of God: or thus, they that make the miscarriages of some good men an encouragement unto themselves to forbear to be exact in self-denial, these eat up the sins of God's people as men eat bread ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... worse doubt which has occurred to me. Do you think, Dr. Hamilton, that the mind is as imperfect as the body? In short, is it not likely that the poor child may turn ...
— A Noble Life • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... interpret the imperfect utterance, now further choked by tears and agitation, knew that there was a medley of broken rejoicings, blessings, and weepings, in the midst of which the soldier, glad perhaps to end a scene where he became ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... that was making her great. Then would she care utterly for God and his Christ, nothing for what men said about them: the Lord never meant his lambs to be under the tyranny of any, least of all the tyranny of his own most imperfect church! its work is to teach; where it cannot teach, it must not rule! Then would God appear to her not only true, but real—the heart of the human, to which she could cling, and so rest. The corruption of all religion ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... as imperfect humanity may, Average Jones appeared to be smiling indulgently at the end of ...
— Average Jones • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... last few score years. The classical composers, almost down to our own time, were restricted in the use of them because they were merely natural tubes, and their notes were limited to the notes which inflexible tubes can produce. Within this century, however, they have all been transformed from imperfect diatonic instruments to perfect chromatic instruments; that is to say, every brass instrument which is in use now can give out all the semitones within its compass. This has been accomplished through the ...
— How to Listen to Music, 7th ed. - Hints and Suggestions to Untaught Lovers of the Art • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... telling you to come and study with me, or go and act in some second-rate theatre at once, I advise you to go back to school and finish your education. That is the first step, for all accomplishments are needed, and a single talent makes a very imperfect character. Cultivate mind and body, heart and soul, and make yourself an intelligent, graceful, beautiful, and healthy girl. Then, at eighteen or twenty, go into training and try your powers. Better start for the ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... eyes, half thought that the speaker wished that John would fail—that he grudged him a triumph. None the less, the first verse, sung feebly, with wrong phrasing and imperfect articulation, revealed the quality of the boy's voice; and this quality Desmond recognized, as he would have recognized a fine painting or a bit of perfect porcelain. All his short life his father had trained him to look for and acclaim quality, whether ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell
... of being, as it were, to another, is a very slow process, during which the body and brain are gradually correlated with the subtler form which is essentially that of the Soul, and that my own experience of it, still so imperfect, so fragmentary, when compared with the experience of the highly trained, is like the first struggles of a child learning to speak compared with the perfect oratory of the practised speaker; that consciousness, so far from ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... it,—to save you, I say, I decreed that you should experience self-denial and learn something of your fellows of both sexes, before settling into a state that must have been otherwise precarious, however excellent the woman who is your mate. My System with you would have been otherwise imperfect, and you would have felt the effects of it. It is over now. You are a man. The dangers to which your nature was open are, I trust, at an end. I wish you to be happy, and I give you both my blessing, and pray God to conduct and strengthen ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... greatly revered martyr St. Vitus. We may, therefore, ascribe it to accident merely, and to a certain aversion to this demoniacal disease, which seemed to lie beyond the reach of human skill, that we meet with but few and imperfect notices of the St. Vitus' dance in the second half of the fifteenth century. The highly colored descriptions of the sixteenth century contradict the notion that this mental plague had in any degree diminished in its ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... By-and-bye, she sent me to a second-hand clothes shop, where I rigged myself out in a sort of la-di-dah style, my habiliments comprising a pair of white linen trousers, a double-breasted frock coat, with military peak cap, and a few other little accessories, so that I was a perfect (or imperfect) swell again, despite the fact that my wardrobe did not amount in value to more than 5s of lawful ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... eye, it appeared that, as he had once thought, this Caro family—though it might not for centuries, or ever, furbish up an individual nature which would exactly, ideally, supplement his own imperfect one and round with it the perfect whole—was yet the only family he had ever met, or was likely to meet, which possessed the materials for her making. It was as if the Caros had found the clay but not the potter, while other families whose daughters might ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... slightest apprehension of being many months deprived of his property merely to satisfy injured justice. And, too, the evidence upon which Nicholas was convicted in Fetter's court, of an attempt to create an insurrection—the most fatal charge against him—was so imperfect that the means of overthrowing it can be purchased of any of the attendant constables for a mere trifle,—oaths with such fellows being worth about sixty-two ...
— Our World, or, The Slaveholders Daughter • F. Colburn Adams
... ship?" inquired Charley, in his imperfect English and little innocent fashion. "Where we got to? Why not give me hot tea? ...
— Charley Laurel - A Story of Adventure by Sea and Land • W. H. G. Kingston
... so many articulates or mollusks or radiates, until the vertebrate historian comes with his generalizing ideas, his beliefs, his prejudices, his idiosyncrasies of all kinds, and brings the facts into a more or less imperfect, but still organic series of relations. The history which is not open to adverse criticism is worth little, except as material, for it is written without taking cognizance of those higher facts about which men must differ; of which Guizot writes as follows, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... wreaths of honeysuckle; colours began to show themselves; purple iris and tree peony started out in detached patches from the shade; birds began to be restless; here and there one fluttered forth with a few sudden, imperfect notes; and the cold curd-like creases in the sky took on faint lines of gold. And there was Emily—Emily coming down the garden again, and Giles Brandon with her. Something in both their faces gave him courage ...
— Fated to Be Free • Jean Ingelow
... physician gives becomes responsible to herself, and is much more likely to carry them out than is one who is cautioned without receiving a satisfactory explanation. At best, however, the advice which the physician is able to offer will be imperfect, for it must not be imagined that everything is known concerning the causation and prevention of miscarriage. While our knowledge is so imperfect we must be content to make the most of what we possess. ...
— The Prospective Mother - A Handbook for Women During Pregnancy • J. Morris Slemons
... help remarking that Mr. Shaw, who has come now to gloat upon his victims, alter having sworn away their lives—that man has sworn what is altogether false; and there are contradictions in the depositions which have not been brought before your lordships' notice. I suppose the depositions being imperfect, there was no necessity for it. As to Mr. Batty, he swore at his first examination before the magistrates that a large stone fell on me, a stone which Mr. Roberts said at the time would have killed an elephant. But not the slightest mark ...
— The Dock and the Scaffold • Unknown
... demonstrated twelve significant facts: (1) That the original authors of the different books never suspected that their writings would have the universal value and authority which they now rightfully enjoy. (2) That they at first regarded them as merely an imperfect substitute for verbal teaching and personal testimony. (3) That in each case they had definite individuals and conditions in mind. (4) That the needs of the rapidly growing Church and the varied and trying experiences through which it passed were all potent factors in ...
— The Origin & Permanent Value of the Old Testament • Charles Foster Kent
... cellar, and there the manuscripts remained for nearly a century and a half, exposed to injury from damp and worms. At length they were sold to Apellicon, a resident at Athens, who was attached to the Peripatetic sect. Many of the manuscripts were imperfect, having become worm-eaten or illegible. These defects Apellicon attempted to remedy; but, being a lover of books rather than a philosopher, he performed the work somewhat unskilfully. When Athens was taken by Sylla, 86 B.C., the library ...
— Fathers of Biology • Charles McRae
... by fluctuating between shifting conventions and contradictory ideals; he leaves to a more positive Author the dubious pleasure of drawing a daily line between vice and virtue. If Cabell pleads at all, he pleads with us not to repudiate a Villon or a Marlowe while we are reviling the imperfect man in a perfect poet. "What is man, that his welfare be considered?" questions Cabell, paraphrasing Scripture, "an ape who chatters to himself of kinship with the archangels while filthily he digs for groundnuts.... Yet do I perceive that this same man is a maimed god.... ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... must be good and fresh, if the bread is to be digestible and nice. Stale yeast produces, instead of vinous fermentation, an acetous fermentation, which flavours the bread and makes it disagreeable. A poor thin yeast produces an imperfect fermentation, the result being a ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... the Russian Bear has a heavy paw, and when he puts it into the scale, all other weights kick the beam. It will be a long and wary struggle, and no man can prophecy the result. The Turks are a people easy to govern, were even the imperfect laws, now in existence, fairly administered. They would thrive and improve under a better state of things; but I cannot avoid the conviction that the regeneration of the East will never ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... alone in so dreary a place, adding, that if his countrywomen were to be overtaken by a stranger like him, on the wilds of a mountain, they would scream and fly; all which he acted very vividly, by way of making out his imperfect speech, and trying her ...
— Feats on the Fiord - The third book in "The Playfellow" • Harriet Martineau
... but it was to be exempt from the hardships of feudal service; to have the right of disposing both of person and property, and to be governed by laws intended to promote the general good, and not to gratify the ambition and avarice of individuals. These laws, however rude and imperfect, tended to afford security to property and, encourage men to habits of industry. Thus commerce, with every ornamental and useful art, began first in corporate bodies, to animate society. But in those ...
— A Walk through Leicester - being a Guide to Strangers • Susanna Watts
... if I live to a good old age, which is improbable, as many years lie behind me as before me. I have lived half my life, and perhaps more than half my life. I have realised part of my worldly ambition. I have made many good resolutions, and kept one or two of them in k more or less imperfect manner. I cannot, as a commonsense person, hope to keep a larger proportion of good resolutions in the future than I have kept in the past. I have tried to understand and sympathise with my fellow creatures, and though I have not entirely failed to do so, I have nearly failed. I am not happy ...
— The Feast of St. Friend • Arnold Bennett
... grievous yet the weight Sits on us of imperfect fate. From wounds of other days and deeds Still this day's breathing body bleeds; Still kings for fear and slaves for hate Sow lives of men on earth like seeds In the red soil they saturate; And we, with faces eastward set, Stand sightless of the ...
— Songs before Sunrise • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... like a fair Greek statue, for a moment on the bank, took a silent header and disappeared. Then Austin prepared to follow. He tumbled rather than plunged into the water, and, unable to attain an erect position owing to his imperfect organism, would have fared badly if Lubin had not caught him in his arms and turned him deftly over on ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour
... time could determine latitudes almost as accurately as it is now done, but they had very imperfect means of determining longitudes. These pirates, of course, had no chronometer. The best they could do was to keep account each day of the courses and estimated distances that they sailed, to reduce this to numbers of miles eastward and westward in different latitudes (their "eastings" ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various
... search its silent recesses. It was Androvsky. He looked bowed and old and guilty. The two lines near his mouth were deep. His lips were working. His thin cheeks had fallen in like the cheeks of a man devoured by a wasting illness, and the strong tinge of sunburn on them seemed to be but an imperfect mark to a pallor that, fully visible, would have been more terrible than that of a corpse. In his eyes there was a fixed expression of ferocious grief that seemed mingled with ferocious anger, as if he were suffering from some dreadful misery, and ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... choice of words, and harmony of numbers. Now, the words are the colouring of the work, which in the order of nature is last to be considered: the design, the disposition, the manners, and the thoughts, are all before it; where any of those are wanting or imperfect, so much wants or is imperfect in the imitation of human life, which is in the very definition of a poem. Words indeed, like glaring colours, are the first beauties that arise, and strike the sight; but if the draught be false or lame, the figures ill-disposed, the manners obscure ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... Imperfect co-ordination, whether by procrastination or by worry, brings discord. The parts of life are at variance with each other. The procrastinator looks on past indulgence with remorse and disgust; for that past indulgence is now loading him down with present ...
— Practical Ethics • William DeWitt Hyde
... Chichester and of Lewes and of Arundel, and of the steadings of the Weald, and of the wealden markets also, Christian men; for he showed them that it was a mean thing to go about in a hairy way like pagans, unacquainted with letters, and of imperfect ability in the making of raiment or the getting of victuals. Indeed, as I have written in another place, it was St. Wilfrid who taught the King of Sussex and his men how to catch fish in nets. They revered him everywhere, and when ...
— On Something • H. Belloc
... could never deter the mind of Lord Nelson from any attempt; for, where there is no difficulty, heroism is without an object. His lordship had, therefore, not a moment to pause, with respect to his ready acquiescence in the will of their majesties; but, from his very imperfect knowledge of the Italian language, he expressed his apprehensions that he might be subject to fatal deceptions, if he should trust to the fidelity of any interpreter among a people so generally corruptible. He did not, however, state the objection, without proposing a remedy. If, his lordship ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison
... consist of about 160 men and boys, with very imperfect military training, and of whom about forty are officers. They are organized as infantry. There are also about 600 citizens enrolled as a reserve guard, who may be called upon in case of an emergency, and about 150 police. We can fully rely upon the assistance of all the police and from one-quarter ...
— Real Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... of the obvious," said the King, calmly, "is as near as we can come to ritual with our imperfect apparatus. Lead on." ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... consequent upon the frailties and vices of mankind encounters much to soften or harden his humanity, which may have remained normal but for such contact. His sworn duty to administer the law as he finds it often conflicts with a sense of justice implanted in the human soul, of which the law, imperfect man has devised is often the imperfect vehicle for his guidance; but nevertheless to which his allegiance must be paramount, even when attempting to ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... him, "Wherefore, O my son, hast thou done thus, and why sufferedst thou not the jewellers complete the lattice-work of the oriel, [530] so there might not remain a place in thy palace [531] defective?" "O King of the Age," answered Alaeddin, "I left it not imperfect but of my free will, nor did I lack of ableness to complete it. However, I could not brook that Thy Grace should honour me [with thy presence] in a palace [532] wherein there was somewhat lacking; wherefore, so thou mayst ...
— Alaeddin and the Enchanted Lamp • John Payne
... could barely count at all, or counted in perfect good faith and sanity upon his fingers. Then there was the phase when he struggled with the development of number, when he began to elaborate all sorts of ideas about numbers, until at last he developed complex superstitions about perfect numbers and imperfect numbers, about threes and sevens and the like. The same was the case with abstract forms; and even to-day we are scarcely more than heads out of the vast subtle muddle of thinking about spheres and ideally perfect ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells
... may devote himself to the boundless pursuit of universal benevolence. Mr. Godwin gives no quarter to the amiable weaknesses of our nature, nor does he stoop to avail himself of the supplementary aids of an imperfect virtue. Gratitude, promises, friendship, family affection give way, not that they may be merged in the opposite vices or in want of principle; but that the void may be filled up by the disinterested love of good, and the dictates ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... the stable with which, in his poor, dull, narrow mind, there are pleasant associations. I would give a good deal to know what a horse is thinking about. There is something very curious and very touching about the limited intelligence and the imperfect knowledge of that immaterial principle in which the immaterial does not imply the immortal. And yet, if we are to rest the doctrine of a future life in any degree upon the necessity of compensation for the sufferings and injustice of the present, I think the sight ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... shelves of books in three stages, and lighted by handsome cupolas. Round the sides, under glass, are displayed richly-illuminated manuscripts, while down the centre are other glass cases containing medals and antiquities, many belonging to prehistoric times. Among the MSS. is a Bible (imperfect) translated into French by Raoul de Sestre in 1377 by order of CharlesV.; also a New Testament, 12th cent., and another in Vaudois, ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... the one hand and human conscience and duty on the other. In that direction the Stoics, and after them the Roman Jurists, went further than Aristotle. By reason of this deficiency, Aristotle, peerless as he is in Ethics, remains an imperfect ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... about myself and everything else that I can never be sure of anything again. Mr. Eltinge, I have been so unfortunate as to give my whole heart's love to a man who despises me. At first he seemed somewhat attracted, but he soon discovered how imperfect and ignorant I was, and coldly withdrew. He is now paying his addresses, I believe, to another lady, and I must admit that she is a lovely girl, and every way worthy of him. I think she will return his regard, if she does not already. But whether she does or not ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... gods, who have caused me to find favor in thine eyes. I am not ignorant of the speech of my lord, for the noble Croesus has instructed me in the Persian language during our long journey. Forgive, if my sentences be broken and imperfect; the time was short, and my capacity only that of a poor and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... revelation of poor children swarming in feverish activity like vivid ants in alleys of red sand. From the tenement windows leaned rotund, moon-shaped mothers, as constellations of this sordid heaven; women like dark imperfect jewels, women like vegetables, women like great bags of abominably ...
— The Beautiful and Damned • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... incurable, or meet to be condoned. They are due, not to sex, but to the subtle, far-reaching effects of early training; and the general remedies, therefore, as I shall endeavour to indicate in subsequent chapters, lie to hand. They seem to me to be traceable either to an imperfect development of the sense of order, or to a certain lack of self-control. ...
— Journalism for Women - A Practical Guide • E.A. Bennett
... French service, would be made Marshals. Four or five colonels who had been at Steinkirk took part in the debate. It was said of them that they showed as much modesty in speech as they had shown courage in action; and, from the very imperfect report which has come down to us, the compliment seems to have been not undeserved. They did not join in the vulgar cry against the Dutch. They spoke well of the foreign officers generally, and did full justice to the valour and conduct ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... of, or majesty can be very nervous, or very spiteful. And now, when he is about to enter Naples——but why do we presume to relate M. Dumas's personal adventures in any other language than his own? or language as near his own as we—who are, we must confess, imperfect translators—can hope to give. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... Pujol was a man—one of many in this imperfect world—who had not found his proper place in life. His father had intended to take him, as a partner, into business, toward which he had a natural leaning, so soon as he was of sufficient age; but Senor Pujol suffered reverses which swept away his ...
— Old Mission Stories of California • Charles Franklin Carter
... council in the time of King Edward the Sixth,' was in the possession of Archbishop Whitgift: see his Defence of the Answer to the Admonition, A.D. 1574, p. 25. But its existence was unknown (see Ridley's Life of Bishop Ridley, Lond. 1763, p. 315.) in later years, till a copy, slightly imperfect, was discovered in 1844, in the extensive collection of MSS. belonging to Sir Thomas ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 35, June 29, 1850 • Various
... lines, or verses. This work has found admirers, and not a few; for, of these, nothing written by so distinguished a scholar could fail: but, surely, not many of the verses in question exhibit truly the feet of the ancient Hexameters; or, if they do, the ancients contented themselves with very imperfect rhythms, even in their noblest heroics. In short, I incline to the opinion of Poe, that, "Nothing less than the deservedly high reputation of Professor Longfellow, could have sufficed to give currency to his lines as to Greek Hexameters. In general, they are neither one ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... in horror. A dim, red haze made her vision imperfect. There was a sickening riot ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... cloud of gray atoms to float up and out into the room. Julius was perhaps absurdly open to impressions. It took him some seconds to recover from his sense of repulsion and to untie the rusty ribbon around the little books. They proved all to be ragged and imperfect copies of the same work. The woodcuts in them were splotched with crude colour. The title-page was printed in assorted type—here a line of Roman capitals, there one in italics or old English letters. The inscription, consequently, was difficult to decipher, ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... the perpendicular as to shed their water into the gutter, thus enabling the passers-by on the pavement to walk unharmed. I cannot give chapter or verse for this comfortable theory; which of course preceded the ingenious Jonas Hanway's invention of the umbrella. In a small and very imperfect degree the enactment anticipates the covered city of Mr. H.G. Wells's vision. A Dutch friend to whom I put the point tells me that more probably the preservation of bricks and mural carvings was intended, the dryness of the wayfarer being ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... to be a humorous Patritian, and one that loues a cup of hot Wine, with not a drop of alaying Tiber in't: Said, to be something imperfect in fauouring the first complaint, hasty and Tinder-like vppon, to triuiall motion: One, that conuerses more with the Buttocke of the night, then with the forhead of the morning. What I think, I vtter, and spend my malice in my breath. Meeting two ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... measurements (R. 74 d). The textbook by Rhabanus Maurus On Reckoning, issued in 820, is largely in dialogue (catechetical) form, and is devoted to describing the properties of numbers, "odd, even, perfect, imperfect, composite, plane, solid, cardinal, ordinal, adverbial, distributive, multiple, denunciative, etc."; to pointing out the scriptural significance of number; [9] and to an elaborate explanation of finger reckoning, after the old Roman plan (see p. 65). ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... bird is it?" eagerly asked Kinlay, whose knowledge of our native birds was as imperfect as his knowledge ...
— The Pilots of Pomona • Robert Leighton
... occupied another week, and but for Eiulo's skill and dexterity, we should never have accomplished this nice and difficult operation, except after a very bungling and imperfect fashion. Arthur understood very well how it should be done, but his knowledge was theoretical rather than practical, while Eiulo had acquired considerable skill in the art, by building and thatching miniature houses in the woods, an amusement which he and his young ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... me, as a favour, that I would attend her to the place of execution, and I consented. Poor creature! she, as well as I, had but an imperfect idea of what she was to endure. The punishment was to take place in the great square, and the troops were out, and a large concourse of people were assembled. She appeared on the raised platform upon which she was to suffer, ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... be modified in many ways if we attempted to treat the unofficial fragments of customary law in the same way as the paragraphs of royal codes, and even more so if we were able to tabulate the indirect evidence as to legal rules. But, imperfect as such statistics may be, they give us at any rate some insight into ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 2, Part 1, Slice 1 • Various
... ideal each one of us bears in his breast; never yielding jot or tittle to the world's opinion. That was what it meant, and he who was proudly conscious of having succeeded thus, could well afford to regard the lives of others as half-finished and imperfect; he alone was at one with himself, his life alone was a ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... began. It was a revelation to these poor fellows. They sat open-mouthed, gasping. Then those that were nearest me began to edge away, and at the very next station they all bundled out of the carriage before the train stopped, as though I had some infectious disease. And the thing was just a rough imperfect rendering of some mere commonplaces, passing the time of day as it were, with which the heathen of Aleppo used to favour the servants of the American missionary. Indeed," said Professor Gargoyle, "if it were not for women there would be nothing in ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... a sheltered spot by the chimney-stack, where no one could see me from below, and proceeded to dress myself—assisted in my very imperfect toilet by the welcome discovery of a pool of rain in a depression of the lead-covered roof. But alas, before I had finished, I found that I had brought only one of my shoes away with me! This settled the question I was at the moment ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... says, "the prudence and philosophical reserve shown by M. Arago in resisting the temptations to give a theory of the effect he had discovered, so long as he could not devise one which was perfect in its application, and in refusing to assent to the imperfect theories of others." Now, however, the time for theory had come. Faraday saw mentally the rotating disk, under the operation of the magnet, flooded with his induced currents, and from the known laws of interaction between currents and magnets he hoped to deduce the motion observed ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... on into anything. I don't suppose he ever gave a thought to the O'Moores, anywhere further back than those kings. He had a vague idea that they must have been going on, simply because it must have seemed to him that a world without an O'Moore in it would be necessarily imperfect. It was Bob Repton's questions, as to what they were doing at the time of the flood, that brought him suddenly up; then he didn't hesitate for a moment in taking them back to Adam, or before him. Just on the ancestry ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty
... but a student," Sergius replied; "still to my imperfect perception the Unity of the Church ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 1 • Lew. Wallace
... gratified my picturesque and antiquarian propensities, from this elevated situation, I retrod, with more difficulty than toil, my steps down the stair-case. A second stroll about the area, and along the skirts of the wall, was sufficient to convince me only—how slight and imperfect had been my survey! ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume One • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... experience of one of the living persons mentioned in this narrative,—to be given in full in its proper place, which, so far as it is received in evidence, tends to show that some, at least, who have long been dead, may enjoy a kind of secondary and imperfect, yet self-conscious life, in these bodily tenements which we are in the habit of considering exclusively our own. There are many circumstances, familiar to common observers, which favor this belief to a certain extent. Thus, at one moment we detect ...
— The Guardian Angel • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... simplest things, wherein to be everlastingly confounded. Might one just look up and reach out overhead, instead of looking around one and trying to grope at one's level. Truths made intangible by the impenetrable meshes of faulty creeds and imperfect reasoning." ...
— Nelka - Mrs. Helen de Smirnoff Moukhanoff, 1878-1963, a Biographical Sketch • Michael Moukhanoff
... led to another, and another; and though the mode of communication was imperfect, the artist was enabled to perceive that the captive maiden was a tall, queenly figure, with a rich profusion of sunny hair, indicating a fair and fresh complexion. The result was a promise to paint the ...
— Philothea - A Grecian Romance • Lydia Maria Child
... much boasted constitution of England. That it was noble for the dark and slavish times in which it was erected, is granted. When the world was overrun with tyranny the least remove therefrom was a glorious rescue. But that it is imperfect, subject to convulsions, and incapable of producing what it seems ...
— Common Sense • Thomas Paine
... John Buford reported: "Many had burst; many cones were blown out; many locks were defective; many barrels were rough inside from imperfect boring; and many had different diameters of bore in the same barrel. ... At target practice so many burst that the men became afraid to ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... the senate not formally embodied in a decree, senatus consultum. Cicero, in Invent. 2, 52 says Flaminius carried his law contra voluntatem omnium optimatium. — DIVIDENTI: 'when he tried to divide'. The participle is here equivalent to cum with the imperfect indicative (dividebat). So in 54 lenientem A. 290, a; ...
— Cato Maior de Senectute • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... live up to the best human standards. Wherever the ideal leads him, there he follows. After his brother John's death he said he did not wish ever to see John again, but only the ideal John—that other John of whom he was but the imperfect representative. Yet the loss of the real John was a great blow to him, probably the severest in his life. But he never allows himself to go on record as showing ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... I did what I never had done in all my life: I kneeled down, and prayed to God to fulfil the promise to me, that if I called upon him in the day of trouble, he would deliver me. After my broken and imperfect prayer was over, I drank the rum in which I had steeped the tobacco, which was so strong and rank of the tobacco, that indeed I could scarce get it down. Immediately upon this I went to bed, and I found presently it flew up into my head violently; but I fell into a sound sleep, and waked ...
— The Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1808) • Daniel Defoe
... ancestral record is bad, whose environmental conditions are faulty, whose education has been neglected, who is in all probability physically and mentally deficient, will be capable of conforming to the standards of the other individual? From an imperfect whole, may we not naturally expect bad parts? From a diseased body and mind, may we not look for a low standard of thought and action? And may not these conditions account for the greater part of the little, as as the big, troubles that mar the peace and progress ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol. 3 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... she can, indeed, claim her dower—her hire, as it is called in the too plain language of the Koran; but the knowledge that the wife can make this claim is at the best a miserable security against capricious taste; and in the case of bondmaids even that imperfect check is wanting. The power of divorce is not the only power that may be exercised by the tyrannical husband. Authority to confine and to beat his wives is distinctly vested in his discretion.[72] "Thus restrained, secluded, degraded, the ...
— Two Old Faiths - Essays on the Religions of the Hindus and the Mohammedans • J. Murray Mitchell and William Muir
... considerable reputation among his patients in the neighbouring by-streets. But his practice was not wholly confined to the poorer classes, for he was often consulted by well-dressed members of the foreign colony—on account, probably, of his linguistic attainments. A foreigner with an imperfect knowledge of English naturally prefers a doctor to whom he can speak in his own tongue. Therefore, as Weirmarsh spoke French, Italian and Spanish with equal fluency, it was not surprising that he had formed quite a ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux
... is suggested that the position in which we do actually find ourselves, is that of men who have a real, though imperfect perception of a real Good, and who are endeavouring, by practice, to perfect that perception. In this respect an analogy is drawn between our perception of Good and our perception ...
— The Meaning of Good—A Dialogue • G. Lowes Dickinson
... people have imperfect sensibilities, and cannot judge of the psychology of others, they appraise everything by their own standard—and so cannot calculate correctly ...
— Man and Maid • Elinor Glyn
... by a brief and somewhat imperfect summary of early discoveries; a biographical sketch of Magalhaes, with proofs, citations, etc., by way of authentication thereof—these citations being drawn from the authors Fray Antonio de San Roman, Herrera, Gomara, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 • Emma Helen Blair
... they were in the train that Percy became, for the first time, rather communicative. One day while they were eating lunch in the dining-car and discussing the imperfect characters of several of the boys at school, Percy suddenly changed his tone and made an ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... at the entrance of the passage, each of us took a lighted torch, and advanced at a slow pace. Sumichrast and the Indian skirted the wall to the left, while I walked along the wall to the right. Our smoky torches gave but an imperfect light, and we could scarcely see beyond three yards in front of us. A little farther on, the ground was strewn with fallen stones; before venturing on this dangerous ground, I cast a glance towards my companions; they were not in ...
— Adventures of a Young Naturalist • Lucien Biart
... into planks, or pieces of light scantling, that the deodar was selected for making the sides of the ladders. To have cut down the trunks of heavy trees to the proper thickness for light ladders—with such imperfect implements as they were possessed of—would have been an interminable work for our inexperienced carpenters. The little axe of Ossaroo and the knives were the only tools they possessed available for the work. As the deodar ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid
... matter with him, my dear," said Dr. Brown, grimly. "His eyes have been troubling him, you know, ever since he had the measles in the winter. I've kept one eye on the child, knowing that his mother was a perfect idiot, or rather, an imperfect one, which is worse. Yesterday she sent for me in hot haste: Ned was going blind, and would I please come that minute, and save the precious child, and oh, dear me, what should she do, and all the rest of it. I went down mad enough, I can tell you; found the ...
— Melody - The Story of a Child • Laura E. Richards
... not claimed that the imperfect foot was on the same side of the body as in the parent, and where parents had lost all the toes of a foot, or the whole foot, the few offspring affected usually had lost only two toes out of the three, or only a part of one or two or three toes. Sometimes the offspring had toes missing on both ...
— Are the Effects of Use and Disuse Inherited? - An Examination of the View Held by Spencer and Darwin • William Platt Ball
... art and literature. So each person has to devise a scale of his own and do his measuring for himself; he has to apply to the things he sees and reads the acid test of his own intellect. And however imperfect this measuring and testing may be, it is the only sort which has any value for that particular person. In other words, unless you yourself find a poem or a painting great, it isn't great for you, however critics may extol it. So all the books about art and literature ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... arms and legs; old forms and phrases began to have a sense that frightened her. She had a new feeling, the feeling of danger; on which a new remedy rose to meet it, the idea of an inner self or, in other words, of concealment. She puzzled out with imperfect signs, but with a prodigious spirit, that she had been a centre of hatred and a messenger of insult, and that everything was bad because she had been employed to make it so. Her parted lips locked themselves with the determination to be employed no longer. She ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... This being, so, the only question remaining to be asked is: 'What beings should we then conceive that God would create?' Now, He cannot create perfect beings, 'since, essentially, perfection is one'; if He did so, He would only be adding to Himself. Thus the conclusion is obvious: He must create imperfect ones. Omnipotent Righteousness, faced by the intolerable impasse of a solitary existence, finds itself bound by the very nature of the cause, to create the hospitals at Scutari. Whether this argument would have satisfied the artisans was never discovered, ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... suffrage, of course, is intelligence and virtue; but as we can not define those, as we can not draw the line that shall mark the amount of intelligence and virtue that any individual possesses, we come as near as we can to it by imperfect conditions. It certainly will not be contended that the feminine part of mankind are so much below the masculine in point of intelligence as to disqualify them from exercising the right of suffrage on that account. If it be asserted and conceded that the feminine intellect is less ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... necessarily brief and imperfect digest gives only the headings of an article which filled nearly two columns of the Times, and it is needless to say that such an article in the leading columns of the most serious and respectable newspaper ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... variations of color seen in ancient paper writings, as already stated, were due not only to possible imperfect admixtures of the component parts of the inks, but to the use of vegetable gums in their preparation. In the course of time these have been absorbed by moisture which hastened disintegration, causing a gradual disappearance of their original blackness and gloss and finally a return to the ...
— Forty Centuries of Ink • David N. Carvalho
... common, as well as offences against chastity; while, on the other hand, crimes of violence are almost unknown. From the last census it appears that more than half of the children born in the island are illegitimate. This sad condition of morals Mr. Sewell attributes principally to the imperfect education of the lowest classes,—the schools being mostly church-schools, and somewhat expensive. These schools, however, have increased from 27 in 1834, with 1,574 children, to 70 with 6,180 in 1857, and an infant school with 1,140; the children ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... enough to dine with deliberation, young and healthy enough to sauce with appetite the dishes he thoughtfully selected. You perceived in him the imperfect epicure. His club had no culinary fame; the dinner was merely tolerable; but Rolfe's unfinished palate flattered the second-rate cook. He knew nothing of vintages; it sufficed him to distinguish between Bordeaux and Burgundy; yet one saw him raise his glass and peer at the liquor ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... that was wonderful in a first experience of the festival was gone; but though the novelty had passed away, the cause for wonder was even greater. If on the first day the crowd was immense, it was now something which the imperfect state of the language will not permit me to describe; perhaps awful will serve the purpose as well as any other word now in use. As you looked round, from the centre of the building, on that restless, fanning, fluttering multitude, ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... coming back, that I rather thought never to have returned at all, and I gave them all my books, among which were many of Plato's and some of Aristotle's works: I had also Theophrastus on Plants, which, to my great regret, was imperfect; for having laid it carelessly by, while we were at sea, a monkey had seized upon it, and in many places torn out the leaves. They have no books of grammar but Lascares, for I did not carry Theodorus with me; nor have ...
— Utopia • Thomas More
... as he considered it; for in life no trouble is surmounted but another appears to confront us; nor is the most perfect success of an imperfect world without its drawback. Now that he held the elixir his, now that in fancy he had it in his grasp, the problem of the mode and the quantity which had seemed trivial and negligible a few days or hours before, ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... his confidence that one having for his vehicle the horse (Uchchaisrava), (Indra), patting me on the head with his hand, said these words, "Now even the celestials themselves cannot conquer thee,—what shall I say of imperfect mortals residing on earth? Thou hast become invulnerable in strength, irrepressible, and incomparable in fight." Then with the hair of his body standing on end, he again accosted me saying, "O hero, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... bright aureole has encircled his head, it is not because he had not in him perhaps the same depth of feeling as the illustrious author of "Conrad Wallenrod" and the "Pilgrims," [FOOTNOTE: Adam Mickiewicz.] but his means of expression were too limited, his instrument too imperfect; he could not reveal his whole self by means of a piano. Hence, if we are not mistaken, a dull and continual suffering, a certain repugnance to reveal himself to the outer world, a sadness which shrinks out of sight under apparent ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... his Excellency, with an air of relief. "Then that sufficiently accounts for my very imperfect recollection of the affair"—with a glance at George to direct the latter's attention to the explanation. "Proceed, Senor Montalvo," continued the Governor; "tell us all that you ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... greatest rarity; the Marcus Aurelius with his son on the reverse side, Theodora bearing the globe, and above all the Annia Faustina with Heliogabalus on the reverse side, an incomparable treasure, of which there is only one other example, and that an imperfect one, in the world—a marvel which I would give a day of my life to see; yes, my dear, ...
— The Ink-Stain, Complete • Rene Bazin
... his man, they said me both, that the Earl was not shriven of a great while, but at all his confessors put him in penance to claim that they called his (p. 141) right, that would be that time that every iknew anything that ever to him longed.... [The MS. is here imperfect.] Of the which points and articles here before written, and of all other which now are not in my mind, but truly as often as any to my mind fallen I shall duly and truly certify you thereof; beseeching to you, my liege Lord, for His love that suffered ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 2 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... and improved by renewed comparison with God's word. On the other hand, the Apostle commands us to "receive into our community the brother (him whom we regard as a true disciple of Christ,) who is weak in the faith, (imperfect in some of his views of the truth) but not for doubtful disputations;" not for the purpose of disputing with him on doubtful points. Moreover, the primitive disciples, of contiguous residence, were all united into one church by the Apostles, and the Savior enjoins it on all his disciples ...
— American Lutheranism Vindicated; or, Examination of the Lutheran Symbols, on Certain Disputed Topics • Samuel Simon Schmucker
... sister comforted her by saying that Edinburgh was not the best market for anything new—London was the place where a new author had some chance. Elsie easily caught at the hope, and retouched some of her most imperfect pieces before sending them to a great London house. To publisher after publisher the manuscript was sent, and after due time occupied in reading it, the parcel ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... Round the sides, under glass, are displayed richly-illuminated manuscripts, while down the centre are other glass cases containing medals and antiquities, many belonging to prehistoric times. Among the MSS. is a Bible (imperfect) translated into French by Raoul de Sestre in 1377 by order of CharlesV.; also a New Testament, 12th cent., and ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... twenty-one years of age, one of the Six Nations. His mode of locomotion was by a large wooden bowl, in which he sat and moved forward by advancing first one side of the bowl and then the other, by means of his hands. The nodules or "adventitious joints" were the result of imperfect ossification, or, in other words, of motion before ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... state of his manuscript papers, that he had designed to publish some of the Speeches which he delivered in those discussions, and with that view had preserved the following Fragments and detached Notes, which are now given to the public with as much order and connection as their imperfect condition renders them capable of receiving. The Speeches on the Middlesex Election, on shortening the Duration of Parliaments, on the Reform of the Representation in Parliament, on the Bill for explaining the Power of Juries in Prosecutions for libels, and on the Repeal of the Marriage ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... out that even in the realm of science, where progress is so swift and books so short-lived, the Greeks of the great age had such genius and vitality that their books lived in a way that no others have lived. Let us get away from the thought of Euclid as an inky and imperfect English school-book, to that ancient Eucleides who, with exceedingly few books but a large table of sand let into the floor, planned and discovered and put together and re-shaped the first laws of geometry, till at last he had written one of the ...
— The Legacy of Greece • Various
... is discontinuous, and implies a compromise between the two conditions which in literature correspond to conservatism and radicalism. The conservative work is apt to become a mere survival: while the radical may include much that has the crudity of an imperfect application of new principles. Another point may be briefly indicated. The growth of new forms is obviously connected not only with the intellectual development but with the social and political state of the nation, and there comes into close connection with ...
— English Literature and Society in the Eighteenth Century • Leslie Stephen
... believe that there is no such thing in heaven as a one-legged or a club-footed soul—no such thing as an ugly or a misshapen soul—no such thing as a blind or a deaf soul—no such thing as a soul with tainted blood in its veins; and that out of these imperfect bodies will spring spirits of consummate perfection and angelic beauty—a beauty chastened and enriched by the humiliations that were ...
— Lessons in Life - A Series of Familiar Essays • Timothy Titcomb
... themselves to the history of aging single women in lonely New England village houses,—pathetic sisters lingering upon the neutral ground between the faded hopes of marriage and the yet unrisen prospects of consumption. The work implies an imperfect yet real love of beauty, the leisure for it a degree of pecuniary ease: the thoughts of the sisters rise above the pickling and preserving that occupied their heartier and happier mother; they are in fact ...
— Suburban Sketches • W.D. Howells
... star disk expands into a series of circles, and, if we except the color phenomena noticed outside the focus, these circles are precisely like those seen before in arrangement, in size, and in brightness. If they were not the same, we should pronounce the telescope to be imperfect. There is one other difference, however, besides the absence of the blue central flare, and that is a faint reddish edging around the outer ring when the expansion inside the focus is not carried very far. Upon continuing ...
— Pleasures of the telescope • Garrett Serviss
... flour will support life. It contains all the necessary ingredients for nourishment, but not in the proportion best adapted for ordinary use. A man might live on beef alone, but it would be a very one-sided and imperfect diet. Meat and bread together make the essentials of a healthful diet. In order to give a general idea of food economy, it will be necessary to deal briefly with the functions of the various food principles. As our bodies contain a great deal of muscle, the waste of which is repaired ...
— Public School Domestic Science • Mrs. J. Hoodless
... gain by immigration, the Christians or churches of Christ show more than double the gain of the other three bodies. We glory in this growth only as the glory of Christ is involved in it. It is an earnest of what Christian union will do even through very imperfect instruments. What will the harvest be, when the prayer of Jesus is answered and all his followers are united in one "glorious church, holy and without blemish, not having spot or wrinkle or any such ...
— To Infidelity and Back • Henry F. Lutz
... during his stay in Erewhon, to which is added a true account of his return to the palace of the sun with his Erewhonian bride. This is the only version authorised by the Presidents and Vice-Presidents of the Musical Banks; all other versions being imperfect and inaccurate.—Bridgeford, XVIII., 150 ...
— Erewhon Revisited • Samuel Butler
... the tone of the debate, the admissions of the ministerial speakers, and the delays which have been submitted to, we would almost be inclined to doubt the sincerity of the government in wishing to pass even this measure, imperfect as it is. There seems to exist an extraordinary and ominous good feeling between the opposing parties. Sir James Graham is described by Mr O'Connell as having "stated the case of the promoters of the bill in a manner which ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 367, May 1846 • Various
... Keats's high ideal, and of his sadness because of his own ignorance, when he published his first little volume of poems in 1817. He knew no Greek; yet Greek literature absorbed and fascinated him, as he saw its broken and imperfect reflection in an English translation. Like Shakespeare, who also was but poorly educated in the schools, he had a marvelous faculty of discerning the real spirit of the classics,—a faculty denied to many great scholars, and to most of the "classic" writers of ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... after-evidence which you may call upon me to give. At the time when certain gentlemen tendered their evidence on Shetland truck before the Commission at Edinburgh, I read the brief, necessarily imperfect, and probably inaccurate reports of the same which appeared in the Edinburgh weekly papers. I also read some articles and letters which appeared in the newspapers at the time. About seven months ago I read, as printed I think in a Parliamentary blue book, the report ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... indeed, gain an approximate knowledge of things we have never seen. For example, I have an imperfect notion of a banian-tree, though I have never seen one; but it is only by having seen other trees, and by having also had the perceptions to which appeal is made in describing the peculiarities of the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... slight aids, Christopher Columbus had to rely on an imperfect knowledge of astronomy and on those practical observations of wind and weather and water that he had made during his own voyages. Such slender equipment, plus the tub-like little caravels, would not have invited many men to try unknown ...
— Christopher Columbus • Mildred Stapley
... employment to their tongue. And if these people expect to be heard and regarded—for there are some content merely with talking—they will invent to engage your attention: and, when they have heard the least imperfect hint of an affair, they will out of their own head add the circumstances of time and place and other matters to make out their story and give the appearance of probability to it: not that they have any concern about being believed, otherwise ...
— Human Nature - and Other Sermons • Joseph Butler
... song on "London Bridge" is printed in Ritson's Gammer Gurton's Garland, and in Halliwell's Nursery Rhymes of England; but both copies are very imperfect. There are also some fragments preserved in the Gentleman's Magazine for September, 1823 (vol. xciii. p. 232.), and in the Mirror for November 1st of the same year. From these versions a tolerably perfect copy has been formed, and printed ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 51, October 19, 1850 • Various
... approaching. The essential, fundamental element of the creative imagination in the intellectual sphere is the capacity of thinking by analogy; that is, by partial and often accidental resemblance. By analogy we mean an imperfect kind of resemblance: like is a genus of which analogue is ...
— Essay on the Creative Imagination • Th. Ribot
... a means, although an imperfect one, of endeavouring to discover if the communicators are really returning spirits. It is to ask them to prove their identity by relating as large a number of facts as possible concerning their life upon earth. The investigators of the Piper case ...
— Mrs. Piper & the Society for Psychical Research • Michael Sage
... shelve the subject. But this attitude of weariness is also transitional. There must be some thoroughfare to firm ground and clear vision. It must be found in agreement, first of all, on the real meaning of a term so variously and vaguely used as miracle. In the present imperfect state of knowledge it may be impossible to enucleate miracle, however defined, of all mystery. But even so will much be gained for clear thinking, if miracle can be reasonably related to the greater mystery ...
— Miracles and Supernatural Religion • James Morris Whiton
... from Calderon." The preoccupation of a subject by a great master throws immense difficulties in the way of any one who ventures to follow in the same path: but as Shelley allowed himself great licence in his versification, and either from carelessness or an imperfect knowledge of Spanish is occasionally unfaithful to the meaning of his author, it may be hoped in my own version that strict fidelity both as to the form as well as substance of the original may be some compensation for the absence of ...
— Life Is A Dream • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... with a kind of setting of the teeth, "this is the sort of thing one has to stand. Life is imperfect. Nothing can be done perfectly. And on the whole—" He spoke still more slowly, "I would go through again with the very same things that have hurt my people. If I had to live over again. I would try to do the things without hurting the people, but I would do the things ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... not the least probability that the British constitution would be hurt by the union of Great Britain with her colonies. That constitution, on the contrary, would be completed by it, and seems to be imperfect without it. The assembly which deliberates and decides concerning the affairs of every part of the empire, in order to be properly informed, ought certainly to have representatives from every part of it. That this union, however, could be ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... the inside of the leopard's skin, which gave us enough to do; we then made a sort of lye from the ashes of our fire, which would have, we hoped, some effect in preserving the skin, though we were aware that the process we adopted was very rude and imperfect. As several hours had passed since Tubbs and the two blacks had left us, we became somewhat anxious about them. If the natives had proved treacherous, Tom would very likely be put to death or kept a prisoner, and we should see nothing more of him. About noon, Harry and I had gone down to ...
— The Two Supercargoes - Adventures in Savage Africa • W.H.G. Kingston
... unaffected praise, have we to bestow on these etchings! Never did we see a more perfect harmony expressed throughout between accomplishment and grace of hand and moral beauty of mind. Not the most faultless of mere correctness of drawing could have the effect which these etchings produce. Within outlines imperfect as we have described them, often the most exalted fancies are found. The arrangement is almost always excellent—than the groupings of the figures, and the composition of each scene, nothing for the most part can be better. And the beautiful ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 186, May 21, 1853 • Various
... that suffices to seed thoroughly the milk. Tin utensils are best. Where made with joints, they should be well flushed with solder so as to be easily cleaned (see Fig. 6). In much of the cheaper tin ware on the market, the soldering of joints and seams is very imperfect, affording a place of refuge for ...
— Outlines of Dairy Bacteriology, 8th edition - A Concise Manual for the Use of Students in Dairying • H. L. Russell
... a tall, broad, reddish-faced young man, with a jovial laugh, infinite capacity for being amused at things not intrinsically humorous, and manners that he had tried, fortunately with imperfect success, to model on those of a prize-fighter. Ayre liked him for what he was, while shuddering at what he tried ...
— Father Stafford • Anthony Hope
... in this use. The meaning is vividly expressed but sometimes may be exaggerated or imperfect. Crust of bread may be an exaggeration; on the other hand, if the speaker is destitute not only of bread, but also of shelter and clothing, then crust of bread is an imperfect ...
— How to Write Clearly - Rules and Exercises on English Composition • Edwin A. Abbott
... disposition, some mental and moral resemblances and idiosyncrasies? They were like-minded, so far as a fallible nature and the nature of a stainless humanity could be assimilated. We can think of him as gentle, retiring, amiable, forgiving, heavenly-minded; an imperfect and shadowy, it may be, but still a faithful reflection and transcript of incarnate loveliness. May we not venture to use regarding him his Lord's eulogy on another, "Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is ...
— Memories of Bethany • John Ross Macduff
... distinct tones of her voice had hitherto reached the old sailor's imperfect sense of hearing easily enough. Rather to her surprise, he became stone deaf on a sudden, to her ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins
... from the cut lines, it has been supposed that an impression from plate would [v.03 p.0320] be more easily photographed than one from surface where only a film of ink is spread upon the top of the raised lines. But surface-printing being much less sharp and distinct than plate-printing, imperfect copies of notes for which that process is used are the more likely to escape detection. The plates upon which the early notes were engraved being of copper quickly wore out and had to be constantly replaced. The result was great difference in the appearance of the notes, those printed from ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... leave no level standing-place at the top of the scarp. This was the work which Longstreet afterward assaulted. Its chief defect was due to the situation and the contour of the ground around, which made its position so prominent a salient in the lines that the flanking fire was necessarily imperfect, leaving a considerable sector without fire beyond the angle of the northwest bastion. The point of the bastion was truncated, and a single gun put in the pan coupe. The three other forts were less elaborate but of ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... and then tried to hide it in a laugh. Margaret walked on beside her, her hand on the cart's edge. Somehow this creature, that Nature had thrown impatiently aside as a failure, so marred, imperfect, that even the dogs were kind to her, came strangely near to her, claimed recognition by some ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... could only apply the trite comparison of lilies and roses to the carnation which mantled on her cheek, whilst her fair, silken, luxuriant tresses, and the peculiar limpidity of her glance, added to many other charms, made her more like an angel—so far as our imperfect nature allows of our imagining such a being—than a mere woman." Somewhat later, the smallpox, in robbing her of the bloom of her beauty, still left her all its brilliancy, to repeat the remark of that eminent connoisseur of female loveliness, ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... taste. The fruit expert tells me they are perfect, and so I feel that I organized the activities in that orchard efficiently. In fact, the behavior of my cherry-trees is most gratifying. But when I hear my pupils talk or read their essays, and find a deal of imperfect fruit in the way of solecisms and misspelled words, I feel inclined to discredit my skill in organizing the activities ...
— Reveries of a Schoolmaster • Francis B. Pearson
... quarter, so as to make them its defenders, and to remove from among the people the men of energy who incite the masses to insurrection. By opening out in this way to the public ambition paths that are at once difficult and easy, easy for strong wills, difficult for weak or imperfect ones, a State averts the perils of the revolutions caused by the struggles of men of superior powers to rise to their proper level. Our long agony of forty years should have made it clear to any man who has brains that social superiorities are a natural ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... and adapted to the stage by one of the Misses Lee, the sister authoresses of the Tales. The piece was very fairly successful, but my mother said that though, according to her very considerable experience, the actors were by no means more imperfect in their parts than usual on a first night, her nervous anxiety was kept almost at fever height by poor Miss Lee's incessant running commentary of "Ah! very pretty, no doubt—very fine, I dare say—only I never wrote a word ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... forever like so many articulates or mollusks or radiates, until the vertebrate historian comes with his generalizing ideas, his beliefs, his prejudices, his idiosyncrasies of all kinds, and brings the facts into a more or less imperfect, but still organic series of relations. The history which is not open to adverse criticism is worth little, except as material, for it is written without taking cognizance of those higher facts about which men must differ; of which Guizot ...
— Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... cause her to shed still more. Believe it, my nephew, and guard yourself against Austria's ambition for territorial aggrandizement. You see, I am like all old people, always teaching youth, while we have much to learn ourselves. We are all pupils, and our deeds are ever imperfect." ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... you the trouble of walking to this spot, Captain Waverley, both because I thought the scenery would interest you, and because a Highland song would suffer still more from my imperfect translation were I to introduce it without its own wild and appropriate accompaniments. To speak in the poetical language of my country, the seat of the Celtic Muse is in the mist of the secret and solitary hill, and her voice in the murmur of the mountain stream. ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... many years before. His ten books of Controversiae are only extant in a mutilated form, which comprises thirty-five out of seventy-four themes; to these is prefixed a single book of Suasoriae, which is also imperfect. The work is a mine of information for the history of rhetoric under Augustus and Tiberius, and incidentally includes many interesting quotations, anecdotes, and criticisms. But we feel in reading it that ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail
... society by deterrent penalties, is not the justice of Him who is "faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." Divine justice is redemptive; and society, if it wishes to be Christian, must pay the heavy cost of making all its contacts with the imperfect transforming. ...
— Some Christian Convictions - A Practical Restatement in Terms of Present-Day Thinking • Henry Sloane Coffin
... name of 'The Great Oyer of Poisoning.' Oyer has long been a technical term in English law; and it is almost unnecessary to explain, that it is old French for to hear—oyer and terminer meaning, to hear and determine. The same inscrutable reasons which make the evidence so imperfect against the chief offenders, affect the whole of it. But while the exact causes of the death of Sir Thomas Overbury may be left in doubt, as well as the motives which led to it, enough is revealed in the trials of ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 442 - Volume 17, New Series, June 19, 1852 • Various
... discover by what means she had learned to talk so, and how she (I mean my girl) came to know that her mother had married a husband; but it would not do, the girl would acknowledge nothing, and gave but a very imperfect account of things still, being disgusted to the last degree with Amy's leaving her so ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... in the First Part (Q. 79, A. 8), intellect and reason are not distinct powers in us: but they differ as the perfect from the imperfect. Hence intellectual creatures which are the angels are distinct from rational creatures, and sometimes are included under them. In this sense prayer is said to be proper ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... considerate, genuinely simple in the very texture of their thoughts and feelings, and not averse to that quiet mirth which leaves no bitter taste behind it. One thing that I cannot understand in Charles Lamb is his confession, in the essay on "Imperfect Sympathies," that he had a prejudice against Quakers. But then I remember that one of his best bits of prose is called "A Quaker's Meeting," and one of his best poems is about the Quaker maiden, Hester Savory, and one of ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... forehead from its effects. The men had stripped off the leg of his trousers, and revealed bones protruding near the knee. But little blood flowed from the wound where the ball had penetrated, and I considered it, with my imperfect knowledge of surgery, as looking decidedly bad for saving the ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... them to design and carry out certain actions in accordance with his plans. You are incredulous? Mademoiselle, this power is in every one of us; only we do not cultivate it, because our education is yet so imperfect. To prove the truth of what I say, I, though I have only advanced a little way in the cultivation of my own electric force, even I have influenced YOU. You cannot deny it. By my thought, impelled to you, ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... resolution to steer directly for the west entrance of the Straits of Magalhaeus, with a view of coasting the out, or south side of Terra del Fuego round Cape Horn to the strait Le Maire. As the world has but a very imperfect knowledge of this shore, I thought the coasting of it would be of more advantage, both to navigation and to geography, than any thing I could expect to find in a higher latitude. In the afternoon of this day, the wind blew in squalls, and carried ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World Volume 2 • James Cook
... you will say, rebellious murmurings against the proclamations of God. Not so: I have long since submitted myself, resigned myself, nay, even reconciled myself, perhaps, to the great wreck of my life, in so far as it was the will of God, and according to the weakness of my imperfect nature. But my wrath still rises, like a towering flame, against all the earthly instruments of this ruin; I am still at times as unresigned as ever to this tragedy, in so far as it was the work of human malice. Vengeance, ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... his little boy's eyes with his hands for an instant, significantly, till the baby pushed them down, saying in his imperfect way— ...
— Mary Barton • Elizabeth Gaskell
... the German engineer, a dark-haired, round-faced, middle-aged man, came forward, and, recognising the pair as visitors of the previous day, greeted them warmly in rather imperfect English, and bowed them into where, ranged on a long table, the whole length of the left-hand wall, stood a great quantity of mysterious-looking electrical appliances with a tangle of connecting wires, while ...
— The White Lie • William Le Queux
... match with the rest. It is true that symmetry is generally sought for in works of smaller jewellery; but, even there, not a perfect symmetry, and obtained under circumstances quite different from those which affect the placing of shafts in architecture. First: the symmetry is usually imperfect. The stones that seem to match each other in a ring or necklace, appear to do so only because they are so small that their differences are not easily measured by the eye; but there is almost always such difference between them as would be strikingly ...
— Stones of Venice [introductions] • John Ruskin
... increased seven per cent., and in eight it decreased twelve per cent. But whatever may be the variations in the mere quantity of urine voided under the influence of alcohol, the alterations in quality pretty uniformly show an increase in the products of imperfect internal metamorphosis or oxidation, such as uric acid, oxalates, casts, leucocytes, albumen and potassium, with less of the normal products, as urea and ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen
... pressure of business below them. In a few years the entire street, from the Central Park to the Bowling Green, will be taken up with substantial and elegant structures suited to the growing needs of the great city. From the imperfect sketch of its history here presented, the reader will see that the growth of the street is divided into distinct periods. Under the Dutch it was built as far as Wall street. The next 100 years carried it to the Park, from which it extended to Duane street, reaching ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... that the cause of those evils was the aristocratic principle in our government,—the subjection of the many to the control of a comparatively few, who had an interest, or fancied they had an interest, in perpetuating those evils. These inquirers looked still farther, and saw, that, in the present imperfect condition of human nature, nothing better than this self-preference was to be expected from a dominant few; that the interests of the many were sure to be in their eyes a secondary consideration to their own ease or emolument. Perceiving, ...
— John Stuart Mill; His Life and Works • Herbert Spencer, Henry Fawcett, Frederic Harrison and Other
... Dr. James Browne, in his "History of the Highlands," and by John S. Keltie, in his "History of the Scottish Highlands." Even Lieutenant-General Samuel Graham, who was a captain in the 76th, in his "Memoirs," gives but a slight account of his regiment. So a very imperfect view can only ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... conversation occurred in the commons, which showed the apprehensions of government and of the public, the hypocrisy of Mr. O'Connor, and the folly of Mr. Hume, who, always meaning well, so often inflicted injury on the liberal cause by his imperfect ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... shrewdly suspect most of the party had pretty well "satisfied the sentiment," as Sterne says, none were heard to say so; and after a short delay we pushed on again, apparently regardless of danger. Our progress, however, became every moment more and more difficult and discouraging; for this rude and imperfect staircase, also slippery as ice, was covered with loose stones, that came rattling down on our devoted heads at every false step of those above; and many who had eagerly contested at the outset for the distinction of leading the party, would now have gladly made ...
— Journal of a Visit to Constantinople and Some of the Greek Islands in the Spring and Summer of 1833 • John Auldjo
... acknowledge there must be something repellent in me, but what it is I cannot tell. That Ellen was the cause of the general aversion, it is impossible to believe. The only theory I have is, that partly owing to a constant sense of fatigue, due to imperfect health, and partly to chafing irritation at mere gossip, although I had no power to think of anything better, or say anything better myself, I was avoided both by the commonplace and those who had talent. Commonplace persons ...
— Mark Rutherford's Deliverance • Mark Rutherford
... inflictions upon slaves, are not hap-hazard assertions, nor the exaggerations of fiction conjured up to carry a point; nor are they the rhapsodies of enthusiasm, nor crude conclusions, jumped at by hasty and imperfect investigation, nor the aimless outpourings either of sympathy or poetry; but they are proclamations of deliberate, well-weighed convictions, produced by accumulations of proof, by affirmations and affidavits, by written testimonies and statements of a cloud of ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... that I have never heard of any of these names," he answered, still with that curious smile. "Nevertheless I can understand your surprise. It sometimes happens that the mind, owing an an imperfect adjustment of its faculties, resembles the uneducated vision in its method of judgment, regarding the things which are near as great and important, and those further away as less important, according to their distance. In such a case the ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson
... come back into the world of consciousness to stay. Accepting her nurse's support, but giving no sign of waning faculties or imperfect understanding of what she had seen, she spoke quite clearly and with her eyes fixed ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... the lay of the land intently, he slipped noiselessly out at the door and around behind the cabin, and from there crept on his hands and knees to the bottom of the cliffs. And there he discovered what he had been unable to see in the imperfect light. The grass there was quite tall, where it had not been trampled by the feet of the motley crew that infested the place, and he found that by lying at full length and pulling himself slowly along on his stomach he would be able to conceal ...
— A Woman at Bay - A Fiend in Skirts • Nicholas Carter
... no orator. He was a plain man, ennobled by the training of religious dissent, at the same time indifferently served often by an imperfect education. But the very simplicity and homeliness of its expression gave additional weight to this first avowal of a strong conviction that the time had come when the Labour party must have separateness and a leader if it were to rise out of insignificance; to this frank renunciation of whatever ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... women will not own that there is, at least while the down of first youth is not brushed away, in the eye and cheek of zoned and untainted Innocence, that which survives not even the fruition of a lawful love, and has no (nay, not even a shadowed and imperfect) likeness in the face of guilt? Then, too, had any worldlier or mercenary sentiment entered her breast respecting me, would Isora have flown from the suit of the eldest scion of the rich house of Devereux? and would she, poor and destitute, the daughter of an alien and an exile, ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... consists of nine heavens, each a revolving crystalline sphere, enclosed in another; without them, the boundless Empyrean. The first or innermost heaven, of the Moon, revolved by the angels, is the habitat of wills imperfect through instability. The second, of Mercury, revolved by the Archangels, is the abode of wills imperfect through love of fame. The third, of Venus, revolved by the Principalities, is the abode of wills ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... for personal friendships with men and women of the human family? In the home from which he came he had dwelt from all eternity in the bosom of the Father, and had enjoyed the companionship of the highest angels. What could he find in this world of imperfect, sinful beings to meet the cravings of his heart for fellowship? Whom could he find among earth's sinful creatures worthy of his friendship, or capable of being in any real sense his personal friend? What satisfaction could his heart ...
— Personal Friendships of Jesus • J. R. Miller
... the v is already represented by the ff, so on Sir James's assumption coffee must stand for kahv-ve, which is unlikely. The change from a to o, in my opinion, is better accounted for as an imperfect appreciation. The exact sound of a in Arabic and other Oriental languages is that of the English short U, as in "cuff." This sound, so easy to us, is a great stumbling-block to other nations. I judge that Dutch koffie and kindred forms are ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... harsh and cruel words to use respecting the man who had shown so much true manliness of disposition; but there are times when we all show what a great deal of the imperfect there is in our natures, and this was one of those times with Oliver, who, judging by the mate's acts, formed the conclusion that, seeing their case was desperate, and a way out to save his own life, he had, in sudden ...
— Fire Island - Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track • G. Manville Fenn
... make the married life as happy as this world will allow it to be, there are a thousand little amenities to be rendered on both sides, and as many little shades of comfort to be attended to. Many things must be overlooked, for we are all such imperfect beings; and to bear and forbear is essential to domestic peace. You will say that I find it easy to talk on this subject, and that precept is harder than practice. I allow it, my dear friend, in the practical part I have only to return kind affection and attention ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... has any merit, it is in steering betwixt the extremes of doctrines seemingly opposite, in passing over terms utterly unintelligible, and in forming a temperate yet not inconsistent, and a short yet not imperfect system of Ethics. ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... my intention is not to attempt your panegyrick. That may in some measure be collected from my imperfect labours. But I wish to express to the world, the admiration and gratitude with which you have ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... bridles of the horses, which were attempting to escape. They were still confused, when they were fully restored to their waking senses by a second roar of the lion still nearer to them; and by the imperfect light of the stars they could now distinguish the beast at about one hundred yards' distance. Omrah put the bridles of their two horses in their hands, and motioned them to go on in the direction opposite ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat
... animals were removed to a respectful distance, and I was introduced to the fishmonger as the greatest young politician ever known in that part of the country. The major, it must here be recorded, otherwise this history would be imperfect, was scrupulous not to admit that a young politician, however brilliant his capacity, could be equal to an old one. In this he differed but little from many other great military politicians of ...
— The Life and Adventures of Maj. Roger Sherman Potter • "Pheleg Van Trusedale"
... rather addressed to those who, while anxious to observe and record the antiquities which they may see on their travels, are likely, owing to lack of training, to miss things that may be of importance, or, having observed them, to bring home an imperfect record. It is hoped also that they may catch the attention of some of those who are not interested in the subject, but, coming into possession of antiquities, may unwittingly do incalculable harm by allowing them to be destroyed or dispersed before ...
— How to Observe in Archaeology • Various
... this imperfect narrative,[7] any persons beyond the immediate circle of my companions in misery (for within it I can safely declare that there were no indications of ridicule) should affect to despise, as contemptible or unsoldierlike, ...
— The Loss of the Kent, East Indiaman, in the Bay of Biscay - Narrated in a Letter to a Friend • Duncan McGregor
... thou hast seen what is the form of perfect and imperfect good, now I think we must show in what this perfection of happiness is placed. And inquire first whether there can be any such good extant in the world, as thou hast defined; lest, contrary to truth, we be deceived with an empty show of thought. But it cannot be denied that there ...
— The Theological Tractates and The Consolation of Philosophy • Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius
... There existed everywhere, at Luxor, at Karnak, and on the left bank of the Nile, the remains of his unfinished works; sanctuaries partially roofed in, porticoes incomplete, columns raised to merely half their height, halls as yet imperfect with blank walls, here and there covered with only the outlines in red and black ink of their future bas-reliefs, and statues hardly blocked out, or awaiting the final ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 5 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... separating the genera, families and orders, than upon those which unite the members of each group, and consequently often furnished but little employable material. But above all things a thorough knowledge of development was indispensable, and every one knows how imperfect is our present knowledge of this subject. The existing deficiencies were the more difficult to supply, because, as Van Beneden remarks with regard to the Decapoda, from the often incredible difference in the development of the most nearly allied ...
— Facts and Arguments for Darwin • Fritz Muller
... Big Turtle. "Look at these persons with whom I am. Where is one who is imperfect? You are very inferior. Come, depart. ...
— Myths and Legends of the Great Plains • Unknown
... conscience in the face and say, that he is the person that can perform this. Again, if we betake ourselves unto the covenant of grace, reason itself might blush and be ashamed once to suppose, that the blood of the immaculate Son of God stood in any need of an addition of man's imperfect works, in order to complete salvation. See Catechising on the Heidelberg catechism on question lii. page 180. Blackwall's ratio sacra, page ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... work freely under her imperfect sail and with the roof she carried, and a moment of painful anxiety succeeded. Paul managed, however, to get a part of the sail aback, and ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... as he could shake off the horror inspired by this dreadful action, Leonard ran to the pit, and, gazing into it, beheld him by the imperfect light struggling in the horrible mass in which he was partially immersed. The frenzied man had now, however, begun to repent his rashness, and cried out for aid. But this Leonard found it impossible to afford him; and, seeing he must speedily perish if left to himself, he ran ...
— Old Saint Paul's - A Tale of the Plague and the Fire • William Harrison Ainsworth
... turned for an affection, that had been as no other in its absolute incapacity of offence. A tear upon the cheek, like [47] the bark of a tree, testified to some unfulfilled hope, something wished for but not to be, which left resignation, by nature or grace, still imperfect, and made death at fourscore years and ten seem, after all, like a premature summons in the midst of one's days. For a few hours, the peace which followed brought back to the face a protesting gleam of youth, far antecedent to anything Gaston ...
— Gaston de Latour: an unfinished romance • Walter Horatio Pater
... in which the Boers start favourably handicapped for five weeks certain, is the foreseen consequence of the decision of the Cabinet to postpone the measures necessary for the defence of the British colonies and for attack upon the Boer States. This decision is not attributable to imperfect information. It was regarded as certain so long ago as December last, by those in a position to give the best forecast, that the Boers of both States meant war with the object of establishing Boer supremacy. ...
— Lessons of the War • Spenser Wilkinson
... Nature delivered them to us in the full vigor of the thing untamed, when their value as food was indifferent, as to-day she offers us the sloe, the bullace, the blackberry, the crab; she gave them to us in the state of imperfect sketches, for us to fill out and complete; it was for our skill and our labor patiently to induce the nourishing pulp which was the earliest form of capital, whose interest is always increasing in the primordial bank of the tiller of ...
— A Book of Exposition • Homer Heath Nugent
... habitually declared that the machine was well enough to answer any good purpose, provided the materials were sound. The statesman who resists all projects for the reform of the constitution, and yet eagerly proclaims how deplorably imperfect are the practical results of its working, binds himself to vigorous exertions for the amendment of administration. Burke devoted himself to this duty with a fervid assiduity that has not often been exampled, and has never been ...
— Burke • John Morley
... of this is needed than that our conception is clear and distinct; in this clearness and distinctness we find the principle of certitude. Mind, then, exists, and is known to us as a thinking substance. But the idea of an infinite, perfect Being is also present to our intellect; we, finite, imperfect beings, could not have made it; unmake it we cannot; and in the conception of perfection that of existence is involved. Therefore God exists, and therefore the laws of our consciousness, which are His laws, cannot deceive us. We have seen what mind or spirit signifies—a thinking substance. ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... be denied that the general "power to declare war" is without limitation and embraces within itself not only what writers on the law of nations term a public or perfect war, but also an imperfect war, and, in short, every species of hostility, however confined or limited. Without the authority of Congress the President can not fire a hostile gun in any case except to repel the attacks of an enemy. It will not be doubted that under this ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 5: James Buchanan • James D. Richardson
... her judgment, she would have shown a spirit in emergency better adapted to wrestle with the times than had been discovered by His Majesty. Certain it is she was generally esteemed the most proper to be consulted of the two. From the imperfect idea which many of the persons in office entertained of the King's capacity, few of them ever made any communication of importance but to the Queen. Her Majesty never kept a single circumstance from her husband's knowledge, and scarcely decided on the smallest trifle ...
— The Secret Memoirs of Louis XV./XVI, Complete • Madame du Hausset, an "Unknown English Girl" and the Princess Lamballe
... details being washed out. The first defects are avoided by pouring a solution of boric acid on the transitory support before applying the tissue and developing at a low temperature with salted water. The second from an imperfect knowledge of the properties of gelatine acted on by light in presence of a salt of chromic acid. One should bear in mind that the degree of solubility of gelatine so acted on, as also its degree of impermeability—which is important in certain processes of photogravure—is proportionate to the ...
— Photographic Reproduction Processes • P.C. Duchochois
... into the panels of one of the doors—a fashion both pretty and convenient. Have a care that all mirrors are of plate glass, for the foreshortened, distorted image which looks back at one from an imperfect looking-glass has a depressing effect on ...
— The Complete Home • Various
... Gibraltar give a very imperfect idea of its position, which may be best conveyed by representing the Spanish coast as a door, and the Rock as the knob of its handle. The latter's seaward face is a pretty close ...
— Harper's Young People, April 20, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... arrangements that we have tried to describe will be found in our cuts. That at p. 35 is from a drawing, by the aid of a very imperfect photograph, of part of one of the frescoes of Spinello Aretini in the Municipal Palace at Siena, representing a victory of the Venetians over the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa's fleet, commanded by his son Otho, in 1176; but no doubt the galleys, ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... which appears when we consider that five-sixths of the population of European Russia is comprised in these communities. The tax assessed upon them by the imperial government is, however, a feature which—even more than their imperfect system of property and their low grade of mental culture—separates them by a world-wide interval from the New England township, to the primeval embryonic ...
— American Political Ideas Viewed From The Standpoint Of Universal History • John Fiske
... de Saint-Veran was a very pretty girl. The photographs reproduced in the papers after her disappearance give but an imperfect notion of her beauty. That follows which was bound to follow. Lupin, seeing this lovely girl daily for five or six weeks, longing for her presence when she is not there, subjected to her charm and grace when she is ...
— The Hollow Needle • Maurice Leblanc
... have been occasionally carried to an unnecessary length. This was the natural consequence of the imperfect state of experimental knowledge at that period. When men were unable to detect the poisonous matters—to be over scrupulous in the use of such water, was an error on ...
— A Treatise on Adulterations of Food, and Culinary Poisons • Fredrick Accum
... Roe, already related in Sect. IV. of this chapter; and the present short article almost exclusively relates to the new factory at Cranganore on the Malabar coast, in which Hawes was left as one of the factors. This is a very imperfect and inconclusive article, yet gives some idea of the manners ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume IX. • Robert Kerr
... through flying clouds, and now shining brightly. At length they arrived at a point where the mountains sank into rough and unequal hillocks, and passed at once from the barren sterility of the precipices, to the imperfect culture of the ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... recognition of the fraternity which inspires the greatest tasks which have yet fallen to the lot of so many peoples, working together for a common end, we receive your compliment to our country, and for this purpose I have thus detained you to hear this imperfect expression ...
— Latin America and the United States - Addresses by Elihu Root • Elihu Root
... related to each other as the less to the greater, as the part to the whole. One naturally shrinks from employing a diagram in dealing with such a topic as this; but perhaps recourse might without offence be had to this method—necessarily imperfect as it is—on account of its essential simplicity, and because it is calculated to remove misapprehensions. If we can think of a very large sphere, A, and, situated anywhere within this, of a very small sphere, a—then the relation of the smaller to the greater will ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... who went through his duties with the calm stoicism of the Oriental in the face of death. After a little, Faith and Hope also joined in the "Relief Corps," as he named it, while Bess fought her own sickness bravely that she might care for her mother, whose heart action was imperfect. To their great delight the electric lights suddenly blazed out again, greatly relieving the distress of the situation, for its horrors had been doubled by darkness. At the same instant the captain appeared among them and amid a clamor of questions, requests, and suggestions, ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... Bible is the word of God it will present to us the perfect God as He is, and every act of His it records will be perfection. But the Bible does not show us a perfect God, but a very imperfect God, and such of His acts as the Bible records ...
— God and my Neighbour • Robert Blatchford
... by the arm as he spoke, and led her forward for two or three steps. At first the darkness appeared impenetrable, but presently her eyes became accustomed to the imperfect light, and she saw that she was standing in a long apartment, filled with all manner of odd, injured, and useless articles. Scraps of broken furniture, balks of timber, and strangely-shaped pieces ...
— Sisters Three • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... hoping that an individual whose ancestral record is bad, whose environmental conditions are faulty, whose education has been neglected, who is in all probability physically and mentally deficient, will be capable of conforming to the standards of the other individual? From an imperfect whole, may we not naturally expect bad parts? From a diseased body and mind, may we not look for a low standard of thought and action? And may not these conditions account for the greater part of the little, as as the ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Vol. 3 (of 4) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague
... the minister, "I must take blame; since it shows that my advocacy in so strong a case has been very imperfect." ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... imperative mood; self, first person singular; mind, imperfect tense; eyes, positive; voice, in the superlative degree; ...
— The Boarding School • Unknown
... case, imperfect as is the condition of barbarous states, still what is there to overthrow them? They have a principle of union congenial to the state of their intellect, and they have not the ratiocinative habit to scrutinize and invalidate it. Since they admit of no mental progress, what serves as a bond to-day ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... the responsibility of any disaster that might occur where it properly belonged. On the 1st of the month he made a full report to his next superior officer, General Wool, at Troy, New York, to be forwarded to the Secretary of War, in relation to the dangers that threatened us, and our imperfect means of defense. He notified them that our provisions would be exhausted by the 20th of the month, and that we were very deficient in ammunition and military supplies generally. The secretary, in his answer to ...
— Reminiscences of Forts Sumter and Moultrie in 1860-'61 • Abner Doubleday
... good. (2) In order that this may be rightly understood, we must bear in mind that the terms good and evil are only applied relatively, so that the same thing may be called both good and bad according to the relations in view, in the same way as it may be called perfect or imperfect. (3) Nothing regarded in its own nature can be called perfect or imperfect; especially when we are aware that all things which come to pass, come to pass according to the eternal order and fixed ...
— On the Improvement of the Understanding • Baruch Spinoza [Benedict de Spinoza]
... year—I mean Falesa and D. B., not Samoa, of course—seem to me to be nearer what I mean than anything I have ever done; nearer what I mean by fiction; the nearest thing before was Kidnapped. I am not forgetting the Master of Ballantrae, but that lacked all pleasurableness, and hence was imperfect in essence. So you see, if I am a little tired, I ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to the batteries, and also the connections between them. Most troubles are caused by imperfect battery connections. 2. Examine the fuses inside the case. If these are blown or are defective, replace them with 15 ampere fuses, Cat. No. 6335. 3. See that the clip is on the wire of the bulb. 4. The bulb may have a slow leak and not rectify. Try a new bulb, Cat. No. 189049. 5. Have the switch ...
— The Automobile Storage Battery - Its Care And Repair • O. A. Witte
... "There is no God," but he says, "I know not what you mean by God; I am without idea of God; the word God is to me a sound conveying no clear or distinct affirmation. I do not deny God, because I cannot deny that of which I have no conception, and the conception of which, by its affirmer, is so imperfect that he is unable to define it to me."' (Charles Bradlaugh, "Freethinker's Text-book," p. 118.) The Atheist neither affirms nor denies the possibility of phenomena differing from those recognised by human experience.... As his knowledge of the universe is extremely ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... over my dream. I found myself wandering in darkness, I knew not whither, among bushes and broken ground; there was the roar of a large stream in my ear, and the savage howl of the storm. I retain a confused, imperfect recollection of a light streaming upon broken water—of a hard struggle in a deep ford—and of at length sharing in the repose and safety of a cottage, solitary and humble almost as my own. The vision again strengthened, and I found myself seated beside a fire, and engaged with a few grave and ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... small open boat, near one of the minor mouths of the Ganges; and he had just fallen asleep on the beams, when he was suddenly awakened by a violent motion, as if his skiff were capsizing. Starting up, he saw in the imperfect light a huge tiger, that had swam, apparently, from the neighbouring jungle, in the act of boarding the boat. So much was he taken aback, that though a loaded musket lay beside him, it was one of the loose beams, ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... projecting surface. Voices of men were also heard in stifled converse below; it seemed as if the pursuers had not discovered the narrow path which led to the top of the rock, or that, having discovered it, the peril of the ascent, joined to the imperfect light, and the uncertainty whether it might not be defended, made ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... Archie's part. The fact that the hound had recognized him had appeared to him a sure proof of the truth of his tale, and Archie had put on an air of such stupid simplicity that the earl deemed him to have but imperfect possession of his wits. Moreover, in any case he could overtake him in case he ...
— In Freedom's Cause • G. A. Henty
... Each charm, each envied beauty melts away. Where'er she governs, WISDOM will descry In the fair form a foul deformity. —There tottering Old Age essay'd to prance With feeble feet, and join'd th' imperfect dance. There supercilious Youth assum'd the air And reverend grace which hoary Sages wear. There I beheld full many a youthful Maid, Like colts for sale to public view display'd, Shew off their shapes and ply their happiest ...
— The First of April - Or, The Triumphs of Folly: A Poem Dedicated to a Celebrated - Duchess. By the author of The Diaboliad. • William Combe
... speculations as well as for affairs of state. One evening at supper, he entertained us for some time with some curious reveries and conjectures as to the nature of the intelligence of beasts, with regard to which, he observed human knowledge was as yet very imperfect. He in particular seemed fond of inquiring into the language of the brute creation. He observed that beasts fully communicate their ideas to each other, and that some of them, such as dogs, can form several ...
— Boswell's Correspondence with the Honourable Andrew Erskine, and His Journal of a Tour to Corsica • James Boswell
... that we can now add up, as it were, all these momentary effects through years and centuries, with a view of determining the combined result at any one moment. It is true that this can be done only in an imperfect way, and at the expense of enormous labor; but, by putting more and more work into it, investigating deeper and deeper, taking into account smaller and smaller terms of our formulae, and searching for the minutest effects, we may gradually approach, though ...
— The Reminiscences of an Astronomer • Simon Newcomb
... not perfect myself: No, I am greatly imperfect. Yet will I not allow, that my imperfections shall excuse those of my wife, or make her think I ought to bear faults in her, that she can rectify, because she bears ...
— Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded • Samuel Richardson
... significations, to hear, in all their grand harmony, its various discordant symphonies and fugues, to see its marvelous associations, needs to be Briarean-armed, Israfel-hearted and Argus-eyed, as perhaps none in our imperfect day and generation can claim to be. But at least this 'Nature' of Emerson's insinuated, dimly and dreamily, in spite of its positive air, an occult relation between man and Nature. It invested rock and sky and air with new and startling attributes. The ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... Fortunio had to intervene, to make plainer to this ignorant Piedmontese mind the Marquise's questions. His answers came in a deep, hoarse voice, slurred by the accent of Piedmont, and madame—her knowledge of Italian being imperfect—had frequently to have recourse to Fortunio to discover the meaning ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... to give up working," said Lida. "You evidently set a high value on your work. Let us give up arguing; we shall never agree, since I put the most imperfect dispensary or library of which you have just spoken so contemptuously on a higher level than any landscape." And turning at once to her mother, she began speaking in quite a different tone: "The prince is very much changed, ...
— The Darling and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... and Indabigash, Tammaritu corresponded with Ashurbanipal. We have letters from him to the King of Assyria and from Ashurbanipal to him. Unfortunately these letters are very imperfect, or not yet published. He is mentioned continually in the letters. There were several of the name: (1) son of Urtaku, third brother of Teumman, (2) son of Teumman, slain with his father, (3) son of Ummanigash, King of Elam, succeeded his cousin Ummanigash, whom he dethroned, ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters • C. H. W. Johns
... the Fair is just issued. It has been got up in great haste, and must necessarily be imperfect, but it extends to 320 double-column octavo pages on brevier type (not counting advertisements) and is sold for a shilling—(24 cents). Some conception of the extent of the Fair may be obtained from the following hasty ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... burn powder. Nor were they deceived in their expectations. They found the Texian militia encamped before the town, which, as well as its adjacent fort of the Alamo, was held by the Mexicans, the Texians were besieging it in the best manner their imperfect means and small numbers would permit. An amusing account is given by Mr Ehrenberg of the camp and proceedings ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... manners of the Arabians before the time of Mahomet, we have few and imperfect accounts; but from the remotest ages they led the same unsettled and predatory life which they do at this day, dispersed in hordes, and dwelling under tents. It was not to those wild and wandering tribes that the superb Palmyra owed its rise and grandeur, though situated in the midst ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... forth torrents of eloquence on the Sabbath, and felt the force of a nature exceptionally rich and strong in its conception of religious truths and human needs, only to find him on the morrow floundering hopelessly in the mire of rudimentary science, or getting, by repeated perusals, but an imperfect idea of some author's words, which it seemed to her he ought to have grasped at ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... imaginable. I heard a lady there call a runaway nobleman Profugo mighty prettily; and added, that his conduct had put all the town into orgasmo grande. All this, however, the Tuscans may possibly have in common with them. My knowledge of the language must remain ever too imperfect for me to depend on my own skill in it; all I can assert is, that the Florentines appear, as far as I have been competent to observe, to depend more on their own copious and beautiful language for expression, than the ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... opportunities. He had no education at all, but was naturally gifted as an orator. He was quite logical and allegorical in his manner of speaking. I have heard several white people remark, who had listened to his speeches through the imperfect interpreters, that he was as good a speaker as any orator ...
— History of the Ottawa and Chippewa Indians of Michigan • Andrew J. Blackbird
... generally, because such an imitation cannot fail to have a tendency to keep the attention fixed on externals rather than on the thought within;—2ndly, because, accordingly, it leads the artist to rest satisfied with that which is always imperfect, namely, bodily form, and circumscribes his views of mental expression to the ideas of power and grandeur only;—3rdly, because it induces an effort to combine together two incongruous things, that is to say, modern feelings in antique forms;—4thly, because ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... it sees in infinite longing for some higher greatness which it has either lost or otherwise cannot reach, finds the art, and the humanity, and the creations, and the affections which seem to others so exquisite most imperfect and ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... trim, athletic figure was muffled in a big, double-breasted, woolly overcoat, the collar turned up about his ears. His neat bowler hat was tilted forward so as to shade the fierce blue eyes. Indeed, in that imperfect light, little of the Chief Inspector's countenance was visible except his large, gleaming white teeth, which he constantly revealed in the act of industriously ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... are then clear: (1) The attainment of our desires for perfection, the satisfaction of our passion for the infinite, is forbidden to us on earth by the limitations of life. We are made imperfect; we are kept imperfect here; and we must do all our work within the limits this natural imperfection makes. (2) We must, nevertheless, not cease to strive towards the perfection unattainable on earth, but which shall be attained ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... writer: one in the Royal Library at Brussels, the second in the Royal Irish Academy Collection (M. 23, 50, pp. 109-120), and the third in possession of Professor Hyde. As the second and third enumerated are copies of one imperfect exemplar it has not been thought necessary to collate both with the Brussels MS. which has furnished the text here printed. M. 23, 50 (R.I.A.) has however been so collated and the marginal references ...
— The Life of St. Declan of Ardmore • Anonymous
... the overdressed youth, and ate many expensive chocolates. Mistaking the situation, and used to the complaisance of the French peasant, M. le Petit-Maitre presented himself at Dovelands Cottage and made certain overtures of a financial nature to Mrs. Duveen. Between his imperfect English, his delicate mode of expressing the indelicate, and his great charm, poor Mrs. Duveen found confusion, brewed tea and reported ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer
... like events must follow like objects, and that the course of nature will always be regular in its operations. For if there be in reality any arguments of this nature they surely lie too abstruse for the observation of such imperfect understandings; since it may well employ the utmost care and attention of a philosophic genius to discover and observe them. Animals therefore are not guided in these inferences by reasoning; neither are children; neither are the generality of mankind in their ordinary actions and conclusions; ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley
... everywhere been expressed respecting this first dramatic production of American genius, and the pleasure which it has already afforded in the theatres of New York and Maryland, persuade Mr. Wignell that his excuses on this occasion will be acceptable to the public and that even in so imperfect a dress, the intrinsic merit of the comedy will contribute to the amusement and command the approbation of the audience." Of Wignell and his associates, an excellent impression may be had from a first hand description by W. B. Wood, in ...
— The Contrast • Royall Tyler
... great a difference, that you will be as much alarmed as if in the presence of Indians, when such a tribe of Germans is brought before you. Then go still further back into the pre-historic times, and form an image of the pile-builders and their mode of life, and of the cave-dwellers and their imperfect weapons and tools, and you will have to confess that these are separated from the present Europeans by a greater gap than are the uncultured inhabitants of the earth of to-day. And yet these cave-dwellers and pile-builders ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, August 1887 - Volume 1, Number 7 • Various
... [A very imperfect character of Princess Lieven, with whom Mr. Greville was at this time but slightly acquainted. But in after years he became one of her most intimate and confidential friends, and she frequently reappears in the course ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... to an imperfect stage of society; it has a side of pure brutality. But it is not all brutal. Wordsworth's daring line about "God's most perfect instrument" has a great truth behind it. What examples are to be found in the tales here retold, not merely of heroic ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... a part in most of the longer stories. That is because I believe dreams have a part in real life. Some of them we remember as vividly as any actual experience. These belong to the imperfect sleep. But others we do not remember, because they are given to us in that perfect sleep in which the soul is liberated, and goes visiting. Yet sometimes we get a trace of them, by a happy chance, and often their influence remains with ...
— The Valley of Vision • Henry Van Dyke
... more than one battle, they had been long absent from their farms, their equipment was worn out, the enemy had been driven from Virginia, and they considered that they were fully entitled to some short repose. And amongst these, whose only fault was an imperfect sense of their military obligations, was the residue of cowards and malingerers shed by every great army engaged in ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... said: "I am Destilia!" His story was so strange that I asked him a good many questions about it. He answered me quite frankly on every point, but always adhering stoutly to the main point—namely, that it was no phantom or mirage, no dream or imperfect vision in a fog. "We were four in all who saw it," he said—"three from the bridge and the Englishman, Caulfield—from the bows—whose account exactly agreed with what we saw. Captain Mirolani and Falamano and I were all awake and in good trim. We looked with ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... The angel's wings are no longer white, but many coloured as in old times, and there is a touch of humour in the fact that of the six souls in purgatory, four are women and only two men. The expression on Christ's face is very fine, but otherwise the drawing could not well be more imperfect than it is. ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler
... the more strongly wafted ouer. And so by reason of the departure of your ambassadours, all matters remaine in suspense till such time as the sayd ambassadors shall againe meete with ours to adde perfection vnto the busines as yet imperfect. Wherefore (our friend unfainedly beloued) desiring from the bottome of our heart that the integritie of loue, which hath from auncient times taken place betweene our and your subiects, may in time to come also be kept inuiolable, we haue thought good once again to send one of our foresaid ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, v5 - Central and Southern Europe • Richard Hakluyt
... flung it off, with the results upon the body of the original as described. To my mind the occurrence of such a vision in the daytime is more impressive than if it had happened in a midnight dream. Readers are therefore asked to correct the misrelation, which affords an instance of how our imperfect memories insensibly formalize the fresh originality of living fact—from whose shape they slowly depart, as machine-made castings depart by degrees from the sharp hand-work ...
— Wessex Tales • Thomas Hardy
... the Highlanders," by Dr. James Browne, in his "History of the Highlands," and by John S. Keltie, in his "History of the Scottish Highlands." Even Lieutenant-General Samuel Graham, who was a captain in the 76th, in his "Memoirs," gives but a slight account of his regiment. So a very imperfect view can only be expected in ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... that has been wrought by war among the people. It is the populace who suffer, even in greater degree than do the fighting men. They must give way in every instance before the irresistible barrier of martial law. It is the old men, the women, the children, the babies and the physically imperfect who must bear ...
— Private Peat • Harold R. Peat
... methods of striking a light were very primitive, just as they were in Europe; many families possessed no adequate means, or very imperfect ones. If by ill fortune the fire in the fireplace became wholly extinguished through carelessness at night, some one, usually a small boy, was sent to the house of the nearest neighbor, bearing a shovel or covered pan, or perhaps a broad strip of green bark, on which to ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... I gained by my laborious researches but an humbling conviction of my weakness and ignorance! Of how little has man, at his best estate, to boast! What folly in him to glory in his contracted powers, or to value himself upon his imperfect acquisitions!" ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... M. Maeterlinck's youth and a greater ghoulishness in the verse of Mr. Hardy's youth. It is of Mr. Hardy's verses that one thinks oftenest as one reads these verses of Synge, and not only because of certain likenesses in subject-matter, but because of the imperfect mastery of both over the verse forms and a certain epigrammatic gnomic quality common to both. The verses of Synge are not relatively so important in comparison with the rest of his writing as Mr. Hardy's verses are in comparison with the rest of his writing, for they are ...
— Irish Plays and Playwrights • Cornelius Weygandt
... the jury, this document does not convict the unfortunate man at the bar; and what appears like an admission of guilt is only to be attributed to his imperfect mode of expressing himself. He admits that he partook of certain brandy stated to be the captain's, which the captain, himself, however, would lead you to suppose had been provided by me. The witness who has been examined throws ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... only be procured in England, he gave the order to a Birmingham firm, which engined his first successful boat, the "Clermont," launched on the Hudson in 1807. But for the war, perhaps, Fulton would have continued to live in Paris and made his third attempt there. He certainly never offered his imperfect steamship to the First Consul. Probably the fact that his first boat foundered when at anchor in the Seine would have procured him a rough reception, if he had offered to equip the whole of the Boulogne flotilla ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... elapsed before the first of them was even announced. When Washington, on May 1, 1789, began his duties, there was absolutely nothing of the government of the United States in existence but a President and a Congress. The imperfect and broken machinery of the confederation still moved feebly, and performed some of the absolutely necessary functions of government. But the new organization had nothing to work with except these outworn remnants of a discarded system. There were no departments, and no arrangements for ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge
... ordinary conventional map with dots and lines and green seas and tell him to revaluate that geographic scene in his or her own terms. The mountains will be a bit out of gear and the cities will look astonishingly mediaeval. The outlines will be often very imperfect, but the general effect will be quite as truthful as that of our conventional maps, which ever since the days of good Gerardus Mercator have told a strangely erroneous story. Most important of all, it will give the child a feeling of intimacy ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... recently dead] on whose word I wholly relay'd. But now every thing comes far short of my expectations. I am now to aquent you that Alexr. [Lochgarry] meet me here, by order, to desire my proceeding to Venice [Ld. Marshal] as every thing without that trip will be imperfect. All I can say at this distance and in so precarious a situation is that I find they play Mrs. Strange [the Highlanders] hard and fast. They expect a large quantity of the very best Brasile snuff [the Clans] from hir, ...
— Pickle the Spy • Andrew Lang
... and set them in places of honour in the day when He 'makes up His jewels'? There are cups of cold water and widows' mites and much else that a supercilious world would call 'trash' stored there. Thank God! He accepts imperfect service, faltering faith, partial consecration, a little love. Even our poor offering may be an 'odour of a sweet smell,' ministering fragrance that is a delight to Him, if it is offered with the ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... of the manufacturer will have the double advantage of the lowest market price, and the privilege of returning those that are imperfect. In connection with the above, I am manufacturing the usual style of PENHOLDER, together with my PATENT EXTENSION PENHOLDER with PENCIL. All orders thankfully received, and punctually attended to. A. ...
— Scientific American magazine Vol 2. No. 3 Oct 10 1846 • Various
... of the true artist for ever labors to evolve the beautiful. This is what the thought of a picture means to him—how to express beauty, which he finds underlying even the imperfect individual of Nature's decaying birth. To the high insight this is always discernible. None are so fallen that some ray of God's light may not touch them, and this possibility, the faith in light for ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... inwoven with a minute study of peasant life and character, Auerbach's popular reputation was established. His plan of making ethics the chief end of a novel was here exhibited at its best; he never again showed the same force of conception which got his imperfect literary art forgiven. Another long novel, not less doctrinaire in scope, but dealing with quite different materials and problems, 'Das Landhaus am Rhein' (The Villa on the Rhine), was issued in 1868; and was followed by 'Waldfried,' ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... slow and imperfect method have been made of late years, among the earlier of which was that of Messrs. Newbery and Vautin. They placed the pulp with water in a gaslight revolving cylinder, into which the chlorine was introduced, and ...
— Getting Gold • J. C. F. Johnson
... said, men whose prison records are clear are liberated after serving two-thirds of their original sentences. But part or all of this abridgment may be lost by imperfect conduct. One man, at least, within my knowledge, was punished by the dark hole several months before the expiration of his original sentence, and was kept there until that sentence had expired. Then, out of that filthy dungeon he was thrust abruptly forth into broad daylight and the crowded ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... Revolution witnessed, and it was due in a great measure to men who hastened to the spoil like vultures to their prey. If the army has not in advanced, if proper weapons are not even yet ready, let the reader reflect how much the army is still crippled owing to imperfect supplies, and ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... the first thoroughly to explore it, cutting his way inland through the tangled undergrowth of imperfect thought. He has measured its length and breadth, marked out and described its spiritual features with minute accuracy. The country thus won to philosophy will always bear his name, Estetica di Croce, a ...
— Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic • Benedetto Croce
... Christianity do not make the precepts of the Bible their rule of life, or they do so only in a very imperfect way, and thus scandal is brought upon the name of Christ, whose servants they profess to be. But it is self-evident that he who obeys the Bible in sincerity and truth is thus made a thoroughly good man; good in his inward ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... justly celebrated for its health, beauty, and wealth. If it loses the two first of these distinctions, how long will it retain the last? Business and population will turn away from an unhealthy and unattractive town. Defective sewerage and imperfect drainage are sapping the health; and the occupation of the suburbs by houses, manufactories, workshops, and stores, is destroying the beauty of the city. Will the merchants of Boston, whose reputation for intelligence, sagacity, and enterprise has ...
— Parks for the People - Proceedings of a Public Meeting held at Faneuil Hall, June 7, 1876 • Various
... being granted, as well as the proposition that mental phenomena are variable, and that the modifications are inheritable, the possibility of the several most complicated instincts being slowly acquired was considered, and it was shown from the very imperfect series in the instincts of the animals now existing, that we are not justified in prima facie rejecting a theory of the common descent of allied organisms from the difficulty of imagining the transitional stages in the various now most ...
— The Foundations of the Origin of Species - Two Essays written in 1842 and 1844 • Charles Darwin
... propitious and suitable for the immediate consummation of the union, with the express object of letting you have a certain insight into the fact that if the condition of the abode of spirits within the confines of Fairyland be still so (imperfect), how much the more so should be the nature of the affections which prevail in the dusty world; with the intent that from this time forth you should positively break loose from bondage, perceive and amend your former disposition, devote ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... as a man would struggle who is attacked by a wild dog. I think that he did not explain the cause of his hatred, though, of course, my memory as to what took place at that moment is disturbed and imperfect; but I did know in my heart why it was that he ...
— Mr. Scarborough's Family • Anthony Trollope
... fascinating trains of reflexion, what colour and substance would therewith have been deducted from it, filled as it is, apart from the more aweful associations of the Christian ritual, apart from Galahad's cup, with all the various symbolism of the fruit of the vine. That supposed loss is but an imperfect measure of all that the name of Dionysus recalled to the Greek mind, under a single imaginable form, an outward body of flesh presented to the senses, and comprehending, as its animating soul, a whole world of thoughts, surmises, greater ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... which is the rightful indulgence of a man who has written a volume on the rules of evidence, "that 'poor in spirit' undoubtedly means unassuming, rightly satisfied with what is their due, mindful of the fact that human nature is so imperfect that whatever a man obtains is probably more than he deserves. They cannot be the meek, for special allusion is made to the meek in this same group of specially designated persons. Neither can it refer to people who are usually called poor-spirited persons, ...
— Romance of California Life • John Habberton
... Trusting to them how imperfect must have been a reported speech! And relying on those who transferred their speeches to a different language, we have little assurance of any thing better than mutilated transcripts of the original. Need we be surprised then, to find in Red ...
— An account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha - Red Jacket and his people, 1750-1830 • John Niles Hubbard
... Savage and the Shopkeeper at Monboddo[615], will probably impute to the spirit of contradiction, I still think that he had better have given more attention to fewer things, than have thrown together such a number of imperfect accounts. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... leader, in imperfect English, grasping the hands held out in salutation, while his actions were imitated by the ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... common between the two by which God can be mediated, and so makes him wholly incomprehensible. Christianity gives us Emmanuel, God with us, equally removed from the stern despotic omnipotence of the Semitic monotheism and the finite and imperfect humanities of Olympus. We see God in Christ, as full of sympathy with man, God "in us all"; and yet we see him in nature, providence, history, as "above all" and "through all." The Roman Catholic Church has, perhaps, humanized religion too far. For every god and ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... him go, and yet, because I am not fully in the Light, I would have him stay. All that is in my heart is plain to you—my fears, my joys, my imperfect faith. I ask for help; I ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... Dials, over which, in weather-worn yellow lettering, the name of "C. Cave, Naturalist and Dealer in Antiquities," was inscribed. The contents of its window were curiously variegated. They comprised some elephant tusks and an imperfect set of chessmen, beads and weapons, a box of eyes, two skulls of tigers and one human, several moth-eaten stuffed monkeys (one holding a lamp), an old-fashioned cabinet, a fly-blown ostrich egg or so, some fishing-tackle, and an extraordinarily dirty, empty glass fish-tank. ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... the inhabitants, and to divide them into three classes,—of moderate men, of royalists, and of parliamentarians. The design had been communicated to Lord Falkland, the king's secretary; but it remained in this imperfect state, when it was revealed to Pym by the perfidy or patriotism of a servant, who had overheard the discourse of his master.[a] Waller, Tomkins his brother-in-law, and half-a-dozen others, were immediately secured; and an annunciation was made to the two houses of "the ...
— The History of England from the First Invasion by the Romans - to the Accession of King George the Fifth - Volume 8 • John Lingard and Hilaire Belloc
... description. You will understand it better, perhaps, if you experiment a little. You can easily make a pair for yourself, rude and imperfect, it is true, but good enough for all the tests you ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... sat there within our own memory. There would seem to each of us to be a personal affront were a departed relative delineated with all those faults by which we must own that even our near relatives have been made imperfect. It is a general conviction as to this which so frequently turns the biography of those recently dead into mere eulogy. The fictitious charity which is enjoined by the de mortuis nil nisi bonum banishes truth. The feeling of which I speak almost leads me at this moment to put down my pen. ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope
... of its property of being easily split into planks, or pieces of light scantling, that the deodar was selected for making the sides of the ladders. To have cut down the trunks of heavy trees to the proper thickness for light ladders—with such imperfect implements as they were possessed of—would have been an interminable work for our inexperienced carpenters. The little axe of Ossaroo and the knives were the only tools they possessed available for the ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid
... three deities which the Indians represent by one idol, with three heads growing out of one body, with this mysterious signification, that they all proceed from the same principle. By which it may be inferred, that in former times they have heard of Christianity; and that their religion is an imperfect imitation, or rather a corruption ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume XVI. (of 18) - The Life of St. Francis Xavier • John Dryden
... woman's life would pass without it—for woman's life is long, alas! if love comes not. But you were love's self, and I worshipped you and it; and to myself I said—praying forgiveness on my knees—that one woman should know love if I did not. And being so poor and imperfect a thing, what mattered if I gave my soul for you—and love, which is so great, and rules the world. Look at the doves, sister, look at them, flying past the heavenly blueness—and she said I did ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... in embryo, embryonic, immature, abeyant, embryo, imperfect; atrophied, dwarfed, rudimentary, stunted, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... our globe. Even the dullest could not fail to comprehend; and well satisfied with the result of her experiment, she carefully put her planets by in one corner of the schoolroom, and proceeded with her questions. The imperfect recitation finished, Mary glanced across the room, hoping her cousin's patience was not so tried, and some brilliant coruscations in that direction fixed her attention. Florence had dropped her aching head on the desk in front, shading ...
— Inez - A Tale of the Alamo • Augusta J. Evans
... head cook, could give no information whatever. When the alarm was given, he had rushed, with the other servants, to the scene of the murder, and in his imperfect English, accompanied by expressive French gestures, he tried to convey his horror and grief at the situation, but that ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... subject in French and German (of which a tolerably full list is appended to this treatise), so many topics of interest presented themselves for the historical student that I determined to publish a connected history of the country, however imperfect it might be, from the earliest times down to the present day. And in this I was further encouraged by the fact that the attempt has not yet been made in English, excepting in a very perfunctory manner in Consul Wilkinson's ...
— Roumania Past and Present • James Samuelson
... where he thought he would alight if he dropped from the comet then in the sky. "Oh," said he, naming the open space nearest his own residence, "somewhere about Finsbury Circus." That man's astronomical notions were very imperfect, but they were quite as good as those of the person who seriously wrote, and of the persons who seriously believe, this fairy tale of the star which heralded ...
— Arrows of Freethought • George W. Foote
... had stood in the centre of that close ring of jeering and humorous bystanders—a baffling text from which to have preached a sermon on the infirmities of our imperfect humanity. Some years before, perhaps as a master-stroke of derision, there had been given to him that title which could but heighten the contrast of his personality and estate with every suggestion of the ancient sacred magnificence; and never had the mockery seemed so fine as at this ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... constrained by will and obedience in turn. Hence by the light which it has from will, matter moves toward will and desires it; but when it receives form, it lacks nothing necessary for knowing and desiring it, and nothing remains for it to seek for. For example, in the morning the air has an imperfect splendor from the sun; but at noon it has a perfect splendor, and there remains nothing for it to demand of the sun. Hence the desire for the first motion is a likeness between all substances and the first Maker, because it is impressed upon all things ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... it is therefore our duty to supply them with cheap and amusing literature, to entertain them during the few hours they are disengaged from work. And what reading can afford the Irish Catholic greater pleasure than any work, however imperfect, having for its end the exaltation and defence of his glorious old faith, and the vindication of his native land—his beloved "Erin-go-bragh"? Impress on his susceptible mind the honor and advantage of defence and fidelity to the CROSS and the SHAMROCK, and you give him ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley
... absolutely perfect earthly government, if the conditions were the same, namely, the despot the perfectest individual of the human race, and his lease of life perpetual. But as a perishable perfect man must die, and leave his despotism in the hands of an imperfect successor, an earthly despotism is not merely a bad form of government, it is the worst ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... opportunity to relate an anecdote, connected with the drawing, in which my worthy and amiable friend, Mr. Shannon, a clergyman of Edinburgh, and a very popular preacher there, but who is now no more, took a chief part. I had lost the original drawing of the junction of the Murray, and having very imperfect vision at the time I was publishing, I was unable to sketch another. It so happened that Mr. Shannon, who sketched exceedingly well with the pen, came to pay me a visit, when I asked him to try and repair my loss, ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... of the dog. The large dog, so much lazier, so much more weighed upon with matter, so majestic in repose, so beautiful in effort, is born with the dramatic means to wholly represent the part. And it is more pathetic and perhaps more instructive to consider the small dog in his conscientious and imperfect efforts to outdo Sir Philip Sidney. For the ideal of the dog is feudal and religious; the ever-present polytheism, the whip-bearing Olympus of mankind, rules them on the one hand; on the other, their singular difference of size and strength ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the carnation which mantled on her cheek, whilst her fair, silken, luxuriant tresses, and the peculiar limpidity of her glance, added to many other charms, made her more like an angel—so far as our imperfect nature allows of our imagining such a being—than a mere woman." Somewhat later, the smallpox, in robbing her of the bloom of her beauty, still left her all its brilliancy, to repeat the remark of that eminent connoisseur of female ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... brought into rapport or correspondence with the more elevated ideas of the spirit. The spirit, too, in frequent instances, is unable to prevent its energizing influences from being diverted by the reactive power of the medium into the channels of the imperfect types of thought and expression that are established in his mind, and it is for this simple reason that the communication is as you say often tinctured with the peculiarities of the medium, and even sometimes is nothing more than a reproduction ...
— The Problems of Psychical Research - Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal • Hereward Carrington
... literally "made in Congress." Stanton grimly made the best of it, though he unwaveringly condemned some of its most conspicuous provisions. His business was to retrieve his blunder of the previous year, and he was successful. Imperfect as it was, the Conscription Act, with later supplementary legislation, enabled him to replace the wastage of the Union armies and steadily to augment them. At the close of the war, the Union had on foot a million ...
— Abraham Lincoln and the Union - A Chronicle of the Embattled North, Volume 29 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... sense of touch is uncultivated. When they look at things, they put their hands in their pockets. No doubt that is one reason why their knowledge is often so vague, inaccurate, and useless. It is probable, too, that our knowledge of phenomena beyond the reach of the hand is equally imperfect. But, at all events, we behold them through a golden ...
— The World I Live In • Helen Keller
... you have kept the best to the last. I have heard that song several times, but never 'listened to the mocking-bird' after all. The song in itself is beautiful, but, after hearing you whistle, I see that it is imperfect with the mocking-bird left out. This is rather a cold climate for that species of bird, Miss Sherwood, but I shall give a Halifax audience the pleasure of hearing one, if I have to import one from the South on purpose for the occasion. To-morrow at three o'clock, remember, Mr. Gurney, and ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth
... the son of Peleus. I, too, could fight with words even with the immortals, but with the spear it is difficult, for they are far more powerful. Nor shall Achilles give effect to all his words; but one part he shall fulfil, and the other leave half imperfect. Against him will I go, even though he were like to fire as to his hands; and to shining iron, as to ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... John Duthy, Esq.; and from it large extracts were made in The History and Antiquities of Winchester, 1773. Bishop Nicolson guesses that it was too voluminous, and Bishop Kennett that it was too imperfect to ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 191, June 25, 1853 • Various
... dedicated to "Her sacred Majesty Katherine, Queen Dowager of England," by the same; another is dedicated to "Her Royal Highness Ann, Princess of Denmark;" and other plates are dedicated to various Lincolnshire worthies, some of these are rather damaged, and the fine old bible is imperfect. ...
— A History of Horncastle - from the earliest period to the present time • James Conway Walter
... father-in-law, Agricola (cf. Sec. 3: honori Agricolae, mei soceri, destinatus). So far from apologizing for writing the life of so near a friend, he feels assured that his motives will be appreciated and his design approved, however imperfect may be its execution; and he deems an apology necessary for having so long delayed the performance of that filial duty. After an introduction of singular beauty and appropriateness (cf. notes), he sketches a brief outline of the parentage, ...
— Germania and Agricola • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... had given the slip at Dundee during the night of October 22 and who was known to be endeavouring to overtake him. Erasmus was believed to be acting from the direction of Elandslaagte; but fortunately for Yule his movements were not judiciously directed and his information was imperfect. ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... asked you if it was shady," I cried; and then it occurred to me that, in spite of my studies at Brandscombe and out here, my Hindustani was very imperfect, for the man smiled in a deprecatory way which seemed to mean that he hoped my lord would not be angry with him ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... such profound knowledge to discover the present imperfect condition of the sciences, but even the rabble without doors may, judge from the noise and clamour, which they hear, that all goes not well within. There is nothing which is not the subject of debate, and in which ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... but that their ordering of the Fable has nothing in't of Delicacy, nor is the manner of their Writing proportionable to the dignity of the Subject. For Sannazarius he's indeed so faulty, that one can hardly with Patience read him, the whole Structure of his imperfect Piece, de partu, being built on Heathen Fable; yet he has great and vigorous Thoughts and very Poetical Expressions, tho' therein Vida far excels him, whose Thoughts are so noble, and the Air of his Stile so great, that the Elogy ...
— Epistle to a Friend Concerning Poetry (1700) and the Essay on Heroic Poetry (second edition, 1697) • Samuel Wesley
... of government Cromwell had formerly extolled as the most perfect work of human invention: he now represented it as a rotten plank, upon which no man could trust himself without sinking. Even the humble petition and advice, which he extolled in its turn, appeared so lame and imperfect, that it was found requisite, this very session, to mend it by a supplement; and after all, it may be regarded as a crude and undigested model of government. It was, however, accepted for the voluntary deed of ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... the approach of Satan when he fell from Heaven. Some of its features are no doubt borrowed from the legendary accounts which Pliny and others have preserved of a great mountain seen by navigators to the west of the Straits of Gibraltar; these accounts being probably based on imperfect descriptions of Atlas or Teneriffe, or both confused together. Its summit is exactly at the Antipodes of Jerusalem, a point which must be carefully borne in mind if the various astronomical indications of time given in the course of the journey are ...
— Dante: His Times and His Work • Arthur John Butler
... mother was I have already said enough to show, as far as my imperfect words can show it, in divers passages of these reminiscences. She was the happiest natured person I ever knew—happy in the intense power of enjoyment, happier still in the conscious exercise of the power of making others happy; and this continued ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... return, he had been easily got to believe that the picture brought over from Paris, and now hanging in Lady Castlewood's drawing-room, was a perfect likeness of her son, the young lord. And the domestics having all seen the picture many times, and catching but a momentary imperfect glimpse of the two strangers on the night of their arrival, never had a reason to doubt the fidelity of the portrait; and next day, when they saw the original of the piece habited exactly as he was represented in the painting, with the same periwig, ribbon, and uniform of the Guard, quite ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Sophistry, you say—yet listen: look you skyward, there 'tis known Worlds on worlds in myriads glisten—larger, lovelier than our own— This has been, and this still shall be, here as there, in sun or star; These things are to be and will be, those things were to be and are. Man in man's imperfect nature is by imperfection taught: Add one cubit to your stature if ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... Individuals embarked in various enterprises; now no longer consociated with others in mutual cooeperation, but for their individual benefit. Thus competitive industry gradually supplanted the old method of cooeperative or associated industry, as seen in its crude and imperfect form, and the inauguration of the false and selfish system ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 6, No. 1, July, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... him, both at home and in Washington, during those years when he needed help. She had not broken down until after the birth of his daughter, but that was twenty years ago, and she had been an invalid ever since. He spoke of this long period of imperfect happiness in a matter-of-fact way, and Betty assumed that by this time he was used to it. He alluded to his wife once as "a very dear old friend," but Betty guessed that she was nearly obliterated from his life. Of his sons he expected great things, but the larger measure of his affections ...
— Senator North • Gertrude Atherton
... convince us that philosophers should be content with a more modest attitude than they have sometimes adopted; give up the pretensions to framing off-hand theories of things in general, and be content to puzzle out a few imperfect truths which may slowly work their way into the general structure of thought. I wish to speak humbly as befits one who cannot claim any particular authority for his opinion. But, in all humility, I ...
— Social Rights and Duties, Volume I (of 2) - Addresses to Ethical Societies • Sir Leslie Stephen
... could be more easily trained and incited by God's fear and commandments than by any other means. Yet where these do not help, we must endure that they do the good and leave the evil for the sake of shame and of honor, just as we must also endure wicked men or the imperfect, of whom we spoke above; nor can we do more than tell them that their works are not satisfactory and right before God, and so leave them until they learn to do right for the sake of God's commandments also. Just as young children are induced to pray, fast, learn, etc., ...
— A Treatise on Good Works • Dr. Martin Luther
... unwilling to attempt its conversion, he offered the task to Otto of Bamberg who, although an old man, undertook it with the consent of the Pope and the Emperor. He paid two visits—in 1124 and 1128—both to Western Pomerania, and established the bishopric of Wollin. The conversion was naturally imperfect, but the country never relapsed. The fierce islanders of Rgen could not then be touched, but ultimately gave way in 1168 before the combined secular and spiritual weapons of the ...
— The Church and the Empire - Being an Outline of the History of the Church - from A.D. 1003 to A.D. 1304 • D. J. Medley
... hundred Dutch ships, in a crowd, might go to work, and boats might jostle with each other, and the only thing deficient would be stowage room for all the produce of the fishery. Now one ship may have the whole field to itself, and travel home with an imperfect cargo. It was fine fun in the good old times; there was no need to cruise. Coppers and boilers were fitted on the island, and little colonies about them, in the fishing season, had nothing to do but tow the ...
— Voyages in Search of the North-West Passage • Richard Hakluyt
... power, the value of the mixing-tube being no more than that of the smallest part. If the mixing-tube is upright, new sources of interference comes in; notably the varying specific gravity of the mixture. Except with one definite gas supply, the result is always more or less imperfect, and regular proportions cannot be obtained. This is now so well known that the upright form has been practically discarded for many years, and is now only used where the peculiar necessities of the case give some ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 430, March 29, 1884 • Various
... that there should not arise perpetual strife and perpetual jealousy on the subject of ecclesiastical ascendency, if the national government were left free to create a religious establishment. The only security was in extirpating the power. But this alone would have been an imperfect security, if it had not been followed up by a declaration of the right of the free exercise of religion, and a prohibition (as we have seen) of all religious tests. Thus, the whole power over the subject of ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... and shapely, like a fair Greek statue, for a moment on the bank, took a silent header and disappeared. Then Austin prepared to follow. He tumbled rather than plunged into the water, and, unable to attain an erect position owing to his imperfect organism, would have fared badly if Lubin had not caught him in his arms and turned him deftly ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour
... realities which abide. Goodness has slowly proved itself in the world,—is every day proving itself,—like a light broadening in darkness!—to be that to which reason tends, in which it realises itself. And, if so, goodness here, imperfect and struggling as we see it always, must be the mere shadow and hint of that goodness which is in God!—and the utmost we can conceive of human tenderness, holiness, truth, though it tell us all we know, can yet suggest ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... meant to designate that which has no real existence. Indeed, if 114:18 a better word or phrase could be suggested, it would be used; but in expressing the new tongue we must sometimes recur to the old and imperfect, and the new 114:21 wine of the Spirit has to be poured into the old bottles of ...
— Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures • Mary Baker Eddy
... for a tenant, so that the tenant need not go to the landlord to thank him and feel patronised by him. He need only to go to the shrine and give thanks there." "The landlord," added the speaker in his imperfect English, "has entirely hided himself from the business." A third of the tenants had ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... the end of a very imperfect day for Mr. Philip Kendrick. As he descended the stairs to the Canoe Club his thoughts were troubled. At that hour there was nobody about, but he let himself in with a special key which he carried for such contingencies. ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... Lord Glenallan, "will be at present, I fear, impossible. She is exhausted herself, and surrounded by her distressed family. To-morrow, perhaps, when she is aloneand yet I doubt, from her imperfect sense of right and wrong, whether she would speak out in any one's presence but my own. I ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... that the public should be thoroughly enlightened on the subject of education. Everybody is talking about education,—the advantages of education, the necessity of education; and yet almost all have come to use the word in its narrowest and most imperfect meaning, as implying mere cultivation of the intellectual faculties, and even this is done in the most superficial manner, by cramming the mind with facts, instead of making it reflect and reason. The great majority even of those who write upon ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
... variety that we draw back almost aghast at the mere list of their names. The world has grown wiser too, and where Plato could only see imperfections, the failures of the founders of human speech, we see, as everywhere else in human life, anatural progress from the imperfect towards the perfect, unceasing attempts at realizing the ideal, and the frequent triumphs of the human mind over the inevitable difficulties of this earthly condition,—difficulties, not of man's own making, but, as I firmly believe, prepared for him, and not without ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... grades of assimilation of the Kayan culture. Some, which in the lives of the older men were still nomadic, still build very poor houses and boats, cultivate PADI very imperfectly, and generally exhibit the Kayan culture in a very imperfect state. ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... Telegraph, in all its essential points, is tested to my own satisfaction and that of the scientific gentlemen who have seen it; but the machinery (all which, from its peculiar character, I have been compelled to make myself) is imperfect, and before it can be perfected I have reason to fear that other nations will take the hint and rob me both of the credit and the profit. There are indications of this in the foreign journals lately received. I have a defender in the 'Journal of Commerce' (which I send ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... ourselves, our own slowness of progress, our own feeble resolutions, our own wayward hearts, our own vacillating wills, our many temptations, our many corruptions, our many follies, we may well say to ourselves, 'Will there ever be any greater completeness in this terribly imperfect Christian character of mine than there is to-day?' Let us be of good cheer, and not think only of ourselves, but much rather of Him who works on and in and for us. If we lift up our hearts to Him, and keep ourselves near Him, and let Him work, He will work. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... exact from them, in any case, more duties than those of a contemplative life; and, in reality, there are now but few of those convents of nuns whose inmates dedicate themselves to the task of giving to persons of their own sex even the imperfect and limited education which, after all, forms no part of that useful ...
— Roman Catholicism in Spain • Anonymous
... grandeur of purpose, all nobility of thought, and all beauty of sentiment, withered and shrivelled up. Then the dexterous management of a few individuals, base or dull, was the only means of success. But we live in a different age: there are popular sympathies, however imperfect, to appeal to; we must recur to the high primeval practice, and address nations now as the heroes, and prophets, and legislators of antiquity. If you wish to free your country, and make the Syrians a nation, it is not to be done by ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... man he had given a great deal of study and a great deal of hard labor. The result was that he had shaped himself into something like an old-fashioned country clergyman, without his education, his manners, his religion, or his clothes. Imperfect similitudes of these Stephen Petter had acquired, but this was as far as he had gone. A well-read man who happened also to be a good judge of human nature could have traced back every obvious point of Stephen Petter's character to some English author ...
— The Squirrel Inn • Frank R. Stockton
... most simple to the most compound, depart from the most imperfect animalcule and ascend along the scale up to the animal richest in structure and faculties; constantly preserve the order of relation in the group, then you will hold the true thread which connects all the productions of nature; you will have a just idea of its progress, and you will be convinced ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
... but the Lombardic Eve knew she was in the wrong, and the Irish Angel thought himself all right. The eager Lombardic sculptor, though firmly insisting on his childish idea, yet showed in the irregular broken touches of the features, and the imperfect struggle for softer lines in the form, a perception of beauty and law that he could not render; there was the strain of effort, under conscious imperfection, in every line. But the Irish missal-painter had drawn his angel with no sense of failure, ...
— Sesame and Lilies • John Ruskin
... man. The materials at present within my command hardly appeared adequate to so arduous an undertaking, but I doubted not that I should ultimately succeed. I prepared myself for a multitude of reverses; my operations might be incessantly baffled, and at last my work be imperfect, yet when I considered the improvement which every day takes place in science and mechanics, I was encouraged to hope my present attempts would at least lay the foundations of future success. Nor could I consider the magnitude and ...
— Frankenstein - or The Modern Prometheus • Mary Wollstonecraft (Godwin) Shelley
... of the south coast properly charted, and he determined that Grant should return in the Lady Nelson and thoroughly survey it. King also made an eye-sketch of the land, for he saw that Grant's chart was imperfect. For that reason he sent Ensign Barrallier, of the New South Wales Corps, who was a competent surveyor, in the brig, and it is, chiefly, to Barrallier we are indebted for our earliest and most authentic charts of the places which the Lady Nelson ...
— The Logbooks of the Lady Nelson - With The Journal Of Her First Commander Lieutenant James Grant, R.N • Ida Lee
... have been termed, by Mr. Locke, modes, substances, and relations, but they seem only to differ in their degree of abstraction from the complex ideas that were at first excited; for as these complex or natural ideas are themselves imperfect copies of their correspondent perceptions, so these abstract or general ideas are only still more imperfect copies of the same perceptions. Thus when I have seen an object but once, as a rhinoceros, my abstract ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... carpenter. Indeed there is about the whole scene the spirit of scene-shifting. It therefore touches whatever nerve in us has since childhood thrilled at all theatrical things. But the picture will be imperfect unless we realise something which gives it unity and marks its chief difference from the climate and colours of Western Europe. We may say that the back-scene remains the same. The sky remained, and in the depths of winter it seemed to be blue with summer; and so ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... taste also for mechanics. He conceived the idea of making a timepiece, a clock, and about the year 1770 constructed one. With his imperfect tools, and with no other model than a borrowed watch, it had cost him long and patient labor to perfect it, to make the variation necessary to cause it to strike the hours, and produce a concert of correct action ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... low dispersive power of water masks, as Helmholtz has remarked, the imperfect achromatism of the eye. With the naked eye I can see a distant blue disk sharply defined, but not a red one. I can also see the lines which mark the upper and lower boundaries of a horizontally refracted spectrum sharp ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall
... it to him, mother?" said Jock. "I should think he was quite to be trusted with it. I see! I was reading an account of this method of his to Dr. Lucas one day, and he was much interested and tried to tell me something about my father; but it was after his speech grew so imperfect, and he was so much excited and distressed that I had to lead him away from ...
— Magnum Bonum • Charlotte M. Yonge
... been devised with a design of robbing its writings of every natural charm, as the best means of making men feel its supernatural power. The fresh sense of "letters" disappears in this conventional form. These many books of many ages have been bound up together, with the most imperfect classification either as to period or character. A verse-making machine has been driven through them all alike, chopping them up into short, arbitrary, artificial sentences, formally numbered in the body of the text. The larger divisions into chapters have been made in an ...
— The Right and Wrong Uses of the Bible • R. Heber Newton
... articles characteristic of this especial period. What a dream of Science that, interstellary communication established, some being of knowledge and capacities as infinitely excelling our own as our faculties excel those of the lowly monad, wandering on this terrestrial globe, and culling from the imperfect archives of these bygone years a corkscrew, an opera-glass, or, perchance, a pot of long since petrified marmalade, preserved intact by some protecting incrustation of stalagmite from the ravages of time, may dart a penetrating gleam of intelligence through the dark abysses of innumerable ...
— 'That Very Mab' • May Kendall and Andrew Lang
... It was not, however, until five hours after the time assigned by Kepler that the transit of Mercury actually commenced. Gassendi's preparations had been made with all the resources which he could command, but these resources seem very imperfect when compared with the appliances of our modern observatories. He was anxious to note the time when the planet appeared, and for this purpose he had stationed an assistant in the room beneath, who was to observe the altitude of the sun at the moment indicated by Gassendi. ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... Europe, prior to his time, to investigate the history of man according to those exhaustive methods which in other branches of Knowledge have proved successful, and by which alone empirical observations can be raised to scientific truths, the imperfect state of the Physical Sciences necessarily rendered the execution of such an undertaking extremely defective. It was not, indeed, until the vast mass of Facts which make up the body of the various Sciences had been included within appropriate formulae, and until the elaborate Classification ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... still imperfect," said the third blind man. "He stumbles, and talks unmeaning words. Lead him ...
— The Country of the Blind, And Other Stories • H. G. Wells
... purchased ripe and sound; it is poor economy to buy imperfect or decayed kinds, as they are neither satisfactory nor healthy eating; while the mature, full-flavored sorts are invaluable ...
— The Cooking Manual of Practical Directions for Economical Every-Day Cookery • Juliet Corson
... self-hypnotized subjects is that they carry out perfectly their own ideals of the personality with whom they believe themselves to be possessed. If their own ideals of the part they are playing are imperfect, their impersonations are ridiculous in the extreme. One man I remember believed himself to be controlled by the spirit of Charles Sumner. Being uneducated, he used the most wretched English, and his language was utterly devoid of sense. While, on the other hand, a very intelligent ...
— Complete Hypnotism: Mesmerism, Mind-Reading and Spiritualism • A. Alpheus
... of the rough, careless, imperfect record which I have kept of my life. As I run my fingers through the pages of the limp morocco-covered volume, I almost wonder at my wasted labour;—the random notes, jotted down now and then, sometimes with long intervals between their dates, make such a mass of worthless literature. ...
— Henry Dunbar - A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... progress was about sixty miles a day. I could not help contrasting this with journeys I have made on the Mississippi at the rate of two hundred miles in twenty-four hours. A government boat has no occasion to hurry like a private one, and the pilot's imperfect knowledge of the Amoor operates against rapidity. In time I presume the Siberian boats will increase ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... but one thing. His recollections of that time are of a flaring gas jet and the smell of printer's ink. He won finally and duly delivered the eighteen copies—letter-perfect. Probably five hundred other and imperfect examples of the Weekly Eagle found ...
— The Adventures of Bobby Orde • Stewart Edward White
... higher revelation which He has given of Himself in the Gospel." (Is this meant as an insult to "the Divine Being?" or simply as a slur on Revelation? Either way, we reject the charge with indignation[229].)—"It is not inconsistent with imperfect or opposite aspects of the Truth, as in the Book of Job or Ecclesiastes:" (Nothing which comes from GOD should be called "imperfect:" but why different aspects of the Truth should not be brought out, by different writers, as by St. Paul and by James,—it is hard to see.)—"With ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... plates. They might have an eye to life, as well as capital, in buying heavy grindstones. I have traced the death of one grinder to the master's avarice: he went to the quarry and bought a stone for thirty-five shillings the quarry-master had set aside as imperfect; its price would have been sixty shillings if it had been fit to trust a man's life to. This master goes to church twice a Sunday, and is much respected by his own sort: yet he committed a murder for twenty-five ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... this unusual mood would be washed away, and that Rachael, after a nap and a bath, would feel more like herself, but nevertheless she went off to her game in a rather worried frame of mind, and gave but an imperfect attention to the ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... viscera are sometimes found in their graves in the Sixth Dynasty, but are, as a rule, empty, being mere dummy vases. Even in the Middle Empire, the preservation of the bodies of the better classes was extremely imperfect. The bundles of wrappings have kept their form to the present day and it seems as if the mummy were still intact; but an examination of the interior shows only loose bones. Successful mummification appears among better-class ...
— The Egyptian Conception of Immortality • George Andrew Reisner
... years, been working against a problem that I recognized called for all—yes, and more, than—I had to give it. For I have been endeavoring, through my own imperfect attainments, to translate into undeniable language on the Labrador Coast, the message of God's personal fatherhood over and love for the humblest of His creatures. During these years, often of overwork, I have considered it worth while ...
— Out of the Fog • C. K. Ober
... decreased twelve per cent. But whatever may be the variations in the mere quantity of urine voided under the influence of alcohol, the alterations in quality pretty uniformly show an increase in the products of imperfect internal metamorphosis or oxidation, such as uric acid, oxalates, casts, leucocytes, albumen and potassium, with less of the normal products, as ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen
... and an outsider than it would be to a resident and a native. In the attitude of the latter to the land in which he lives or has been born, there is always an inherent something of the soil for which even trained powers of comparison, and a special perceptive faculty, are but imperfect substitutes. On the other hand, the visitor from over-sea is, in many respects, better placed for observation than the inhabitant. He enjoys not a little—it has been often said—of the position of posterity. He takes in more at a glance; he leaves out less; he is disturbed by no apprehensions ...
— De Libris: Prose and Verse • Austin Dobson
... constructed. How he conceived this process has never been satisfactorily explained. He traced the various forms and phenomena of the world to numbers as their basis and essence. The "Monad," or UNIT, he regarded as the source of all numbers. The number TWO was imperfect, and the cause of increase and division. THREE was called the number of the whole, because it had a beginning, middle, and end; FOUR, representing the square, is in the highest degree perfect; and TEN, as it contains the sum of the first three prime numbers (23510. ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... "land-sharks"—shrewd adventurers, from Sydney and elsewhere, who had come to the conclusion that the colonization of New Zealand was near at hand, and were buying up preposterously large tracts of land on all sides. Most of the purchases were either altogether fictitious, or else were imperfect and made for absurdly low prices. Many of the deeds of sale may be dismissed with the brief note, "no consideration specified"! A hundred acres were bought for a farthing. Boundaries were inserted ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... almost aghast at the mere list of their names. The world has grown wiser too, and where Plato could only see imperfections, the failures of the founders of human speech, we see, as everywhere else in human life, anatural progress from the imperfect towards the perfect, unceasing attempts at realizing the ideal, and the frequent triumphs of the human mind over the inevitable difficulties of this earthly condition,—difficulties, not of man's own making, but, as I firmly believe, ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... get him to talk of it to the eager listener—he passes from the narrator to the advocate unconsciously. Gaston was not to talk of England, but of the North, of Canada, of Mexico, the Lotos Isles. He did so picturesquely, yet simply too, in imperfect but sufficient French. But as he told of one striking incident in the Rockies, he heard Jacques make a quick expression of dissent. He smiled. He had made some mistake in detail. Now, Jacques had been in his young ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Although I hated myself even for thinking such a thing, still, while I looked at the woman before me, the idea would force itself into my mind that one sad change, in the future, was all that was wanting to make the likeness complete, which I now saw to be so imperfect in detail. If ever sorrow and suffering set their profaning marks on the youth and beauty of Miss Fairlie's face, then, and then only, Anne Catherick and she would be the twin-sisters of chance resemblance, the living ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... generation makes upon another in the observance of its precepts. One who has read the old Penitential books and observed the evidences they afford of the vitality of heathen practices and rites among the people in England in the early Middle Ages will not be too harsh in characterizing the still imperfect fruits of the Catholic missions of the ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 • Emma Helen Blair
... the civilization of the heathen. Had he been a Presbyterian merchant, of a religious turn, it is probable a quantity of tracts would have been made to answer the purpose; but, belonging to a sect whose practice was generally as perfect as its theory is imperfect, Friend Abraham White's conscience was not to be satisfied with any such shallow contrivance. It is true that he expected to make many thousands of dollars by the voyage, and doubtless would so have done, had not the accident befallen the ship, or had poor Captain Crutchely drank less in honour ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... art descends as a tradition from father to son, or of the mere trade-guild. Of these early industries we know little but the stray notices of Pausanias, often ambiguous, always of doubtful credibility. What we do see, through these imperfect notices, is a real period of animated artistic activity, richly rewarded. Byzes of Naxos, for instance, is recorded as having first adopted the plan of sawing marble into thin plates for use on the roofs of temples instead of tiles; and that his name has come down to us at all, ...
— Greek Studies: A Series of Essays • Walter Horatio Pater
... of the Syndicate there was great satisfaction. The news received was incorrect and imperfect, but it was evident that, so far, everything ...
— The Great War Syndicate • Frank Stockton
... Judging from the imperfect report of the debate upon the subject, it would seem that the bargain relative to the slave trade, made in the Constitutional Convention of two years before between New England and the two southernmost States, might still hold good. Or there may have been a new ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay
... Not adequately, only by imperfect hints. These two faced each other, Rosa and the apparition. She uttered no word. But I, in my stupor, knew that she was interceding with the spectre for my life. Her lovely eyes spoke to it of its old love, its old magnanimity, and in ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... in broken Persian and blushing deeply: "Blessed be the gods, who have caused me to find favor in thine eyes. I am not ignorant of the speech of my lord, for the noble Croesus has instructed me in the Persian language during our long journey. Forgive, if my sentences be broken and imperfect; the time was short, and my capacity only that of a ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... to Himself the possibilities of His being God must limit that being. There is no other way in which the fullest self-realisation can be attained. Thus we get two modes of God,—the infinite, perfect, unconditioned, primordial being; and the finite, imperfect, conditioned, and limited being of which we are ourselves expressions. And yet these two are one, and the former is the guarantee that the latter shall not fail in the purpose for which it became limited. Thus to the question, Why a finite universe? I should ...
— The New Theology • R. J. Campbell
... even if it were unique, it ought to be accounted for. It is far easier to indulge in broad generalizations than to devote oneself to a close study of nature or man. It is not the rules, it is the exceptions which ought to retain our attention, for only exceptions will teach us how imperfect ...
— Belgium - From the Roman Invasion to the Present Day • Emile Cammaerts
... into rebellion; and in this has lain perpetually a delusive encouragement to the hostility of Spain and France, whilst to her own children, it is the one great snare which besets their feet. This great evil of imperfect possession—if now it is almost past healing in its general operation as an engine of civilization, and as applied to the social training of the people—is nevertheless open to relief as respects any purpose of the Government, towards which there may be reason to anticipate a martial ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... bronze monument to Lord Nelson, the joint production of Wyat and Westmacott. Death is laying his hand upon the hero's heart, and Victory is placing a fourth crown on his sword. Ever since I read Southey's Life of Nelson, I have felt an interest in every thing relating to this great; yet imperfect man. You know that illustrated work on Nelson that we have so often looked at it contains a large engraving of this monument. As Yankee boys, we found our way to the top of the Exchange, to look at the cotton sales-room. This same room has more ...
— Young Americans Abroad - Vacation in Europe: Travels in England, France, Holland, - Belgium, Prussia and Switzerland • Various
... I misdoubt my pen of its task, and fear that, when you shall have read these pages, you shall, at best, have caught but a very imperfect reflection of Charmian ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... c[oe]lum." "Si fractus illabatur orbis Impavidum ferient ruinae." At another he will see the necessity of a compromise for the good of the many. He will tell himself that if the best cannot be done, he must content himself with the next best. He must shake hands with the imperfect, as the best way of lifting himself up from a bad way toward a better. In obedience to his very conscience he will temporize, and, finding no other way of achieving good, will do even evil that good may come of it. "Rem si possis recte; si non, quocunque modo rem." In ...
— Life of Cicero - Volume One • Anthony Trollope
... it, if I could," said the other prince, in much slower, and more imperfect English. "It grieves me much. My purse has little, but here ...
— Under the Storm - Steadfast's Charge • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Hind-leg off. He began to tell me about Peter of Lombardy and the great adept Zacharias, and of the blessed Terra Foliata, or Land of Leaves, where Gold is sown to be radically Dissolved in order to its Putrefaction and Regermination in a Fixation which has Power over its Brethren the Imperfect Metals, and makes them like unto itself; and this process (which I believe to have been only a story about a Cock and a Bull) he called Re-incrudation. In fact my Gentleman almost talked me out of my Senses: and as I thought him a monstrous clever Man, I lent him (although ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 3 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... of Delvile were as vehement as had been his entreaties, which yet, however, were not at an end; the concession she had made was imperfect, unless its performance were immediate, and he now endeavoured to prevail with her to be his before the ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... about the imperfect code of human justice under which we live, Mr. Parr," he cried. "This is not a case in which a court of law may exonerate you, it is between you and your God. But I have taken the trouble to find out, from unquestioned sources, the truth about the Consolidated Tractions Company—I ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... but imperfect information as to the formalities in use in the Vehmic tribunals. But we know that the sittings were invested with a certain solemnity and pomp. A naked sword—emblematical of justice, and recalling ...
— Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period • Paul Lacroix
... independence ... but Christianity tended somewhat, from the very first, to narrow this remarkable liberty. The prevailing state of religious sentiment may explain why modern jurisprudence has adopted these rules concerning the position of woman which belong peculiarly to an imperfect civilization.... No society which preserves any tincture of Christian institutions, is likely to restore to married women the personal liberty conferred on them by middle Roman law. Canon law has ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... you, though I wish them to tell the truth. They will make me out an ass or a madman. I am neither. For eighteen years I have scarcely spoken as many words. A word or two of Sanscrit now and then has met my needs, thank God! There is an interior language for which speech is an imperfect medium. Through that interior language thought is communicated directly and truthfully. I used it long before I came here—imperfectly, to be sure, but with a small degree of satisfaction to myself. Through it I was able to heal the sick when others failed. I knew how they ...
— The Master of Silence • Irving Bacheller
... than to do a penance which may do violence to some of his cherished convictions. In this world we ofttimes have to choose, not between absolute right and wrong, but between two courses, neither of which is perfect; and then we are forced to consider which is the less imperfect of the two. I trow that Anthony has made a wise choice; but if to you it seems not so, I pray you blame me rather than him, for I did plead with him more than once, and right earnestly, to take this way. I did use your name also, and begged ...
— For the Faith • Evelyn Everett-Green
... plums, peaches and apricots, they had grown with the freedom of the oaks and beeches in the forest, whose breadth and thickness they seemed to envy. The sap, completely absorbed by the branches which were many and vigorous, produced but little fruit, and that imperfect. By the rustle of the tall grass, Sir John and Roland divined that the lizards, those crawling offsprings of solitude, had established their domicile there, from which they fled in ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... could surely spell Their fragrance, and their chemistry apply By sweet affinities to human flesh, Driving the foe and stablishing the friend,— O, that were much, and I could be a part Of the round day, related to the sun And planted world, and full executor Of their imperfect functions. But these young scholars, who invade our hills, Bold as the engineer who fells the wood, And travelling often in the cut he makes, Love not the flower they pluck, and know it not, And all their botany is Latin names. The old men studied magic in the flowers, And human fortunes ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... the Chinese ke. They have also many other instruments, especially various kinds of imperfect guitars, a few rude violins, and the usual outfit of trumpets, reed pipes and instruments of percussion. Like all the other barbarous nations, they have never had harmony until since they began to learn it ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews
... grief. But in the case at Stormberg there were other difficulties to contend with. The map of the ground was utterly unreliable. The configuration of the hills was incorrectly presented and the distances badly judged. The general knowledge of the direction was so imperfect that none was sufficiently well informed to put a check upon the movements of the guide, nor had the position been reconnoitered by any of those engaged against it. In this way the winding and circuitous route ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... passages and impressive phrases; they are speeches which even now one cannot read without interest. But it would seem that Shippen often marred the effect of his ideas and his language by a rapid, careless, and imperfect delivery. He appears to have been one of the men who wanted nothing but a clear {290} articulation and effective utterance to be great Parliamentary debaters, and whom that single want condemned to comparative ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... Rowley, I directed General Robinson's division to remain in reserve at the Seminary, and to throw up a small semicircular rail intrenchment in the grove in front of the building. Toward the close of the action this defence, weak and imperfect as it was, proved to ...
— Chancellorsville and Gettysburg - Campaigns of the Civil War - VI • Abner Doubleday
... individual and racial variations of the external sexual organs is still extremely imperfect. A few monographs and collections of data on isolated points may be found in more or less inaccessible publications. As regards women, Ploss and Bartels have devoted a chapter to the sexual organs of women which extends to a hundred pages, but remains ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... emphatically from the views of all preceding historians. On some of these disputed questions we may make up our minds after studying the evidence; but many historical problems are in truth insoluble; the evidence is imperfect and untrustworthy. ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... That's debatable. Some come from bad fermentations, due to dirty fermentaries, abnormal temperatures, or unripe cacao.[7] Some come from smoky or imperfect artificial drying. Some come from mould. Unfermented cacao is liable to go mouldy, so is germinated or over-ripe cacao with broken shells. Some cacao unfortunately gets wet with sea water. There always seems to me something pathetic in the thought of finely-cured ...
— Cocoa and Chocolate - Their History from Plantation to Consumer • Arthur W. Knapp
... longitude from Greenwich. In the original the longitude is said to be 170 deg. W. from the first meridian of the voyagers, being Seville in Spain, which would give 174 deg. E. from Greenwich; no great error, considering the imperfect way in which the longitude was ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... measure upon the skill with which they are arranged, he is bound also by the rhythm of the original. If you would copy Raphael, you must not give him the coloring of Titian. The calm dignity of the "School of Athens" conveys a very imperfect idea of the sublime energy of the sibyls and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... schools in Dublin and Cork. But why are those so neglected and imperfect? and why are not similar or better institutions in Belfast, Derry, Galway, Waterford, and Kilkenny? Why is there not a decent collection of casts anywhere but in Cork, and why are they in a garret there? ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... example of imperfect and arrested knowledge in some of the common affairs of life, let him collate the statements of scientific experts concerning the physiological effects upon mankind, of tea. He will then admit that "in a multitude of counsellors there ...
— Tea Leaves • Francis Leggett & Co.
... the problems from another angle. The power developed in the combustion of one pound of coal is theoretically equal to 11,580,000 foot pounds. But by our imperfect methods of utilization, not more than 1,500,000 foot pounds are made available. This is about the amount of physical power exerted by a man of ordinary strength during a day's work. Hence 300 pounds of coal will represent the labor of a man for a year. The current production of ...
— Manhood of Humanity. • Alfred Korzybski
... delight follows upon a perfect work.[392] But contemplation on this earth is imperfect, according to the words of the Apostle: We see now through a glass in a dark manner.[393] Hence it would seem that the contemplative life ...
— On Prayer and The Contemplative Life • St. Thomas Aquinas
... should not only be revered by his disciples as a sage and a prophet, but that he should be adored as a God. The Polytheists were disposed to adopt every article of faith, which seemed to offer any resemblance, however distant or imperfect, with the popular mythology; and the legends of Bacchus, of Hercules, and of AEsculapius, had, in some measure, prepared their imagination for the appearance of the Son of God under a human form. But they were astonished that the Christians should abandon the temples of those ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... fifteen feet apart each way, which will allow two hundred trees to the acre. The larger trees ought to be planted somewhat thinner.... Cherries are packed largely in eight-pound baskets and in strawberry quarts. Each basket is filled with carefully assorted fruit, every imperfect specimen being taken out, after which they are faced by placing the stems downward so that the cherry shows in regular rows upon the face. Girls and women do this work. The Eastern fruit grower must bear ...
— Three Acres and Liberty • Bolton Hall
... government and manners of the Arabians before the time of Mahomet, we have few and imperfect accounts; but from the remotest ages they led the same unsettled and predatory life which they do at this day, dispersed in hordes, and dwelling under tents. It was not to those wild and wandering tribes that the superb Palmyra owed its rise and grandeur, though situated in the midst of their ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... and pity, he thought of poor Coira O'Hara and of the pathetic wreck her life had fallen into. The girl was so patently fit for better things! Her splendid beauty was not a cheap beauty. She was no coarse-blown, gorgeous flower, imperfect at telltale points. It was good blood that had modelled her dark perfection, good blood that had shaped her long and ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... advice was not listened to. He was displeased with everything. He found that all the orders he had given had been disregarded. He found the siege works bad, imperfect, very wet, and very ill-guarded. He tried to remedy all these defects, but he was opposed at every step. A council of war was held. M. d'Orleans stated his views, but all the officers present, with one honourable ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... devil to tempt, though the saints will yet be imperfect, and come short of a glorified state, yet they, by his absence, will be delivered from many dreadful, vexing, and burning, and hellish darts, that will otherwise confound and afflict the soul like arrows whose heads are poisoned. Christians have a great deal of ease, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... I recollected the imperfect communication of Fleta, who had heard the gipsy say that "he was dead;" and also the word horse made use of, and I now felt convinced that I had found out Melchior. "Sir Henry, if I recollect right, has no family," ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... That, however, is scarcely the case; we have to look into the matter a little more closely. And, when we do so, we find that, not only is the statement of a supposed connection between a high birth-rate and a high degree of prosperity an imperfect ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... is a very unpoetical, if not unphilosophical, mode of viewing antiquities. Your philosophy is too literal for our imperfect vision. We cannot look directly into the nature of things; we can only catch glimpses of the mighty shadow in the camera obscura of transcendental intelligence. These six and eighteen are only words to which we give conventional ...
— Crotchet Castle • Thomas Love Peacock
... of Nala. Under the sanction of Mr. Wilson's revision, I may venture to hope that the translation is, at least, an accurate version of the original; and I cannot too strongly express my gratitude for the labour which Mr. Wilson has been so kind as to expend on my imperfect and unpretending work. ...
— Nala and Damayanti and Other Poems • Henry Hart Milman
... perfection in all things leads him to complain of grimy pictures and tarnished frames and faded frescos, distressing beyond measure to eyes that never failed to see everything before him with the keenest apprehension. The usual careless observation of people both of the good and the imperfect is much more comfortable in this imperfect world. But the insight which Mr. Hawthorne possessed was only equalled by his outsight, and he suffered in a way not to be readily conceived, from any failure in beauty, physical, ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... of species (about a quarter of a million) already noticed by naturalists. Linnaeus succeeded, however, in finding a common character on which to unite most of his classes; but the Mammalia, that group to which we ourselves belong, remained very imperfect. Indeed, in the earlier editions of his classification, he does not apply the name of Mammalia to this class, but calls the higher animals Quadrupedia, characterizing them as the animals with four legs and covered with fur ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... arrested by some conflict at the door, where Aunt Hominy, notwithstanding her imperfect wits, was striving to ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... wall tents; now, line officers and enlisted men were to occupy shelter tents, which they were to carry on their shoulders; and although a small number of wall tents could be carried in the wagons for field and staff officers, yet so imperfect was the understanding, in or out of the quartermaster's department, of what could or ought to be done, that most regimental field and staff officers were left without ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... 1412, John I. sent forth a few vessels, to explore the western shores of Africa, while he prepared a great armament to attack the moors of Barbary, the art of navigation was still very imperfect, nor had the Portuguese ever ventured to sail beyond Cape Non. But what most powerfully contributed to give impulse and direction to the national ardour, was the enlightened enthusiasm, with which prince Henry of Portugal, ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... and that portions of it interested me a good deal while I was writing them; but I have had so many interruptions, from things to see and things to suffer, that the story has developed itself in a very imperfect way, and will have to be revised hereafter. I could finish it for the press in the time that I am to remain here (till the 15th of April), but my brain is tired of it just now; and, besides, there are many objects that I shall ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... had been guilty of that crime for which he had formerly been transported, but denied that he lived in such a course of wickedness and debauchery as most malefactors do. On the contrary, he said he was heartily sorry for his sins, and hoped that God would accept his imperfect repentance. ...
— Lives Of The Most Remarkable Criminals Who have been Condemned and Executed for Murder, the Highway, Housebreaking, Street Robberies, Coining or other offences • Arthur L. Hayward
... large medals of the greatest rarity; the Marcus Aurelius with his son on the reverse side, Theodora bearing the globe, and above all the Annia Faustina with Heliogabalus on the reverse side, an incomparable treasure, of which there is only one other example, and that an imperfect one, in the world—a marvel which I would give a day of my life to see; yes, my dear, a ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... If visitors stayed at the manse, it would be George Bradford, whom Hawthorne respected in the highest degree which his appreciation of others ever reached, or Frank Farley, the half-crazy Brook Farmer, whom he gave himself to in a more self-sacrificing way to aid and comfort in his bewildered and imperfect state; or else Hillard would arrive, with much cheerfulness and news from Longfellow or others of the Cambridge men. But Hawthorne still kept the social world at a distance from his private and intimate self; these men, though he maintained kindly intercourse with ...
— Nathaniel Hawthorne • George E. Woodberry
... Italy, ravaging the country as they passed over it, and sat down before Rome, not content with stripping the land, they forced their way into the catacombs, searching for treasure, and seeking also, it seems likely, for the bodies of the martyrs, whom their imperfect creed did not prevent them from honoring. After they retired, in the short breathing-space that was given to the unhappy city, various popes undertook to do something to restore the catacombs,[D]—and one of them, John III., [A.D. 560-574,] ordered that service should be performed at certain ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... did the rest, even though the latter did not fit him as well as Gregorios had expected. Gregorios is a deceptive man and is larger than he looks, for his coat was too broad for Alexander, and hung loosely over the latter's shoulders and chest. But in spite of the imperfect fit, the change in the man's appearance was so great that I started in surprise when he entered the sitting-room, taking him for an intruder who had walked ...
— Paul Patoff • F. Marion Crawford
... that she lived in his soul, as much as he did in hers, that his existence without her must be barren and imperfect. She did not ask when and how, she only prayed that she might become his, expecting it as confidently as light in the morning, spring after winter. Nothing appeared so irrefutable as this faith; it was the belief of ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... which I have just given an imperfect sketch, has for its object to show how a nebula endued with a general movement of rotation must eventually transform itself into a very luminous central nucleus (a sun) and into a series of distinct spheroidal ...
— Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men • Francois Arago
... not sent but unto the lost sheep of the House of Israel." This view is the more appropriate as we have known in the history of God's providence with Israel, which presents them as a people prepared (so far as imperfect material could be prepared) to receive the model which God might desire to impress upon the nation. They were bound to each other by all the ties of which human nature is susceptible, and thus rendered compact and united, so that every thing national, ...
— Conversion of a High Priest into a Christian Worker • Meletios Golden
... this we have the chronicles of quaint old Vasari and Rosini; besides Baldinucci (ch. iv. p. 83), who says, "Raphael gave great testimony of his esteem when, in after years, he employed his own brush in Rome to finish a work begun by Fra Bartolommeo in that city and left imperfect." ...
— Fra Bartolommeo • Leader Scott (Re-Edited By Horace Shipp And Flora Kendrick)
... Then, gentlemen of the jury, this document does not convict the unfortunate man at the bar; and what appears like an admission of guilt is only to be attributed to his imperfect mode of expressing himself. He admits that he partook of certain brandy stated to be the captain's, which the captain, himself, however, would lead you to suppose had been provided by me. The witness who has been examined throws no further light upon the matter; and though the prisoner ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... thing as more or less perfect, we commonly mean that it is more or less perfect in its kind. A good saw makes a poor razor; a good chair, a more than indifferent bed. A bee crushed by a blow, a bird with a broken wing, we regard as imperfect. But it scarcely occurs to us to ask ourselves whether the bee is more or less perfect than the bird, or the bird than the spider. Swift's Houyhnhnms at their best could not be either perfect horses or perfect men. ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton
... ever attain to understand and find his proper place in this Universe, this great sweeping harmonious circle of which nevertheless he feels himself to be the diminutive focus? His senses are absurdly imperfect. His ear cannot catch any music the spheres make; and moreover there are probably neither spheres nor music. His eye is so dull an instrument that (as Blanco White's famous sonnet reminds us) he can neither see this world ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... promptness with which Dr. Nichol's enthusiasm awakens itself upon every road that leads to things elevating for man; or to things promising for knowledge; or to things which, like dubious theories or imperfect attempts at systematizing, though neutral as regards knowledge, minister to what is greater than knowledge, viz., to intellectual power, to the augmented power of handling your materials, though with no more materials than before. In his geological and cosmological inquiries, ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... inconvenience of a meeting of different gauges (even if we could assume their practicability, which in the present state of experience we should not be warranted in doing,) as anything better than partial and imperfect ...
— Report of the Railway Department of the Board of Trade on the • Samuel Laing
... the unfinished saloons and imperfect courts and roofless rooms, and by half erected obelisks, and columns pierced and chipped, of the palace of his building. And he was bewildered at the words spoken by Shahpesh; but now the King exalted him, and admired the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... $58,362,136. While these sums were devoted to increasing the resources and improving the condition of the country, and in discharging its pecuniary obligations, those claims which were derived from what are termed the imperfect obligations of gratitude and humanity were ...
— Life and Public Services of John Quincy Adams - Sixth President of the Unied States • William H. Seward
... were full of growth. But for long the Christianity which was nominally triumphant was imperfect indeed. Chlodowech died in 511; his race went on ruling, Catholic in name but very far from obedient to the Church's laws. The tale of their successors, their wars and their crimes, is one which belongs to social or political history, not to the history of the ...
— The Church and the Barbarians - Being an Outline of the History of the Church from A.D. 461 to A.D. 1003 • William Holden Hutton
... was Milton's conception of his own function. Of the fashionable verse, such as was written in the Caroline age, or in any age, he disapproved, not only because it was imperfect art, but because it was untrue utterance. Poems that were raised "from the heat of youth, or the vapours of wine, like that which flows at waste from the pen of some vulgar amourist, or the trencher fury of a rhyming parasite," were in his eyes treachery ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... Middle things are each and all things of the vegetable kingdom, such as grasses and herbs of every kind, plants and shrubs of every kind, and trees of every kind. The uses of these are for the service of each and all things of the animal kingdom, both imperfect and perfect. These they nourish, delight, and vivify; nourishing the bellies of animals with their vegetable substances, delighting the animal senses with taste, fragrance, and beauty, and vivifying their affections. The endeavor towards this is in these also from life. ...
— Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom • Emanuel Swedenborg
... more properly, and might be said to be the last right of slaves. Who ever heard of petition in the free States of antiquity? We had borrowed our notions in regard to it from our British ancestors, with whom it had a value for their imperfect representation far greater than it has with us; and it is owing to that that it has a place at all in our Constitution. The truth is, that the right has been so far superseded in a political point of view, that it has ceased ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... look at this deep pessimism at its darkest. The imperfect, that is everywhere. That is all that you can see or work at. That is the warp and woof of all your occupations and institutions, your politics, your science, your religion. They are all nearly as bad as they are good. Your science has forever to disown its past. Your politics demands that ...
— Modern American Prose Selections • Various
... account of the various processes for working peat by machinery, such data as I have been able to find have been given as to cost of production. These data are however very imperfect, and not altogether trustworthy, in direct application to American conditions. The cheapness of labor in Europe is an item to our disadvantage in interpreting foreign estimates. I incline to the ...
— Peat and its Uses as Fertilizer and Fuel • Samuel William Johnson
... we can have nothing but sympathy. Some of its expressions are wonderfully touching, but their pathos must not blind us to the maimed character of the world-view on which they rest. Grant that the sphere of sense is limited and therefore imperfect, let it at any rate be valid up to the limit it does actually attain. The rippling weir and the mill-wheel did produce some sort of effect upon the beholder, and therefore must have been to that extent real. What do we gain by flinging away the chance to learn, even though ...
— Nature Mysticism • J. Edward Mercer
... little learning is dangerous is one of our surest maxims. If knowledge does not produce the effect of ameliorating our imperfect condition, it were, without question, better let alone altogether; it is not to be made merely an appendix to the mind, but must be incorporated and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19, No. 543, Saturday, April 21, 1832. • Various
... the matter which is peculiar to Caxton's form of the dialogues may be confidently ascribed to his original, on account of the frequent occurrence of passages in which, while the French is quite correct, the English translation shows imperfect understanding ...
— Dialogues in French and English • William Caxton
... broad line of wood, composed in the lower part of Eucalyptus dumosa, a straggling tree, growing to an inconsiderable height, rising at once from the ground with many slender stems, and affording but an imperfect shade. About the latitude of 34 degrees the character of the Murray belt changes—it becomes denser and more diversified. Pine trees on sandy ridges, Acacia, Hakea, Exocarpi, and many other shrubs form a thick wood, through which it is difficult to keep a correct course. Occasionally a low brush ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt
... waist, cut open in front to a point, was filled in with white satin, over which it was laced together with a thin silk cord of the same colour as the dress. A small lace collar completed the toilet, and for the occasion, it was perfect; anything added to it would have made it imperfect. ...
— An Orkney Maid • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... was imperfect or declined, then the decorations were all rude, and the embroideries shared in the general rudeness or poverty; but as these crafts rose again, adding to themselves grace and beauty by study and experience, then needlework in ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
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