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verb
Defect  v. t.  To injure; to damage. "None can my life defect." (R.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Defect" Quotes from Famous Books



... superior to that of rhetoric, but the accent was never such as would satisfy a fastidious ear. The day came, however, when people hung with too much anxiety on the least of his utterances for any one to notice this defect. Cavour sat on the Right, and from the first he horrified his colleagues on the same benches by the enunciation of views which to them were rank heresies. They existed in a state of perpetual uneasiness as to what he might ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco

... yourself. You claim the privilege of reason in the highest degree, since you seek to impress us with your complete reasonableness. You do this, whose sanity we have reason to doubt, since you are not yet released from medical treatment for this very defect. If you will not help us in our effort to choose the wisest course, how can we perform the duty which you yourself put upon us? Be wise, and help us, and if we can we shall aid you to achieve ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker

... you represent as being the principal defect in the Shetland character?-It is one of the ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie

... statement is a fact, because such and such a scientist has claimed to have demonstrated it. "We are not responsible for the fact," says Krauth, "that under the conditions of knowledge we know, or in defect of them do not know; we are responsible if, under the conditions of a well-grounded ...
— Was Man Created? • Henry A. Mott

... offered to him, he would return it with interest. At retaliation of merriment he was often happy; and frequently turned the laugh against his antagonist. He did not want docility; but either from the difficulty of acquiring our language, from the unskillfulness of his teachers, or from some natural defect, his progress in learning it was not equal to what we had expected. For the last three or four weeks of his life, hardly any restraint was laid upon his inclinations: so that had he meditated escape, he might easily have effected it. He was, perhaps, the only native who was ever attached to us from ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench

... the arrival, and through the cheerful meal which followed, Eustace Derwent maintained a certain reserve, was always rather in the background. This implied no defect of decent sentiment; the young man—he was four-and-twenty—could not regard his aunt and cousin with any fond emotion, but he did not dislike them, and was willing to credit them with all the excellent qualities perceived by Irene, wondering merely how his father's sister, ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing

... not choose to concede it, you must accept the blame of your blunder. Your vision is not acute, sir, a defect that is as unbecoming in an architect as in a war minister. You have been equally blind to the monstrous size of yonder window, and to the great genius of my kinsman, Eugene of Savoy. Unhappily, your want of judgment, as regards the man, is irreparable; the defect in your window ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach

... He must follow Hutchinson in the train of reasoning that elucidates the pre-cancerous stage of cancer, or tread in the path followed by Sir Lionel Beale, in finding that the cause of disease depends on a blood change and the developmental defect, or the tendency or inherent weakness of the affected part or organ; to fully appreciate the inherent etiological factors that reside in man, and which constitute the tendency to disease or premature decay and death, we must also be able to follow ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino

... no doubt that all grades of intelligence can be improved by education, but there appears to be a limit to the capacity of development of each individual. Lower intelligence, therefore, is not only due to lack of opportunity, but to an inborn constitutional defect. ...
— Conception Control and Its Effects on the Individual and the Nation • Florence E. Barrett

... fertile. Thus by artificial means (for of rain there is very little) the environs of the town are highly cultivated. Fruit is the main product. The grapes are magnificent, so are the peaches, in appearance at least, but they lack flavour. This defect is common to that fruit all over California; but I need not enumerate each kind of fruit grown, all that thrives both in temperate and semi-tropical regions is found there, and, the peaches excepted, all first rate of ...
— The Truth About America • Edward Money

... Frenchwoman, the daughter of an ex-prefet. But he makes few allusions to any former experiences, and draws no comparisons between the conditions of life or the characteristics of the people in different provinces. This is perhaps to be considered a defect in the book, though it might not have possessed the same attractiveness had its scope been wider. It is an advantage, too, that the locality was not one which excites curiosity by its strongly marked ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various

... original, I shall not often inquire further, since we know not the parent of the Saxon dialect; but when it is borrowed from the French, I shall show whence the French is apparently derived. Where a Saxon root cannot be found, the defect may be supplied from kindred languages, which will be generally furnished with much liberality by the writers of our glossaries; writers who deserve often the highest praise, both of judgment and industry, and may expect at least to be mentioned with honour by me, whom they have freed from ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson

... her in the matter which occasioned her grief,—but had simply felt compassion for her as for one summoned, in a regular course of providential and human dispensation, to face an affliction, heavy in itself, but not heavy from any special defect of equity. Consequently their very sympathy, being so much built upon the assumption that an only child had offended to the extent implied in his sentence, oftentimes clothed itself in expressions which she felt to be not consolations but insults, and, ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... were—had not that most necessary gift for a man in his position, the art of making friends. No man made so many enemies. He was an excellent hater, and few men have been more cordially hated in return. He was imperious, insolent, hot-tempered. He could brook no equal. He had also the fatal defect of enjoying the flattery, of his inferiors in station. Adroit intriguers burned incense to him as a god, and employed him as their tool. And now he had mortally offended Hohenlo, and Buys, and Barneveld, while he hated Sir John Norris with a most passionate ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... advocated by the early Greeks, which was the line of demarcation between despotism and dogmatism and the freedom of the mind and will. In common with all human institutions, its power has sometimes been abused. But its defect cannot be remedied by repression or by force, but by the elevation of the thought, judgment, intelligence, and good-will of a people by an education which causes them to {485} demand better things. ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar

... for inspection through the manhole openings. The removal of the handhole plates makes possible the inspection of each tube for its full length and gives the assurance that no defect can exist that cannot be actually seen. This is particularly advantageous when inspecting for the ...
— Steam, Its Generation and Use • Babcock & Wilcox Co.

... to literature in recent years is that it is more closely related to action and those general ideas which lead to action. Its great corresponding defect—and this is immeasurable—is its loss in form, in universality, in that disinterestedness which is essential to art. Erudition, when it is humane, and even when it is merely academic, has, at any rate, always that disinterestedness which ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James

... tangle quickly knots the thread, unless thoughtful patience rescues. Recklessness means hopeless disarray, and the soft fluff of warming color becomes unkempt disorder, a confused mass from which the thread broken again and again is extracted. The work of careful hands has been reduced to lasting defect. ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll

... the Quakers, an objection is usually made by the world, namely, that their ministers generally deliver their doctrines with an unpleasant tone. But it may be observed that this, which is considered to be a defect, is by no means confined to the Quakers. Persons of other religious denominations, who exert themselves in the ministry, are liable to the same charge. It may be observed also, that the difference between the accent of the ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume II (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson

... mind and these unscholarly habits often were his undoing, was inevitable. He was often betrayed by fallacies and hasty inferences. The speech before us illustrates this lamentable mental defect. With the utmost assurance Douglas pointed out that Texas had actually extended her jurisdiction over the debatable land between the Nueces and the Rio Grande, fixing by law the times of holding court in the counties of San Patricio and Bexar. This ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson

... foreign vessels, and possess little shipping of its own. This is at present the condition of the United States; and once, in far gone days, it was in great measure that of England. In such case there is a defect of navigation, consequent upon which there will be a deficiency of native seamen; of seamen attached to the country and its interests, by ties of birth or habit. For maritime war such a state will have but small resources of adaptable naval force; ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan

... Defects of Vision. The eye may be free from disease and perfectly sound, and yet vision be indistinct, because the rays of light are not accurately brought to a focus on the retina. "Old sight," known as presbyopia, is a common defect of vision in advancing years. This is a partial loss of the power to accommodate the eye to different distances. This defect is caused by an increase in the density of the crystalline lens, and an accompanying diminution in the ability to change its ...
— A Practical Physiology • Albert F. Blaisdell

... Jesus, salutation. My brethren, when you fall into temptation Of divers kinds, rejoice, as men that know From trial of your faith doth patience flow. But let your patience have its full effect, That you may be entire, without defect. If any of you lack wisdom, let him cry To God, and he will give it lib'rally, And not upbraid. But let him ask in faith, Not wavering, for he that wavereth, Unto a wave o' th' sea I will compare, Driv'n with the wind and tossed here and there. For let not such ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... defect, 'twas marred and broken lay, Its fair proportions spoiled, and it but crumbling clay; Oh, wondrous patience, care and love, what did he do? He stooped and gathered up the parts and ...
— Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled during Her Visit - among the "Pennsylvania Germans" • Edith M. Thomas

... dost me injustice, O Commander of the Faithful, and it becomes thee not to even my brothers with me: for, of the abundance of their speech and their lack of conduct and courtesy, each one of them has gotten some bodily defect. One is blind of an eye, another paralysed, a third blind, a fourth cropped of the ears and nose, a fifth crop-lipped and a sixth hunchbacked and a cripple. Thou must not think, O Commander of the Faithful, ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous

... general outlook and condition of Landshut, and Silesia in that juncture;—and though a good deal disappointed, have made an Abstract of it in the English language, which perhaps the reader too, in his great ignorance, will accept, in defect of better. Scene is Landshut among the Giant Mountains on the Bohemian Border of Silesia: an old stone Town, where there is from of old a busy trade in thread and linen; Town consisting, as is common there, of ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... and chin—possessed the fineness and delicacy of form which is oftener seen among women of foreign races than among women of English birth. She was unquestionably a handsome person—with the one serious drawback of her ghastly complexion, and with the less noticeable defect of a total want of tenderness in the expression of her eyes. Apart from his first emotion of surprise, the feeling she produced in the Doctor may be described as an overpowering feeling of professional curiosity. The case might prove to ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins

... a clever, generous man, Dymov," she used to say, "but you have one very serious defect. You take absolutely no interest in art. You don't believe in music ...
— The Wife and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... invisible; that which is palpable to become impalpable. Again let that which is below become that which is above; let the invisible become visible, and the impalpable become palpable. Here you see the perfection of our Art, without any defect or diminution." (Basil Valentine, ...
— The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry • M. M. Pattison Muir

... voice should always be sympathetic, kindly, calm, and noble, even when the most repulsive things are expressed. A tearful voice is a grave defect, and must be avoided. The same may be said of the tremulous voice of the aged, who emphasize and prolong their syllables. Tears are out of place in great situations; we should weep only at home. To weep is a sure way of ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various

... attended by no other Fatigue, than that of preventing too swift a Descent. Propose what you have to object, Probusomo, for I will provide you able Bearers, who shall carry you, and with the Strength of theirs, supply your Defect of Wings." ...
— A Voyage to Cacklogallinia - With a Description of the Religion, Policy, Customs and Manners of That Country • Captain Samuel Brunt

... (wherein they are not guilty, Since nature cannot choose its origin), By the o'ergrowth of some complexion, Oft breaking down the pales and forts of reason; Or by some habit that too much o'er-leavens The form of plausive manners; that these men,— Carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect; Being nature's livery, or fortune's star,— Their virtues else (be they as pure as grace, As infinite as man may undergo) Shall in the general censure take corruption From that ...
— Montaigne and Shakspere • John M. Robertson

... should exist in the full extent in which it is to be found in the proposed Constitution. These reasons seem sufficient to satisfy a candid mind, that the want of such a power would have been a great defect in the plan. Let us now examine in what manner the judicial authority is to be distributed between the supreme and the inferior courts of the Union. The Supreme Court is to be invested with original jurisdiction, only "in cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers, and consuls, and those ...
— The Federalist Papers

... household (so far as the guide's story goes) on whose privacy we have intruded ourselves! The narrative has a certain interest of its own, no doubt, but it has one defect—it fails entirely to explain the continued absence of Mr. Dunross. Is it possible that he is not aware of our presence in the house? We apply the guide, and make a few further ...
— The Two Destinies • Wilkie Collins

... chronicle. He himself has sought to understand as zealously as his most eminent competitors. He gives, at least, no meager account of life, and he has done liberal justice to its infinite variety. This is his great merit; his great defect, roughly stated, is a tendency to the abuse of irony. He remains, nevertheless, to our sense, a very welcome mediator between the world and our curiosity. If we had space, we should like to set forth that he is by no ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. X (of X) - America - II, Index • Various

... dearest to the world! Full many a lady I have eyed with best regard: and many a time The harmony of their tongues hath into bondage Brought my too diligent ear: for several virtues Have I liked several women; never any With so full soul, but some defect in her Did quarrel with the noblest grace she owed And put it to the foil. But you, O you, So perfect and so peerless, are ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson

... is that which descends from heaven and is increased by showers," but in reference to its more proximate sense, under which the right of keeping it off is comprised, the genus is, mischievous rain water. The subordinate species of that genus are waters which injure through a natural defect of the place, or those which are injurious on account of the works of man: for one of these kinds may be restrained by an arbitrator, but ...
— The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 4 • Cicero

... turned against me. I learned more of Mr. Cooke's great-uncle than I knew of Mr. Cooke himself, and to the credit of my client be it said that none of his relative's traits were apparent in him, with the possible exception of insanity; and that defect, if it existed in the grand-nephew, took in him a milder and less criminal turn. The old rascal, indeed, had so cleverly worded his deed of sale as to obtain payment without transfer. It was a trifle easier to avoid being specific in that country in his day than it is now, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... are than what they have been. We have reformed from them, not against them, for there is between us one common name and appellation, one faith and necessary body of principles common to us both; and therefore I am not scrupulous to converse and live with them, to enter their churches in defect of ours, and either pray with ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various

... hour was increased because the national machinery had suddenly come to a standstill. The defect predicted by its enemies and feared by its friends had suddenly appeared in the method of electing a President. According to the Constitution, each elector wrote two names upon his ballot. The man receiving the highest number, if a majority, was ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks

... of the lodging-house steps, "like r'yalty," as the cook expressed it, and the greengrocer's man in the hall looked so pompous and inflated in his gorgeous attire that his own cabbages would hardly have recognized him. His main defect as a footman was that he was somewhat hard of hearing, and had a marvellous faculty of misinterpreting whatever was said to him, which occasionally led to remarkable results. Thus, when he announced the sporting Captain Livingstone Tuck under the title of Captain ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle

... starting, instead of being coated in large sheets and cut afterward—a practice somewhat common in this industry. The disadvantage of the ordinary plan is that minute fragments of glass are liable to settle upon the sensitive film and to cause spots and scratches during the packing operations; any defect of this kind renders a plate worthless to the photographer. When any breakages take place in the cutting, it is best that they should occur at the outset, and not after the plate has been coated with emulsion. The cutting when necessary is effected by the aid of a "cutting board," Fig. 2, invented ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 647, May 26, 1888 • Various

... but that I make her more sport then she makes me? Shall I conclude her simple, that has her time to begin or refuse sportivenesse as freely as I my self have? Nay, who knows but that our agreeing no better, is the defect of my not understanding her language? (for doubtlesse Cats talk and reason with one another) and that shee laughs at, and censures my folly, for making her sport, and pities mee for understanding her no better? To this purpose speaks Mountagne concerning ...
— The Compleat Angler - Facsimile of the First Edition • Izaak Walton

... slightly annoying defect was discovered. It turned out that the Stock Corporation law of New York State specifically prohibited the bonded indebtedness of any corporation being more than the value of the capital stock. This discovery ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers

... imagination; the discipline of a constant exercise of reason is not only salutary, but necessary. But one can easily conceive how the indulgence of that state of mind which produced Collins's Odes could end in an entire overthrow of the intellect, when embittered by a defect of the principal objects of his worldly ambition. He is said to have been puffed up by a vanity which prompted him to expect that all eyes would be upon him, and all voices lifted in his praise. Such was the conception ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins

... commonplace, but since the Picts went out of fashion, very necessary to mortals the most sublime. I ought to apologize for his coming. You threatened to leave me yesterday because of a defect in your wardrobe. Mr. Fairthorn wrote to my tailor to hasten hither and repair it. He is here. I commend him to your custom! Don't despise him because he makes for a man of my remote generation. Tailors are keen observers and ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... lips working oddly. "I am no Siegfried," said he, "and ordinarily my bedfellow is not cold and—deplorable defect in such capacity!—somewhat ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell

... understand that the very worst subject for a ghost trick to be played upon, was Charley Channing. It was, however, going to be done. The defect—for it really is a defect—had never transpired to the College school, who would not have spared their ridicule, or spared Charley. Reared, in that point, under happier auspices, they could have given nothing but utter ridicule ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood

... them devoid of vegetation. There was little of geological interest; gneiss and syenite predominated, with extremely large crystals of hornblende in the latter rock, that would have afforded handsome slabs had not the prevailing defect throughout Cyprus rendered all blocks imperfect through innumerable cracks and fissures. A peculiar greenish and greasy-looking rock resembling soapstone was occasionally met with in veins, and upon close examination I discovered it to be the base of asbestos. The surface of this green ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker

... the defendant does not deny it, and put it in issue by plea in abatement, he cannot offer evidence at the trial to disprove it, and consequently cannot avail himself of the objection in the appellate court, unless the defect should be apparent in some other part of the record. For if there is no plea in abatement, and the want of jurisdiction does not appear in any other part of the transcript brought up by the writ of error, ...
— Report of the Decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, and the Opinions of the Judges Thereof, in the Case of Dred Scott versus John F.A. Sandford • Benjamin C. Howard

... considered, worked out, and constructed. We are concerned here mainly with the completed machine and its trials. Of these latter it must be remarked that the only two actual field trials which took place resulted in accidents due to the failure of the launching apparatus, and not due to any inherent defect in the machine. It was intended that these two trials should be the first of a series, but the unfortunate accidents, and the fact that no further funds were forthcoming for continuance of experiments, prevented Langley's success, which, ...
— A History of Aeronautics • E. Charles Vivian

... cherry were found, and a solitary pair of snow-shoes was hanging high and dry on a branch, but no further trace of human hands could we see. While we were resting here a couple of hermit thrushes, one of them with some sad defect in his vocal powers which barred him from uttering more than a few notes of his song, gave voice to the solitude of the place. This was the second instance in which I have observed a song-bird with ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs

... the public summons, repaired to the present station, it will be peculiarly improper to omit, in this first official act, my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being who rules over the universe—who presides in the councils of nations, and whose Providential aids can supply every human defect—that his benediction may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the people of the United States, a government instituted by themselves for these essential purposes, and may enable every instrument employed in its administration to execute with success the functions allotted to his charge. ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing

... honourably fair? No gilded bait, no heart ensnaring meed, Could bribe poor Stokes to one dishonest deed: Firm in attachment, to his friends most true— Though deaf and dumb he was excell'd by few. Go ye, by nature formed, without defect, And copy Tom, and gain as ...
— Anecdotes & Incidents of the Deaf and Dumb • W. R. Roe

... never see a 'necessary connection' between any two events. He collects passages from earlier writers to show how Hume had been anticipated; and holds that Bacon's inadequate view of this truth was a main defect in his theories.[177] Hence we have a characteristic conclusion. He says, when discussing the proofs of the existence of God,[178] that we have an 'irresistible conviction of the necessity of a ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen

... is lacking with their improvised successor. On the throne as in the camp, whether general, consul, or emperor, he remains the military adventurer, and cares only for his own advancement. Owing to the great defect in the education of both conscience and sentiments, instead of subordinating himself to the State, he subordinates the State to him; he does not look beyond his own brief physical existence to the nation which is to survive him. Consequently, he sacrifices the future ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... she saw Luke's faults and the thousand ways in which he was inferior to his brother, and yet that with all these to stay him up Fitz did not compare with Luke. After all, there must have been some small defect in the education which she had received, for instead of thinking these futile things she ought to have been attempting to discover—as was her mother at that moment—which of the two brothers seemed more likely ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman

... conceited fellow, I know, and everybody else knows it, too. I took seriously that which was only intended as a jest, and I got myself exiled for my pains. But I saw my error. I overcame my vanity, and I obtained my recall by making the amende honorable, and by promising myself to overcome this defect; and the consequence is, that I am so thoroughly cured, that I now laugh at the very thing which three or four days ago would have almost broken my heart. But Raoul is in love, and is loved in return, he cannot laugh at the reports which disturb his happiness—reports ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas

... inspectors testing and gauging another similar giant. Look down this shining tube and watch the gauging, now with callipers, now with a rubber device which takes the impression of the rifling and reveals any defect. The gauging turns upon the ten-thousandth part of an inch, and any mistake or flaw may ...
— The War on All Fronts: England's Effort - Letters to an American Friend • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... it looked like a city of baby houses; another feature in our dwellings does not please the foreign eye, and that is the dingy colour of our bricks, which certainly has not so light an appearance as stone, of which the houses on the Continent are generally built. The irremediable defect in Paris is certainly the narrowness of the streets, although every opportunity is turned to advantage by the government when houses are taken down to compel the proprietors to rebuild them in such a manner as to ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve

... forty-three years. I mean that I have lost my gait and cannot get started. It's a long time since I have done anything new; I always strike the same note. You know that some people, envious of my reputation are always throwing that defect in my face, like ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez

... others, where one feeling melts others into it, there can be no reason why the same principle should not be extended to the sounds by which the voice utters these emotions of the soul, and blends syllables and lines into each other. It is to supply the inherent defect of harmony in the customary mechanism of language, to make the sound an echo to the sense, when the sense becomes a sort of echo to itself—to mingle the tide of verse, "the golden cadences of poetry", with the ...
— English literary criticism • Various

... arise. I have found out lately that I have been stating the very contrary to what I would have said. With this translation, I stand up to read a portion of the Word of God, for my interpreter cannot read, and hence any slight defect or change in a syllable may give altogether a different sense from what I desire ...
— The Mission; or Scenes in Africa • Captain Frederick Marryat

... form of scattered digressions, that he seldom employs sufficient discussion on those fundamental truths, and never in the place where such a discussion would be most instructive to the reader. This defect in the plan of Grotius was perceived, and supplied by Puffendorf, who restored natural law to that superiority which belonged to it, and with great propriety, treated the law of nations as only one main ...
— The Life of Hugo Grotius • Charles Butler

... they are null, zero. Whenever sin and death make you nervous write it down as an illusion of the devil. There is no sin now, no curse, no death, no devil because Christ has done away with them. This fact is sure. There is nothing wrong with the fact. The defect lies ...
— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther

... discipline and chastisement have been regarded as necessarily incident to paternal authority, the father is civilly liable to his children for wrongs done to them. The only points in which infancy created a defect in civil status were that infants were subject to the restraints on complete freedom of action involved in their being in the legal custody of the father, and that it was and is lawful for parents, guardians, employers and teachers to inflict corporal punishment ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various

... all that need be done to secure good seed. If peanuts are fully cured when picked off, and are not kept too close, they will prove good seed, unless there is some radical defect of the germ or vital powers. Keep them from heating, and they will germinate and grow as readily as corn. Every planter may, and should, save his own seed. According to the number of acres that he thinks of planting, let him provide two bushels of seed (or forty-four pounds in the ...
— The Peanut Plant - Its Cultivation And Uses • B. W. Jones

... will be your friend—and, like a friend, Point out your very worst defect—Nay, never Start at that word! But I must ask you why You keep your school in ...
— Queen Victoria • E. Gordon Browne

... enlarged into immense canvases, some of which were twenty feet long and twelve feet high. All who looked upon these pictures were amazed by the fecundity in invention and the skill shown in drawing; but the most telling criticism against them was their defect in coloring. Dore could draw, but could not color, and the report was abroad that he ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard

... descends unchecked The sad bequest of sire to son, The body's taint, the mind's defect; Through every web of life the dark ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier

... general opinion of the country. As the son-in-law of Judge Story and the brother of Judge Curtis, there was a general expectation that his career would be distinguished. That expectation was not realized. His self-conceit was unbounded. That defect made him unpopular with his professional brethren, and at last it alienated his clients. Even Mr. Choate, the gentlest of men, could not endure Mr. Curtis. Of him he said, "Some men we hate for cause, but George T. ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 • George Boutwell

... this defect—wherever it has disclosed itself—has been enough to neutralise the most splendid courage and the most unselfish devotion. It has been seen that armies and navies the valour of which has never been questioned have been defeated by antagonists sometimes as highly organised as they ...
— Sea-Power and Other Studies • Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge

... That had the, &c.] Demosthenes, who is said to have had a defect in his pronunciation, which he cured by using to speak with little ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler

... ordering them to abandon everything except their arms and war-horses. And Abderrahman trusted in the valour of his soldiers, and in the good fortune which had ever attended him. But (the Arab writer remarks) such defect of discipline always is fatal to armies. So Abderrahman and his host attacked Tours to gain still more spoil, and they fought against it so fiercely that they stormed the city almost before the eyes of the army that came to save it; and the fury and the cruelty of the Moslems towards the inhabitants ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.

... I know, a mere defect of constitution; but you, as a speculator, were, if I may venture to put it so, not worth your salt; no boldness, no dash, all caution. But your promising son is a regular whale on speculation, and I may tell you that we stand in together in some little ventures that would very probably make your ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey

... hath been thought that friendship is usually nursed by similitude of manners, but the contrary had been the case between these lads; for whereas Wild was rapacious and intrepid, the other had always more regard far his skin than his money; Wild therefore had very generously compassionated this defect in his school- fellow, and had brought him off from many scrapes, into most of which he had first drawn him, by taking the fault and whipping to himself. He had always indeed been well paid on such occasions; there are a sort of people who, together ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding

... I could scarce treat him civilly, which only shows what an insufferable puppy I still was, and I made myself most miserable. His learning was more of the court and camp than of the bookshelf,—a defect which I soon discovered,—and I loved to set him tripping over some quibble of words, a proceeding which amused me vastly, though my mirth was shared by none of the others who witnessed it. In fact, Madame Stewart was partial to the man from the first, in which I do not blame her, for a better ...
— A Soldier of Virginia • Burton Egbert Stevenson

... serious defect in the Napoleonic system was the fact that its very foundation was military. What had enabled the National Convention in the days of the Revolution's darkest peril to roll back the tide of foreign invasion was the heroism and devotion of an enthusiastic ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes

... impotence may arise from physical or mental causes. The physical causes may be—too great or too tender an age; malformation of the genital organs; crypsorchides, defect or disease in the testicles; constitutional disease (diabetes, neurasthenia, etc.); or debility from acute disease, as mumps. Masturbation, and early and excessive sexual indulgence, are also causes. The mental causes include—passion, timidity, ...
— Aids to Forensic Medicine and Toxicology • W. G. Aitchison Robertson

... clearly that my representations concerning the untenableness of the basic doctrines of Christian supernaturalism are in alignment with the conclusions of outstanding authorities in the newly developed sciences of historical and biblical criticisms is indeed a defect and an attempt will here be made to remove it by a short but faithful and, as I think, convincing summary of what such authorities in these sciences have to say ...
— Communism and Christianism - Analyzed and Contrasted from the Marxian and Darwinian Points of View • William Montgomery Brown

... exactly the kind of air-ship we need for the recovery of the treasure," put in Malvoise. "Originally intended for Government use, she was turned back to her owner on account of a defect in the machinery which has since been rectified. She carries a fine cabin and a pilot house on her substructure, and is fitted up with sleeping quarters. Best of all, she is capable of lifting five tons beside her own ...
— The Boy Aviators' Treasure Quest • Captain Wilbur Lawton

... a vision of God he is instantly conscious of something the matter with his tongue. The sight that comes to his eyes, the sound to his ears makes him painfully self-conscious regarding the defect in his tongue. Moses found himself slow-tongued. Isaiah felt the need of the cleansing coal for ...
— Quiet Talks about Jesus • S. D. Gordon

... eye may "dart through rank and file traverse" for some minutes, before it shall discover, among his armed followers, which is Joshua! Not modern art alone, but ancient, where only it is to be found if anywhere, can be detected erring, from defect of this imaginative faculty. The world has nothing to show of the preternatural in painting, transcending the figure of Lazarus bursting his grave-clothes, in the great picture at Angerstein's. It seems ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Volume 2 • Charles Lamb

... I affirmed that proposition, Defect was not amended by a prayer, Because the prayer ...
— Dante's Purgatory • Dante

... to be drawn between self-love and selfishness, though they are usually confounded. Self-love is the effect of instinct, and is necessary for our preservation in common with other animals; but selfishness is a mental defect and is generated by narrowness ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XIX. No. 532. Saturday, February 4, 1832 • Various

... fair relative the confidence which I predicted would come with time. Her knack of disguising her own identity in the impersonation of different characters so completely staggers her audiences that the same people come twice over to find out how she does it. It is the amiable defect of the English public never to know when they have had enough of a good thing. They actually try to encore one of her characters—an old north-country lady; modeled on that honored preceptress in the late Mr. Vanstone's family to whom I presented myself at Combe-Raven. This ...
— No Name • Wilkie Collins

... that a man is not working to advantage because of some defect in his physical make-up. He may have defective vision or some peculiarity of hearing that renders him unable to respond as quickly as he should to the demands made upon him. If these defects are ascertained, it is usually a simple matter to correct the defects by mechanical means or readjust ...
— Initiative Psychic Energy • Warren Hilton

... bride. met'al, a substance. met'tle, spirit. bri'dle, a check; a curb. vice, defect; fault. les'son, a task for recitation. vise, an instrument. wail, to lament. less'en, to make less. wale, ...
— McGuffey's Eclectic Spelling Book • W. H. McGuffey

... mere gladiator hitting in the dark," whose "blows fall heaviest on what it was his duty to defend." (p. 67.) Dr. Pusey receives a menacing intimation of what his Commentary must not be. Davison's reasoning labours under the inconvenient defect of an unproved minor premiss. (p. 66.) The majestic memory of Bp. Pearson is insulted by this vulgar man, and the fairness of his citations are impeached. (p. 72.)—Bp. Butler is declared to have turned aside from an unwelcome idea (!), literature not being ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon

... quarter of a mile west of the Cathedral, just where the last three shells had fallen. Fortunately they had hurt no one, though one had passed clean through the upper stories of a house where there were several children being got ready by one of our party for removal. By good luck through some defect it did not explode, or the house would have been annihilated and everyone in it killed. Quite a collection of people had congregated in that little street, though why they considered it safer than the rest of the town I do not know. At first they were very unwilling to let any of the children ...
— A Surgeon in Belgium • Henry Sessions Souttar

... is that it has no passions. "O noble privilege of age! if indeed it takes from us that which is in youth our greatest defect." But the higher feelings of our nature are not necessarily weakened; or rather, they may become all the brighter, being purified from the grosser elements of ...
— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock

... smack of the odour of the charnel. He further said that the king had the eyes of a slave, and that the queen had in three ways shown the behaviour of a bondmaid. Thus he reviled with insulting invective not so much the feast as its givers. And presently his companions, taunting him with his old defect of wits, began to flout him with many saucy jeers, because he blamed and cavilled at seemly and worthy things, and because he attacked thus ignobly an illustrious king and a lady of so refined a behaviour, bespattering ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")

... apt to distinguish or find differences, let him study the Schoolmen; for they are cymini sectores. If he be not apt to beat over matters, and to call up one thing to prove and illustrate another, let him study 197 the lawyers' cases. So every defect of the mind, may have ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon

... loss as well as makes profits. How much time and money have been squandered in repeated attempts to invent machinery, after a principle had been once tested and had failed through some defect inherent and natural, and therefore insuperable! Within thirty years not less than five patents have been taken out, in England and the United States, for a certain construction of paddle-wheels for a steamboat, ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew

... of title, which is a paper showing the title as it appears on the records, and this title when not vouched for as perfect by an abstract title company, should be passed upon by a lawyer in order that any flaw or defect therein may be made right before the deed is passed from one owner to another. In some states, however, the law does not require the owner to furnish an abstract. When the title is proved or pronounced good, the deed should at once be ...
— Boy Scouts Handbook - The First Edition, 1911 • Boy Scouts of America

... Spirit at the Jordan. One of the most instructive writers on the Hebrew worship and ritual tells us that it was the custom for the priest to whom the service pertained, having selected a lamb from the flock, to inspect it with the most minute scrutiny, in order to discover if it was without physical defect, and then to seal it with the temple seal, thus certifying that it was fit for sacrifice and for food. Behold the Lamb of God presenting himself for inspection at the Jordan! Under the Father's omniscient scrutiny he is found to be "a ...
— The Ministry of the Spirit • A. J. Gordon

... two brief showers, like that which had exerted so sudden an influence in hastening the commencement of our building scheme, afforded us the most satisfactory evidence of the good qualities of our roof, which did not admit a drop of rain. But at the same time we became aware of another defect in our house, as a dwelling in wet weather. We had no floor but the bare earth, and though Arthur had so levelled it, and protected it by a little trench and embankment, that no water from the adjacent grounds could reach us, except by the gradual process of saturation, still it ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer

... the defect of my plan, or rather absence of plan. By attacking as I do, one by one, so many incoherent Sophisms, which clash, and then again often mingle with each other, I am conscious that I condemn myself to a disorderly and capricious struggle, and am ...
— Sophisms of the Protectionists • Frederic Bastiat

... Nature design'd your Majesty a King, Fortune makes others; nor are you more your peoples by birth, and a glorious series of Progenitors, then by your merits: This appeared in all those digits of your darkest Eclipse; The defect was ours, not your Majesties. For the Sun is alwaies shining, though men alwaies see him not; and since the too great splendor, and prosperity did confound us, it pleased God to interpose those clouds, till we should be better able to behold you with ...
— An Apologie for the Royal Party (1659); and A Panegyric to Charles the Second (1661) • John Evelyn

... wages have come in it has become possible for the labourer in many cases to provide himself with better food, such as mutton—the cheap parts—more bacon, pork, and so on; but the women do not know how to make the most of it. It is very difficult to lay down a way in which this defect may be remedied; for there is nothing a man, let him be never so poor, so deeply resents as an inspection of the contents of his pot. He would sooner eat half-raw bacon than have the teaching forced on him—how to make savoury meals of ...
— The Toilers of the Field • Richard Jefferies

... decididamente, decidedly decidir, decidirse, to decide, to make up one's mind decir, to say, to tell declamar, to declaim declarar, to declare declararse en quiebra, to file one's petition in bankruptcy decretar, to decree dedal, thimble dedicarse, to devote oneself defecto, defect, imperfection definir, to define, also to settle definitivo, definite dejar, to leave, to let dejar sin efecto, to cancel (orders, etc.) delegado, delegate delicado de salud, in indifferent health delinquir, to commit a delinquency demanda y oferta, supply and demand ...
— Pitman's Commercial Spanish Grammar (2nd ed.) • C. A. Toledano

... hygienic principles than in the past. The student, on entering college, is subject to a careful physical examination by a competent physician, and a course of systematic physical training is prescribed. Any organic defect or incipient disease is discovered, and, if possible, corrected. Physical training has become an integral part of a good college course. Exercise is largely compulsory, because studious and ambitious students are likely to ...
— Colleges in America • John Marshall Barker

... misunderstood my last letter. I exposed to you a state of mind and feeling produced, not by religious impressions, but by the convictions of reason." Of course "reason" was no proper organ of religion; but besides this defect, her interest in serious things was liable to interruption "by the cares and pleasures of the world" and, perhaps worst of all, "I have not a fixed belief on some of the most material points of our religion." One does not see how a person in this state ...
— Daughters of the Puritans - A Group of Brief Biographies • Seth Curtis Beach

... than ever demanded, and the fact is most creditable to the spirit of the times, that a literary institution should be a safe resort, and no other advantages will, in the common estimation, compensate for defect and failure in this particular. The relations which every individual student sustains to God and to eternity, call imperiously and aloud, that the great principles of moral obligation, the everlasting distinctions between right and ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith

... some defect in their civil polity that the ancients were comparatively so easily put down by the Roman power, which might have been the superior civilisation. Possibly the great majority of the people may have been dissatisfied ...
— Notes & Queries 1850.01.19 • Various

... sort of stuff's absolutely fatal—fatal. It's simply compromise. Compromise. The most fatal defect in ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson

... for example, one has no conception (to say nothing of the thing itself!) in Germany. The Germans lack a couple of centuries of the moralistic work requisite thereto, which, as we have said, France has not grudged: those who call the Germans "naive" on that account give them commendation for a defect. (As the opposite of the German inexperience and innocence IN VOLUPTATE PSYCHOLOGICA, which is not too remotely associated with the tediousness of German intercourse,—and as the most successful expression of genuine French curiosity and inventive talent in this domain of delicate thrills, ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche

... delight of his old first conception returned, and preparing it for publication, he wrote: —[North American Review, December, 1907, now with comment included in the volume of "Speeches." (Also see Appendix O, at the end of last volume.)—I have read it twice, and unless I am an idiot it hasn't a single defect in it, from the first word to the last. It is just as good as good can be. It is smart; it is saturated with humor. There isn't a suggestion of coarseness or vulgarity in ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine

... as in politics, nice balancing of merit or defect in an enemy would destroy the main purpose which is to defeat him. Each side exaggerates any weak point in the other in order to stimulate the fighting passions. Judgment is distorted. The Baroness Riedesel, the wife of one of Burgoyne's generals, who was in ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong

... differs not less widely from the rugged strength of Carlyle than from the mystical involution of Maurice and the vehement and, as it were, breathless, yet vivid and poetic, utterance of Kingsley. When every defect has been admitted that is chargeable against one or all of this group of sincere and stalwart workers, it must be allowed that their power on their countrymen has been largely wielded for good. Particularly ...
— Great Britain and Her Queen • Anne E. Keeling

... "That they simply do not know what they are talking about" is the spontaneous silent remark of any man of sense who hears them. Hence such persons have no difficulty in contradicting themselves in successive sentences, without being conscious of it. Hence others, whose defect in intellectual training is more latent, have their most unfortunate crotchets, as they are called, or hobbies, which deprive them of the influence which their estimable qualities would otherwise secure. Hence ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman

... throat, shone a small diamond brooch. The delicate whiteness of her face and hands, and this sparkle of light on her breast, that moved as she moved, struck a thrill of pleasure through Tressady's senses. The squalid monotony and physical defect of the crowd about him passed from his mind. Her beauty redressed the balance. "'Loveliness, magic, and grace—they are here; they are set in the world!'—and ugliness and pain have not conquered while this face still looks and breathes." This, and nothing less, was the cry of the young man's ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... superior quality, because they are fresher. Soon after our men had sailed from Thedori, the larger of the two ships [the Trinidad] sprang a leak, which let in so much water, that they were obliged to return to Thedori. The Spaniards seeing that this defect could not be put right except with much labor and loss of time, agreed that the other ship [the Victoria] should sail to the Cape of Cattigara, thence across the ocean as far as possible from the Indian coast, lest they ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 • Emma Helen Blair

... similar to that which the eye takes of his outward form. On the other hand, according as we are only physiologists, or only politicians, or only moralists, so is our idea of man more or less unreal; we do not take in the whole of him, and the defect is greater or less, in proportion as the relation is, or is not, important, which is omitted, whether his relation to God, or to his king, or to his children, or to his own component parts. And if there be one relation, about which we know nothing at all ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman

... The main defect here appears to consist in the central motive of Redgrave's struggles being limited to purely personal ambition. His aim is no higher than that of a speculator in a hurry to be rich, and when he fails, he gets little more than the sympathy which is commonly given ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne

... whose streams they cannot always direct; and the venerable Hooker has profoundly observed, that "the best things have been overthrown, not so much by puissance and might of adversaries, as through defect of council in those that should have upheld and defended ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... marked way from the majority of the positions selected by the Boers, being salient instead of re-entrant. It did not, therefore, lend itself readily to the adoption of those enveloping tactics which their forefathers learnt originally from the Zulus. Prinsloo sought to remedy this defect by ordering up from Ramdam a detachment to menace the eastern flank ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice

... scintilla of doubt ever intruded thereafter. The solution lay right there and he would invent the needed appliances. His mode of procedure, when on the trail of big game, is beautifully illustrated here. When he found the root of the defect which rendered the Newcomen engine impracticable for general purposes, he promptly formulated the one indispensable condition which alone met the problem, and which the successful steam-engine must possess. He abandoned all else for the time as superfluous, ...
— James Watt • Andrew Carnegie

... and Mugain, who, as is usual in polygamous households, was filled with envy of her, bribed a female buffoon to remove her golden headgear in public at the great assembly of Tailltiu (Telltown, Co. Meath), so as to expose the poor queen's defect to the eyes of the mob. The messenger accomplished her purpose, but Muireann cried out, "God and Saint Ciaran help me in this need!" and forthwith a shower of glossy curling golden hair flowed from her head over her shoulders, before a single ...
— The Latin & Irish Lives of Ciaran - Translations Of Christian Literature. Series V. Lives Of - The Celtic Saints • Anonymous

... the book might be, or what it was about, It would go in at one ear,—at the other 'twould come out! So in his laboratory, baffled Cyrus sitting lone, Strives to correct the sad defect in his Instructiphone. ...
— The Jingle Book • Carolyn Wells

... picture of the earth's life so concrete. Think a moment. For instance, our animal organization comes from our inferiority. Our need of moving to and fro, of stretching our limbs and bending our bodies, shows only our defect." ...
— The Centaur • Algernon Blackwood

... animal, the child's new tooth would be, for all the world, like the teeth of the animal that had bitten the old one. In proof of this she named old Master Simmons, who had a very large pig's tooth in his upper jaw, a personal defect that he always averred was caused by his mother, who threw away one of his cast teeth by accident into the hog's trough. A similar belief has led to practices intended, on the principles of homoeopathic magic, to replace old teeth by new and better ones. Thus in many parts of the world it is customary ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer

... kind of corporation, like others, their want of supplies not affording them so much perfection, and their defect of government giving them liberty and temptation to disorder, to which they are much addicted; but in their sermons, whilst the English were among them, they would propose them as a pattern of civility and pious conversation. Their government is by a Chancellor, ...
— A Journal of the Swedish Embassy in the Years 1653 and 1654, Vol II. • Bulstrode Whitelocke

... said to it, and therefore the sense is left unfinished, while the elegy proceeds to give a picture of the lifeless beauty. The same friend suggested a change which would have remedied the defect. Thus:— ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler

... defect of his poem is very properly censured by Mr. Walker, unless it may be said, in his defence, that what he has omitted was not properly in his plan. "His picture of man is grand and beautiful, but unfinished. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson

... expresses a part of the truth, though not in a scientific way. What is really the truth is found to be, on analysis, that certain guiding sensations, chiefly those from the hearing apparatus (ear, nerves, brain), are insufficient, owing either to natural defect or lack of training; but that this is not the only explanation is plain from the fact that many composers with the most vivid musical imagination, the most perfect auditory memory, and the most acute ear, cannot sing in any but the most imperfect manner. As we have said ...
— Voice Production in Singing and Speaking - Based on Scientific Principles (Fourth Edition, Revised and Enlarged) • Wesley Mills

... The same defect exists in most of the breakfast cereals which flood our tables and decorate our bill-boards. Some of these are made of the waste of flouring mills, known as "middlings," "shorts," or bran, which were formerly used for ...
— A Handbook of Health • Woods Hutchinson

... God, that such as prepare their hearts unfeignedly to seek him, lament their wants, and repent for that they are not so prepared and sanctified for his worship as they ought (there being no other thing to hold them back beside some defect of sanctity in themselves), notwithstanding of any defect which is in them, draw near to him in the use of his holy ordinances. As touching the former, no man will say, that they chose to be unclean, that they might ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie

... have taken all the work of naming things off his hands, and this has been a great relief to him, for he has no gift in that line, and is evidently very grateful. He can't think of a rational name to save him, but I do not let him see that I am aware of his defect. Whenever a new creature comes along I name it before he has time to expose himself by an awkward silence. In this way I have saved him many embarrassments. I have no defect like this. The minute I set eyes on an animal I know what it is. I don't have to reflect a moment; the right ...
— The $30,000 Bequest and Other Stories • Mark Twain

... best define one sort of knowledge, the sort we call derivative, as opposed to intuitive knowledge. We may say: 'Derivative knowledge is what is validly deduced from premisses known intuitively'. In this statement there is no formal defect, but it leaves the definition of intuitive ...
— The Problems of Philosophy • Bertrand Russell

... that cavill at truths 20 want in these naturall fictions: materiall instruction, elegant and sententious excitation to vertue, and deflection from her contrary, being the soule, lims, and limits of an autenticall tragedie. But whatsoever merit of your full countenance and favour suffers defect in this, I shall soone 25 supply with some other of more generall account; wherein your right vertuous name made famous and preserved to posteritie, your future comfort and honour in your present acceptation and love of all vertuous and divine ...
— Bussy D'Ambois and The Revenge of Bussy D'Ambois • George Chapman

... fact that I can get a parallax to any of the fixed stars in a moment, with only the breadth of my nose for the base," answered Heinrich, responding at once to the fun, and careless of the personal defect insinuated. "She was near enough for even me ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald

... board. The thought of touching his face gave one the same sensation as a too deeply cut nail. His neck was thin and long, and he wore a low collar—through that interesting passion of the vain for seeing a defect in themselves as a charm and calling attention to it. The lower part of his sallow face suggested weakness—the weakness so often seen in the faces of professional men, and explaining why they chose passive instead of active careers. His forehead was really fine, but the development of ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips

... establish contact with the German battle fleet and hung on its flanks near enough to report its position to the commander in chief. He underwent a heavy fire, but handled his frail ships so skillfully as to escape serious loss. At the same time the constant maneuvering he was forced to perform or a defect in the British system of communication made his reports of bearing seriously inaccurate. Whatever the cause, this error created a difficulty for the commander in chief, who, fifty miles away, was trying to locate the enemy for attack by ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott

... wonderfully well done. My countrymen are certainly pretty sharp hands in such matters—but this beats everything I ever heard of. Surely this is a breach of the warranty? Or is it to be considered a patent defect, which would not be within the warranty?[17]—Please take pleader's opinion, and particularly as to whether the horse could be brought into court to be viewed by the court and jury, which would have a great effect. If your pleader thinks the action ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren

... Bois de Boulogne, afoot or on horseback, that while the right-hand side of his mustache was most successfully en croc, the other extremity of the ornament pointed earthwards. And, let it be remembered, that to tell a man of a defect in his personal appearance ...
— Dross • Henry Seton Merriman

... beginning of this war that, whatever Germany's military resources might be, she was hopelessly and childishly lacking in diplomatic ability and in knowledge of psychology, from which all success in diplomacy is distilled. As instances of this grave defect, people adduced the fact that, apparently, she had not anticipated the entry of Great Britain into the war at all, while her treatment of Belgium immediately afterwards was universally pronounced to be not a crime merely, but a blunder of ...
— Crescent and Iron Cross • E. F. Benson

... effort which remained would cost me far more energy than I had anticipated, and the necessity for making it was more apparent every month. In particular I became aware of an increasing callousness or defect of sensibility in the stomach, and this I imagined might imply a scirrhous state of that organ, either formed or forming. An eminent physician, to whose kindness I was at that time deeply indebted, informed me that ...
— Confessions of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas De Quincey

... free America, a wife cannot collect damages for injury to her person by a municipality. Legally her husband owns her person; and he alone can collect damages if the wife is injured by any defect or mishap for which the administration of the municipality is responsible. This was tested in the Court of Appeals in New York in 1890. The judges decided that "the time and the services of the wife belong to the husband, and if she has received wages from him ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton

... season of our stay, May and June, the anchorage at Cape Town itself, being open to the northward, is exposed to heavy gales from that quarter, often fatal to shipping. I believe this defect has now been remedied by a breakwater, which in 1867 either had not been begun or was not far enough advanced to give security. Vessels therefore commonly betook themselves to Simon's Bay, on the other side of the ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan

... the inheritance of certain pathological or abnormal states, to see in how far the foregoing principles hold for them also. Sometimes the abnormal condition is positive, due to a new trait; but sometimes, on the contrary, the normal condition is the positive one and the trait is due to a defect. ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... a low voice. "I have thought sometimes that you, and my mother, and men like my father and Mr. Pascal, felt but little of the inward strength of sin. Your lives stand out so clear and true. If there is a stain upon them it is so slight, so plainly a defect of the physical nature, that it often seems to me you do not know what ...
— Cobwebs and Cables • Hesba Stretton

... feeds in preference on young wood of the birch, aspen, and poplar tree[6]; but, in defect of these, on any other tree, those of the pine and fir kinds excepted. These latter it employs only for building its dams and houses. In wide meadows, where no wood is to be found, it resorts, for all its purposes, ...
— Pioneers in Canada • Sir Harry Johnston

... own; the existence, we mean, of a considerable navigable river close to the city. To the truth of which, the credit of Adams is completely pledged. On many other subjects it is possible that his narrative might be considerably at variance with the truth, by a mere defect of memory or observation, and without justifying any imputation on his veracity, but it is evident that no such latitude can be allowed him in respect to the La Mar Zarah, which, if not in substance true, must be knowingly ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish

... to their friends; not out of bounty or generosity, which was a flower that did never grow naturally in the heart of either of the families, that of Stuart or of Bourbon, but out of an unskilfulness and defect in the countenance; and when they prevailed with themselves to make some pause rather than to deny, importunity removed all resolution." ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik

... of us, but it has not moved me to anger. It has rather caused me to devote such hours as I could spare from the preparation of my series of sermons on the miracle of Jonah to personal introspection, in the endeavour to discover, if possible, whether the cause of our estrangement lay in any defect of my own. ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells

... Rome a head of Alexander called Helios, which is thought by many critics to be the best bust of him in existence. There are metal rays fastened to the head; it has a wild, Bacchus-like air, and the hair is thrown back, as if he had shaken his head furiously; and the defect of a wry neck, which the monarch had, is cleverly concealed by this motion. Alexander was a very handsome man, his faults being this twist in his neck and a peculiar shape of ...
— A History of Art for Beginners and Students - Painting, Sculpture, Architecture • Clara Erskine Clement

... alliance with Holland, as well for offensive purposes against the Spaniards, as for defence, whether against Spain or France. As a controversial pamphlet it evinces none of the want of judgment with which Hallam charges Ralegh, though the defect appears plainly in his obtrusion of such views upon James. At Beddington he had an opportunity of clenching his argument, and the King's suspicions, by an offer, of which he subsequently boasted, to invade the Spanish dominions, at no cost to the King, with 2000 ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing

... some time before the great white men of Ohio began to be born here, but in the meanwhile there were those born elsewhere who, like General Harrison, became Ohioans, and so did what they could to repair the defect of birth. There is no reason to think that such men were shaped by Ohio influences, but it is the habit of our generous Ohio state patriotism to claim as Ohioans not only those who were born here, and those who came to live here, but ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells

... the glass. We use double-glazed sashes with an air space between on all windows in our houses in Alaska and find ourselves no longer incommoded by frost on the panes; some adaptation of this principle should be within the skill of the optician and would remove a very troublesome defect in all snow-glasses. ...
— The Ascent of Denali (Mount McKinley) - A Narrative of the First Complete Ascent of the Highest - Peak in North America • Hudson Stuck

... a number of different woods the U.S. Forest Service concludes as follows: "Sapwood, except that from old, overmature trees, is as strong as heartwood, other things being equal, and so far as the mechanical properties go should not be regarded as a defect."[22] Careful inspection of the individual tests made in the investigation fails to reveal any relation between the proportion of sapwood and the breaking ...
— The Mechanical Properties of Wood • Samuel J. Record

... Princes of Bassorah." "Is he old or young?" asked I; and she looked at me laughingly and answered, "Thou art certainly a simpleton! He is like the moon on the night of its full, smooth checked and beardless, nor is there any defect in him except his aversion to me." Then I put the question, "What is his name?" and she replied, "What wilt thou do with him?" I rejoined, "I will do my best to come at him, that I may bring about reunion between you." Said she, "I will ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 7 • Richard F. Burton

... sensible of their absurdities. He must fairly acknowledge that he was disappointed, and that the Euphuist, far from being accounted a well drawn and humorous character of the period, was condemned as unnatural and absurd. It would be easy to account for this failure, by supposing the defect to arise from the author's want of skill, and, probably, many readers may not be inclined to look farther. But as the author himself can scarcely be supposed willing to acquiesce in this final cause, if any other can be alleged, he has been ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott

... personal strength and mental activity or power, they are much superior to any of the Javanese or Malays I have seen in Java, or at Batavia and Singapore. But, to our modes of thinking, the greatest defect in their character is their indolence and dislike to any bodily exertion, which are the effects of the sun under which they live; but their native maxims and their habits, although we may disapprove of them now-a-days, when everything goes by steam, ...
— Recollections of Manilla and the Philippines - During 1848, 1849 and 1850 • Robert Mac Micking

... parents sent him on an errand; for he could hardly make shift to saunter a mile in an hour, and when he arrived at the place of his destination, he usually forgot three fourths of his message, and endeavoured to supply the defect by some blundering tale of his own invention. He was once dispatched by his father, in great haste, to a gentleman who lived not a quarter of a mile off, to request the favour of his company, in half an hour's time, to settle matters with a grazer, of whom they had purchased several head of cattle; ...
— Vice in its Proper Shape • Anonymous

... for there is nothing that can give happiness to the parents of Godless, wayward children. Some one has said, "Every drunkard, every gambler, every lost woman once sat in a mother's lap, and the downfall of the most of them may be traced to some defect in ...
— And Judas Iscariot - Together with other evangelistic addresses • J. Wilbur Chapman

... still think, well enough: I am certain that, when we came to rehearse, the thing did not "act" at all, and that its dialogue, whatever its other graces, had the defect of being unspeakable. So at each rehearsal we—by which inclusive pronoun I would embrace the actors and the producing staff at large, and with especial (metaphorical) ardor Miss Louise Burleigh, ...
— The Jewel Merchants - A Comedy In One Act • James Branch Cabell



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