"Set-off" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... seventeenth century, scarcely a Quarter Session passed without presentments from the grand jury against certain districts on account of the bad state of the roads, and many were the fines which the judges imposed upon them as a set-off against their bruises and other damages ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles
... is sleeping peacefully. His features—refined by the mental anxiety, and the almost monastic seclusion to which he has been lately subjected—are extremely pleasing, and even handsome, set-off as they are by the clean collar which he has put on in anticipation of his approaching doom. Before sinking into childlike slumber, he listened with evident pleasure to a banjo which was being played outside a ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., November 29, 1890 • Various
... in face of two of his doctrines that life itself is a monitor to cheerfulness and mirth. This is true: and it is only explainable on the ground that it is youth alone which can exult in its power of accumulating shadows and dwelling on the dark side—it is youth that revels in the possible as a set-off to its brightness and irresponsibility: it is youth that can delight in its own excess of shade, and can even dispense with sunshine—hugging to its heart the memory of its own often self-created distresses and conjuring up and, with self-satisfaction, ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp
... him almost a certain victor, because it involves a conditional consent to admit another mate. To her scrupulousness, a kind of blunt common-sense, tempering the amiability of Urraca, is a pleasant set-off, and the freshness of ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... a play-bill with "The White Slave of England" printed on it, evidently intended as a set-off against the dramatizing of "Uncle Tom" in London, at some of our penny theatres. Of course I went to see it, and never laughed ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... listener. Ardent natures like hers may possibly be blamed for adopting so readily the maxim that "the end justifies the means," and for plunging so determinedly into what cannot be considered their own business; but let those blame them who will, the good they accomplish may well be made a set-off for any evil they unwittingly cause; and the parable of the man who "fell among thieves," and the heartless wretches who "passed by on the other side," should make us a little slow in blaming the "good Samaritans" who work so enthusiastically ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... to soar, at the set-off—though Hector didn't. The next summer began a presidential campaign, and Hector, knowing that I was chairman of my county committee, and strangely overestimating my importance, came up to see me: he asked me to use my influence with the National Committee to have him sent ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington
... a loosely-flapping cotton gown, confined at the waist by a belt that fairly bristled with knives and pistols, while a scarlet burnous was drawn over his head, affording a brilliant set-off to the glittering eyes, the tawny, shining skin, and the short ...
— The River of Darkness - Under Africa • William Murray Graydon
... the same time that Patrick should have his portrait of the prince for a set-off to the face of his daughter. He craved the relief it would be to him to lay his colours on the prince for the sparkling amazement of one whom, according to Caroline's description, he could expect to feel with him ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... to seal the new alliance, in all sisterly freedom she gave me her hand, and did not appear to notice how long I kept it in the darkness. This was certainly a considerable set-off against the feeling of loneliness, and, if not quite content, I was at least more so. I wondered, among other things, if Irma's heart kept knocking in a choking kind of way against the bottom ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... Ferdinand Hiller actually thought himself justified in proclaiming, for the consolation of his friends, that my day in London was coming to an end, and that my banishment was practically a certainty. This was on the occasion of the Rhenish Musical Festival, which was held at that time. As a set-off against this I reaped great satisfaction from a scene which took place at the close of the eighth and last concert which I conducted—one of those strange scenes which now and again result from the long-suppressed emotion of those concerned. The members of the orchestra had at once realised, after ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... summer numbers of sedge-warblers have nested on and around the eyot; the cuckoo has been a regular visitor to the osier-bed in the early morning, probably with a view to laying its eggs in the sedge-warblers' nests. As a set-off to these early visits of the cuckoo, a nightjar has hunted round the islet for moths, both at dusk and during the night, when its note may often be heard. This is a fairly long list of interesting birds revisiting a portion of the river which the London boundary crosses. At a distance of less than ...
— The Naturalist on the Thames • C. J. Cornish
... he exercise the faintest shadow of an influence over him; but as one of the foremost pianist-composers—indeed, one of the most characteristic phenomena of the age—he could not be passed by in silence. Moreover, the noisy careers of Liszt and Thalberg serve as a set-off to the noiseless ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... more of England than the Icelander in his sledge: if, on the other hand, he used the libel as a party warfare, he is still one of the "old set,"—and his "crowning carnage, Waterloo," with all its greatness, is but a poor set-off against the more lasting iniquities which he would visit upon his fellow-men. Anyhow, he cannot—he must not—escape from his opinion; we will nail him to it, as we would nail a weasel to a barn-door; "if Englishmen want competence, they must be drunken—they must be idle." ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... she and her nuns could spend such useless lives. She replied that although she and all good Catholics believe in the atonement of Christ, they also believe that works of piety in excess of what may be demanded of us, even if they are done in secret, are a set-off against the sins of the world. In this form the doctrine has not much to commend itself to me, and it is assumed that the nuns' works are pious. But in a sense it is true. "The very hairs of your head are all numbered." The fall of a grain ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... "As a set-off against these honours may be mentioned, the virulent and unceasing attacks of almost all the party scribblers of the day; but their abuse he shared in common with men, whose talents and virtues have outlived the malice of ...
— William Lilly's History of His Life and Times - From the Year 1602 to 1681 • William Lilly
... the address of Rob the Ranter to Maggie Lauder, "My bonnie bird." Now, we would remark, upon this abundant nomenclature of kindly expressions in the Scottish dialect, that it assumes an interesting position as taken in connection with the Scottish Life and Character, and as a set-off against a frequent short and grumpy manner. It indicates how often there must be a current of tenderness and affection in the Scottish heart, which is so frequently represented to be, like its climate, "stern and wild." There could not be such terms were the feelings they express ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... you are dying to hear what is really happening in Rome, so your own special envoy must send off her budget as a set-off against those official telegrams. 'Not a day with out a line,' so my letter will look like words shaken out of a literary pepper-box. Let me bring my despatches up ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... case in country districts; if so, no payment will be called for, but a simple transfer in the banker's books will settle the transaction. If the check is paid into a different bank, it will not be presented for payment, but liquidated by set-off against other checks; and, in a state of circumstances favorable to a general extension of banking credits, a banker who has granted more credit, and has therefore more checks drawn on him, will also have more checks on other ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... As a set-off we append here a romantic story paraphrased from the Midrash Shir Hashirim. A certain Israelite of Sidon, having lived many years with his wife without being blessed with offspring, made up his mind to give her a bill of divorcement. They went accordingly together to Rabbi Shimon ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... at last of coming up cheap from Twickenham, to open my son's gallery. I found out the inn where the market-gardeners baited their horses; I made friends with one on 'em, and now, for a glass of gin a day, he brings me up in his cart on the top of the vegetables!' As a set-off to all this, we have now and then a spasmodic act of kindness: he rebukes Wilkie for talking about the fine effect of the snow falling while poor Lawrence's coffin was being lowered into the grave in the crypt of St. Paul's: he drives away the boys who injure his blackbirds: ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... and educate Ida Palliser during the space of three years, to give her the benefit of instruction from the masters who attended the school, and to befit her for the brilliant and lucrative career of governess in a gentleman's family. As a set-off against these advantages, Miss Pew had full liberty to exact what services she pleased from Miss Palliser, stopping short, as Miss Green had ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... first entrance he could discern a bitterness in the mouth and a venom in the glance which would almost justify declaring war in spite of past benefits. He was much obliged to Casaubon in the past, but really the act of marrying this wife was a set-off against the obligation. It was a question whether gratitude which refers to what is done for one's self ought not to give way to indignation at what is done against another. And Casaubon had done a wrong to Dorothea in marrying her. A man was bound to know himself better than that, and ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... manner, very splendid) rattling the dice till it became time to go to his service at Court, and we would spend day after day in this manner. He brought me more jewels,—a pearl necklace, an antique emerald breast ornament, and other trinkets, as a set-off against these losses: for I need not say that I should not have played with him all this time had he been winning; but, after about a week, the luck set in against him, and he became my debtor in a prodigious sum. I do not care to mention the extent of it; it ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... As a set-off to this woman of race and of culture, Aurore's mother represented the ordinary type of the woman of the people. She was small, dark, fiery and violent. She, too, the bird-seller's daughter, had been ...
— George Sand, Some Aspects of Her Life and Writings • Rene Doumic
... head, so that my cap, slightly fastened, came off with it, and brought all my hair down (of which, be it again remembered without vanity, that I had a very fine head) in loose disorderly ringlets, over my neck and shoulders, to the no unfavourable set-off of my skin. ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... animal in his field, immediately drew his knife and cut his throat. The Serawoolli thereupon called a palaver (or in European terms, brought an action) to recover damages for the loss of his beast, on which he set a high value. The defendant confessed he had killed the ass, but pleaded a SET-OFF, insisting that the loss he had sustained by the ravage in his corn was equal to the sum demanded for the animal. To ascertain this fact was the point at issue, and the learned advocates contrived to puzzle the cause in such a manner that, after a hearing ...
— Travels in the Interior of Africa - Volume 1 • Mungo Park
... said Eugene, as he lighted another cigar, 'I fear my unexpected visitors have been troublesome. If as a set-off (excuse the legal phrase from a barrister-at-law) you would like to ask Tippins to tea, I pledge myself to ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... against him that he ought to have known the proper accentuation of Niagara, it may be mentioned as a set-off that Sir Walter Scott, in dealing with his own country, mis-accentuated "Glenaladale," to say nothing of his having made of Roseneath an island. Another characteristic of the Traveller is the extraordinary ...
— Goldsmith - English Men of Letters Series • William Black
... hand, and though this large hall has been the scene of many delightful occasions (mainly connected with this business) your coming here to-day is the first meeting of its kind. (Applause.) I believe that this meeting ought to be put down as historical, and should serve as a set-off—in striking contrast to the stoning of William Lloyd Garrison, in the streets of Philadelphia, scarcely more than fifty years ago. (Prolonged applause.) This meeting will simply help to balance your account. (Applause.) ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe
... punished with the rest, Mr Dennis dismissed that possibility from his thoughts as an idle chimera; arguing that the line of conduct he had adopted at Newgate, and the service he had rendered that day, would be more than a set-off against any evidence which might identify him as a member of the crowd. That any charge of companionship which might be made against him by those who were themselves in danger, would certainly go for ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... hardly to be recognized—and it was scarcely possible to believe she was the lovely woman of the last night. Not that her splendid figure was altered—in fact, an elegant morning-dress rather tended to improve and set-off her full and almost voluptuous contour, and her soft, sweet voice was equally musical; but her face—the charms of her lovely face were vanished ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... of life, especially in that part of it devoted to the invention of the Telegraph, to wit, that, when any special and marked honor has been conferred upon me, there has immediately succeeded some event of the envious or sordid character seemingly as a set-off, the tendency of which has been invariably to prevent any excess of exultation on my part. Can this be accident? Is it not rather the wise ordering of events by infinite wisdom and goodness to draw me away from repose in earthly honor to the more substantial ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... inhabitants of that part of this vast western wilderness, which is at present explored, from entering into a competition with the colonists in the immediate vicinity of Port Jackson. By way, however, of set-off against the anifest superiority, which the districts to the eastward of the mountains possess in this respect over the country to the westward of them; this latter is certainly much better adapted for all the purposes ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... page 17) of this period are, as a rule, simple in form, and in small churches consist of two or more stages, each set-off or division being sloped at the top to carry off the rain. In larger buildings the buttress generally finishes with a triangular head or gable, and is frequently carried above the parapet, except where stone vaulting is used, in which case ...
— Our Homeland Churches and How to Study Them • Sidney Heath
... festoons,—while light trousers and knotty Wellington boots completed his costume, and made the wearer look as little like a seaman as need be. It appeared, nevertheless, that the individual in question was Mr. Ebenezer Wyse, my new sailing-master; so I accepted Captain C.'s strong recommendation as a set-off against the silk tartan; explained to the new comer the position he was to occupy on board, and gave orders for sailing in an hour. The multitudinous chain, moreover, so lavishly displayed, turned out to be an ornament of which Mr. Wyse might well be ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... future increases of expenditure. Lord Farrer and his colleagues, while agreeing that it was impossible to alter the taxation of Ireland so long as the Union lasted, agreed that additional local expenditure in Ireland could not be regarded as a set-off to undue taxation, not only because such a doctrine was inherently fallacious on economic grounds, and would hardly be listened to in the case of any other country than Ireland, but because Irish expenditure was subjected to no proper means of control. Both Irish revenue and Irish ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... waistcoat, and a third with his cap—be able to dress in five minutes and rush into school. At midday, when the monitors washed their hands for dinner, similar work had to be done, and again in the evening, when they washed their hands for supper. The only set-off to all this was that each monitor had been a basonite, and each basonite had a very good chance of becoming a monitor. But it was carrying the fagging system to far too great an extent, and the practice ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - April, 1873, Vol. XI, No. 25. • Various
... where the analogy lies, wherein the point, or what the application, is not explained. Steevens' original note was superior to this, in so much that he quoted the words of these old poets, thereby giving his readers an opportunity of considering the justness of the deduction. The only set-off to this omission by Mr. Knight is the introduction of "ex pede Herculem," the merit of which ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 193, July 9, 1853 • Various
... least was true; and I can only hope the recording angel jotted it down as a slight set-off ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges
... As a set-off against the previous sad story I may relate an amusing one, in which I was myself a principal actor, and which occurred soon after my arrival at Mesopotamia. Butler was much exercised about some experimental grass-growing he was carrying on about three ...
— Five Years in New Zealand - 1859 to 1864 • Robert B. Booth
... invited to bask for a short time on the evening of the day before the appointment of the new captain. He had been there once before when his father and mother had come over to visit him. And even with their presence as a set-off, the evening had been one of the most awful experiences of his life. But now that he was to go all alone to partake of state tea with those two, this shy awkward boy felt about as cheerful as if he had been walking helplessly ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... if they had been what they professed to be. The rapt and impassioned attention which she was observed to bestow on his utterances on such occasions all but gained her the reputation of a saint, and was accepted as a sufficient set-off against the unhallowed affection which she could not help manifesting for the memory of her father. The judicious reluctance of the Caucasian ecclesiastics to inquire over-anxiously into the creeds and customs of the primitive ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... money he annually diverts from wholesome and useful purposes in the United Kingdom, would be a set-off against the Window Tax. He is one of the most shameless frauds and impositions of this time. In his idleness, his mendacity, and the immeasurable harm he does to the deserving, - dirtying the stream of true benevolence, and muddling the brains of foolish justices, with inability ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... compared with us; I think everybody, or almost everybody, will feel that. I will not now ask what more the Athenian or the French spirit has than this, nor what shortcomings either of them may have as a set-off against this; all I want now to point out is that they have this, and that we have it ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... 'I never thowt to coom down to dog-steealin', but if my comrade sees how it could be done to oblige a laady like yo'sen, I'm nut t' man to hod back, tho' it's a bad business I'm thinkin', an' three hundred rupees is a poor set-off again t' chance of them Damning ...
— Soldiers Three • Rudyard Kipling
... frames, gentlemen.' Mr Pitt seems, unfortunately, to have been less sensible of the value of the collection than scrupulous of asking parliament for the money; and the opportunity was lost of redeeming the national character, by such a set-off against the republican dispersion of the noble collection of Charles I. This circumstance is well known; but it will probably be new to most of our readers to learn, that many of the best pictures which had thus failed ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 434 - Volume 17, New Series, April 24, 1852 • Various
... this manner, found himself attached to Therese by a powerful bond. As a set-off against his atrocious nights, he determined at least to be kept in blissful laziness, well fed, warmly clothed, and provided with the necessary cash in his pocket to satisfy his whims. At this price alone, ...
— Therese Raquin • Emile Zola
... speak—from their mothers and nurses, or that they may talk in the hypothetical language, and work rule of three sums, as soon as they are born; but this is not probable; we cannot calculate on any corresponding advance in man's intellectual or physical powers which shall be a set-off against the far greater development which seems in store for the machines. Some people may say that man's moral influence will suffice to rule them; but I cannot think it will ever be safe to repose much trust in the moral sense of ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... French occupation, was restored to the English by an order from Paris, in accordance with the treaty of Aix la Chapelle, Dupleix at Pondicherry was bitterly disappointed at the rendition, and he formed designs for the acquisition of San Thome for France, as a set-off for the loss of Madras. The English at Fort St. George had information of his schemes, and, being in no way desirous of having aggressive Frenchmen for close neighbours, they forestalled Dupleix by persuading the ...
— The Story of Madras • Glyn Barlow
... prevails at Llandudno owing to the refusal of Mr. EVAN ROBERTS, the famous revivalist, to localise the materialisation of the Millennium, which he has recently prophesied, at Llandudno during the Easter holidays. By way of a set-off an effort was made to induce Sir AUCKLAND GEDDES to give a vocal recital before his departure for America. As his recent performance at a meeting of the London Scots Club proved, Sir AUCKLAND is a singist of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, April 7, 1920 • Various
... have no fabulist like La Fontaine, no song-writer equal to Beranger; but then we do not think of citing our fables and songs as the highest examples of English humor. It would be easy to array a list of names as a set-off against that of Mr. Besant. But this is needless. Humor, in the sense in which the word is commonly understood, may almost be said to be a distinctive quality of English literature, which is pervaded ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... compensation, equation; commutation; indemnification; compromise &c. 774 neutralization, nullification; counteraction &c. 179; reaction; measure for measure. retaliation &c. 718 equalization &c. 27; robbing Peter to pay Paul. set-off, offset; make-weight, casting-weight; counterpoise, ballast; indemnity, equivalent, quid pro,quo; bribe, hush money; amends &c. (atonement) 952; counterbalance, counterclaim; cross-debt, cross-demand. V. make compensation; compensate, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... relish the appropriation by his brother of a name to which he himself had an equal right, for though nominally taken from the castle, it was in reality derived from the ancient territorial possession of the family, and as a set-off, and to distinguish himself (diferenciarse) from his brother, he took as a surname the name of the castle on the bank of the Tagus, in the building of which, according to a family tradition, his great-grandfather ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... the claimants, having expressed his discontent in a manner disrespectful to the Lieutenant-Governor, received 600 lashes, and six months in irons![129] Such atrocious neglect of the first principles of equity, is a sad set-off against the license of indiscriminate pardons. The Roman judge was a far better casuist: "For it seemeth to me unreasonable, to send a prisoner, and not withal to signify the crimes laid ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... his friendly ingenuity, had been unable to explain so grave a dereliction on the part of a missive that had obviously been sent. He had evidently taken Henrietta's affairs much to heart, and believed that he owed her a set-off to this illusory visit to Bedfordshire. "He says he should think I would go to the Continent," Henrietta wrote; "and as he thinks of going there himself I suppose his advice is sincere. He wants to know why I don't take a view of French life; and it's a fact that I want ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... reflections. He was satisfied, and yet dissatisfied. He was pleased with an adventure which would probably give him his desire, for in the end one of the prettiest and best-dressed women in Paris would be his; but, as a set-off, he saw his hopes of fortune brought to nothing; and as soon as he realized this fact, the vague thoughts of yesterday evening began to take a more decided shape in his mind. A check is sure to reveal ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... to the taffrail, there yawned a mighty hole fringed with splintered deck-planking. The explosion had gutted after-hold, after-cabin, sail-locker, and laid all bare even to the stern-post. 'Twas a marvel the stern itself had not been blown out: but as a set-off against this mercy—and the most grievous of all, though as yet we had not discovered it—we had lost our rudder-head, and the rudder itself hung by a ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... ghost first made its appearance in print, and that, too, after Keys swears he saw the assignment, as any one may see by reference to the files of papers; and Gen. Adams himself, in reply to the Sampson's ghost story, was the first man that raised the cry of toryism, and it was only by way of set-off, and never in seriousness, that it was bandied back at him. His effort is to make the impression that his enemies first made the charge of toryism and he drove them from that, then Sampson's ghost, he drove them from that, then finally ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... of these makeshift observatories that Justus Hoxon stopped the first evening after his electioneering tour in the interest of his brother. The weather had turned hot and fair; a drought, a set-off to the surplusage of recent rain, was in progress; the dooryard on the high slope of the mountain, apart from its availability for the surveillance of any eccentric doings of the comet, was an acceptable lounging-place ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... allowed to the player. Finally, take note that in Rome, Caput Mundi, and in Tuscany, Garden of Italy, Faro, Zecchinetto, Rossa e Nera were prohibited, as acknowledged pests of social existence and open death to honest customs,—as a set-off for which deprivation, the game of the Lottery is still kept ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... discovered Vineland the Good,Sec. yet came he the same summer to Greenland; and with him had he a priest and teachers, and he took up his abode at Brattalid with his father Eirik. Thereafter did men call him Leif the Lucky; but Eirik, his father, said that the one thing was a set-off to the other: on the one hand was the saving of the ship's crew by Leif & on the other the bringing to Greenland of that ...
— The Sagas of Olaf Tryggvason and of Harald The Tyrant (Harald Haardraade) • Snorri Sturluson
... circle of his applauders, should throw him inwards upon himself and his own principles with new earnestness and refreshed independence. Rousseau very soon made up his mind what the world was worth to him; and this, not as the ordinary sentimentalist or satirist does, by way of set-off against the indulgence of personal foibles, but from recognition of his own qualities, of the bounds set to our capacity of life, and of the limits of the world's power to satisfy us. "When my destiny threw ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... the brink of losing my Emily by an act of needless and unjustifiable deceit and double-dealing. Sooner or later I was convinced that this part of my character would be made manifest, and that shame and punishment would overwhelm me in utter ruin. The success which had hitherto attended me was no set-off against the risk I ran of losing for ever this lovely girl, and the respect and esteem of her father. For her sake, therefore, I made a vow for ever to abandon this infernal system. I mention this more particularly as it was ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... rough training of Eton or Westminster in those days; as, on the other hand, he might have profited by acquiring a livelier perception of the meaning of that virtue of fair-play, the appreciation of which is held to be a set-off against the brutalizing influences of our system of public education. As it was, Pope was condemned to a desultory education. He picked up some rudiments of learning from the family priest; he was sent to a school at Twyford, where ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... is a difference, a very deep difference," he continued, "between the purchaser of a pearl necklet and the purchaser of a loaf of bread. The first is acquiring merely another ornament, another set-off to her beauty, another weapon in the fight for supremacy, and she performs the act with a frivolous smile. The other is obtaining a primitive and fundamental necessity, and she does it solemnly, aware as she is of its real uses. The first is the schoolgirl receiving her first attentions ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... I am, and although enjoying good digestive organs, I must have only one meal every day; but I find a set-off to that privation in my delightful sleep, and in the ease which I experience in writing down my thoughts without having recourse to paradox or sophism, which would be calculated to deceive myself even ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... would be of secondary importance. Only heads of columns could come into direct contact; and the formidable Austrian cavalry could not display its usual prowess. On these facts Bonaparte counted as a set-off to his slight inferiority ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... measured steps, not too short and not too slow—a very effectively carried out piece of ceremony, for the principals suited their parts well. Lord Ampthill is exceptionally tall, he wore a blue Court coat, well set-off by the white knee-breeches and stockings; and Lady Ampthill is taller than other ladies and is very gracious. Perhaps you can make out in my sketch Lord Ampthill on the dais talking to some of the house party, and the tall lady on the right, talking to some of ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... undoubtedly it broke and disturbed the else uniform stream of public indignation, by investing the original aggressor with something like the character of an injured person; and therefore with some set-off to plead against his own wantonness of malice;—his malice might now assume ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... in one sense. But if you leave behind the din of streets for the sake of stepping forth from your work-table upon a soft lawn, or of looking out upon the old church steeple among the trees, while you hear nothing but bleating and chirping, you must expect some set-off against such advantages: and that set-off is the being among a small number of people, who are always busy looking into ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... gallant captain, putting a good face on it, sprang up and, passing his arm about her substantial waist, saluted her, after which, as a sort of set-off, he kissed ...
— A Master Of Craft • W. W. Jacobs
... that, on the 27th of November, the British and their allies had met with a serious repulse at Faisowah, through pressing too closely upon the retiring Ashantis; that this repulse was considered both by the Ashantis and by our native allies as a set-off against the failure of the attack on Abracampa; that the Houssa levy was in a state of panic, and no reliable information as to the position of the enemy was obtainable. It was under such circumstances ...
— The History of the First West India Regiment • A. B. Ellis
... yin!" resumed my grandfather. "A'm goin' to give ye a set-off. Your mither was always my fav'rite, for A never could agree with Aadam. A like ye fine yoursel'; there's nae noansense aboot ye; ye've a fine nayteral idee of builder's work; ye've been to France, where, they tell me, they're grand at the stuccy. A splendid thing for ceilin's, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the Venetian ladies amuse their leisure and show their adroitness in fitting a multitude of little pieces of ivory into a box of cedar-wood, which at the set-off seemed all too small to contain so many. In the same fashion I will pack ideas into your head that no one would have dreamed it could ever hold; and I will fill you with a new wisdom. I will show that, thinking ...
— The Well of Saint Clare • Anatole France
... in the castle if he likes, or go to the devil. O, and here is Mr. Archer; and I recommend him to take him in—a friend of mine—and Mr. Archer will pay, as I wrote. And I regard that in the light of a precious good thing for Holdaway, let me tell you, and a set-off ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... to smile, "but I should have had my own way then, and starved you shockingly. No talk then of 'little parties' and such like. But you must not now turn the tables against me, nor bring your L420 a year as a set-off ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... again the King's, and the Parliament under his feet? And, really, there was this danger. Marston Moor had been a great blow to the King: it had spoilt his cause in the whole of the North. But Essex's defeat in Cornwall (Sept. 1) had come as a terrible set-off, In the confidence of that victory, the King was on the move out of the West back to Oxford (Sept. 30), sending proclamations before him, and threatening a march upon London itself. The taking of Newcastle by the Scots under Leven ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson
... As a set-off to this picture of moral chaos, it should be remembered that these people when called upon to die for their revolutionary faith did so with the greatest heroism. Nor is the picture true of all revolutionaries; some of the noblest men it has ever been my good fortune to meet were Russian revolutionaries. ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... creditor held the pledge in his possession until the loan was returned, when he had to give it back. The pledges here mentioned are antichretic, that is, such that they produce an income or return to the holder, which is a set-off against the interest of ...
— Babylonian and Assyrian Laws, Contracts and Letters • C. H. W. Johns
... But, as some set-off to our disappointment and long, tiring march of fifteen miles, Captain Sir Frederick Frankland, who had gone on to Joh'burg, as it is universally called, to buy what stores he could, turned up just ...
— The Second Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers in the South African War - With a Description of the Operations in the Aden Hinterland • Cecil Francis Romer and Arthur Edward Mainwaring
... an Italian, and the jolliest fellow in the world"—he adds this as a set-off against his nationality, which may, he evidently thinks, suggest secret societies, daggers, carbonari—"married my Aunt. The Chertons are also some sort of distant connection. At least they often stay with Madame. So that she'll be their chaperone. ...
— Happy-Thought Hall • F. C. Burnand
... exhibit is not very full: we have a Philadelphia and Reading coal-burning locomotive, a Pullman car, the Westinghouse brake, Stephenson's street-cars, car-wheels from Baldwin's and Lobdell's: the latter also sends calender-rolls of remarkable quality. As a sort of set-off to the Austrian car-wheels which have run for twenty-one years, as previously mentioned, Lobdell has a pair which have run 245,000 miles on the Missouri, Iowa and Nebraska Railway. The Fairbanks scales in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... "Well, sir, I won't say anything about the hextry gas, though a poor widder and sevenpence hextry on the thousand, but I'm thinkin' if you would give my Rosie a lesson once a week on that there pianner, it would be a kind of set-off, for you know, sir, the policeman tells me your winder is a landmark to ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... 'honest Joshua is one of those who, by dint of long prayers, can possess themselves of widow's houses—he will quickly repair his losses. When he sustains any mishap, he and the other canters set it down as a debt against Heaven, and, by way of set-off, practise rogueries without compunction, till the they make the balance even, or incline it to the winning side. Enough of this for the present.—I must immediately shift my quarters; for, although I do not fear the over-zeal of Mr. Justice Foxley or his clerk will lead them ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... toothsome vegetarian repast as a set-off to the same round of fish, flesh, fowl and wine fumes. No people in the world can prepare such delicious vegetarian banquets ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang
... of set-off, however, to that gloomy spectacle, fresh rumours of French successes began to circulate. There was a report that Bazaine's army had annihilated the whole of Prince Frederick-Charles's cavalry, and, in particular, there was a most sensational ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... resources of the people. In the course of his speech he remarked, that the favourable appearance of our affairs in the East Indies, and of the safe arrival of our numerous commercial fleets, were matters for congratulation: evidently designing these as a kind of set-off for our reverses in the West, and as encouragements to persevere in ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... these terms the child is not a success. It has a rival who is rapidly beating it off the ground. This is the Parisian dog. As an implement of fashion, as a set-off to the fair sex, as the recipient of ecstatic kisses and ravishing hugs, the Parisian dog can give the child forty points in a hundred and win out. It can dress better, look more intelligent, behave better, bark better,—in fact, the child is simply ...
— Behind the Beyond - and Other Contributions to Human Knowledge • Stephen Leacock
... a touch of reluctant admiration at such an outflow of eloquence; and then, by way of set-off, "I sec six black ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham
... the stage. His "length of chin and nose," sufficiently apparent in his portrait, was a favourite theme for contemporary personalities. Of the moral essays, the most remarkable are a set of four papers, entitled An Apology for the Clergy, which may perhaps be regarded as a set-off against the sarcasms of Pasquin on priestcraft. They depict, with a great deal of knowledge and discrimination, the pattern priest as Fielding conceived him. To these may be linked an earlier picture, ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... last. As Willis saw his confession consigned to Mohun's pocket-book, his avarice gave him courage to try one last effort to gain something by the transaction—a salve to his bruises—a set-off against the relicta ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... greatest possible aversion to enduring oppression in their own persons, or who have themselves in their time been roughly handled. They love to see others quail before them, as they themselves would be ready to quail before those they hold in awe; and it is no small set-off against their own terrors to feel themselves in turn objects of terror to others. People of this sort are of course generally cowards and toadies, and in bullying they find the fullest gratification of their ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... set-off, however, let the stranger visit the gambling tables, which are numerous; the low balls, masked or other, occurring every night, for whites or quadroons, or both; let him visit the low bar-rooms, or even look into that of the ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... tower springs to a height which brings the local plane 130 feet above the highest spring tides. The top of the base is 30 inches above high water, and, the tower's diameter being less than that of its plinth, the set-off forms an excellent ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey
... like a beast of prey will be watching not far away. So we might go through the whole of the colony. There is a strange assortment of humanity in Adullam Street. Vice and misery, suffering and poverty, idleness and dishonesty, feeble-mindedness and idiocy are all blended, but no set-off in virtue and ...
— London's Underworld • Thomas Holmes
... The next day my brother-in-law went to M. Morand's, and when he had disclosed his message concerning the comtesse, the good Morand began to laugh. He told the count, that the previous evening this lady had sent for him; and, on going to her house, madame de Bearn, as a set-off against the inconveniences which might result to her from being the instrument of my presentation, had stipulated for certain compensations; such, for instance, as a sum of two hundred thousand livres, ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... are all dead, it is pleasant to know that Pan can be brought to life again for children by the study of Nature. Now that the wonders of the invisible world are closed, the little ones can have no better set-off than in the beauty and marvel of God's visible creation. Here also are food for the imagination and material for poetry. Whatever teaches a child to observe teaches him to think, and strengthens memory, a faculty which in fitting ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... how utterly impossible it must ever be for any ordinary book-buyer to rely on his purchases as a representation of value. If he does not view the matter in that light, or chooses to let the instruction or pleasure derived from his acquisitions become a set-off against the outlay, it is very well; what he or his heirs get for the property is in that case ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt
... of set-off to the imposition of income tax, which it should be noted was at the time said to be "temporary," Mr. Gladstone wiped out a capital debt of four millions, but it must be pointed out that, in the fifty years which have ensued, a sum of between twenty millions and thirty millions has been collected ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell
... angles are double buttresses, on which are two kinds of tabernacles, both are square and occupy the breadth of the buttress, the upper one is recessed in the body of the buttress, the lower one is open on three sides, and had small pillars at the front angles rising from the set-off and carrying the projecting canopy; the tops being finished with crocketed pinnacles. The east end is not so richly ornamented as the west; the window is a very fine one but not so large as the western one, and there are no niches on the ...
— Ely Cathedral • Anonymous
... that I did so, if it offends you. I had thought that forewarned was forearmed. After all it is no business of mine; if I have extra labour, as I shall have, I shall have extra experience; and that will be a fair set-off, even if the board of guardians don't vote me an extra remuneration, as ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... I only admitted your supposition to show that I could produce a set-off to the disadvantage. I do not believe that the necessity for labor of some sort will prevent a truly great mind from achieving for itself the highest distinction. I think the history of such minds proves that it will rather serve as ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... that has told us at the bar of the House of Commons that he never made up any contingent accounts; and yet, as a set-off against this bribe, which he received for himself, and never intended to apply to the current use of the Company, he feigns and invents a claim upon them, namely, that he had, without any authority of the Company, squandered away in stationery and budgeros, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... Although he refused the Rhine frontier to France, he had reluctantly given way to M. Clemenceau in the matter of the Saar Valley, assenting to a monstrous arrangement by which the German inhabitants of that region were to be handed over to the French Republic against their expressed will, as a set-off for a sum in gold which Germany would certainly be unable to pay.[194] He doubtless foresaw that he would also yield on the momentous issue of Shantung and the Chino-Japanese secret treaty. In a word, some of his more important abstract tenets professed in words were being brushed ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... she left the Melmottes in Bruton Street, her lover had been with her. The Melmottes of course knew of the engagement and quite approved of it. Madame Melmotte rather aspired to credit for having had so happy an affair arranged under her auspices. It was some set-off against Marie's unfortunate escapade. Mr Brehgert, therefore, had been allowed to come and go as he pleased, and on that morning he had pleased to come. They were sitting alone in some back room, and Brehgert was pressing for an early day. 'I don't ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... but with a certain amount of native talent which raised him above the level of the majority of his class. I can see him now in his place Sunday after Sunday, rigged out in a suit of my father's cast-off clerical garments—a kind of "set-off" to him at the lower end of the church. In his earlier days Wren had played a flute in the village instrumental choir, and to the last he might be heard whiling away spare moments on a Sunday in the church (for he brought his dinner early in ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... unimportant particular ends. In the East Indies, Mahe de la Bourdonnais made a vigorous use of a small squadron to which no effectual resistance was offered by the British naval forces. He captured Madras (July 24-September 9, 1746), a set-off for Louisburg, for which it was exchanged at the close of the war. In the same year a British combined naval and military expedition to the coast of France—the first of a long series of similar ventures ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... those exceptions may have shown greater 'literary genius than Madame de Stael's, the Germans, though they have, in certain lines, had no superiors as producers of tales, have never produced a good novel yet.[19] Moreover, the guide-book element is a great set-off to the novel. It is not—or at any rate it is not necessarily—liable to the objections to "purpose," for it is ornamental and not structural. It takes a new and important and almost illimitably fresh province of nature and of art, which is a part of nature, to be its appanage. It ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... celebrity in the sporting world, who had the finest shooting in England, and therefore probably in the world, used to say that every pheasant he killed cost him a guinea. On some estates the sale of the game is in some degree a set-off to the cost of maintaining it, just as the sale of the fruit decreases the cost of pineries, etc. Nothing but the fact that the possession of land becomes more and more vested in those who regard it as luxury could have enabled this sacrifice of farming to sport to continue so long. It is the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... diligently rubbed into the skin of the animal. This was, however, an arch trick on the part of the sultan, for he was indebted to the Landers in a considerable sum for some buttons, which he had purchased of them, and this butter affair was intended as a kind of set-off, as the sultan said he did not approve of paying for the butter out of his own pocket. On the 1st August, the sultan sent a messenger to inform them that they were at liberty to pay their respects, and take their farewell of him previously to their departure from the city, which they ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... air of distant acquaintance, as "alcoholic liquors." MORTON, whose great ambition in life is to make people thoroughly comfortable, wants to close the Bar. SYDNEY HERBERT, making a rare appearance as spokesman for the Government on the Treasury Bench, pleads as a set-off against alleged evil example, the large consumption of "lemon squash," which he explains to the House is "a non-intoxicant." CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN sends thrill of apprehension through listening Senate by inquiring whether the House of Commons is licensed ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, July 18, 1891 • Various
... said the admiral, "and you'd better tell him. The mutinous rascal! he wants all the honour he can get, as a set-off against his drunkenness and ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... hares, and pheasants, may now carry more noble arms against the enemies of their country. Our political adversaries may do what they please with that concession. They are welcome to make the most of it. I am sure of a very handsome set-off in the other branch of expense,—the ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... first and most sacred duty of a public man, and, above all, an author, is to keep by honest and true doctrine—never to relax—never to countenance vice—ever to hold fast by virtue. What? Are we gravely to be told, at this time of day, that a set-off may be allowed for public, and, therefore, atrocious crimes, though he admits that a common felon pleads it in vain? Gracious God, where is this to end! What horrors will it not excuse! Tiberius's great capacity, his first-rate wit, that which made him the charm of society, ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... whose education had been begun by such men as Drake and Grenville, and finished by such as Raleigh and Gilbert. His long locks were now cropped close to the head; but as a set-off, the lips and chin were covered with rich golden beard; his face was browned by a thousand suns and storms; a long scar, the trophy of some Irish fight, crossed his right temple; his huge figure had gained breadth ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... floor like a petard. Gerard looked down, and there was the dwarf, slit and fanged from ear to ear at his expense, and laughing like a lion. Nature, relenting at having made Giles so small, had given him as a set-off the biggest voice on record. His very whisper was a bassoon. He was like those stunted wide-mouthed pieces of ordnance we see on fortifications; more like a flower-pot than a cannon; but ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... into sudden blaze, Comes the blind Fury with the abhorred shears, And slits the thin-spun life. 'But not the praise,' Phoebus replied, and touched my trembling ears. 'Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil, Nor in the glistering foil Set-off to the world, nor in broad rumour lies, But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes, And perfect witness of all-judging Jove; As he pronounces lastly on each deed, Of so much fame in Heaven expect thy meed.' O fountain Arethuse, and thou honoured flood, Smooth-sliding ...
— The Hundred Best English Poems • Various
... least temporarily secure. Scarcely a Quarter sessions in the seventeenth century passed over without presentments from the Grand Jury against certain districts of the county; and few and favoured were the districts which escaped a good round fine from the Judges, as a set-off against the bruises and other damages which their Lordships sustained on their circuit. It was no unusual accident for the Court to be kept waiting many hours for the arrival of the Judge. Either his Lordship had been dug out of a bog, or his official wardrobe had been carried away by ...
— Old Roads and New Roads • William Bodham Donne
... the waters—Lord Clarendon, Baron Rothschild, Prince Souvarof, and a few more—but the general run of guests is by no means remarkable for birth, wealth, or respectability; and we are shockingly off for ladies. As a set-off against this deficiency, it would seem that all the aged, broken-down courtesans of Paris, Vienna, and Berlin have agreed to make Wiesbaden their autumn rendezvous. Arrayed in all the colours of the rainbow, painted up to the roots of their dyed ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... Adrian Landale should be shot on the high seas any more than he should be drowned in the rolling mud of the Vilaine—he was reserved for this day as a set-off to all the bitterness that had been meted out to him; he was to see the image of his dead love rise from the sea once more. And, meanwhile, his very despair and sullenness had been turned to his good. It would not be said, if history should take count of the fact, that ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... to be ruled by the same considerations as the fishing trade. The evils arising from long accounts in this trade and in fishing seem to point to the necessity of extending to these cases the prohibition of set-off contained in 5 of the existing Act and in 10 of the Bill now before Parliament. Another uggestion is, that a short prescription for such accounts should be introduced-say a prescription of three months, running from the date of the earliest ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... privileges which I propose to claim as a set-off for what are called advancing years is a greater laxity in quotation. When I have made a quotation I mean that that shall be the quotation, and I don't intend to be driven either to the original source or to cyclopaedias of literature for verification. DANTE, for instance, is a most prolific ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, May 7, 1919. • Various
... that either Monsieur Barberie, or my late sister, would altogether approve of her entering into traffic, so very young;—but what is done, is done; and the Norman himself could not deny that I have made a fair set-off, of very excellent commodities, for his daughter's benefit.—When dost ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... obtained from England considerable re-enforcements commanded by leaders of experience, the English commenced, in October, 1428, the siege of Orleans. The approaches to the place were occupied in force, and bastilles closely connected one with another were constructed around the walls. As a set-off, the most valiant warriors of France, La Hire, Dunois, Xaintrailles, and the Marshal La Fayette threw themselves into Orleans, the garrison of which amounted to scarcely twelve hundred men. Several towns, Bourges, Poitiers, and La Rochelle, sent thither money, munitions, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... perched at that commanding altitude, especially to look out that squalls don't happen to Jack, came to console us in the—at other times unwelcome—shape of a deluge of rain. Thus we got ashore earlier, though, as a set-off against so ...
— In Eastern Seas - The Commission of H.M.S. 'Iron Duke,' flag-ship in China, 1878-83 • J. J. Smith
... been confined to twenty-five into London by the Batavier steamer from Rotterdam." (London Markets Report, September 11.) Can any clever master of fractions calculate the effect of this importation on the Smithfield market, and the benefit thence accruing to the citizens of London as a set-off to ...
— The Economist - Volume 1, No. 3 • Various
... returned home at Evening. I wanted to see the Statue on the Chelsea Embankment which I had not yet seen: and the old No. 5 of Cheyne Row, which I had not seen for five and twenty years. The Statue I thought very good, though looking somewhat small and ill set-off by its dingy surroundings. And No. 5 (now 24), which had cost her so much of her Life, one may say, to make habitable for him, now ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald
... There being a fair show of reason for considering the world a wretched place enough, heaven felt where the burden was most galling, and to prove that it knew how to make happy people, created lords for the satisfaction of philosophers. This acts as a set-off, and gets heaven out of the scrape, affording it a decent escape from a false position. The great are great. A peer, speaking of himself, says we. A peer is a plural. The king qualifies the peer consanguinei nostri. ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... "From the very first set-off disaster hung over the expedition, as they afterwards remembered. To begin with, all the Brimley Bomefields were extremely unwell during the crossing, while the aunt enjoyed the sea air and made friends ...
— The Chronicles of Clovis • Saki
... some of those opposed to him. They would provoke a man to write anything. "Farthest from them is best." The extravagance and license of the one seems a proper antidote to the bigotry and narrowness of the other. The first Vision of Judgment was a set-off ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... French-blue bands, and bits of embroidery looked, for the stitches somebody had put into them, and the weary starching and ironing and perking out that must be done for them, beside the simple hem and the one narrow basque ruffling of Leslie's cambric morning-dress, which had its color and its set-off in itself, in the bright little carnations with brown stems that figured it. It was "trimmed in the piece"; and that was precisely what Leslie had said when she chose it. She "dodged" a great ...
— We Girls: A Home Story • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... two occasions. Nor could he save Ganking, which, after being besieged for three years, surrendered to Tseng Kwotsiuen, and thus all hope of succour from the west, or of retreat there, in the last resort, was removed from the hard-beset garrison of Nanking. As some set-off to this reverse, Chung Wang captured the ports of Ningpo and Hangchow, after a gallant defence by a small Manchu garrison. The Taepings could scarcely now hope for durable success, but their capacity for inflicting an enormous amount ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... previous condition and annex none to the bill which they present. The account of dignity being thus declared by this demonstration to be settled, it can not be supposed that it will again be introduced as a set-off against an acknowledged pecuniary balance. Before I conclude my observations on this part of the subject it will be well to inquire in what light exceptions are taken to this part of the message, whether ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson
... this paper, in the New Monthly Magazine, is by no means novel; but the fine, cutting satire—the pleasant, lively banter on our vices and follies—which pervades every page of the article, is a set-off to the political frenzy and the literary lumber of other Magazines of the month. Each of them, it is true, has a readable paper, but one gem only contributes to a Magazine in the proportion of one swallow ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 529, January 14, 1832 • Various
... safely practised by an unskilful hand, partly by the obvious difficulty of having to provide three rhymes per stanza, against which the occurrence of one line in each without a rhyme at all was but a poor set-off. A second metre which occurred to me is that of Andrew Marvel's Horatian Ode, a variety of which is found twice in Mr. Keble's Christian Year. Here two lines of eight syllables are followed by two ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace
... States; and there the Senator from Oregon swore that no further legislation was necessary to protect it in the Territories. Well, his speeches in honors being easy, and he having sworn to it in the last Congress, I am inclined to take his oath in preference to his speeches, and one is a fair set-off against the other. Then, all the amendments being voted down, the Senate came to the ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... Rocky Mountains are usually fearful and severe. There, snow storms form mountains for themselves, filling up the passes for weeks, even those which are low being impracticable either for man or beast. As a set-off to all this, the scenery is most grand provided the beholder is well housed. If the case is otherwise and he be doomed to combat these terrible storms, his situation is most critical. During the summer months ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... so great a man should have been born in so poor a home!" Beethoven's relations with Haydn, as we shall see later on, were at one time somewhat strained; but the years had softened his asperity, and this indirect tribute to his brother composer may readily be accepted as a set-off to some things that the biographer of the greater genius would ...
— Haydn • J. Cuthbert Hadden
... two hundred pounds; shop-fittings, fifty; business as it stands, say three hundred. The rent is ninety-five. Floor above the shop let to a family, who pay twenty-four shillings a week—a substantial set-off against the rent; but I should like to get rid of the people, and use the whole house for business purposes. There's three years of Denbow's lease to run, but this, he says, the landlord would be willing to convert into a seven years' lease to a new tenant. Then one ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... vigilance of the police, which leads to the more frequent detection of crime; whilst, as a set-off against this, there is the fact that education teaches the criminal, by assisting him to the reading of police-court reports and sensational ...
— The Curse of Education • Harold E. Gorst
... while we took spell and spell about at the hoe, working like fiends. I had stripped to the vest at the first set-off, and by degrees Weems let his eagerness overpower dignity till he had discarded a similar number of garments. There was not a breath of air stirring, and the sunbeams poured down upon us in a brazen stream. Being used to hard work, I naturally could do the larger share; but to give the little ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... tatters. A more bitter attack upon Blackstone, chiefly, as Bowring says, upon his defence of the Jewish law, was suppressed for fear of the law of libel.[228] The Fragment was published anonymously, but Bentham had confided the secret to his father by way of suggesting some slight set-off against his apparent unwillingness to emerge from obscurity. The book was at first attributed to Lord Mansfield, Lord Camden, and to Dunning. It was pirated in Dublin; and most of the five hundred copies printed ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... soon farther reduced to one-half, there remained but one individual to each house. On the other hand, the twenty-five monasteries and convents in the town were repeopled—with how much advantage as a set-off to the thousands of spinners and weavers who had wandered away, and who in the flourishing days of Ghent had sent gangs of workmen through the streets "whose tramp was like that of an army"—may be sufficiently estimated by ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... them.—But, have all you backwoodsmen been some way victimized by Indians?—No.—Well, and in certain cases may not at least some few of you be favored by them?—Yes, but scarce one among us so self-important, or so selfish-minded, as to hold his personal exemption from Indian outrage such a set-off against the contrary experience of so many others, as that he must needs, in a general way, think well of Indians; or, if he do, an arrow in his flank might suggest ...
— The Confidence-Man • Herman Melville
... differences with her husband had been one about the naming of the children; a matter that was at last compromised by an agreement under which the choice of the girls' names became her prerogative, and that of the boys' her husband's, who limited his field of selection to strict historical precedent as a set-off to Mrs. Chickerel's tendency to stray into the ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... about the happiness of his family, but he felt a dull satisfaction because things were going well with the others. It was a set-off against his troubles, which were getting worse. The improvements his tenants and Hayes had forced him to make cost more than he calculated and he met stubborn resistance when he talked about putting up the rents. The money he had got by the last mortgage had gone; he could not ...
— The Buccaneer Farmer - Published In England Under The Title "Askew's Victory" • Harold Bindloss
... must ultimately be won by popular clamour. It always seemed so impossible that the Conservative party could ever be popular; the extreme graciousness and personal popularity of the leaders not being sufficiently apparent to be esteemed an adequate set-off against the inveterate odium that attached to their opinions; that the Tadpole philosophy was the favoured tenet in high places; and Taper had had his knuckles well rapped more than once for manoeuvring too actively against the New Poor-law, and for hiring several link-boys to bawl a much-wronged ...
— Coningsby • Benjamin Disraeli
... coughs solemnly, and finally, lowering the fan, shows himself preternaturally grave, as a set-off against all suspicions. ...
— Rossmoyne • Unknown
... even among the most prejudiced classes; and he refers especially to a petition in which the clothiers of Gloucestershire[42] expressed their willingness to give up all restrictions. There was, indeed, an important set-off against this gain. The landowners were being pledged to protection. They had decided that in spite of the peace, the price of wheat must be kept up to 80s. a quarter. They would no longer be complimented as Adam Smith had complimented them on their superior liberality, and were now creating ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... the most on such subjects are those who know the least. For those who have entered into the secret of the King are ever the most reticent on such matters. At the same time we may welcome this recent development, if only as a set-off against the Spiritualism and occultism which have played such havoc with souls during a space of over fifty years. The human soul, "naturally Christian," as Tertullian would say, is also naturally Divine in the sense that, as S. Augustine so often insists, no rest is possible for it save ...
— On Prayer and The Contemplative Life • St. Thomas Aquinas
... David by Samuel is at the same time the set-off to the anointing of Saul by Samuel. This is clearly seen on comparing x. 6, xi. 6, "and the Spirit of God leapt upon Saul," with xvi. 13, 14, "and the Spirit of Jehovah leapt upon David, and it departed from ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... accomplished, through life, little in comparison with what he seemed capable of; but what he did produce is held in the very highest estimation by the most competent judges; and, like Coleridge, he might plead as a set-off that he had been to many persons, through his conversation, a source not only of much instruction but of great elevation of character. On me his influence was most salutary. It was moral in the best sense. He ...
— Autobiography • John Stuart Mill
... receive a different explanation. Could those debates be ready to appear critically, their effect would be decisive. I beg of you to turn this subject in your mind. The arguments against it will be personal; those in favor of it moral; and something is required from you as a set-off against the sin of your retirement. Your favor of December the 29th came to hand January the 5th; seal sound. I pray you always to examine the seals of mine to you, and the strength of the impression. The suspicions against the government on this subject are strong. I wrote you ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... the canvass. As early as June 17, the Whigs had enormous mass meetings at Boston and Bunker Hill. The Democrats were not inert. The Governor of the State was a Democrat and there were those who had hopes of his re-election. In set-off of the great meeting of the 17th of June at Charlestown, the Democrats prepared for a similar meeting on Lexington Green, July 4. The concourse of people was large. Governor Morton was present and spoke. I there met William D. Kelley, who spoke to a portion of the crowd from a wagon. He was then ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 • George Boutwell
... do with him personally. A respect, which amounted almost to fear, characterized his attitude toward the great Scotland Yard detective. He credited T. B. with qualities which perhaps that admirable man did not possess, but, as a set-off against this, he failed to credit him with a wiliness which was peculiarly T. B.'s chief asset. For who could imagine that the detective's chief object in calling upon Poltavo that evening was to allay his suspicions and soothe down his fears. Yet T. ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace
... As a set-off to these defects, which are of less real consequence than may appear from their brief enumeration, Kingsley has been freely credited with a certain ever-pleasing vivacity and gallantry of style far ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... As a set-off against such discussions as these there had come an improvement in their pecuniary position, which earlier in their experience would have made them cheerful. Jude had quite unexpectedly found good ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... though washing his hands of the boy, though all the while the trouble dwelt upon his weather-beaten old face; "but I bet on Jim, an' I wish it was him had the chance ye speak of. Mebbe it is, now; an' if it was, it'd be 'most a set-off agin the other not havin' it. I set a ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... With a duke I'd be content with just a few dates and something about model cottages, and, though a baron ought to know a little more than that, still we'll count these feudal bagpipers and that ancestral hop-scotch performance as a kind of set-off to your credit. Suppose you just say a few words on the future of the Anglo-Saxon race. What you've learned from the papers will do, so long as you ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston
... the jury was instructed to find for the plaintiffs the amount claimed by the papers given in evidence (viz, the official settlements), with interest thereon, is entirely without merit. There was no evidence to impeach the accounts stated, or to show set-off, release, or payment. The instruction was, therefore, in accordance with the legal effect of the evidence, and there were no disputed facts upon ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage |
