"Flaw" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... man without it. His clothes are but his tailor's livery, which he gives him, for 'tis ten to one he never pays for them. He is very careful to discover the lining of his coat, that you may not suspect any want of integrity or flaw in him from the skin outwards. His tailor is his creator, and makes him of nothing; and though he lives by faith in him, he is perpetually committing iniquities against him. His soul dwells in the outside of him, like that of a hollow tree, and if you do but peel the bark off him he deceases ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... sufficient to remove the obstacles that the mass may become unified. We have as a result a firmly established representative union of local self-governments. The cooling and finishing process has left no flaw. Sir, what sort of a soldier must he be who is not proud of having been tempered in such a trial? If after the unmatched tournament this is not the spirit of victor and vanquished, then the lights of chivalry are burnt out and magnanimity is ...
— Memorial Addresses on the Life and Character of William H. F. Lee (A Representative from Virginia) • Various
... this was a woman with Rosamund's figure, face, hair, eyes, voice, gestures, movements—one who would be Rosamund but for some terrible flaw. ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... so, my good lady," replied the traveller "he is an English lord, and, as they say, a Lord of Parliament—but some folk pretend to say there is a flaw in the title." ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... are saddening in effect. The autumn wood robed in its scarlet clothes, The matchless tinting on the royal rose Whose velvet leaf by no least flaw is flecked, Love's supreme moment, when the soul unchecked Soars high as heaven, and its best rapture knows— These hold a deeper pathos than our woes, Since they leave nothing better ...
— Poems of Passion • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... bed when he was arrested, that he had not been seen to commit the deed, did not weigh in the minds of the general public. The man's guilt was freely believed; not even the few who clung to the opinion that Charley Steele would yet get him off thought that he was innocent. There seemed no flaw in the evidence, once granted ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... then draweth Sigurd Andvari's ancient Gold; There is nought but the sky above them as the ring together they hold, The shapen ancient token, that hath no change nor end, No change, and no beginning, no flaw for God to mend: Then Sigurd cried: 'O Brynhild, now hearken while I swear, That the sun shall die in the heavens and the day no more be fair, If I seek not love in Lymdale and the house that fostered thee, And the land where thou awakedst ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... come to a determinate thinness of them they shall appear transparent and colourless; but if you continue to split and divide them further, you shall find at last that each plate shall appear most lovely tinged or imbued with a determinate colour. If, further, by any means you so flaw a pretty thick piece that one part begins to cleave a little from the other, and between these two there be gotten some pellucid medium, those laminated or pellucid bodies that fill that space shall exhibit several rainbows or coloured lines, the colours of which will be disposed and ranged ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall
... limits are among the best of any state, the only serious flaw being "10 sage grouse" per ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... the Eternal Nameless And all-creative spirit of the Law, Uncomprehended, comprehensive, blameless, Invincible, resistless, with no flaw; So full of love it must create for ever, Destroying that it may create again, Persistent and perfecting in endeavour, It yet must bring forth angels, after men ...
— Poems of Cheer • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... with the elaborate gold medal, his name in full conspicuously engraved upon its face—and the youthful society of his school-town was at his feet. Every door was open. So almost without fault was he that few mothers objected to his companionship with their daughters. Yes, here was to be the flaw!—he was soon to find that it was easy for him to have his way with a maid, a dangerous knowledge for a seventeen-year- old boy who had already reached higher social levels than his own home had known, who was much quicker of wit than his almost ...
— Our Nervous Friends - Illustrating the Mastery of Nervousness • Robert S. Carroll
... I will take you home to your father and mother, now; then see this man, myself. If there is indeed no flaw in the marriage and it cannot be annulled, a divorce must be arranged. Any money I have or expect to have would be a small price to set you free from the miserable business. But the first thing is to get you home. We ...
— The Thing from the Lake • Eleanor M. Ingram
... and anger grew in her heart. "He is with that girl," she thought, and she was sick with anxiety and inquietude. The roast sirloin was done to the last perfect minute, and the Yorkshire pudding deliciously brown and light; the table was set without a flaw or a "forget," and the fire and light just as they should be. There was no obvious outlet for her annoyance, and it took away her appetite and made ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... you to revolve these propositions through your mind very seriously. See if you can find a flaw in any of them; and conceive if you can, of any reasonable theory whereby any of them ...
— Love's Final Victory • Horatio
... of poor old Thompson scrawling in the inside of his envelope, furiously, furtively, while the ink of his neat copperplate dried on the outside, and Macartney likely stood by poring over the actual letter, wondering if there was any flaw in it that could show out and damn him. And the desperate scrawl in the envelope had been no good, thanks to the fool brain and tongue of myself, Nicky Stretton! It had done more to warn Macartney than either Dudley or me, since if Thompson had written in the reverse of the envelope he was also ...
— The La Chance Mine Mystery • Susan Carleton Jones
... was without a flaw, says an eyewitness. Behind it the Canadians mounted Hill 70 and swept along the rest of the line. On the crest of the hill, where so much blood had been, spilled before, heavy fighting might have been expected, for the position was well manned with machine ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... the Baron steps back with that same look in his face, and lifts his hat. His courtesy shows at the last some flaw, for, although Mrs. Steele is there, his ...
— Under the Southern Cross • Elizabeth Robins
... some one or more of our fundamental active and emotional powers with no object outside of themselves to react-on or to live for. Any one of these defects is fatal to its complete success. Some one {126} will be sure to discover the flaw, to scout the system, and to ...
— The Will to Believe - and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy • William James
... conviction; as if the speaker verily saw into the recesses of the mental and physical being of the listener, while his own expression of perfect temperance had in it a fascinating power—the merely negative element of purity, the mere freedom from taint or flaw, in exercise [34] as a positive influence. Long afterwards, when Marius read the Charmides—that other dialogue of Plato, into which he seems to have expressed the very genius of old Greek temperance—the image of this speaker came back vividly before him, ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater
... may be! The power of this woman is astonishing. She has been acting a part the whole time." But he can act a part too—his one unchanging character—and as he holds the door open for this woman, fifty pairs of eyes, each fifty times sharper than Sir Leicester's pair, should find no flaw in him. ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... like any other man, Dorothy, he'd make me 'sure,' when he gets home! I will defend myself to this extent: I've patched and propped them all summer, after every rain, and tried to provide for the fall storms; but there's a flaw in the original plan—" ...
— Stories by American Authors (Volume 4) • Constance Fenimore Woolson
... his honors by her wit. Nothing was known of the stove at this latter day in Hall. The grandfather Strehla, who had been a master-mason, had dug it up out of some ruins where he was building, and, finding it without a flaw, had taken it home, and only thought it worth finding because it was such a good one to burn. That was now sixty years past, and ever since then the stove had stood in the big, desolate, empty room, warming three generations of the Strehla family, and having seen ...
— Bimbi • Louise de la Ramee
... shafts and so quickly is he letting them off. Indeed, this slayer of hostile heroes, viz., the son of Subhadra, gratifieth me although he afflicteth my vital breath and stupefieth me with shafts. Even the mightiest car-warriors, filled with wrath, are unable to detect any flaw in him. The son of Subhadra, therefore, careering on the field of battle, gratifieth me greatly. I do not see that in battle there is any difference between the wielder of Gandiva himself and this one of great lightness of hand, filling all ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... signifies now, quirk, quibble, or flaw, Since Law is made Justice, seek justice ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 235, April 29, 1854 • Various
... temperament. It required all the manly qualities of activity, endurance, pluck, and skill peculiar to cricket, and was immeasurably superior to that game in exciting features. There were dash, spirit, and variety, and it required only a couple of hours to play a game. Developed by American brains, it was flaw to us, and we took to it with all the enthusiasm peculiar to ...
— Base-Ball - How to Become a Player • John M. Ward
... the crab, with a sigh, "I made that rule for others, and not for myself. I see now that there is a flaw in it." ...
— The Diving Bell - Or, Pearls to be Sought for • Francis C. Woodworth
... specifically meet Mrs. Stowe's allegation, that Lady Byron, in conversing with her thirteen years ago, affirmed the charge now before us. It remains open, therefore, to a scandal-loving world, to credit the calumny through the advantage of this flaw, involuntary, I believe, in the answer produced against it. My object in addressing you is to supply that deficiency by proving that what is now stated on Lady Byron's supposed authority is at variance, in all respects, with what she stated immediately ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... never even envy real women, whose romances were always made for two. She was not a real woman, she was morbidly bodiless. Strange though it may seem, the kind, awkward, absent-minded touch of Richard as he had lifted her on to the Horse Vivian's back had been for her the one flaw in that enchanted ride. She could not bear touch. She had no pleasure in seeing or feeling the skin and homespun that encloses men and women. She hated to watch people feeding themselves, or to see her own thin body in the mirror. She ought really ...
— Living Alone • Stella Benson
... Malice and partiality set apart, let any man who understands English, read diligently the works of Shakspeare and Fletcher, and I dare undertake that he will find in every page either some solecism of speech, or some notorious flaw in sense; yet these men are reverenced, when we are not forgiven. That their wit is great, and many times their expressions noble, envy itself cannot deny. But the times were ignorant in which they lived. Poetry was ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... as sweetly as a child, And when you woke you recked not of your shame, But babbled greetings, stretched yourself and smiled From that eviscerated sofa's frame, Which, flawless erst, was now one mighty flaw Through the ...
— The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch • R. C. Lehmann
... Philadelphia shines pre-eminent, it is in the matter of entertainments, whether private or public. A lavish and generous hospitality rules our actions whenever we bid a guest to our board. Emphatically, it is to our board. If that hospitality has a flaw, it is to be found in the fact that we make the eating and drinking part of our festivities of far too much importance. Terrapin and Roederer take the place of dress and of diamonds. Our cooks, and not our mantuamakers, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 15, No. 89, May, 1875 • Various
... not have a higher electrical resistance than 10 ohms from the point to the ground, including the "earth" contact. Exceptionally good conductors have only about 5 ohms. A high resistance in the rod is due either to a flaw in the conductor or a bad earth connection, and in such a case the rod may be a source of danger instead of security, since the discharge is apt to find its way through some part of the building to the ground, rather than entirely by the rod. It is, therefore, ...
— The Story Of Electricity • John Munro
... owning the paper title to a thousand acre boundary traceable to the Commonwealth without break or flaw, might not be the owner in fact of a single acre of land; as the whole boundary might be covered by senior grants or the natural objects ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt
... custom in excess, and it grows worse instead of better, as the influence of the better mannered and better educated diminishes; but this is a spot on the sun—a mere flaw in the diamond, that friction will take out. But what a country—what a glorious country, in truth, it is! You have now done the civilized parts of the old world pretty thoroughly, my dear boy, and must be persuaded, yourself, of the ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... fractured or lost piece that may have been knocked off a projecting part of the scroll, there are other injuries likely to occur to this part of the instrument and caused in a variety of ways, some occasionally seeming mysterious in their origin. Thus from a weakness or flaw in the grain of the wood, or it may be from a blow having first started a crack and successive ones gradually increasing the fracture, the scroll itself will come away bodily, separating at the weakest part just behind the second turn. This is a delicate matter for manipulation. If the fracture ...
— The Repairing & Restoration of Violins - 'The Strad' Library, No. XII. • Horace Petherick
... pretence of working for their living, used to go and fish through the ice for pickerel every winter. And here those three young people were drowned, a few summers ago, by the upsetting of a sail-boat in a sudden flaw of wind. There is not one of these smiling ponds that has not devoured more youths and maidens than any of those monsters the ancients used to tell such lies about. But it was a pretty pond, and never looked more innocent—so the native "bard" of Rockland said in his elegy—than on the morning ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... one flaw. He was a fanatic on formality, and he only addressed me in the third person—to the point ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... There was one flaw in our content. Bobby Green's mother arrived shortly after one o'clock in a high state of wrath, and I was obliged to go out in the hall and calm ...
— The Girl and the Kingdom - Learning to Teach • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... a vast number, however, that, according to the theory of probability, and allowing a few thousand arrangements each day, the same problem ought never to turn up more than twice in a century or so. As a matter of fact—it is probably due to some flaw in the theory of probability—the same problem has a way of turning up in different publications several times in a month or so. It may be, of course, that, after all, quite "sound" problems are limited in number, and that we keep on inventing and ...
— Certain Personal Matters • H. G. Wells
... Tete Rouge once more related this story. We hardly knew how much of it to believe, though after some cross-questioning we failed to discover any flaw in the narrative. Passing by the wagoner's camp, they confirmed Tete Rouge's account in ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... Lightfoot has assailed a work so opposed to principles which he himself holds sacred, although I may be permitted to express my regret that he has not done so in a spirit more worthy of the cause which he defends. In spite of hostile criticism of very unusual minuteness and ability, no flaw or error has been pointed out which in the slightest degree affects my main argument, and I consider that every point yet objected to by Dr. Lightfoot, or indicated by Dr. Westcott, might be withdrawn without at all ...
— A Reply to Dr. Lightfoot's Essays • Walter R. Cassels
... on the bay would bear, there would be coming and going, no doubt; but until then Caius had the restful security that she was near him, and that it could not be many days before he saw her. The only flaw in his conclusion was that the fact did not bear it out; he ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... of capital and it would have been forthcoming. He had something that capital would cheerfully get behind if he had the courage to back up his claims. To fail was nothing less than moral cowardice. The will to do had not been efficient. There was a flaw ...
— Laugh and Live • Douglas Fairbanks
... crank-shafts of transatlantic steamers are forged by hydraulic pressure, and the worker has but to turn a tap to give shape to the immense mass of steel, which makes a far more homogeneous metal, without crack or flaw, of the blooms, whatever ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin
... him as unequalled; why should not Paradoxus displace him and be praised in like manner? It would be unfair, perhaps, to say that the paradoxist consciously argues thus. He doubtless in most instances convinces himself that he has really detected some flaw in the theory of gravitation. Yet it is impossible not to recognise, as the real motive of every paradox-monger, the desire to have that said of him which has been said of ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... nearer; the man in such haste had now reached the end of the stone stairs and was climbing the ladder to the roof. The clock below rumbled. It was almost two. Apollonius had not yet had dinner, but when there was a flaw of any kind in his work he could not rest until he had rectified it. He had gone back to fetch the ladder. It lay on the beam near the swinging-seat. As he stooped to get it he felt himself seized and pushed with wild ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... agree," the Bishop protested. "An act of unchristian violence would be a flaw in the whole superstructure which we are trying ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... she rose to depart that the hand of fate intervened. I had only one lamp burning in the room, a table-lamp; and at this moment, preceded by a sudden accession of light due to some flaw of the generating plant, the filament expired, plunging the room into darkness! I stood up with a startled cry. I do not deny that I felt ill at ease in the gloom with my strange visitor; but worse was to come. Looking across the darkened room to the chair upon which she was seated, I saw ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... impoverished "horseless" peasants abandoned their allotments, and this land often became the property of those richer peasants, who borrow additional incomes from trade, or of outside traders, who buy land chiefly for exacting rack rents from the peasants. It must also be added that a flaw in the land redemption law of 1861 offered great facilities for buying peasants' lands at a very small expense,(36) and that the State officials mostly used their weighty influence in favour of individual as against communal ...
— Mutual Aid • P. Kropotkin
... said the services were soothing. She was genuinely shocked by a sign of irreverence, and would sing the most jingling nonsense as a hymn with perfect gravity and without perceiving that there was any flaw in it. In these matters she showed no originality at all. She would repeat "my duty towards my neighbour is to love him as myself, and to do to all men as I would that they should do unto me" fervently, and come out and cut Mrs. Chrimes to the quick ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... Russell—gets his most moving effects by portraying the commonplace aspects of the water in a way that reminds people of things which they noticed but failed to admire promptly. Mr. Russell's gospel is plain enough; he watches minutely, and there is not a flaw of wind or a cross-drift of spray that does not offer some new emotion to his quick ...
— Side Lights • James Runciman
... up the amethyst to a lamp. It seemed to him a stone of great value. As it was uncut, he could only judge by its colour. There might be some flaw which he could not see. He tried to put it back ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... not, however, be supposed that General Gordon availed himself of a flaw in his instructions to carry out a policy of his own. On the contrary, he clearly understood from the British Government that evacuation was what was required, and that all the Egyptian employes must be given a chance of leaving the Soudan ...
— General Gordon - A Christian Hero • Seton Churchill
... to be a good driver of aeroplanes," commented Roy, as he watched; "see that flaw strike them! There! he brought the Cobweb through it like an old general of the ...
— The Girl Aviators' Sky Cruise • Margaret Burnham
... turn'd to clay, Might stop a hole to keep the wind away: O, that that earth, which kept the world in awe Should patch a wall to expel the winter's flaw!" —Hamlet. ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... was wounded, and in the hospital, he repeatedly complained to me of the deficiency of the staffs. I reminded him of it, and he promised to do his best to organize a staff without a flaw. ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski
... anything that could restrain or bind a man, had held a marvelous fascination for him, until now he was recognized as one of the world's greatest experts on these subjects. The great lock concerns often sent for him to test new inventions, and invariably he could point to any flaw in the constructions of them that existed. As he came to manhood his knowledge had grown apace until to many he seemed a ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey
... considerably larger than the end of my thumb—as large as a big hickory-nut and, my uncle averred, flawless. Rubies of such a size and without a flaw are extremely rare, I believe; in fact, there are only one or two known to be in existence. The old gentleman declared that one of five carats was worth five times as much as a diamond of equal weight, and that the value increased ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... their performance shook his self-conceit. "It makes me ashamed of myself. I ask what there is that I can do as well as this. Nothing..... Is there no one thing in which I can challenge competition, that I can bring as an instance of exact perfection, in which others cannot find a flaw? The utmost I can pretend to is to write a description of what this fellow can do. I can write a book; so can many others who have not even learned to spell. What abortions are these essays! What errors, what ill-pieced transitions, what crooked reasons, what lame conclusions! ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... words on the approach of death, "O! what a prodigal have I been of that most valuable of all possessions—Time!" express with exact truth the fundamental flaw of his character and career, of which he had at ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... it. Now listen to me carefully. I'll give you, step by step, the whole matter." He walked up and down for some minutes and then suddenly stopped beside me and thumped me on the back. "There's not a flaw in it!" he cried. "It's magnificent. My dear fellow, death is only a failure in human perfection. There's nothing mysterious in it. Religion has made a ridiculous fuss about it. There's nothing more mysterious in it than there ...
— The Blue Germ • Martin Swayne
... I think," said Nono critically, for Pelle had taught him how to trim a sail. He had hardly spoken the word when a flaw struck the little skiff they were watching, and it capsized instantly. There was a loud shriek from the place of the accident, and a groan from Nono and Alma. They could soon see two heads, and arms clinging to the upturned boat. Alma and Nono rowed ...
— The Golden House • Mrs. Woods Baker
... of kings, who each chose to rule for himself; and the uncertainty of supplies of men or money to be gained from them made him so often fail necessarily in his engagements, that he acquired a shiftiness and callousness to breaches of promise, which became the worst flaw in his character. But of the fascination of his manner there can be no doubt. Even Henry VIII.'s English ambassadors, when forced to own how little they could depend on him, and how dangerous it was to let subsidies pass through his fingers, still show themselves under a sort of enchantment ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... troubles; her dream-Venice had returned. There were private yachts, Adriatic liners, all brilliant with illumination, and hundreds of gondolas, bobbing, bobbing, like captive leviathans, bunched round the gaily-lanterned barges of the serenaders. There was only one flaw to this perfect dream: the shrill whistle of the ferry-boats. They had no place here, and their presence was ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... remote possibility that some lackland wanderer might come by and find a flaw in the protection of the Estates—even somehow penetrate to the Residence. Barra shuddered at that thought, then shrugged it off. Kira Barra was well protected, of that he had made sure. Ever vigilant surrogates were deposited in all the strategic spots of the Estates—not only to allow quick ...
— The Weakling • Everett B. Cole
... knowledge of the law of that cause would, unless there was a logical error in our reasoning, enable us confidently to predict all the circumstances of the phenomenon. We might then, if we had carefully examined our premises and our reasoning, and found no flaw, venture to disbelieve the testimony which might be brought to show that matters had turned out differently from what we should have predicted. If the causes of erroneous conclusions were always patent on the ...
— Essays on some unsettled Questions of Political Economy • John Stuart Mill
... thought of having this clever man classed as his enemy, for in the course of his duties about the bank he necessarily came into frequent contact with the cashier, and it was unpleasant to feel that the other was eyeing him constantly, as though ready to pick a flaw in his conduct. ...
— Dick the Bank Boy - Or, A Missing Fortune • Frank V. Webster
... of that kind. It was a small stone, and had a flaw in it. Number Five said she did n't want a diamond with a flaw in it, and that she did want to see how a diamond ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... way in which experience may be utilized by the human soul. For instance, one may make the discovery that someone whom he or another greatly reveres, has some quality that must be regarded as a flaw in his character. An experience of this kind may lead the person to whom it comes to thoughts which will tend toward one of two different directions. He may simply feel that he can never again regard the person in question with the same degree of veneration; or on the other ...
— An Outline of Occult Science • Rudolf Steiner
... of her mistress, and would as soon have doubted that the sun was fire as suspected any flaw in Clarissa's integrity. She had spoken her mind more than once upon this subject in the servants' hall, and had put the bulky Jarvis ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... the conduct of Marcus Aurelius that neither the malignity of contemporaries nor the sprit of posthumous scandal has succeeded in discovering any flaw in the extreme integrity of his life and principles. But meanness will not be baulked of its victims. The hatred of all excellence which made Caligula try to put down the memory of great men rages, though less openly, in the minds of many. They delight to degrade human life into ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... bitter lesson that the South had learned, but the verdict of history is that it was salutary. The Union was greater than any State or any group of States. It had required a War to rectify that fatal flaw in the Constitution, but out of the fires of that terrible conflict was fused a Union "strong and great," that should be far better fitted to ...
— Boys' Book of Famous Soldiers • J. Walker McSpadden
... danger that surrounded him. He knew the danger was rapidly increasing because whenever he pressed his ear to the wall he could hear the almost inaudible tickings and vibrations as the bubble's skin contracted or expanded and the Nothing tapped and searched with its empty fingers for a flaw or crack that it could tear ...
— The Nothing Equation • Tom Godwin
... do," he said to me and the dragoman; and then, immediately after giving the third shock, which was as ineffectual as those that preceded it, he advanced to our grim host with a face radiant with satisfaction, and congratulated him vehemently. "You are a happy man," he said. "Your household has not a flaw in it. Fortunate it was that you sent for the wise man: I have discovered the matter." "What have you discovered?" "The fate of the ring. It has never been stolen: if it had, I would have restored it to you. Fear ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... elated, exalted. It would not have taken a close observer to decide that in his devotion there was no element of the spurious and in his happiness, no flaw. As for Armitage, unseeing, but sensing clearly the drift of things, his eyes were grimly fixed ahead, the muscles of his jaws bulging in knots on either side. This chauffeur business, he felt, was fast ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry
... couldn't imagine what he meant. They made a good many guesses. But there was always somebody to point out some flaw and upset every calculation. So at last everybody stopped guessing and admitted that he had no idea as to what Kiddie Katydid had in mind. It was just another one of his secrets. And people might as well wait ...
— The Tale of Kiddie Katydid • Arthur Scott Bailey
... But the flaw of a certain insincerity in Mr. Flack's nature was suggested by his present tendency to rare visits. He evidently didn't care for her father in himself, and though this mild parent always took what was ...
— The Reverberator • Henry James
... her late husband's goods in addition to her dower. The case goes against her in the Court of Husting, and is heard on appeal before the king's justiciar sitting at St. Martin's-le-Grand. The verdict is not set aside, but some flaw is discovered in the mode of procedure; the explanation of the citizens is deemed insufficient, and the mayor and sheriffs are forthwith deposed, to be reinstated only on the understanding that they will so far forego ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe
... the audience hesitate to accept it? Point these things out to the audience. It may be that prejudiced, dishonest, or ignorant testimony has been given. It may be that not enough evidence has been given to carry weight. Whatever the flaw, point out to the audience that, upon a critical examination, experience shows the evidence ...
— Elements of Debating • Leverett S. Lyon
... worship. Christianity had the Saviour, but at first and for generations it lacked money and concentrated power. In Mrs. Eddy, Christian Science possesses the new personage for worship, and in addition—here in the very beginning—a working equipment that has not a flaw in it. In the beginning, Mohammedanism had no money; and it has never had anything to offer its client but heaven—nothing here below that was valuable. In addition to heaven hereafter, Christian Science has present health and a cheerful spirit to offer; and in comparison ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... of the rarest Chinese porcelain. What delicacy in the artist's sense of relief and modelling is here implied! What tireless industry and patience! Run your hand over a limb, or a torso, or, better still, over some wooden vessel; there is no flaw, no break in the continuity of the surface; the thing is alive from end to end. And this extraordinary sense of quality seems to be universal amongst them. I think I never saw a genuine nigger object that was vulgar—except, of course, things made ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell
... developing what is latent in the suggestive imagery of a predecessor, laying under contribution the most intimate familiarity with what is best in the literature of the ancient and modern world, the unwearied artist toils patiently on till his precious mosaic work is without a flaw. All the resources of rhetoric are employed to give distinction to his style and every figure in rhetoric finds expression in his ...
— The Early Poems of Alfred Lord Tennyson • Tennyson
... going to give you, Raphael, is the little picture of a lass who is in my eyes a thing of Heaven's best making. For loyalty, honour, courage, truth, faith, she is an unmatchable maid. I have known her all the days of my life and never found a flaw ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... well to rehearse the movements of the bridal procession within a day or two of the ceremony, that there may be no flaw in the conduct of the actors in this dramatic bit of realism. If it is to be a church wedding, more than one rehearsal may be required. In that case the organist should be present, as well as every member of the bridal party, except ...
— The Etiquette of To-day • Edith B. Ordway
... yet a certainty, however. The estate of Coila was well worth fighting for. Was there not the possibility, the bare possibility, that the solicitors or advocates of Le Roi, or the M'Rae, who now held the castle and glen, might find some fatal flaw in the evidence which Townley had spent so much time and care in ...
— Our Home in the Silver West - A Story of Struggle and Adventure • Gordon Stables
... she replied jestingly. "No one is perfect, and I least of all. If you expect perfection in this world you will be disappointed when you find the flaw." ...
— East of the Shadows • Mrs. Hubert Barclay
... in the same way, also. Taking the ball with the heel results in the slice being put on more quickly and in there being more of it, but I need hardly observe that the stroke must be perfectly judged and played, and that there must be no flaw in it anywhere, or disaster must surely follow. As I say, it is not an easy shot to accomplish, but it is a splendid thing to do when wanted, and I strongly recommend the golfer who has gained proficiency in the ordinary way ...
— The Complete Golfer [1905] • Harry Vardon
... however, of purely divine descent. Her maternal ancestor, Sonisonbu, had not been a scion of the royal house, and this flaw in her pedigree threatened to mar, in her case, the sanctity of the solar blood. According to Egyptian belief, this defect of birth could only be remedied by a miracle,* and the ancestral god, becoming incarnate in the earthly father at the moment of conception, had to condescend to ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... truth, his passion to be the benefactor of his kind; with all the charm that made him loved by good and worthy friends, amiable, courteous, patient, delightful as a companion, ready to take any trouble—there was in Bacon's "self" a deep and fatal flaw. He was a pleaser of men. There was in him that subtle fault, noted and named both by philosophy and religion in the [Greek: areskos] of Aristotle, the [Greek: anthropareskos] of St. Paul, which is more common than it is pleasant ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... should be doing so when Phil's needs cried so stridently aroused the direst apprehensions. They had all received from Amzi their exact proportion of their father's estate; even Waterman had never been able to find a flaw in the adjustment. Through Waterman they had learned that Lois's proper receipt was on file; they knew exactly the date on which it had been placed of record in the county clerk's office. They had looked upon this as the final closing of all the doors that shut this sister out of their ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... cousin Mr. Percy's estate. He suggested that the conveyance might not be forthcoming; but Sir Robert assured him that both his grandfather and the present Mr. Percy were men of business, and that there was little likelihood either that the deeds should be lost, or that there should be any flaw in the title. Afterwards a fire broke out at Percy-hall, which consumed that wing of the house in which were Mr. Percy's papers—the papers were all saved except this deed of conveyance. Mr. Sharpe being accidentally apprized of the loss, conveyed the intelligence ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... those who frequent this place that he who steps upon the marble slab facing the god courts disaster, unless his heart is as free, from treachery and guile as this stone beneath him is free from flaw. Perhaps you have heard the rumour, ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... "And that's the first flaw in your reasoning," the other objected. "Why, necessarily, should I be the one to get out? I ...
— Love of Life - and Other Stories • Jack London
... remind Applerod that his four thousand dollars represented only a trifling part of the investment required to yield this seventy-six thousand dollars' profit. Yet, after all, there was no flaw in Applerod's ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... If 't wasn't for that you'd be just splendid, and they don't seem to mind—much—anyway," remarked Alfaretta, beaming upon pretty Molly with loving smiles. Molly's liking for "boys" seemed to honest, sensible Alfy the one flaw in an otherwise ...
— Dorothy on a Ranch • Evelyn Raymond
... those Sylvan poets glean, Who picture life without a flaw; Nature may form a perfect scene, But Fancy must ...
— May Day With The Muses • Robert Bloomfield
... galactic plane we perceive that the density decreases with great rapidity. So far we can perceive no flaw in this reasoning if only it be granted (1) that the level planes are continuous and of equal density throughout; and (2) that an absolute and definite limit is set to telescopic vision, beyond which, if stars exist, they elude our sight, and are to us as if they ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various
... vengeance so mean. Strange how she had grown so gentle and so good under the constant persecution of this thieving gang! Her conscience was as clear as a windowpane; a man could look through her soul and see the world undisturbed by a flaw beyond it. A good girl; she sure was a good girl. And as pretty a figure on a horse as ...
— The Duke Of Chimney Butte • G. W. Ogden
... this time some distance out. The wind had carried him along finely, the boat scudding, as he expressed it. He was congratulating himself on the success of his trial trip, when all at once a flaw struck the boat. Not being a skillful boatman he was wholly unprepared for it, ...
— Frank's Campaign - or the Farm and the Camp • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... that is, the police and the Courts were so completely in the scheme that it was sufficient, on the arrest of a "reliable," if the boss sent word to the judge or State's attorney "to be keerful" as this was "one of our boys." Promptly a flaw would be discovered in the indictment and ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... fashion: the mediaevals had it—in theory at any rate. The Round Table stories, merely as such, illustrate Valour; the Graal stories, Religion; the passion of Lancelot and Guinevere with the minor instances, Love. All these have their [Greek: amarthia]—their tragic and tragedy-causing fault and flaw. The knight wastes his valour in idle bickerings; he forgets law in his love; and though there is no actual degradation of religion, he fails to live up to the ideal that he does not actually forswear. To throw the presentation—the ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury
... early days of the French Revolution, men must have looked for an immediate and universal improvement in their condition. Christianity, up to that time, had been somewhat of a failure politically. The reason was now obvious, the capital flaw was detected, the sickness of the body politic traced at last to its efficient cause. It was only necessary to put the Bible thoroughly into practice, to set themselves strenuously to realise in life the Holy Commonwealth, ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of Mr. Pennifeather's rifle, while it was far too large for that of any other person in the borough or its vicinity. To render the matter even surer yet, however, this bullet was discovered to have a flaw or seam at right angles to the usual suture, and upon examination, this seam corresponded precisely with an accidental ridge or elevation in a pair of moulds acknowledged by the accused himself to ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... from their dust.' I drave the impostor forth: Perjured ere long he fled, and now returns To reap a harvest from his master's dream" - Thus mused he, while black shadow swept the moor. So day by day darker was Milcho's heart, Till, with the endless brooding on one thought, Began a little flaw within that brain Whose strength was still his boast. Was no friend nigh? Alas! what friend had he? All men he scorned; Knew truly none. In each, the best and sweetest Near him had ever pined, like stunted growth Dwarfed by some glacier nigh. The fifth day dawned: And inly thus he muttered, ...
— The Legends of Saint Patrick • Aubrey de Vere
... Kingdom. Within a few days the Chartists could boast that for fifty miles round Manchester every loom was still. The attempt to extend the strike to London was followed by the arrest of O'Connor and nearly a hundred of his associates. They were tried and convicted, but owing to a flaw in the indictment sentence could not be carried out. The agitation was made to appear more serious by two attempts to assassinate the Queen in May and July, but the young Queen was not deterred thereby from making her ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... valuable lessons. The universal, all-embracing Trust made marionettes of us, every one. Our strength was, to them, no more than that of a mouse to a lion. Their system is perfect, their lines of supply and communication are without a flaw. The Prussian army machine of other days was but a bungling experiment by comparison with the efficiency of this new mechanism. I tell you, Gabriel, we've got to give these tyrants credit for being infernally efficient tyrants! All that science has been able to devise, or press and ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... away their goods in the darkest corners of the bazaar where their defects could not be seen plainly. When the purchase had been consummated they were brought out into the sunlight. The word also means "wax." It is said that in the days of imperial Rome when a sculptor came to a flaw in the marble he filled it with wax to hide the defect, but when the hot days came and the wax was melted the defect was seen plainly. Paul is desiring for these Philippians that there may be none of this, but that their lives should commend themselves ...
— And Judas Iscariot - Together with other evangelistic addresses • J. Wilbur Chapman
... was upon the same footing on which the first physicians are usually summoned to the bedside of some dying man of rank;—the doctors to take the advantage of some incalculable chance of an exertion of nature—the lawyers to avail themselves of the barely possible occurrence of some legal flaw. Edward pressed into the court, which was extremely crowded; but by his arriving from the north, and his extreme eagerness and agitation, it was supposed he was a relation of the prisoners, and people made way for him. It was the third sitting of the court, and there were two men ...
— Waverley • Sir Walter Scott
... of tears in which he once was shrouded, the face of the Grey Angel is seen to be wondrously kind. By his mysterious alchemy, he has crystallised the doubtful waters, which once were in the cup of Life and Love, into a jewel which has no flaw. He has kept the child forever a child, caught the maiden at the noon of her beauty to enshrine her thus for always in the heart that loved her most; made the true and loving comrade a comrade always, though on the highways of ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed
... throne had no jealousy of Nundcomar, because he knew, that, as a Gentoo, he could not aspire to the office of Subahdar. For that reason he was firmly attached to him; he might depend completely on his services; he was his against Mahomed Reza Khan, and against the whole world. There was, however, a flaw in the Nabob's title, which it was necessary should be hid. And perhaps it lay against Mahomed Reza Khan as well as him. But it was a source of apprehension to the Nabob, and contributed to make him wish to keep all Mahomedan influence at a distance. ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... would be home. The brown waters of the bayou had spread until they were seemingly trying to rival the Mississippi in width. The little house was scrubbed and cleaned until it shone again. Louisette had looked her dainty little dress over and over to be sure that there was not a flaw to be found wherein Sylves' could compare her unfavourably ...
— The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories • Alice Dunbar
... but a clumsy Wind-flaw with a hand like stone Hurls the boom round. In an instant Arnold, ...
— Ballads of Lost Haven - A Book of the Sea • Bliss Carman
... thronged every flag-decked street. I saw white waving hands from every roof and window. I heard the dull, deep roar of welcome, as with superb seat upon my snow-white charger—or should it be coal-black? The point cost me much consideration, so anxious was I that the day should be without a flaw—I slowly paced at the head of my victorious troops, between wild waves of upturned faces: walked into a lamp-post or on to the toes of some irascible old gentleman, and awoke. A drunken sailor stormed from between swing doors and tacked tumultuously down the street: the factory ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... sister in religious feeling and good works; and Mrs. Linnet was so agreeably surprised by the fact that Dempster had left his wife the money 'in that handsome way, to do what she liked with it,' that she even included Dempster himself, and his villanous discovery of the flaw in her title to Pye's Croft, in her magnanimous oblivion of past offences. She and Mrs. Jerome agreed over a friendly cup of tea that there were 'a many husbands as was very fine spoken an' all that, an' yet all the while kep' a will locked up from you, as tied you up as tight ...
— Scenes of Clerical Life • George Eliot
... the orange blossoms in her hair, and all the guests assembled—for what? because of—one who made no claim, who would never make any claim, who had not been heard of for more than six years. That was the flaw which disturbed Lizzie. It was not quite out seven years. Had that mystic period been accomplished she felt that she could have left Chatty to the protection of God. But at the outside it was only six and a half, and he had heard of her through Lizzie herself—though she inwardly resolved that ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... over Mr Pickering. He was vaguely conscious of a sense of being treated unjustly, of there being a flaw in Claire's words somewhere if he could only find it, but the sudden attack had deprived him of the free and unfettered use of his powers of reasoning. He gurgled wordlessly, and Claire went on, her low, sad voice mingling with the moonlight in a manner that caused ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... vastly more sure that Socrates was morally imperfect, than that I am able to censure him rightly; so also, a disputant who concedes to me that Jesus is a mere man, has no right to claim that I will point out some moral flaw in him, or else acknowledge him to be a Unique Unparalleled Divine Soul. It is true, I do see defects, and very serious ones, in the character of Jesus, as drawn by his disciples; but I cannot admit that my right to ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... suffer and die, if need be, with a stiff lip, and an obstinate faith in 'the ultimate decency of things.' For of a truth, the earth holds no more fantastic farrago of folly and heroism than your average human being; and musing on these things, Lenox decided that there must have been some radical flaw in his own education. ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... 1764 in Rome whilst "musing amongst the ruins of the Capitol"; in 1787 his great work was finished at Lausanne, where he had resided since 1783; modern criticism, working with fresh sources of information, has failed to find any serious flaw in the fabric of this masterpiece in history, but the cynical attitude adopted towards the Christian religion has always been regarded as a defect; "a man of endless reading and research," was Carlyle's verdict after a final perusal of the "Decline," "but ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... grief O'ercame me wholly, straight around I see New torments, new tormented souls, which way Soe'er I move, or turn, or bend my sight. In the third circle I arrive, of show'rs Ceaseless, accursed, heavy, and cold, unchang'd For ever, both in kind and in degree. Large hail, discolour'd water, sleety flaw Through the dun midnight air stream'd down amain: Stank all the land whereon that tempest fell. Cerberus, cruel monster, fierce and strange, Through his wide threefold throat barks as a dog Over the multitude immers'd beneath. His eyes glare crimson, black his unctuous beard, His belly ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... yielding to his taste she was still vigilant as to his interests—Virginia discovered a flaw in one of the plumes. The sylph in the trailing gown held volubly that it did not fait rien; the man with the open purse said he couldn't see that it figured much, but the small American held firm. That must be replaced by a perfect plume or they ...
— Lifted Masks - Stories • Susan Glaspell
... no flaw in the title-deeds of genius, if the same thoughts reappear as have been exhibited long ago. The indisputable sign of defect should be looked for in the proportion they bear to the unquestionably original. There are ideas which necessarily ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... party to-night, with what Tom Brown sober says to sober sister Maria about her to-morrow. Tom remembers that he was a fool last night, and knows what he thinks and always has thought to-day; but pretty Seraphina thinks he adores her, so that no matter what she does he will never see a flaw, she is sure of that,—poor little puss! She does not know that philosophic Tom looks at her as he does at a glass of champagne, or a dose of exhilarating gas, and calculates how much it will do for him to take of the stimulus without interfering with his serious ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... of all too many American homes and hotels, obtruding their highly colored, gold-laden ornament, the Randolph house rather inclined toward an austerity of decoration. But after the first general impression, more careful observation revealed the extreme luxury of appointments and details. The one flaw—if one might call it such—was that every article in the entire house was spotlessly, perfectly brand-new. The Persian rugs, pinkish red in coloring and made expressly to tone in with the gray white marble of the hall, were direct from the looms. The banister, of beautiful simplicity, was as ...
— The Title Market • Emily Post
... a flaw of wind sweeping from the south round the end of the island, so narrow that most of the English fleet hardly felt it. It filled the sails of Hood's ships in the van, and they steered for two French battleships that dropped astern of their consorts. One of the Frenchmen passed close under ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... Seer of time, But Thee, O poet's Poet, Wisdom's Tongue, But Thee, O man's best Man, O love's best Love, O perfect life in perfect labor writ, O all men's Comrade, Servant, King, or Priest,— What if or yet, what mole, what flaw, what lapse, What least defect or shadow of defect, What rumor, tattled by an enemy, Of inference loose, what lack of grace Even in torture's grasp, or sleep's, or death's,— Oh, what amiss may I forgive in Thee, Jesus, good ...
— The Ascent of the Soul • Amory H. Bradford
... machinery of the crane, the whole is slowly hoisted out, and then swung round to some convenient level, where the ponderous mass is freed from its casing of masonry, and brought out at last to open day. It is then thoroughly examined with a view to the discovery of any latent flaw or imperfection, and, if found complete in every part, is conveyed away to be the subject of a long series of finishing operations in another place,—operations many and complicated, but all essential to enable it ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... "I have heard a great deal about you from various sources, and I little thought that I should ever require your services; but, lately, while consulting Mr. Chapman relative to a possible flaw in the title to my farm, I also laid before him some other troubles which he acknowledged were so serious as to require the advice and assistance of some one with a training and experience somewhat different from his. He urged me so strongly to state my case to you, ...
— The Somnambulist and the Detective - The Murderer and the Fortune Teller • Allan Pinkerton
... estate are, as I have said, good ones, but there is one singular and ominous flaw in their provisions. The ocean has marked three boundaries to it, but the fourth is undefined. There is no word of the 'Hinterland;' for neither the term nor the idea had then been thought of. Had Great Britain ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... to place little bunches of flowers at the feet of the statue as a tender tribute to its beauty. But one day I was greatly annoyed by the presence of a critical woman who had discovered a little flaw in the statue, where a bit had been broken off. She chattered about it like an excited magpie. Poor soul, she had no eyes for the beauty of the thing, the mystery which shrouded its past stirred no emotions in her breast. ...
— The Common Sense of Socialism - A Series of Letters Addressed to Jonathan Edwards, of Pittsburg • John Spargo
... himself into an easy-chair. He felt like a man who has built a mighty piece of machinery, has set it swinging through space, and watches now its imminent collapse; watches some tiny but ghastly flaw, pregnant with disaster, growing wider and wider before ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... there must be a flaw in it," retorted Random, but did not seem to be unmoved by Hope's generous action. "Sit down, Professor; it appears that you are ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... each other; the confidence between us is without a flaw. The fair one, believe me, is good to look on, and is worth all the ogling, fan-flirting baggages put together that one sees at court or on the balconies of the Palais Roy: ah! I'll answer for that. ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... all the precautions taken to carry out my Lord Cardinal's wishes—a work at least in which you, yourselves, have evinced a degree of zeal that I cannot too highly commend to his Eminence—the possibility yet remains of some mistake of trivial appearance, of some slight flaw that might yet cause the ...
— The Suitors of Yvonne • Raphael Sabatini
... Scottish clergy, and re-instated the families of the barons killed in the war. Doubtless he hoped to do great good to the wild population, and bring them into the same order as the English; but the flaw in his title made this impossible; the Scots regarded his soldiery as their enemies and oppressors, and though the nobles had given in a self-interested adhesion to the new government, they abhorred it all the time, and the mutual hatred between the English garrisons and Scottish ...
— Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward II • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... tried for the unlawful possession of the will, which he had either procured to be stolen, or had dishonestly acquired and retained by other means as bad. By dint of an ingenious counsel, and a legal flaw, he escaped; but only to undergo a worse punishment; for, some years afterwards, his house was broken open in the night by robbers, tempted by the rumours of his great wealth, and he was found murdered ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens
... flaw or puff comes," Dory continued, "it changes the course of the boat. The helm has to be shifted to meet this change. Almost always the tiller has to be carried to the weather side of the boat. Do you know which the weather side of the boat is, fellows?" asked the ...
— All Adrift - or The Goldwing Club • Oliver Optic
... third, we cannot deny that The Ring and the Book, in its perfection and integrity, fully satisfies the conditions of artistic triumph. Are we to ignore the grandeur of a colossal statue, and the nobility of the human conceptions which it embodies, because here and there we notice a flaw in the marble, a blemish in its colour, a jagged slip of the chisel? "It is not force of intellect," as George Eliot has said, "which causes ready repulsion from the aberration and eccentricities of greatness, any more than it is force of vision that causes the eye to explore ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... lees if such drain on it continue. To fight with effect being the one sure hope, and salve for all sores, it is not in the Army, in the Fortresses, the Fighting Equipments, that there shall be any flaw left! Friedrich's budget is a sore problem upon him; needing endless shift and ingenuity, now and onwards, through this war:—already, during these months, in the Berlin Schloss, a great deal of those ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... became businesslike—"as you know, these manual tests are the last tests before actually blasting off. In the past weeks, you cadets have been subjected to every possible examination, to discover any flaw in your work that might later crop up in space. This manual operations test of the control board, like Manning's on the radar bridge and Astro's on the power deck, is designed to test you under simulated ...
— Stand by for Mars! • Carey Rockwell
... Dudley. Young, and elegant, Though of a stock somewhat attenuate; Rich, though a younger son; a gentleman, A scholar,—what good reason could I give For saying Nay to such an applicant? 'Explain!' my mother cried, with brow severe; 'Is not his character without a flaw?' 'So far as known to me.'—'Is he a fool?' 'Far from it; culture and good sense are his.' 'Could you not love him?'—'Very tenderly, Perhaps, with time to aid.'—'Has any one Preoccupied your heart?'—'My heart is free, And has been always ...
— The Woman Who Dared • Epes Sargent
... in his bearing toward the major's wife, both major and wife became incensed at him,—Plume because he believed the Bugologist still cherished a tender passion for his wife—or she for him; Clarice, it must be owned, because she knew well he did not. Plume sought to find a flaw in his subordinate's moral armor to warrant the aversion that he felt, and was balked at every turn. It was with joy almost fierce he discovered what he thought to be proof that the subaltern was no saint, and, never stopping to give his better nature time to ...
— An Apache Princess - A Tale of the Indian Frontier • Charles King
... seal on a massacre or a robbery. At one time dirt, at another indecency, at another rapine, at a fourth rancorous malignity, is decked out and accredited in the garb of sanctity. The instant there is a flaw, a 'damned spot' to be concealed, it is glossed over with a doubtful name. Again, we dress up our enemies in nicknames, and they march to the stake as assuredly as in san Benitos.... Strange, that a reptile should wish to be thought an angel; or that he ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... born in you With a sudden clamorous pain, When you know the dream is true And lovely, with no flaw nor stain, O then, be careful, or with sudden clutch You'll hurt the delicate ...
— Georgian Poetry 1916-17 - Edited by Sir Edward Howard Marsh • Various |
