"Flaw" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... I am unable, even after the most careful revision, to find any flaw in my argument; and I incline to think none has been found by my critics—at least, if they have, they have kept ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... went on, "that I have known you for years, and never suspected your sense of humor. You'll forgive me, I know, if I tell you that your lack of humor was to my mind the only flaw in an ...
— Sight Unseen • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... this morning's Times. You have never voiced the feeling of the moment with more force or keener insight. But you will, I am sure, pardon me when I say that in the fifty-eighth stanza there is a regrettable flaw, which could however quickly be put right. To me, that fine appeal to Monaco to give up its neutrality is impaired by the use of the word "cope," which I have always understood should be avoided by good writers. "Deal" has the same meaning and is a truer word. You will, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, March 7, 1917. • Various
... used here it is the specific one of a derelict come to grief through fire. Even yet some flickering combustion illuminated the drifting hulk. His face and hands had been recently washed—a rite insisted upon by Phillips as a memorial to the slaughtered conventions. In the candle-light he stood, a flaw in the decorous fittings of the apartment. His face was a sickly white, covered almost to the eyes with a stubble the shade of a red Irish setter's coat. Phillips's comb had failed to control the pale brown hair, long matted and conformed ...
— The Trimmed Lamp and Others • O Henry
... the circle-squarers, and the cube-doublers, had seen their long-flouted theories proved to demonstration by one of the most learned and responsible men of science in the world, and one of their most sarcastic and hitherto successful flouters had been compelled to confess that he could find no flaw in the calculations of this mathematical Daniel so unexpectedly come to judgment. They did not understand his proofs, but that was no reason why they should reject them, and so they rose as one man in support of their champion to demand that ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... 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 to ...
— The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories • Alice Dunbar
... fires in the morning. Then, partly because the recollection appeared to reproach him, and partly because, not possessing the critical faculty, she had never learned to acknowledge the existence of a flaw in a person she loved, she edged closer to him, and ...
— Virginia • Ellen Glasgow
... 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
... great emergencies of the Government for twenty-five years. He has trodden the perilous heights of public duty, and against all the shafts of malice has borne his breast unharmed. He has stood in the blaze of 'that fierce light that beats against the throne,' but its fiercest ray has found no flaw in his armor, no stain on his shield. I do not present him as a better Republican or as better man than thousands of others we honor, but I present him for your deliberate consideration. I nominate John Sherman, ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... that such Men, as these, are not convinc'd of the divine Revelation of the Christian Religion, but from hence, that they (who will be presum'd to have examin'd this matter the best of any Men) do find indeed some flaw or just cause of doubt in the evidence thereof? From whence it is that they prefer their Natural Reason as a surer Teacher than that Revelation; however on some occasions they speak highly of it. And as Men of this Philosophical ...
— Occasional Thoughts in Reference to a Vertuous or Christian life • Lady Damaris Masham
... 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 Newton: ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... vapor from a steam boiler, came down upon the gale and flew past, when it disappeared. I followed the white mass as it sailed down the wind; it did not, as it appeared to me, vanish in the darkness, but seemed to remain in sight to leeward, as if checked by a sudden flaw; yet none of our sails were taken aback. A thought flashed on me. I peered still more intensely into the night. I was not certain.—"A sail, broad on the lee bow." The captain answered from the quarter-deck—"Thank you, Mr. Cringle. How shall we steer?" "Keep her away a couple ...
— Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder and Piracy • Anonymous
... portion of the fact which feeds the imaginative and volitional life, is the glorious and saving unlikeness of God—His unthinkable and inexpressible glory; His utter comprehension and unbelievable compassion; His justice which knows no flaw and brooks no evasion and cannot be swerved; His power which may not be withstood and hence is a sure and certain tenderness; His hatred of sin, terrible and flaming, a hatred which will send sinful men through a thousand hells, if they will ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch
... before truth and upright dealing with one's own understanding, creates a character that is certainly far less unlovely than those who sacrifice their intellectual integrity to more material convenience. The moral flaw is less palpable and less gross. Yet here too there is the stain of intellectual improbity, and it is perhaps all the more mischievous for being partly hidden under the mien ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... much for me. I was dressed in a white lace dress, with a white crepe bonnet with a wreath of white roses round it. I went in the chariot with my dear Mamma and the others followed in another carriage." One seems to hold in one's hand a small smooth crystal pebble, without a flaw and without a scintillation, and so transparent that one can see through ...
— Queen Victoria • Lytton Strachey
... has ruined us yet more: The fort's revolted to the emperor; The gates are opened, the portcullis drawn, And deluges of armies from the town Come pouring in: I heard the mighty flaw, When first it broke; the crowding ensigns saw, Which choked the passage; and, what least I feared, The waving arms of Aureng-Zebe appeared, Displayed with your Morat's: In either's flag the golden serpents bear ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... had been a flaw in him Laura would have found it. Next to Tanqueray she was the best critic of the four. There followed a discussion of technical points that left Hambleby intact. Then Laura ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... category with murderers, regicides, and horrid mysterious sinners who commit crimes too dreadful for women to think of. She would not believe that Bertram was one of these; but it was fearful to think that any one should so call him. Caroline, perhaps, would not so much have minded this flaw in her future husband's faith if it had not been proof of his unsteadiness, of his unfitness for the world's battle. She remembered what he had said to her two years since on the Mount of Olives; and then thought of what he was saying ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... lava, larva. halm, harm. calve, carve. talk, torque. daw, door. flaw, floor. yaw, yore. law, lore. laud, lord. maw, more, gnaw, nor. raw, ...
— Society for Pure English, Tract 2, on English Homophones • Robert Bridges
... poet took a flaw of pain, A hap of skiey pleasure, A thought had in his cradle lain, And mingled them in measure. That chrism he laid upon his eyes, And lips, and heart, for euphrasies, That he might see, feel, sing, perdie, The simple things ...
— New Poems • Francis Thompson
... the Empress, impatiently, "I have criticised your plan; criticise mine if you find a flaw in it." ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... human creature worthy and available, except the gift of seeing the bright side of things. His bead-roll of Christian virtues includes all the graces of the spirit except hope; and so, if one wants to know exactly the flaw, the defect, the doubtful side, and to take into account all the untoward possibilities of any person, place, or thing, he had best apply to friend Theophilus. He can tell you just where and how the best-laid scheme is likely to fail, ...
— Household Papers and Stories • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... went off with as much appearance of goodwill and proper family feeling as if there had been no flaw in Ida's matrimonial bliss. Sir Reginald was full of kindness for his new son-in-law: as he would have been for any other human creature whom he had asked to dinner. Hospitality was a natural instinct of his being, and he invited Brian Wendover to take up his abode at Wimperfield as easily as he ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... water, fancied that he was a made man; he could almost see that box. But a few more yards and it was his. Alas! In his eagerness to secure "a smith of kind" he had made insufficient inquiries into that smith's ancestry. There was (as he discovered when too late) a flaw in his pedigree! Some ancestress, it was said, could not show her marriage lines, or something else was wrong. At any rate, there was a flaw, and that was sufficient to upset the whole thing, for the chain, not being made by a smith of kind, ...
— Stories of the Border Marches • John Lang and Jean Lang
... and so still higher and higher good without limit; and of the natural working of the will, following up and fastening upon what the understanding discerns as good. The desire in question, then, is by no means a necessary evil, or natural flaw, in ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... that she had never met the sister-soul (for such there must be by the score, as silent as she), who shared her rage and her detestations. Valeria, with all her native pride, regarded these as proof of a big flaw in an otherwise sound nature. Yet how deep, how passionately strong, these feelings were, how gigantic ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... Caesar, dead and turned 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." ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... daily labour from fifteen to twelve has not reduced wages, the proposition that every reduction of the hours of labour must necessarily reduce wages is a false proposition. There is evidently some flaw in that demonstration which my honourable friend thinks so complete; and what the flaw is we may perhaps discover if we look at the analogous case to which ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... more trivial ills to quote, The freshly-furnished house that shines, The coxcomb's fashionable coat, Both brushed and polished "to the nines," Both yielding to some fatal flaw; A crack; a fiend who plays the flute; Both, both examples of the law Of Rift within ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 103, September 3, 1892 • Various
... little basement door gleefully. All seemed propitious, yet he meant once more and carefully to examine the preparations he had made, to see if there was any flaw anywhere. He was so absorbed, so excited, that he scarcely breathed as he crept slowly along the inside of the wall, just as a moment before he had passed along its outer surface. At one spot he paused and ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... by is another building of far greater beauty. It is faced all over with encaustic tiles, each made at the kiln a thousand miles away, for the particular place it was to occupy. Each one fits without a flaw, a suggestion to ...
— Court Life in China • Isaac Taylor Headland
... reason, the musical properties of euphuism do not appear to have found favour among those critics, and this was probably a loss to our literature. "Alliteration," as Professor Raleigh remarks, "is often condemned as a flaw in rhymed verse, and it may well be open to question whether Lyly did not give it its true position in attempting to invent a place for it in what is called prose[81]." Possibly its failure in this respect was due to the growth of that intellectual ...
— John Lyly • John Dover Wilson
... a goldfield, but no reefs having been found there and the ground not having been pegged, it was afterwards withdrawn from proclamation. The Mining Commissioner of Johannesburg in the course of his duties discovered some flaw in the second or withdrawing proclamation. He advised the head office in Pretoria of this discovery and stated that it might be contended that the de-proclamation was invalid, and that great loss and inconvenience would follow if ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... with her emeralds, apparently searching for some flaw. Like a thief in the night was a phrase that rang unpleasantly in her ears. Her remarkable interest in the man was neither to be denied nor ignored. In fact, drawing her first by the resemblance to the man she wanted to love but could not, and then by the mystery that ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... he said, "that I wanted to look after you—that I wanted our friendship to be what it has proved to be—without the flaw of sentiment. I wouldn't spoil a single hour by any thought of yours or mine that led us away ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... delightfully casual social instincts of the House of Seagrave. Educated according to my own ideas, they must inevitably have become, in a measure, types of the set with which they are identified.... And the only serious flaw ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... so I went to Attorney Case, and, with a power of difficulty, I got him to lend me the money; for which, to be sure, I gave him something, and left my lease of our farm with him, as he insisted upon it, by way of security for the loan. Attorney Case is too many for me. He has found what he calls a flaw in my lease; and the lease, he tells me, is not worth a farthing, and that he can turn us all out of our farm to-morrow if he pleases; and sure enough he will please, for I have thwarted him this day, and he swears ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth
... the son of Peleus glowed With hammered wonders, all without a flaw; The Shield of Union in its splendor showed The Compromise ...
— A Wreath of Virginia Bay Leaves • James Barron Hope
... felt that even his pride would yield to the potent fascination of this woman. As Sylvia looked, her feminine eye took in every gift of face and figure, every grace of attitude or gesture, every daintiness of costume, and found no visible flaw in Ottila, from her haughty head to her handsome foot. Yet when her scrutiny ended, the girl felt a sense of disappointment, and no envy ...
— Moods • Louisa May Alcott
... take the liberty to send you a novel, which a gentleman, your acquaintance, said you would hand to him. I beg with expedition, as 'tis time it should be published, and 'tis requisite he first revise it, or the reviewers may find a flaw.—I am, sir, ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... encourage any one who seeks to discuss my stories with me, being a modest chap with a flaw in my vanity, she abandoned the subject after a few ineffectual attempts to find out how I get my plots, how I write my books, and how I keep from ...
— A Fool and His Money • George Barr McCutcheon
... McGregor's height, How didst thou grow to such a lofty bearing, For song of bird or beat of breeze uncaring, There where thy shadow touched the dying brow? Were all thy sinewy fibres shaped aright? Was there no flaw? With what mysterious daring Didst thou put forth each murmuring, odorous bough And trust it to the frail support of air? We only know that thou art now supreme: We know not how thou grewest so tall and fair. So from the unnoticed, humble earth arose The sturdy man whom ...
— Dreams and Days: Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... like the eye which cannot suffer the least injury without damage; it is a precious stone, the price of which is lessened by the least flaw. ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... Would raise the prisoning paw, And Nature, like a mouse set free, Enjoyed delusive liberty, While every water-pipe must drip To greet the passing thaw. Then rudely dashed from eager lip The cup of joy would be, And fingers numbed, and chattering jaw, Owned unexpelled the winter's flaw, And on the steps the goodmen slip, And ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100., Jan. 24, 1891. • Various
... and then a rest.... And then wider spaces than he had ever known, greater adventure.... A day would come when he would be called, as though some one had said: Shane Campbell! and then a gesture that made a horse stumble, or a flaw of wind that would ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... Kremlin live in fear their power and position would collapse were their own people to acquire knowledge, information, comprehension about our free society. Their world has many elements of strength, but this one fatal flaw: the weakness represented by their iron curtain and their police state. Surely, a social order at once so insecure and so fearful, must ultimately lose its competition ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Harry S. Truman • Harry S. Truman
... than fights, They ow'd that glory only to His ancestor, that made them so. Fast friend he was to REFORMATION, 430 Until 'twas worn quite out of fashion. Next rectifier of wry LAW, And wou'd make three to cure one flaw. Learned he was, and could take note, Transcribe, collect, translate, and quote. 435 But PREACHING was his chiefest talent, Or argument, in which b'ing valiant, He us'd to lay about and stickle, Like ram or bull, at conventicle: For disputants, like rams and bulls, 440 Do fight ...
— Hudibras • Samuel Butler
... only one tiny flaw in this plan. If we head straight north, we drop Steve's car into the Little Choptank. If we cross that safely, we'll get wet in the ...
— The Flying Stingaree • Harold Leland Goodwin
... 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 ...
— Lifted Masks - Stories • Susan Glaspell
... a flaw in the reasoning, but as they've worked it out, nothing can go faster than light. As you approach that velocity, the mass keeps increasing, and with it the amount of energy required for a new increase in speed. At the speed of light, the ...
— Out Around Rigel • Robert H. Wilson
... a link in the chain some little way from its great attachment. Porlock is not quite a sound link—between ourselves. He is the only flaw in that chain so far as I have been able ...
— The Valley of Fear • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... I said, for there were no words to describe the magnitude of it. 'An' young Bannister's sayin' it's no more than a superfeecial flaw!' ...
— The Day's Work, Volume 1 • Rudyard Kipling
... transmitters exactly as Mr. Bell requested; but on testing them out, great was the surprise of the inventor to find that his idea, so feasible in theory, refused to work. Nevertheless, his faith was not shaken. He insisted on trying to discover the flaw in his logic and correct it, and as Watson had now completed some work that he had been doing for Moses Farmer, the two began a series of ...
— Ted and the Telephone • Sara Ware Bassett
... unexpected denouement, that they all sat mute and dumb-founded for some moments; both lawyer and clients being scarcely able to credit their own senses, and each hoping that the other had discovered some flaw in the testimony, by which it could be picked to pieces. But no such flaw or discrepancy could be discovered; and the testimony, after the severe and prolonged cross-examination to which it was subjected by the rallying and desperate attorney, remained ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... was a winning and lovely character of merits both spiritual and spectacular, and he brought to the big house an exotic atmosphere that was spicy with delights. The little boy prayed that this hero might be made again the man he once was; not because of any flaw that he could see in him—but only because the sufferer appeared somewhat less than perfect to himself. To Bernal's mind, indeed, nothing could have been superior to the noble melancholy with which Cousin Bill J. looked back upon his splendid past. There was a perfect dignity in it. Surely no ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... Mr. Crookes made certain experiments on Home's power of causing a balance to move without contact he succeeded; in the presence of some Russian savants a similar experiment failed. Granting that Mr. Crookes's tests were accurate (and the lay mind, at least, can see no flaw in them), we must suppose that the personal conditions, in the Russian ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... wonders indeed how kindred souls became separated, and one feels startled and repelled at the thought that, such as they were on earth, they can never meet again. And yet there is continuity in the world, there is no flaw, no break anywhere, and what has been will surely be again, though how it will be we cannot know, and if only we trust in the wisdom that pervades the whole universe, we need ...
— Stories of Authors, British and American • Edwin Watts Chubb
... Pope, "I can't althegither give in to your second miner—no—your second major," says he, and he stopped. "Faix, then," says he, getting confused, "I don't rightly remimber where it was exactly that I thought I seen the flaw in your premises. Howsomdiver," says he, "I don't deny that it's a good conclusion, and one that 'ud be ov materil service to the Church if it was dhrawn ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... under way at daylight of the 9th, to prosecute the examination of the coast, the anchor came up with an arm broken off, in consequence of a flaw extending two-thirds through the iron. The negligence with which this anchor had been made, might in some cases have caused the loss of ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... generous sentiments that come with mellow age. He held his back straight and his head with an air—an air that was not a swagger but the sign-token of seasoned experience in the world. The most carping could have found no flaw in the quiet taste of his attire. To sum up, Kirkwood's very good friend—and his only one then in London—Mr. Brentwick looked and ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... a flaw somewhere in the argument, but I only said, "'Valeat quantum valere potest.'" Bez looked solemn; a little Latin goes a long way with some people. He was an object of charity, and I ...
— The Book of the Bush • George Dunderdale
... presence, 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 ...
— The Measure of a Man • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... obtain a certain revenue, though entirely inadequate to her expenditure. Thus we beheld her pressing solidly on, and we knew not where she might stop. Pretexts, such as it was difficult to find a flaw in, were never wanting on which to ground a fresh absorption of territory. And seeing behind this advance a vast country—almost a continent—which was not merely a great Asiatic Power, but a great European ...
— Afghanistan and the Anglo-Russian Dispute • Theo. F. Rodenbough
... him away by himself this time; and let him feel the want of some kind creature to look after him. And when he meets with that kind creature (they are as plenty as fish in the sea), never trouble your head about it if there's a flaw in her character. I have got a cracked tea-cup which has served me for twenty years. Marry him, ma'am, to the new one with the utmost speed and impetuosity which the law will permit.' I hate Mr. MacGlue's opinions—so coarse and so hard-hearted!—but I sadly fear that ...
— The Two Destinies • Wilkie Collins
... and the sea along with it; but there was a return toward sunset of the heavy weather of the day before. The night set in pitch dark. The wind came off the sea in squalls, like the firing of a battery of cannon; now and then there was a flaw of rain, and the surf rolled heavier with the rising tide. I was down at my observatory among the elders, when a light was run up to the masthead of the schooner, and showed she was closer in than when I had last seen her by the dying daylight. I concluded that this ...
— The Lock And Key Library - Classic Mystery And Detective Stories, Modern English • Various
... that I have been in, bark is almost exclusively used by the natives, for their huts; where it can be procured good it is better than any thing else. I have frequently seen sheets of bark twelve feet long, and eight or ten feet wide, without a single crack or flaw, in such cases one sheet would form a large and good hut; but even where it is of a far inferior description, it answers, by a little system in the arrangement, better than almost any thing else. Projecting, ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... good, the works were fine, and yet there was a flaw; When Cyrus turned the crank around, the neighbors watched with awe. He confidently pulled the chain with motion quick and deft; The knowledge entered his right ear—and came ...
— The Jingle Book • Carolyn Wells
... astronaut fell victim to a psychological stress that was unforeseen. What he sent made no sense whatever. We blame the medical men for not finding the flaw in his psyche." ...
— Ten From Infinity • Paul W. Fairman
... after her father's disappearance—for his body had never been found—she had been received into the governor's house out of pity and charity—she, a Melchite! The interpreter had little to say in her favor, by reason of her sect; and though he could find no flaw in her beauty, he insisted on it that she was proud and ungracious, and incapable of winning any man's love; only the child, little Mary—she, to be sure, was very fond of her. It was no secret that even her uncle's wife, worthy Neforis, did not care for her haughty niece ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... am 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 in her.' ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... man has lived day by day for five months with Carlotta's magical beauty, and all he has noticed as characteristic is the little white scar—she fell on marble steps as a child—the only flaw, if flaw can be in a thing so ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... princess whose hand the Crown Prince, Frederick, thrice divorced, has sought in vain; for, he failing heirs, Holstein passes from the present dynasty to the Ducal House of Augustenburg. This political flaw is, while I write, being adjusted by the Danish Senate, as the impotency of Frederick, now reigning Sovereign of Denmark, has been pretty well admitted. The company took no heed of the royal presence, but walked and talked, and stood with hats on; and when ...
— A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden - 2nd edition • W. A. Ross
... as he left the room, however, had touched the one flaw in Galen Albret's confidence of righteousness. Wearied with the struggles and the passions he had undergone, his brain numbed, his will for the moment in abeyance, he seated himself and contemplated the images those ...
— Conjuror's House - A Romance of the Free Forest • Stewart Edward White
... come to him in 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 of a most disagreeable style, and a great ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... her verdict. "That deep brown is almost wasted on a man; some girl ought to have it. I used to hear a—a person, who made a deep impression on me at the time, insist that there was always a flaw in the character of a person with large, soft ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... she crouched low in the canoe, but remained perfectly still. The wind tore at them as if with frantic hands that sought their life; the water hissed under them, raced past them madly. No waves could rise under the raging gale, but black flaw after flaw flew along the surface of the lake. The rain fell in torrents; the falling streams were caught by the wind, tossed hither and thither, twisted into fantastic shapes of spray, sent flying forward, forward ...
— Hildegarde's Neighbors • Laura E. Richards
... this judgment of beauty should be compared Fornander's story of Kepakailiula, where "mother's brothers" search for a woman beautiful enough to wed their protege, but find a flaw in each candidate; and the episode of the match of beauty in the ...
— The Hawaiian Romance Of Laieikawai • Anonymous
... them, and I heere protest, By this white Gloue (how white the hand God knows) Henceforth my woing minde shall be exprest In russet yeas, and honest kersie noes. And to begin Wench, so God helpe me law, My loue to thee is sound, sans cracke or flaw, Rosa. Sans, sans, ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... Lancaster found what he believed was the flaw that was blocking progress. The man had used a simplified quantum mechanics without correction for relativistic effects. That made for neater mathematics but overlooked certain space-time aspects of the psi function. The error ...
— Security • Poul William Anderson
... any construction but the one which stared me in the face? My reason forced me to confess that they would not. I endeavoured to array the various facts which formed the chain of circumstantial evidence, and to find a flaw in it; but no, not a link was missing. There was the strange way in which our passengers had come aboard, enabling them to evade any examination of their luggage. The very name of "Flannigan" smacked of Fenianism, while "Muller" suggested nothing but socialism and murder. Then their mysterious ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... 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 proportionately ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... resources for a maintenance. Remembering some friends in the western part of New York, she resolved to visit them. While crossing Lake Seneca, en route to Buffalo, there came sweetly stealing upon the senses of the passengers of the steamer her rich, full, round, clear voice, unmarred by any flaw. The lady passengers, especially the noble Mrs. Gen. P., feeling that the power and sweetness of her voice deserved attention, urged her to sing again, and were not satisfied until five or six more songs were given to them. Before reaching their destined port she ...
— Music and Some Highly Musical People • James M. Trotter
... the night I sat trying to piece my puzzle together, but without success. There was a flaw in the story, a missing point in it, somewhere, I felt certain. I often imagined I was about to touch it, when, heigh! presto! it eluded ...
— The Uninhabited House • Mrs. J. H. Riddell
... abode of Joy Grieved to behold, but eager to destroy; Round blooming beauty, like the wasp, he flew, Soil'd the fresh sweet, and changed the rosy hue; The wise, the good, with anxious heart he saw, And here a failing found, and there a flaw; Discord in families 'twas his to move, Distrust in friendship, jealousy in love; He told the poor, what joys the great possess'd; The great, what calm content the cottage bless'd: To part the learned and the rich he tried, Till their slow friendship perish'd in their ...
— Miscellaneous Poems • George Crabbe
... they passed over sections that Harris would have accepted, but McCrae objected, finding always some flaw not apparent to the untrained eye. Once, where a little river had worn its way across the plain, they came on a sod shack, where a settler was already located. "Nice spot," said McCrae, "but too sandy. His farm'll blow away when he breaks the sod. There's an ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... beautiful, the sympathetic, whose magnetic force and charm are such that we wish to sit at her feet at once. She is intellectual, but with a disarming smile, religious, but so charitable, masterful, and yet loved of all. None is perfect, and there must be a flaw in her somewhere, but to find it would necessitate such a rummage among her many adornments as there is now no time for. Perhaps we may come upon it accidentally in the ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie
... interdependence of each part of our organism, which often, owing to a want of equilibrium of strength and resistance in some part when compared to the rest, causes the whole to give way, just as a flaw in a levee will cause the whole of the solidly-constructed mass to give way, or a demoralized regiment may entail the utter rout of an army. As described by George Murray Humphry, in his instructive work on "Old ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... and reckon as they would, the two Generals, equal in battle, face to face for the first time—could not give the total of the day. It was still an unadded sum, and the guns, despite the night, were steadily contributing new figures. This was the flaw in their arithmetic; nothing was complete, and they saw that they would have to begin again to-morrow. So, with this day's work yet unfinished, they began to prepare, sending for new regiments and brigades, massing more cannon, ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... eyes open. To see them, you would suppose there was nothing to look at and no one to speak with; you would imagine they were paralysed or alienated; and yet very possibly they are hard workers in their own way, and have good eyesight for a flaw in a deed or a turn of the market. They have been to school and college, but all the time they had their eye on the medal; they have gone about in the world and mixed with clever people, but all the time they were thinking of their own affairs. As if a man's soul were ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... with which I contrived a comfortable bed in my hiding-place. No one came below, except my companion, during the day. Tiger took his station in the berth just by the aperture, and slept heavily, as if not yet entirely recovered from the effects of his sickness. Toward night a flaw of wind struck the brig before sail could be taken in, and very nearly capsized her. The puff died away immediately, however, and no damage was done beyond the splitting of the foretopsail. Dirk Peters treated Augustus all this day with great kindness and entered into a long conversation with ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 3 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... 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 into ...
— The Nothing Equation • Tom Godwin
... 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 thing you ...
— Fairies and Fusiliers • Robert Graves
... critical minuteness, and when there no longer existed a pretext for affecting to doubt the punctuality of their captive, a deep ejaculation of assent issued from the chest of each. Like some wary judge, whose justice is fettered by legal precedents, as if satisfied there was no flaw in the proceedings, the Mohegan then signed to the white ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... I had my mind made up to leave him, and soon; but what you say, coupled with doubts I had myself, have set me to thinking, till I don't know. I hate a scandal. You know how careful I always have been. All my closest friends have jeered me for a prude; there isn't a flaw he can find, there ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... forbidden to return home at the holidays, is suspected to have written the lyrical Latin verses upon the rapture of returning home, and to have breathed out his life in the anguish of thus reviving the images which for him were never to be realized.... The reader must not fancy any flaw in the Latin title. It is elliptic; revisere being understood, or some ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... thought it a strange thing that so favored a woman should rail at her own country and kinsmen. It oppressed her loyal little heart, for she had begun to like the titled lady, and hated to find so grave a flaw in her nature. ...
— All Aboard - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... controversialists would make of it, if each had his opponent looking over his shoulder, pointing out flaws in his arguments, suggesting untimely truths, and putting every possible impediment in the path of his logic; and if, moreover, he were obliged to mend every flaw, prove every such truth a falsehood, and remove every impediment before he could advance a step. Were such the case, how much less would there be of fine-spun theory and specious argument; how much more ...
— Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, March 1844 - Volume 23, Number 3 • Various
... agree," the Bishop protested. "An act of unchristian violence would be a flaw in the whole superstructure which we are trying to ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... 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
... appeal to those who know how dear a fresh coat of paint is to a seaman's heart. She had just been thus decorated within and without, and was standing into a West-Indian port to show her fine feathers, when a sudden flaw of wind knocked her off, and over, dangerously close to a rocky point. The first order given was, "Stand clear of the paint-work!"—an instance of the ruling passion strong in extremis. He had another woesome account of a sloop-of-war in which he had gone through the ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... which are more proper, more sounding, and more luxuriant. * * * 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. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... be hard to tell without strict inquiries. I doubt me if we could learn all before next May Day, when we might get hold of the man himself and find out who and what he is. Such wedlock as his cannot be without flaw, and might be made invalid by law; but, wife, there is no getting over this, that the child took her vows in the name of God, and I dare not act as though such vows were unspoken. Her youth and ignorance may plead in part for her. ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... Gogol (I do not venture to mention much greater names, but I have them in my mind), as they now appear, and were perhaps obliged to be: men of the moment, enthusiastic, sensuous, and childish, light-minded and impulsive in their trust and distrust; with souls in which usually some flaw has to be concealed; often taking revenge with their works for an internal defilement, often seeking forgetfulness in their soaring from a too true memory, often lost in the mud and almost in love with it, until they become like the Will-o'-the-Wisps ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... lived a lifetime within a dozen squares of Westminster Abbey, and were never inside of that historic cathedral, as I have known persons to live forty years not fifty miles distant from Niagara, and never to have heard the organ speech of that great cataract. This is a common flaw in intellect. We tend to underestimate the near, and exaggerate the remote. Another application of the same frailty is noticeable in literature. Homegrown literature is, with not a few, depreciated. According to their logic, ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... habit of imitation. The child of intellectual, cultured parents, born into savage surroundings, becomes the slave of this inherited habit—call it tendency, if you will, the intention is the same. I elaborated the theory by instance and introspection, and found no flaw ...
— The Wonder • J. D. Beresford
... redden her proud eyes with tears of rage—what a success! He counted on it. Tenacious, diligent, faithful to the torment of his neighbour, not to be torn from his purpose, nature had not formed him for nothing. He well understood how to find the flaw in Josiana's golden armour, and how to make the blood of that ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... consequence hereafter (as, for example, in the dating of letters), their want of impartiality, both in seeing and stating occurrences and in tracing or attributing motives, it is plain that history is not to be depended on in any absolute sense. That smooth and indifferent quality of mind, without a flaw of prejudice or a blur of theory, which can reflect passing events as they truly are, is as rare, if not so precious, as that artistic sense which can hold the mirror up to nature. The fact that there is so little historical or political prescience, ...
— The Writings of James Russell Lowell in Prose and Poetry, Volume V - Political Essays • James Russell Lowell
... has seen Lord Craven at Barton, and probably by this time at Kintbury, where he was expected for one day this week. She found his manners very pleasing indeed. The little flaw of having a mistress now living with him at Ashdown Park seems to be the only unpleasing circumstance about him. From Ibthorp, Fulwar and Eliza are to return with ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... everlastingly re-discovered and re-read. It is a monotonous memory which keeps us in the main from seeing things as splendid as they are. The ancients were not wrong when they made Lethe the boundary of a better land; perhaps the only flaw in their system is that a man who had bathed in the river of forgetfulness would be as likely as not to climb back upon the bank of the earth and fancy ...
— The Defendant • G.K. Chesterton
... on the side of ignoring functionally produced modifications than of insisting on them. The main agency with him is the direct action of the environment upon the organism. This, no doubt, is a flaw in Buffon's immortal work, but it is one which Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck easily corrected; nor can we doubt that Buffon would have readily accepted their amendment if it had been suggested to him. Buffon did ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... pains she took for his comfort; to know that his eye never failed to discover the little refinements of dress or cookery or household adornment; but wearing was the burden of understanding, too, that no flaw was too small to escape his sight. Mrs. Fenton's friends rallied her upon being a slave to her housekeeping; few of them were astute enough to understand that, kind as was always his manner toward her, she was instead the slave of ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... consistent. Here, in the country, was the square, low-ceilinged meeting-house through whose open windows the glaring light relentlessly intensified the whiteness of the walls and revealed more plainly each flaw and knot in the unpainted pine benches. Yet the meeting-house on the hill was strangely, strongly representative of the frank, honest, unpretentious people who worshipped there, and after the first wave of surprise a feeling of interest ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... it as openly as I have said, you'd arrest him at once. But you must remember Cranze will have been thinking out his game for perhaps a year beforehand, till he can see absolutely no flaw in it, till he thinks, in fact, there's not the vaguest chance of being dropped on. If anything happens to Hamilton, his dear friend Cranze will be the last man to be suspected of it. And mark you, he's a clever chap. It isn't your clumsy, ignorant knave ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... has gone there as their surety-Saviour. If his suretyship be accepted—if He meet and fulfil all the requirements of an outraged law, the gates of the dismal prison-house will and must be opened. If, on the other hand, there be any flaw or deficiency in His person or work as the Kinsman-Redeemer, then no power can snap the chains which bind Him; the tomb will refuse to surrender what it has in custody; the hopes of His people must perish ...
— Memories of Bethany • John Ross Macduff
... The fatal flaw of magic lies not in its general assumption of a sequence of events determined by law, but in its total misconception of the nature of the particular laws which govern that sequence. If we analyse the various cases of sympathetic magic which have been passed in review in the preceding pages, ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... lovely white. Their meats they spoil with sprinkling cheese over them; O, perversity! Their salt is black; without a lie. In commerce these Venetians are masters of the earth and sea; and govern their territories wisely. Only one flaw I find; the same I once heard a learned friar cast up against Plato his republic: to wit, that here women are encouraged to venal frailty, and do pay a tax to the State, which, not content with silk and spice, and other rich and honest freights, good ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... 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, and all abuses and iniquities ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... 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 ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... one of the puppets. He seemed to see Fate as a thin female with a soppy expression and pince-nez, sniffing a little as she worked the thing out. He could picture her glutinous satisfaction as she re-read her scenario and gloated over its sure-fire qualities. There was not a flaw in the construction. It started off splendidly with a romantic meeting, had 'em guessing half-way through when the hero and heroine quarrelled and parted—apparently for ever, and now the stage was all set for the reconciliation and the slow fade-out on the embrace. ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... draw my plots from Nature's law To sound the depths of human life, And through her realm I find no flaw In all her seeming, varied strife; The good and bad are near allied; With sweet and sour forever blent, While vice and virtue side by side Exist in every continent. The poison vine that climbs the tree, Is just as great in Nature's plan As every mount and every sea Displayed below for little ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... graceful. Her hair was raven black and was combed away from as beautiful a forehead as nature could chisel. Her eyes were a brown hazel, large and intelligent, tinged with a slight look of melancholy. Her complexion was a rich olive, and seemed especially adapted to her face, that revealed not a flaw. ...
— Imperium in Imperio: A Study Of The Negro Race Problem - A Novel • Sutton E. Griggs
... is always polite," said Kitty, warm in defence of him at once. She might sometimes admit to herself that there was a flaw in her brother, but she could not endure that any one else should see one; "and he is always sorry for people when they are hurt, and it was our fault that ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... to be without flaw, it was invariably necessary that others should be in practically the ...
— Antony Gray,—Gardener • Leslie Moore
... without flaw Into the perfect sphere we saw Hanging before our happy eyes Amid the ...
— Rose and Roof-Tree - Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... smiling in spirit, "what would my Chartist friends say if they saw me here? Not even Crossthwaite himself could find a flaw in the appreciation of merit for its own sake, the courtesy and condescension—ah! but he would complain of it, simply for being condescension." But, after all, what else could it be? Were not these men more experienced, more learned, older than myself? They were ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... United States, you mean," said Patty, complacently, as she took a spoonful of chocolate. "Yes, the party in all its parts was all right. There wasn't a flaw. But, oh, Nan, I got into a scrap with ...
— Patty's Social Season • Carolyn Wells |
