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Overbalance   Listen
verb
Overbalance  v. t.  
1.
To exceed equality with; to outweigh.
2.
To cause to lose balance or equilibrium.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Overbalance" Quotes from Famous Books



... which in turn started birds of other kinds; the toucans hopping about from branch to branch uttering their singular barking cries, as they raised high their huge bills, which looked as if they would overbalance their bodies, but were as light as if made of paper ...
— The Golden Magnet • George Manville Fenn

... dreamed when he met this small, shabby lad, and passed him as he might have passed some way-side weed, what was in his mind. If people, when they meet, could know half the workings of one another's minds, the recoils from the shocks might overbalance creation. But Doctor Prescott never saw the phantom paupers slouching through his clover-fields, and Simon Basset never jostled Mindy Toggs on his threshold. However, Mindy Toggs had once lived ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... asserted, that for the law to be KNOWN, is of more importance than to be RIGHT. Change, says Hooker, is not made without inconvenience, even from worse to better. There is in constancy and stability a general and lasting advantage, which will always overbalance the slow improvements of gradual correction. Much less ought our written language to comply with the corruptions of oral utterance, or copy that which every variation of time or place makes different from itself, and imitate those changes, which will again be changed, while imitation is ...
— Preface to a Dictionary of the English Language • Samuel Johnson

... really been, and a black heap of ruins where the familiar house had stood for so long confirmed their fears for their own property; but to see the village content and smiling, except for a poor building or two, was joy enough to overbalance the ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams

... he became aware that something important was taking place in his soul; that his inner life was on a wavering scale, which could by the slightest effort be made to overbalance to one side or the other. And he made that effort, calling on that God whom the other day he felt in his soul, and God immediately came to his aid. He resolved to ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy

... ballast; indemnity, equivalent, quid pro quo; bribe, hush money; amends &c. (atonement) 952; counterbalance, counterclaim; cross-debt, cross-demand. V. make compensation; compensate, compense[obs3]; indemnify; counteract, countervail, counterpoise; balance; outbalance[obs3], overbalance, counterbalance; set off; hedge, square, give and take; make up for, lee way; cover, fill up, neutralize, nullify; equalize &c. 27; make good; redeem &c. (atone) 952. Adj. compensating, compensatory; countervailing &c. v.; in the ...
— Roget's Thesaurus • Peter Mark Roget

... son," Gerontides laughed. "If you were made of gold, to Genoa you go. I've a bigger stake in a quick landing at Genoa than any sum you could name would overbalance. Best be content!" ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White

... he considers him as looking upon this complex scene of ideas and sensations, and finding everywhere objects that immediately excite in him sympathies which, from the necessities of his nature, are accompanied by an overbalance of enjoyment. ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various

... thigh-bone, and the shortness of the metatarsus: the heel being almost where it projects in man, instead of being lifted up as a "hock." It is this which enables him, in descending declivities, to depress and adjust the weight of his hinder portions, which would otherwise overbalance and force him headlong.[1] It is by the same arrangement that he is enabled, on uneven ground, to lift his feet, which are tender and sensitive, with delicacy, and plant them with such precision as to ensure his own safety ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent

... that on this occasion another will be added to the list. Yet in spite of this there is a good deal of unavoidable uncertainty as to how this new play may strike the fickle public, and on the whole the doubt and fear overbalance the certainty and pride, for there is more of the pale grey than of the orange, and the whole thought-form vibrates like a flag flapping in a gale of wind. It will be noted that while the outline of the orange is exceedingly ...
— Thought-Forms • Annie Besant

... shippers. Internal improvements, those substantial ties that were binding the West to the East and turning the traffic from New Orleans to Philadelphia and New York, they viewed with alarm. Free homesteads from the public lands, which tended to overbalance the South by building free states, became to them a measure dangerous to their interests. Thus national economic policies, which could not by any twist or turn be confined to state control, drew the slave system and its defenders into the political ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard

... day and night are trusted to my care. I hold the day in my right hand and the night in my left; and I maintain the just equilibrium between them, for if either were to overbalance the other, the universe would either be consumed by the heat of the sun, or would perish with the cold of darkness.—Comte de Caylus, Oriental Tales ("History of ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer

... "See, hold thou the plank! I will stand on the farther side of the stone so that it may not overbalance with your greater weights. Now, come, oh Holly, for presently the ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard

... marquis, on this proposal, which I hope is yet in your power. Think you, that conscious rectitude, that the exultation of your heart when you recollect the temptation you have escaped, and the noble turn you have given it, will not infinitely overbalance the sordid and fleeting pleasure you are able to attain? Imagine to yourself that you see her offspring growing up under the care of a blameless mother, and coming forward to thank you for the benefit you bestowed upon them before they had a being. Is not this an object ...
— Italian Letters, Vols. I and II • William Godwin

... with tendons braided, would be as hanging a claymore to Valor's side, before unarmed. Our minds are cunning, compound mechanisms; and one spring, or wheel, or axle wanting, the movement lags, or halts. Cerebrum must not overbalance cerebellum; our brains should be round as globes; and planted on capacious chests, inhaling mighty morning- inspirations. We have had vast developments of parts of men; but none of manly wholes. Before a full-developed ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville

... magnetic effect of the exciting coils per se, an equality which holds good for all currents, then we shall have an almost perfect imitation of a tangent galvanometer with permanent magnets. But we can go a step further than this; we can overbalance the exciting coils by setting the deflecting coil at a greater angle than necessary for the mere elimination of the former, and thus attain that an increase of current results in a slight weakening ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 433, April 19, 1884 • Various

... allows his alimentiveness to overbalance his group of organs which show veneration, benevolence, fondness for society, fetes champetres, etc., hope, love of study, fondness for agriculture, an unbridled passion for ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye

... to which they are entrusted than upon any other cause, and that you hope he will well consider those whose appointment to high and important situations he sanctions, and that he will not suffer claims of connection or of support to overbalance a due regard for your Majesty's service and the welfare of the country." Such an expression of your Majesty's opinion may possibly be a support to Sir Robert Peel against pretensions which he would be otherwise ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria

... great measure awards influence in proportion to property, completely abrogated:—and it is in vain to suppose that if even such a change was desirable, it could possibly be effected without producing a train of incalculable miseries that would much more than overbalance any partial good which could reasonably ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... wheels of a machine. Overwork and worry have both to be guarded against. For over-brain-work is strain-work; and it is exhausting and destructive according as it is in excess of nature. And the brain-worker may exhaust and overbalance his mind by excess, just as the athlete may overstrain his muscles and break his back by attempting feats beyond the strength of his ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles

... the best of them, for the beating on the head maddened him. He began to climb up the edge of the canoe, and his great weight was beginning to overbalance it. I called to them, but as I do not speak the white man's language, they did not understand. Fear gripped at their hearts, and, as the bear climbed into the canoe, they leaped into the river and swam for shore, while the canoe drifted ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson

... and the subject of some importance, words metrically arranged will long continue to impart such a pleasure to mankind as he who is sensible of the extent of that pleasure will be desirous to impart. The end of Poetry is to produce excitement in coexistence with an overbalance of pleasure. Now, by the supposition, excitement is an unusual and irregular state of the mind; ideas and feelings do not in that state succeed each other in accustomed order. But if the words by which this excitement is produced are ...
— Lyrical Ballads, With Other Poems, 1800, Vol. I. • William Wordsworth

... which the constitution designates.—But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly overbalance in permanent evil, any partial or transient benefit which the use can ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 5 (of 5) • John Marshall

... in dispute; meanly jealous and awkwardly reserved; rash and haughty in your resentments; and coarse and lowly in your connexions. I have blushed at the weakness of your conversation, and trembled at the errors of your conduct—yet, as I own you possess certain good qualities, which overbalance these defects, and distinguish you on this occasion as a person for whom I have the most perfect attachment and esteem, you have no cause to complain of the indelicacy with which your faults are reprehended. And as they are chiefly the excesses of a sanguine disposition ...
— The Adventures of Ferdinand Count Fathom, Complete • Tobias Smollett

... Monongahela River five miles above that city. Mr. Grimley was accompanied by Harry Byram of the Pittsburg Dispatch. Two things regulate the force of impact in a balloon descent—the strength of the surface-current and the amount of ballast the aeronaut has with which to overbalance the weight in excess of equilibrium causing the descent. Both were against our adventurers. Most of their ballast had been expended in getting into the air, and while they had found almost a calm at an elevation of forty-five ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various

... thing agin' her, it was the joy of every other person as met her as it was agin her 'n' not agin them, for it was a well-known fact as Mr. Kimball had said hunderds of times as if he had that nose an' leaned over a bridge 'n' see it in the water he 'd be willin' to let it overbalance him then 'n' there 'n' be drowned forever. He got pretty meek at that, for it showed as I was in earnest, 'n' he went on to say as it was large, but he said as afore she took to that way of kind o' shrinkin' ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Neighbors' Affairs • Anne Warner

... On reading it lately after an interval of many years, I find it to have some of the defects as well as the merits of the Benthamic modes of thought, and to contain, as I now think, many weak arguments, but with a great overbalance of sound ones, and much good material for a more completely philosophic and ...
— Autobiography • John Stuart Mill

... chiefly through the immunity from military service which their new relations enabled them to obtain. These were circumstances of advantage and gain. But one great disadvantage there was, amply to overbalance all other possible gain; the chances were lost or were removed to an incalculable distance for their conversion to Christianity, without which in these times there is no absolute advance possible on the path of ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey

... fascinated with a face, cut and gashed till it suggests having been made out of odd materials that never could have fitted, is a proved fact. But surely there can be no attraction about a blotched and bloated skin and a "bay window" thrown out to an extent threatening to overbalance the whole structure. Yet what else can be expected, when the youngster starts his beer-drinking with a "Fruhschoppen" at 10 a.m., and closes it with a "Kneipe" at ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome

... this we must frankly recognize the overbalance of population in our industrial centers and, by engaging on a national scale in a redistribution, endeavor to provide a better use of the land for those best fitted for the land. The task can be helped by ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various

... guarded tracts alternating with fire traps. Moreover attention to individual tracts does not improve surrounding conditions, and the latter may easily become so bad as to make the cost of individual patrol, as well as the risk, far overbalance any financial ...
— Practical Forestry in the Pacific Northwest • Edward Tyson Allen

... except when a special writer is put on the staff to supply a column of verse a day. Occasionally some topical stanza which agrees with the editorial policy will be accepted from an outsider. It may be pointed out here that very often the humor or appropriateness of a production will overbalance faults in the rhyme and meter. In serious verse an exception of this sort will rarely be found and a thing must stand or fall on ...
— Rhymes and Meters - A Practical Manual for Versifiers • Horatio Winslow

... at the word and shook the box with greater force. Then he upreared, and with his fore paws threw his weight against it higher up. Leclere kicked out with one foot, but the rope bit into his neck and checked so abruptly as nearly to overbalance him. ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London

... served with fresh beef; and we took on board about fifteen tons of water, which we brought off in the country boats, at the rate of about three shillings per ton. Ships are allowed to water with their own boats; but the many inconveniencies attending it, more than overbalance the expence of hiring shore-boats, which is the most ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World Volume 2 • James Cook

... German leaders have failed to realize that the destruction of men and materials in war is always a great national loss. In the case of a long war, the losses from these causes may, even for the victors, overbalance any advantage which may be secured in the way of territory or money from the ...
— A School History of the Great War • Albert E. McKinley, Charles A. Coulomb, and Armand J. Gerson

... notwithstanding the present inferiority of his power, possessed some advantages, derived partly from his situation, partly from his personal character, which promised him success, and served, first to control, then to overbalance, the superior force and opulence of his enemies. He was the true and undoubted heir of the monarchy: all Frenchmen, who knew the interests, or desired the independence, of their country, turned their eyes towards him as its sole resource; the exclusion given him by the imbecility of his father, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume

... which, therefore, the mere negative argument arising from our ignorance of the true solution of such difficulties, as are, perhaps, insoluble because we are finite, can be no reply; and, secondly, such an amount of this evidence as shall fairly overbalance all the objections which we can appreciate. This is the condition to which God has obviously subjected us as inhabitants of this world; and it is on such evidence we are here perpetually acting. We now ...
— Reason and Faith; Their Claims and Conflicts • Henry Rogers

... have been to strangers, extremely ludicrous. Frank, however, could not look upon it with levity. He understood his brother's character and foibles too well, and feared that notwithstanding his many admirable qualities, his vanity and want of firmness, or, in other words, of self-dependence, might overbalance them all. ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton

... honour, love, and a quiet mind, for what in the eternal countings is of no more consideration than the dust of the highroad. Not what a man has, but what he is,—this is the sole concern of Divine Equity. Earthly ideas of justice are in direct opposition to this law, but the finite can never overbalance the infinite. We may, if we so please, honour a king as king,—but with God there are no kings. There are only Souls, "made in His image." And whosoever defaces that Divine Image, whether he be base-born churl ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli

... the steel, while the attraction is assisted by the same inductive action. Make this clear to your minds, and verify it by your experiments. In some cases you can actually make the attraction due to the temporary magnetism overbalance the repulsion due to the permanent magnetism, and thus cause two poles of the same kind apparently to attract each other. When, however, good hard magnets act on each other from a sufficient distance, the inductive action practically vanishes, and the repulsion of ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall

... brute animals in proportion as thought prevails over sense: but in the healthy processes of the mind, a balance is constantly maintained between the impressions from outward objects and the inward operations of the intellect;—for if there be an overbalance in the contemplative faculty, man thereby becomes the creature of mere meditation, and loses his natural power of action. Now one of Shakspeare's modes of creating characters is, to conceive any one intellectual or moral faculty in morbid excess, and then to place himself, Shakspeare, thus mutilated ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge

... only then, Joe came to life. Leaping toward the door he seized the owner of the voice by the shoulders with a force that threatened to overbalance him. ...
— Glenloch Girls • Grace M. Remick

... is often one of great beauty, only here the variety is apt to overbalance the unity or run of the line. The most beautiful profiles are usually those in which variety is subordinated to the unity of the contour. I fancy the Greeks felt this when they did away with the hollow above the nose, making the line of the forehead run, with but little interruption, to the ...
— The Practice and Science Of Drawing • Harold Speed

... hypostyle hall, and again at Medinet Habu, the faults of the original design were not noticed till the sculptor had finished his part of the work. The figures of Seti I. and Rameses III. were thrown too far back, and threatened to overbalance themselves; so they were smoothed over with cement and cut anew. Now, the cement has flaked off, and the work of the first chisel is exposed to view. Seti I. and Rameses III. have each two profiles, the one very lightly marked, the other boldly ...
— Manual Of Egyptian Archaeology And Guide To The Study Of Antiquities In Egypt • Gaston Camille Charles Maspero

... though?" thought Blake. "Will he come back when he knows of the wrecking charge that may be made against him? Even the prospect of seeing Joe may not overbalance that. Yet, I suppose he could send for Joe. They couldn't make any charge against him over in China. ...
— The Moving Picture Boys on the Coast • Victor Appleton

... brownish-yellow; and the women were not ashamed to be seen in linsey-wolsey, woven in the same domestic loom. Knitting was then not only an accomplishment, but a useful art; and the size which a "yarn" stocking gave to a pretty ankle, was not suffered to overbalance the consideration of its comfort. The verge of nakedness was not then the region of modesty: the neck and its adjacent parts were covered in preference to the hands; and, in their barbarous ignorance, the women thought ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel

... represented to us by gravitation, and that of attachment or reduction into it, this and the other noble metals represented the units in which the latter tendency, namely, that of identity with the life of nature, subsisted in the greatest overbalance over the former. It is the form of unity with the least degree ...
— Hints towards the formation of a more comprehensive theory of life. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... justified IF the end attained is important enough to warrant it. In every case, then, the question must arise: Is the end to be attained worth the cost? To justify means that are intrinsically bad, it must be shown that the end attained is so good as to overbalance this evil. WAS the advancement of the Church worth the cost in human suffering, estrangement, and bitterness that the Jesuits exacted? IS the advancement of labor interests worth the destruction of property and life, the fostering of class-enmity and of moral ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake

... in hiding the goddess in a well; witness the light which Bacon has thrown upon philosophy; witness the principles of our divine faith—that moral mechanism by which the simplicity of a child may overbalance ...
— Edgar Allan Poe's Complete Poetical Works • Edgar Allan Poe

... sentimental reasons—which overbalance the strong temptation to continue "The Philistine"—I consider it a duty to pay him the tribute of discontinuing the little Magazine ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard

... and point out their beneficial consequences to society and to their possessor. In many cases this is an affair liable to great controversy: doubts may arise; opposite interests may occur; and a preference must be given to one side, from very nice views, and a small overbalance of utility. This is particularly remarkable in questions with regard to justice; as is, indeed, natural to suppose, from that species of utility which attends this virtue [Footnote: See App. II.]. Were every single instance of justice, like that of ...
— An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals • David Hume

... spite of philosophy, I am rather ashamed of this unceremonious exsiccation of your financial river. But indeed, my dear friend, the gratitude which I owe you for your society and attachment ought so far to overbalance this consideration as to leave me nothing but that. I must, however, pay you when ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various

... mind, against the life of the prisoner, should we not give some weight to presumptions from parental love, an affection at least as strong in favor of life? If concealment of the fact is a presumptive evidence of murder, so strong as to overbalance all other evidence that may possibly be produced to take away the presumption, why not trust the force of this incontestable presumption to the jury, who are, in a regular course, to hear presumptive, as well as positive testimony? If the presumption, arising from the act of concealment, may ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... all these drawbacks and then decide for yourselves whether the advantages of Christmas overbalance the drawbacks. For my part I believe that they do and I enjoy the day and the season. But don't take my word for ...
— Campfire Girls in the Allegheny Mountains - or, A Christmas Success against Odds • Stella M. Francis

... another hour of darkness. The little strength, just born of higher principles, was to be sorely tried. Gold was in one scale, and the heavenly riches that are without wings in the other. Which was to overbalance? ...
— True Riches - Or, Wealth Without Wings • T.S. Arthur

... experiments: to that side he inclines, with doubt and hesitation; and when at last he fixes his judgement, the evidence exceeds not what we properly call probability. All probability, then, supposes an opposition of experiments and observations, where the one side is found to overbalance the other, and to produce a degree of evidence, proportioned to the superiority. A hundred instances or experiments on one side, and fifty on another, afford a doubtful expectation of any event; though a hundred uniform experiments, with only one that is contradictory, reasonably beget a pretty strong ...
— An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding • David Hume et al

... destruction to equal that of the 600 Indians, it is liberal, giving a total of 40,000 Caribou killed by native hunters. As the whites rarely enter the region, this is practically all the destruction by man. The annual increase of 30,000,000 Caribou must be several millions and would so far overbalance the hunter toll that the latter cannot make ...
— The Arctic Prairies • Ernest Thompson Seton

... and payment had been made to the company. After this confession I hesitated long upon what I should do. On the one hand, I shrank from disgracing Doctor West. On the other, I had a duty to the city. After a long struggle I decided that my responsibility to the people of Westville should overbalance any feeling I might ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott

... said he, "failure is impossible. The expedition is to start at once, tomorrow night. No man in it has now any ties or home or kin that overbalance his ties to me and to the esprit de ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England

... so useful or profitable,' sighed poor Owen, striving to pull himself up by the table, but desisting on finding that it was more likely to overbalance than to be a support. 'My poor boy, you will have to work for me!' and he sadly ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge

... self-accusation does not amount to a confession of guilt, so, on the other, it is possible that, if it did, the benefit resulting to others from the record of an experience purchased at so heavy a price might compensate, by a vast overbalance, for any violence done to the feelings I have noticed, and justify a breach of the general rule. Infirmity and misery do not of necessity imply guilt. They approach or recede from shades of that dark alliance, in proportion to the probable motives ...
— Confessions of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas De Quincey

... near, so inescapably near. The sense of its smooth softness, its yieldingness, and the danger lurking beneath the flowing surface was acute. She tried more desperately to sit exactly in the middle of the boat, so that she should not overbalance it. She closed her eyes, sitting very still, and heard the water saying plup-plup-plup all round her, and she was afraid. It meant soft death: she could not forget that. Jenny could not swim. She was stricken between terror and joy that ...
— Nocturne • Frank Swinnerton

... temperament, which are too often of the melancholic or overcholeric type, our wonder grows that we are not doomed to defeat at birth. Were it not for the possibilities in the germ-plasm of choosing the much of good also in our heredity, often enough to overbalance the bad, and for the proved power of environment and training to modify or even altogether overcome the harmful parts of our birthright, there would be little hope ...
— Applied Psychology for Nurses • Mary F. Porter

... shelve, turn off radar and motor and start crawling. Eternal slow reach out, grab, shove, haul, with my heart in my mouth; then suddenly the nose breaks water and I am hauling myself out with a last wave doing its best to overbalance me. ...
— The Lost Kafoozalum • Pauline Ashwell

... to advantage. This, however, is a foible which most fond parents will be inclined to pardon. I wish I had half his piety, energy of mind, and zeal for the cause of God. These excellencies, in my opinion, so far overbalance all his defects that I am constrained to consider him a Christian far above the common run. I must now close this defence of Brother Marshman by repeating that all matters of furniture, convenience, etc., are things belonging to the economy of the station at Serampore, and that no one beside ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith

... But let there be no change by usurpation, for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly overbalance, in permanent evil, any partial or transient benefit which the use ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing

... Radchurch. She was there to meet me. It was the first time that we had been reunited since I had put all my heart and my soul upon her. I cannot enlarge upon these matters, gentlemen. You will either be able to sympathize with and understand the emotions which overbalance a man at such a time, or you will not. If you have imagination, you will. If you have not, I can never hope to make you see more than the bare fact. That bare fact, placed in the baldest language, is that during this drive from Radchurch Junction to the village I was led into ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle

... be able to hold her until his horse slackened speed, or would they both overbalance and hurtle to the ground together? Would there be time to stop the horse, or would they all be hurled into ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest

... before me the merit of obedience; and told me, that if it were my desire that my Norton should be present at the ceremony, it would be complied with: that the pleasure I should receive from reconciling al my friends to me, and in their congratulations upon it, must needs overbalance, with such a one as me, the difference of persons, however preferable I might think the one man to the other: that love was a fleeting thing, little better than a name, where mortality and virtue did not distinguish ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson

... was, to all outward appearances, as thriving as ever, with its busy population, its crowded and excellent shops, and its general evidences of opulence, which appeared to overbalance—or, in any case, wish to conceal—any existing poverty or distress. Among many friends we met was a French lady, formerly the Marquise d'Herve, but who had married, as her second husband, Comte Jacque de Waru. This enterprising couple were busy developing some mining claims which had been ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson

... a remedy, as so important a matter demands, I order you—after considering the aforesaid points and others of which you may be advised (since the matter is a current one), and difficulties that might arise, if you find, to the contrary, no others so important as to overbalance them—to give orders that there be no further trade or importation of the said merchandise and Chinese wares to that land for the purpose of sale. You will have the merchants engaged in this commerce advised and notified of this decree. You will provide for its public proclamation, indicating the ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume VI, 1583-1588 • Emma Helen Blair

... rightly conceived, so that its sculpture does not overbalance its use in the play of water, and admirably in tune with the flowery grace of the court. Beauty, pouring water from a Greek amphora, sits lightly upon the ugly Beast. Why she wears a smart Paris hat no one has discovered. Four cheery pipers, lively as crickets in the sun, support the upper ...
— The Jewel City • Ben Macomber

... gave directions for executing them. He found the different corps in good order, considering the irregular materials of which they were composed, in great force of numbers and high confidence and spirits. And so much did military experience at that moment overbalance all other claims to consequence, that even old Edie, instead of being left, like Diogenes at Sinope, to roll his tub when all around were preparing for defence, had the duty assigned him of superintending the serving ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott

... this interest benefited also by the mystery which invested the murders; mystery as to various points but especially as respected one important question, Had the murderer any accomplice? [Footnote: Upon a large overbalance of probabilities, it was, however, definitively agreed amongst amateurs that Williams must have been alone in these atrocities. Meantime, amongst the colorable presumptions on the other side was this:—Some ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey

... of a little more than a year at Bath had but one memorable event, in its course, to me. I was looking one evening, at bedtime, over the banisters, from the upper story into the hall below, with tiptoe eagerness that caused me to overbalance myself and turn over the rail, to which I clung on the wrong side, suspended, like Victor Hugo's miserable priest to the gutter of Notre Dame, and then fell four stories down on the stone pavement of the hall. I was not killed, or apparently ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble

... of Spiritualism would seem to indicate that the source from which it springs is far from good; but it is based upon a church dogma, firmly established through all Christendom, which in many minds is of sufficient weight to overbalance considerations that would otherwise be considered ample grounds for shunning or renouncing it. It is therefore the more necessary that the reader, in examining this question, should let the bonds that have heretofore bound him to preconceived ...
— Modern Spiritualism • Uriah Smith

... the senses, will seldom stand forward in the mind, but lie treasured in the remoter repositories of memory, to be found only when they are sought. Whatever any man may have written or done, his precepts or his valour will scarcely overbalance the unimportant uniformity which runs through his time. We do not easily consider him as great, whom our own eyes show us to be little; nor labour to keep present to our thoughts the latent excellencies of him, who shares with ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson

... and after being a mother, one is a human being; and neither the motherly nor the wifely destination can overbalance or replace the human, but must become ...
— Women and the Alphabet • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... soul by infusing a stupor or counterfeit peace of conscience. Where there are no sinkings of self-abasement, no griping sense of sin and worthlessness, but perhaps the contrary, reckless confidence and self-valuing for good qualities supposed an overbalance for the sins,—there it is not necessary. In short, these are not the truths, that can be preached [Greek: eukairos akairos], in season and out of season. In declining life, or at any time in the hour of sincere humiliation, these truths may be applied in reference ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge

... week that the collapse of a wooden house was caused by a sparrow stepping on it, we feel we ought to mention that, owing to a sudden gust of wind, the bird in question leaned to one side, and it was simply this movement which caused the house to overbalance. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 28th, 1920 • Various

... Daniel Brewster had on many occasions treated him with a good deal of austerity, his simple soul was pleased at the thought of doing him a good turn, He had just completed his work and was stepping cautiously down, when a voice behind him nearly caused him to overbalance. ...
— Indiscretions of Archie • P. G. Wodehouse

... her dark lightnings, yet visibly subject to him under the spell of the news he had artfully lengthened out to excite and overbalance her:—and her enthusiasm was all pointed to his share in the altered situation, as he well knew and was ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... fellow-citizens, to stations of great pre-eminence and power, may find compensations for betraying their trust, which, to any but minds animated and guided by superior virtue, may appear to exceed the proportion of interest they have in the common stock, and to overbalance the obligations of duty. Hence it is that history furnishes us with so many mortifying examples of the prevalency of foreign corruption in republican governments. How much this contributed to the ruin ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison

... him, the weight of his body overbalanced the resistance which the atmosphere offered to the broad surface of the kite; else he might have been carried much higher into the air. Equally fortunate was it, that the amount of overbalance was exceedingly slight—otherwise he might have been dashed with ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid

... of man as a mosaic of character, and we must modify this statement. A mosaic is a static collection, whereas a man has character struggles, balance and overbalance. Really to know a man is to get at the proportionate power of his various trends, to ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson

... across a corner of the Kingsbury farm that morning, to make the distance to his grandmother's shorter, in his unwise fashion, never considering that climbing walls and fences, paddling through the marshy meadows and contriving to get over the ditch would more than overbalance the few steps ...
— The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras and Other Stories • Various

... them together; and upon his death the huge fabric he had reared naturally fell to pieces. The Spanish Empire is but another instance showing that geographical and other elements of disconnection must not overbalance those which relate remote sections to each other, and bind them together in a common interest, else dissolution will be the result. In respect to the United States, all these conditions are reversed. Every interest in the natural course of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... was the happier; his son was a pride and pleasure to him, while Henry never thought upon his without lamenting his loss with bitterest anguish. But if the elder brother had in one instance the advantage, still Henry had a resource to overbalance this article. Henry, as he lay imprisoned in his dungeon, and when, his punishment being remitted, he was again allowed to wander, and seek his subsistence where he would, in all his tedious walks and solitary resting- places, ...
— Nature and Art • Mrs. Inchbald

... better. I concede, that all change may be only in appearance, and not make any real difference in the general amount of good and evil; that evil, to a certain invariable amount, may be necessary to the amount of good (the overbalance of which, with a most hearty and loving sincerity, I ever acknowledge); and finally, that all which the wisest of men could utter on any such subject, might possibly be nothing but a jargon,—the witless and puny voice of what we take to be a mighty orb, but which, after all, is only a particle ...
— Captain Sword and Captain Pen - A Poem • Leigh Hunt

... Which is best? I am so near daft that I cannot pretend to say; I only know that I shudder at the thought of going to New Orleans, and that my heart fails me when I think of the probable consequence to mother if I allow a mere outward sign of patriotism to overbalance what should be my first consideration—her health. For Clinton is growing no better rapidly. To be hungry is there an everyday occurrence. For ten days, mother writes, they have lived off just hominy enough to keep ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson

... sensorial power of association, which previously contributed to actuate them. This sensorial power of association therefore becomes accumulated, and by its superabundance contributes to actuate the link next in association, which has thus acquired so great a degree of associability, as to overbalance the less quantity of the excitement of it by the torpid action of the previous or first associate link. This happens to the capillaries, when the heart and arteries are affected as above by the torpor of the stomach, when it is occasioned by previous great expenditure ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. II - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin

... of the house giving on the road had been destroyed by a large shell. Over a gaping hole in the ceiling was a bed, its iron legs weirdly twisted, which threatened to overbalance at any minute and to come hurtling down into the hall beneath. Shattered picture frames still hung on the walls, and on the floor near at hand lay a rosary, the Crucifix crushed by some heedless boot. The furniture ...
— Mud and Khaki - Sketches from Flanders and France • Vernon Bartlett

... but, unfortunately, left him to the care of his mother, whom, as she was now set free from her husband, he, probably, imagined likely to treat with great tenderness the child that had contributed to so pleasing an event. It is not, indeed, easy to discover what motives could be found to overbalance that natural affection of a parent, or what interest could be promoted by neglect or cruelty. The dread of shame or of poverty, by which some wretches have been incited to abandon or to murder their ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson

... the pack-saddle, the traveller is safe. The saddle will certainly not fit, such is the imperfection of our transitory life; it will assuredly topple and tend to overset; but there are stones on every roadside, and a man soon learns the art of correcting any tendency to overbalance ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... it, that as Mr. Hume remarks, there is in Rymer's Foedera a proclamation of Richard, in which he accuses, not the lord Hastings, but the marquis Dorset, of connexion with Jane Shore. Mr. Hume thinks so authentic a paper not sufficient to overbalance the credit due to Sir Thomas More. What little credit was due to him appears from the course of this work in various and indubitable instances. The proclamation against the lord Dorset and Jane Shore is not dated till the 23rd. of October following. Is it credible that Richard would have made ...
— Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the Third • Horace Walpole

... your vacation begin my questions domestic that threaten to overbalance your questions horticultural. If the Infant should wail at night, do you expect to stay quietly out "in camp" and not steal on tiptoe to the house, and at least peep in at the window? Also, you have put a match-making thought in a head swept clean of all ...
— The Garden, You, and I • Mabel Osgood Wright

... expression more comical than play. Her latest invention is drill. She stands straight up in her chair, and goes through certain actions intended to represent as much as she knows of that interesting exercise. We are kept anxious lest she should overbalance; but she is a wary babe, and always suddenly sits down when she gets to the edge of a tumble. Sometimes, however, when these diversions are in progress, we have wished that the family could see how very much more entertaining she is in her own nursery. There, from ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael

... himself, and dulls his faculties against the deformities and discords of his own creating. From the sense of feeling it is probable we receive more pain than pleasure, but by no means so much more as to overbalance the great preponderance of delights coming through the other avenues: a great part of such pain is cautionary, and much can be avoided by voluntary action; and the stimulus thus given by the wise severity of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various

... the practical operation of the scheme, the evils which are dreaded and foreseen might be mitigated and avoided; but this is very far from the case, and the evils will, in all probability, more than overbalance the good which humanity aims at effecting; nor is it possible to view the settlement (as it is called, for all changes are settlements now-a-days) of this question without a misgiving that it will only produce some other great topic for public ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville

... heap of paltry metal Should overbalance manhood's noblest graces; A film of gold had gilt his worth and honor, Warming to smiles the coldness of their faces; Gentle to me, they rise in condemnation, And plead with me than words more powerfully. Oh! well I love them—but ...
— Poems • Marietta Holley

... of, and objections to, the story of 'Ada Reis' can only be got over by power of writing, beauty of sentiment, striking and effective situation, etc. If Mr. Gifford thinks there is in the first two volumes anything of excellence sufficient to overbalance their manifest faults, I still hope that he will press upon Lady Caroline the absolute necessity of carefully reconsidering and revising the third volume, and particularly the conclusion ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles

... prudent, ha, ha, ha! the world will say, Lard! who could have thought Mr Luckless had had so much prudence? This one action will overbalance all the ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding

... of connection are so strong that they overbalance all discrepancies of single passages, interpolations, and inconsistencies of detail. Still, if the mind of the critic refuses the general sweep, and insists upon prying asunder the joints, and upon looking through its microscope at the little things, it will find only separation, ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider

... of that, and reasons against it," he said, thoughtfully. "I am inclined, however, to think that the arguments in favor overbalance the objections; still, the serious objection is, that a faithful teacher wants little personal talks with her pupils, and will contrive to be personal in a way that she cannot do so well in a ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden

... and adjustment overbalance a hundred times any little remnant defects in its machinery or gearing. Easily ninety-nine per cent of all our troubles through life are due to inevitable wear and tear, scarcity of food-fuel, of water, of rest, and external accidents—injuries and infectious diseases. Still, ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson

... climbing out of the tangle of crushed cars and bent and twisted iron-work to stand beside Lidgerwood on the main-line embankment. Then to the men who were making the snatch-hitch for the next pull: "A little farther back, boys; farther yet, so she won't overbalance on you; that's ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde

... review of Shakspeare's life, it becomes our duty to take a summary survey of his works, of his intellectual powers, and of his station in literature, a station which is now irrevocably settled, not so much (which happens in other cases) by a vast overbalance of favorable suffrages, as by acclamation; not so much by the voices of those who admire him up to the verge of idolatry, as by the acts of those who everywhere seek for his works among the primal necessities ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey

... put her into college the next year was spent, and there was no present prospect of replacing it. Her mother was now home from the hospital and fully on the road to recovery, and Migwan tried to make her happiness over this fact overbalance her disappointment at her own loss. None of her stories or picture plays had been accepted, and of late she had had to give up writing, for with her mother sick most of the housework fell on her shoulders. Although she maintained a bright and cheery exterior, she went about ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey

... consequence of the mixed principles resulting from mixed marriages, or of other unforeseen causes, he may be so alarmed about the unsteady disposition of his children and their future prospects, that the pain which he feels on these accounts may overbalance the pleasure, which he acknowledges in the constant prudence, goodness, solicitude, and affection, of his wife. This may be so much the case, that all her consolatory offices may not be able to get the better ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume II (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson

... strongly put," remarked Mr. Lilburn, reflectively. "I'm afraid I'll have to give it up. What say you, sir?" turning to Mr. Daly, "has a man a right to a choice in such a matter as this? a right to injure his body—to say nothing of the mind—by a self-indulgence the pleasure of which seems to him to overbalance the possible or ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley

... husband of Mary, had been rather a gay young man, and this, with some other things which had come to his ears, created a prejudice in the mind of Mr. Howland against him. As to what was good in Markland, and likely to overbalance defects, he did not inquire. The hue of his prejudice colored everything. Men like Mr. Howland, who seek to bend everything into forms suited to their own narrow range of ideas, are rarely successful in attaining their ends. The principle of freedom is too deeply interwoven ...
— The Iron Rule - or, Tyranny in the Household • T. S. Arthur

... necessarily becomes indebted to the latter in a greater sum than the latter becomes indebted to it: the debts and credits of each do not compensate one another, and money must be sent out from that place of which the debts overbalance the credits. The ordinary course of exchange, therefore, being an indication of the ordinary state of debt and credit between two places, must likewise be an indication of the ordinary course of their exports and imports, as these ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith

... little for the nude, for the delicate curves of the body and the exquisite colors of flesh. Yet to overbalance this disregard of beautiful form was his strong predilection for finery. None ever loved better the play of light upon jewels and satin and armor, the rich effectiveness of Oriental stuffs and ecclesiastical vestments. Unable to gratify this taste in the portraits which he painted ...
— Rembrandt - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures and a Portrait of the - Painter with Introduction and Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll

... confusion of the flourishing of commerce, and the protection and encouragement of letters and arts. Never was the commercial spirit so well reconciled to the nobler principles of social polity as in Florence. It tended there to union and permanence and elevation,—not as the overbalance of it in England is now doing, to dislocation, change and moral degradation. The intensest patriotism reigned in these communities, but confined and attached exclusively to the small locality of the patriot's birth ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge

... is, that the benefits of law to the subject should overbalance its burdens—its protection more than compensate for its restraints and exactions—and its blessings altogether outweigh its inconveniences and evils—the former being numerous, positive, and permanent, the latter few, negative, and incidental. ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... reward; and though it is the fashion to talk and write much of the griefs of intellect, I believe human sorrow is more equally divided than we acknowledge, and that the joys resulting from high gifts far overbalance ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 5. May 1848 • Various

... galizabra, still in the shipyard—which was launched a few days before the departure—called "San Bartolome," to act as almiranta; and a Portuguese patache [26] which had come from Malaca—with artillery, men, and munitions sufficient to overbalance the greater strength of the enemy. Doctor Antonio de Morga, auditor of this royal Audiencia, was appointed captain-general of this fleet, an appointment which highly displeased the old captains, because in their opinion ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume XI, 1599-1602 • Various

... one to consider seriously any scheme of emigration from America as a method of solution of our vexed race problem. At most, even if the government were to provide the means, but a few hundred thousand could be transported each year. The yearly increase in population would more than overbalance the number transplanted. Even if it did not, the time required to get rid of the Negro by this method would perhaps be fifty or seventy-five ...
— The Future of the American Negro • Booker T. Washington

... apparent to command the assent of three-fourths of the States, the best possible reason why the power should not be assumed on doubtful authority is afforded; for if more than one-fourth of the States are unwilling to make the grant its exercise will be productive of discontents which will far overbalance any advantages that could be derived from it. All must admit that there is nothing so worthy of the constant solicitude of this Government as the harmony and union ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, - Vol. 2, Part 3, Andrew Jackson, 1st term • Edited by James D. Richardson

... powers are dissipated by his inability to restrain his passions. The tragic fate which hovers over him from the moment of his birth is admirably hinted at, but not emphasized, in the sketch of his parents. The carnal overbalance, supplied by the blood of the Kurts, wellnigh neutralizes the mechanical genius which is hereditary in the ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... did so, Mr. Silk snarled again, raised his head and bit blindly, fastening his teeth in the flesh of the left hand. Langton wrenched free and, as the man scrambled to his feet, dealt him with the same hand a smashing blow on the mouth—a blow that sent him reeling, to overbalance and pitch backward to the floor again ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... moral science. We know that we are susceptible of receiving painful or pleasurable impressions of greater or less intensity and duration. That is called good which produces pleasure; that is called evil which produces pain. These are general names, applicable to every class of causes, from which an overbalance of pain or pleasure may result. But when a human being is the active instrument of generating or diffusing happiness, the principle through which it is most effectually instrumental to that purpose, is called virtue. And benevolence, ...
— A Defence of Poetry and Other Essays • Percy Bysshe Shelley

... this letter, which will be sent you from London, the good and the bad accounts together. For the Flanders war, I fear the latter overbalance the former; there is, however, in my opinion, very little reason to be discouraged at these checks, which must be expected whenever the French took the resolution to leave the sieges on the side of Hainault to their fate, in order to break ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham

... while I wash this child's face. I can't take 'im through the streets in this state." She turned upon the boy. "Here, you just kneel down—so—with your face over the water, an' as near as you can manage." He obeyed in silence. He was still trembling. "That's right, on'y take care you don't overbalance." She knelt beside him, dipped both hands in the water, and began to work the soap into a lather. "What's the 'andiest way to the Good Samaritan?" she asked, speaking over ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... misty length. Should her brother's aimless footsteps stray thitherward, and he but bend, one moment, over the deep, black tide, would he not bethink himself that here was the sure refuge within his reach, and that, with a single step, or the slightest overbalance of his body, he might be forever beyond his kinsman's gripe? Oh, the temptation! To make of his ponderous sorrow a security! To sink, with its leaden weight upon him, and never ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... formidable opposition to the break-up of these unnatural alliances between east and west, between Democracy and Autocracy, between the twentieth century and the Dark Ages, will not come from the Balancers of Power. They are not really Balance of Power alliances: in fact, they are tending to an enormous overbalance of power in favor of the east as against the west and in favor of Militarist Autocracy as against Democracy. They are at root absolutely unpatriotic, even absolutely conscienceless products of commercial finance; and the Balance of Power theories are only the attempts of our ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various

... good plan. Hollerith obviously wasn't sure of his own men any more—and neither would I have been, in his spot. But he had the advantage of surprise and superior arms; he was clearly hoping that would overbalance the lack of discipline, training and order in his force. Besides, there was nothing else he could do; he was outvoted, all the way down ...
— The Man Who Played to Lose • Laurence Mark Janifer

... examine the business of those of my family living by law, to KNOW that it's the truth. Of course there's another side! There are times when there are great opportunities to do good; I recognize that. To some these may seem to overbalance that to which I object. If they do, all right. I am merely deciding for myself. Once and for all, for me it is land. It is born in me to love it, to handle it easily, to get the best results from stock. I am going to take the Merriweather place adjoining ours on the west, and ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter

... forth our warmest gratitude; for so singularly benevolent have those parental intentions been, that where barrenness of soil or severity of climate prevail, there she has implanted in the heart of man, sentiments which overbalance every misery, and supply the place of every want. She has given to the inhabitants of these regions, an attachment to their savage rocks and wild shores, unknown to those who inhabit the fertile fields of the temperate zone. ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur

... had diminished the nuns and priests had increased, and Father Murphy must hold that Ireland must become one vast monastery, and the laity ought to become extinct, or he must agree with Mr. Carmady that there was a point when a too numerous clergy would overbalance ...
— The Untilled Field • George Moore

... for the tranquillity of private families, that there should be public women. Who can fairly estimate the extent of the mischief which they produce, or of that which they obviate? Who can accurately determine the best means for bringing the good to overbalance the evil? But, supposing the necessity of the measure, would it not be proper to prevent, as much as possible, that complete mixture by which virtuous females are often ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon

... Eurie Mitchell. She can do it, and she is looking forward to just that sort of thing, for I heard her rejoicing over it. That girl will be injured by Chautauqua; I know it as well as though I already saw it; and the question with me is, whether the amount of evil done will not overbalance the good. At the same time I am inconsistent enough to wish with all my heart that ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy

... untie them at leisure with art and skill, but truly it would be a readier and wiser course to cut them in pieces at one stroke, by this piercing and pungent precept. If your reasons and scruples be weighty, and you cannot get answers to overbalance them, I pray you put this weighty seal of divine authority into the balance, and sure I am it will weigh down all. Consider then the danger of it. It is the last and most peremptory command, after which ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... "whence this friendship comes. It comes from self-interest. She is the absorbing power of the Eastern continent, and she recognizes us as the absorbing power of the western continent; and through friendship for us she desires to override and overbalance the governments of Europe which are between ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine

... "remember, my pet, that you are the protege of—of, as I may assert, of wealth and station, and though born I don't know where, and bred in the Poor-House, the fact that you have my protection is enough to overbalance that. You understand, Isabel—by the way, I think it best to call you Isabel Farnham now—with your beauty the thing will pass off without question; with that face, nothing would seem more natural than that I should be your real mamma; so, be ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens

... insults might be, addressed to a cardinal, to a minister in possession of entire confidence, and at the head of affairs, the public, who envied him and did not like him, well remembering whence he had sprung, would consider the victim too illustrious; that the chastisement would overbalance the offence, and would be complained of; that violent resolutions, although necessary, should always have reason and appearances in their favour; that therefore I was against allowing punishment to follow too quickly ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon

... Cook county is Republican in politics generally, the rural districts being so strongly so as often to overbalance the normal Democratic plurality in Chicago. Thus another ground of jealousy is found In the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various

... these reasonings be sound, little room can remain for doubt that the evils certain to arise from such a scheme of currency, if adopted as a permanent system, greatly overbalance the temporary though not inconsiderable advantages offered ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. IV. October, 1863, No. IV. - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... over-bear both patriotism and honor, under the sting of what was regarded as unparalleled wrong, insult, and outrage; but there had been time enough for anger to cool, and for his people to look with calmness to the future that lay before, and let its hopes and duties overbalance the disappointments of the past. He freely admitted that had the question of reconstruction been submitted to him for determination, he would not have adopted the plan which had prevailed; but since it had been adopted ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee

... declined—there could be little question in any man's mind, that eventually he would win his way to a solitary throne, by a policy so full of caution and subtlety. He was sure to risk nothing which could be had on easier terms; and nothing, unless for a great overbalance of gain in prospect; to lose nothing which he had once gained; and in no case to miss an advantage, or sacrifice an opportunity, by any consideration of generosity. No modern insurance office but would have guaranteed an event depending upon the final success ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey

... Saxon kinship or the fine qualities of the collection, we have found this volume the most entertaining of the three. Its riotous absurdities well overbalance its examples of the oppressively heavy.... The national impulse to make fun of the war correspondent has a capital example in the skit from Julius ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson

... like; but don't think. You have been fretting over some little personal troubles until you fancy them heavy enough to overbalance the world. But they won't. And I'm not going to try and persuade you into Haydon's house, either, now that you've been good to me; unless, of course, you fall in love with Margaret, and want to be with her, and it is likely to happen. But Uncle Seldon and my aunts will be delighted ...
— That Girl Montana • Marah Ellis Ryan

... and of hearing her voice. That would compensate for all things, no matter how horrible, except one; but that one outweighed the rest. The certainty that his whole life hereafter must be one long act of treachery to Greif must overbalance everything else. ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford

... The reviewer censured some attacks upon contemporaries—a reference obviously to the lines upon Dennis—which the author had admitted into his "very fine poem;" but there were compliments enough to overbalance this slight reproof. Pope wrote a letter of acknowledgment to Steele, overflowing with the sincerest gratitude of a young poet on his first recognition by a high authority. Steele, in reply, disclaimed the article, and promised to introduce Pope ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen

... the attitude of striking, looks as if he could fell an ox with a single blow of his powerful arm. The other is a more lithe and agile figure, and there is a quick fire in his countenance which might overbalance the massive strength ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor

... advantage of a stolen cheapness over a first-rate one on the same subject by an American, but may even be the means of suppressing it altogether. The intellectual position of an American is so favorable for the treatment of European history as to overbalance in some instances the disadvantages arising from want of access to original documents; yet an American author whose work was yet in manuscript could not possibly compete with an English rival, even of far inferior ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 6, No. 33, July, 1860 • Various

... Figures, custom-house reports, imports and exports, commerce and revenue—all flourishing, all splendid! Never was such a prosperous country as England under his administration! Let it be objected, that the agriculture of the country is, by the overbalance of commerce, and by various and complex causes, in such a state, that the country hangs as a pensioner for bread on its neighbours, and a bad season uniformly threatens us with famine. This (it is replied) is owing to our PROSPERITY,—all 'prosperous' nations are in great distress ...
— The Life of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - 1838 • James Gillman

... paddle! She has taken the paddle!" Even as she objected she obeyed. The frail craft rocked as she slid into it, careful only not to overbalance; next moment it rocked more dangerously and then settled evenly into the water under the ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay

... tenth century biographers of Declan and Mochuda. Dreamers and visionaries were of as frequent occurrence in Erin of ages ago as they are to-day. Then as now the supernatural and marvellous had a wondrous fascination for the Celtic mind. Sometimes the attraction becomes so strong as seemingly to overbalance the faculty of distinguishing fact from fancy. Of St. Bridget we are gravely told that to dry her wet cloak she hung in out on a sunbeam! Another Saint sailed away to a foreign land on a sod from his native hillside! More than once we find a flagstone turned ...
— The Life of St. Mochuda of Lismore • Saint Mochuda

... attraction, I know, but I cannot resist it. There is something wicked in every man's nature; I am conscious enough that there is something detestably wicked in mine, and I have not sufficient goodness to overbalance it. And this woman,—this silent, gliding, glittering-eyed creature that has suddenly taken possession of my fancy—she overcomes me in spite of myself; she makes havoc of all the good intentions of my life. ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli

... (and many times in the course of a month) carries out numbers of beautifully-written letters, and more from women than from men; not that men are to be supposed less capable of writing good letters,—and, in fact, amongst all the celebrated letter writers of past or present times, a large overbalance happens to have been men,—but that more frequently women write from their hearts; and the very same cause operates to make female letters good which operated at one period to make the diction of Roman ladies more pure than that of orators or professional cultivators ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey



Words linked to "Overbalance" :   outweigh, calculate, predominate, account, reign



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