"Blemish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... clasp thine ankles fine In noble leather, that no dust or mire Blemish thy foot; down from thy shoulders flow Loosely a tunic fair, thy shapely arms Cased in its closely-fitting sleeves, whose borders Of crimson or of azure velvet let The heliotrope's color tinge. Thy slender throat, Encircle with a soft and gauzy band. Thy watch already ...
— Modern Italian Poets • W. D. Howells
... MOUNTNEY. Nature unjust, in utterance of thy art, To grace a peasant with a Princes fame! Peasant am I, so to misterm my love: Although a millers daughter by her birth, Yet may her beauty and her vertues well suffice To hide the blemish of her birth in hell, Where neither envious eyes nor thought can pierce, But endless darkness ever smother it. Go, William Conqueror, and seek thy love, Whilest I draw back and court mine own the while, Decking her body with such costly robes As may become her beauties worthiness; ...
— Fair Em - A Pleasant Commodie Of Faire Em The Millers Daughter Of - Manchester With The Love Of William The Conquerour • William Shakespeare [Apocrypha]
... memorial of Rene, king of Sicily, was presented with a portrait he had drawn of himself: why is it not in like manner lawful for every one to draw himself with a pen, as he did with a crayon? I will not, therefore, omit this blemish though very unfit to be published, which is irresolution; a very great effect and very incommodious in the negotiations of the affairs of the world; in doubtful enterprises, I know not which ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... at the best, pure from all those defiling Ingredients, and free from the blemish of a Vicious Resort, a condition so perfect as we never yet saw the Theater in: All this would not make it a Place to be greatly frequented by those, that desire to keep their Minds in a suitable frame. No one wou'd ...
— A Letter to A.H. Esq.; Concerning the Stage (1698) and The - Occasional Paper No. IX (1698) • Anonymous
... girl's name was not a pretty one; but as she was promptly christened Georgina by Georgie Porgie, the blemish did not matter. Georgie Porgie thought well of the petting and the general comfort, and vowed that he had never spent five hundred rupees to ...
— Life's Handicap • Rudyard Kipling
... of a trade; but he of grim aspect, and such a one a glass dares take, and she will desire him for newness and variety. A scar in a man's face is the same that a mole in a woman's, is a jewel set in white to make it seem more white, for a scar in a man is a mark of honour and no blemish, for 'tis a scar and a blemish in a soldier to be without one. Now, as for all things else which are to procure love, as a good face, wit clothes, or a good body, each of them, I confess, may work somewhat for want of a better, that is, if valour be not their rival. A good ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... himself given, and taken. Woman, eternal woman, she is the communicant. She receives the sacramental body and spirit of the man. And when she's got it, according to her passionate and all-too-sacred desire, completely, when she possesses her man at last finally and ultimately, without blemish or reservation in the perfection of the sacrament: then, also, poor woman, the blood and the body of which she has partaken become insipid or nauseous to her, she is driven mad by the endless meal of the marriage sacrament, poisoned by the ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... blemish, the Semitic religions practised human immolations longer than any other religion, sacrificing children and grown men in order to please sanguinary gods. In spite of Hadrian's prohibition of those murderous offerings,[42] they were maintained in certain clandestine rites and in the lowest ...
— The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism • Franz Cumont
... not be misunderstood; we well know that the humorous, the grotesque, the sublime may use ugliness to serve their own legitimate purposes, but then that ugliness must be humorous, grotesque, or sublime, and not flat, prosy, or revolting. A blemish is by no means necessarily an ugliness. A leaf nibbled by insects and consequently discolored, a lad with ragged jacket and soiled trowsers, a peasant girl with bent hat and tattered gown, are often more picturesque objects than the perfect leaf or ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... of thy thoughts From every blemish free, While the Redeemer's lowly faith Its temple ...
— Hymns for Christian Devotion - Especially Adapted to the Universalist Denomination • J.G. Adams
... a bullock of two years old, and without blemish, is offered as a whole burnt-offering in a green porcelain furnace which stands close beside the altar. The emperor's life is largely occupied with ceremonial observances, and custom ordains that except on state occasions he should not leave the walls ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... and Lincoln, which only the future was to make plain. By all that it did know, it ought to have given the honor to Seward, who merited it by the high offices which he had held with distinction and without blemish, by the leadership which he had acquired in the party through long-continued constancy and courage, by the force and clearness with which he had maintained its principles, by his experience and supposed natural aptitude in the higher ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... most high God, which show unto us the way of salvation?' Yes it was, as is evident, for Paul was grieved to hear it. But why did the devil stir up her to cry so, but because that was the way to blemish the gospel, and to make the world think that it came from the same hand as did her soothsaying and witchery? (verse 16-18). 'Holiness, O Lord, becomes thy house for ever.' Let, therefore, whoever they be that profess ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... fichue position c'etait le sacre pigeon, ventre de Dieu! Entweder transubstantiality ODER consubstantiality but in no case subsubstantiality. And all cried out upon it for a very scurvy word. A pregnancy without joy, he said, a birth without pangs, a body without blemish, a belly without bigness. Let the lewd with faith and fervour worship. With will will ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... their deeds as men and the artistic thoughts for which they seem to be the unconscious media, that it is inspiring to come into touch with one who rings true as a man whatever demands are made upon him; whose music is free from morbidity or carnal blemish, as pure as the winter wind, as elemental as the ocean, as uplifting as the stars. In Bach let us always remember the noble human traits; for the universal regard in which his work is held could never have come merely from profound skill in workmanship, but is due ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... career as that of Nelson ahead, the delay imposed by this wrangling episode is somewhat dreary; but it undeniably shows his characteristics in the strongest light. Duty, not ease; honor, not gain; the ideal, not the material,—such, not indeed without frailty and blemish, were ever his motives. And, while he craved his reward in the approval and recognition of those around and above him, he could find consolation for the lack of them in his own sense of right-doing. "That thing called Honour," he writes ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... steadfast nerve that he inherits from his ancestor, and respectable in the symmetry of an intellect which, like a marble masterpiece, leaves nothing to regret except the thought that its perfection excludes the blemish of a soul. John Sherman will figure creditably in history. Mankind soon forgets the sentimental acrimony of the moment, provoked by the suffering of harsh processes, and remembers only the grand results. Thus John Sherman will ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... used to tell the slave dealers regularly and exactly one lie every year, so that they fell out with one another, till at last my master lost patience with me and, carrying me down to the market, ordered the brokers to cry, "Who will buy this slave, knowing his blemish and making allowance for it?" He did so and they asked him, "Pray, what may be his blemish?" and he answered, "He telleth me one single lie every year." Now a man that was a merchant came up and said to the broker, "How much ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... again, as we have seen, has fixed another intellectual blemish upon them by the imputation of superstition. But how does superstition enter, but where there is a want of knowledge? Does not all history bear testimony, that in proportion as men have been more or less ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... We do not know what kind of a spot it is; perhaps it is a soup stain, perhaps it is due to a shrimp salad we had with Endymion at that amusing place that calls itself the Crystal Palace; we will not attempt to trace the origin of that swarthy blemish on the soft silk of our tie; but we have cunningly taught ourself to knot the thing so that the spot does not show. (Good, we have made that plain: we are ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... wives, even as Christ also loved the Church, | and gave himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it | with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it | to himself a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or | any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish. | So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that | loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his | own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord | the Church: for we are ...
— The Book of Common Prayer - and The Scottish Liturgy • Church of England
... of himself in another mood. How much more when that other is distinguished from his fellows by the greatness and singularity of his thoughts, and by the extreme subtilty of their connecting links. Obscurity is not a blemish but an excellence, if the pains of seeking are more than compensated by the pleasures of finding, the luxury of [Greek: mathesis], where the concentrated energy of a passage, when once understood, gives it a hold on the imagination and memory such ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 78, April 26, 1851 • Various
... Empire, and a Knight of the Most Noble Order of the Garter. Look well at me! I am Hereditary Comber of the Queen's Lap-Dogs. I am young. I am handsome. My temper is sweet, and my character without blemish. In fine, Miss Dobson, I am a ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... redemption of believers is perfect and finished, neither needing nor suffering any human additions. The righteousness of Christ fully justifies all that believe, while the fountain that he opened washes away all their defilements, and presents them at the judgment-seat, without spot or blemish, their robes being washed and made white in the blood of ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... who are seated in a row along an extended board table before two divisions with partitions ten or twelve inches high, affording spaces for the sheets before and after sorting. The work of inspection is performed by women, who detect almost instantly any blemish or imperfection in the finished product as it passes through their hands. If the paper is to be ruled for writing purposes, it is then taken to the ruling machines, where it is passed under revolving discs ...
— A Book of Exposition • Homer Heath Nugent
... the Haarlem Tulip Society offered a prize of 100,000 guilders to whomsoever should produce a large black tulip, without spot or blemish. Van Baerle at once thought out the idea of the black tulip. He had already achieved a dark brown one, while Boxtel, who had only managed to produce a light brown one, gave up the quest as impossible, and could do nothing but ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... against a Christian land. The Albigensian crusade succeeded in destroying the most dangerous and widespread popular heresy that Christianity had witnessed since the fall of the Roman Empire, and Innocent rejoiced that his times saw the Church purged of its worst blemish. But in extending the benefits of a crusade to Christians fighting against Christians, he handed on a precedent which was soon fatally abused by his successors. In crushing out the young national life of Southern France the papacy ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... Pimp, and all that I cou'd say, might as well have been let alone. I had no Estate but what I sold, and gave to a Courtier to get this Regiment, after I had served many Years as a Captain, without the least Blemish in my Character. I have since been in almost a starving Condition, and have wearied my self out with Petitions to no Purpose; for if any, as very few, were received, they were never answered, and perhaps never read. I have therefore no Hopes but what are founded on your Charity: I see ...
— A Voyage to Cacklogallinia - With a Description of the Religion, Policy, Customs and Manners of That Country • Captain Samuel Brunt
... Julia, rising, "if you can point out one single blemish in Captain Headland's character, if you can produce one sufficient reason, I would obey you so far as to set him free; but, at the same time, I must tell you I could never marry another. You, however, can allege no just reason why I should not marry him, and I will not utter a falsehood, ...
— Won from the Waves • W.H.G. Kingston
... heed to these two essentials of seemly composition, and the inferior ones run riot in licentious spacing, thereby producing, inter alia, those ugly rivers of lines running about the page which are such a blemish to decent printing. Third, the whites between the lines should not be excessive; the modern practice of 'leading' should be used as little as possible, and never without some definite reason, such as marking some special ...
— The Art and Craft of Printing • William Morris
... prone to reveal What lies deep in their natures; a voice rarely lies, But Mabel Lee's voice told one tale, while her eyes Told another. Large, liquid, and peaceful as lakes Where the azure dawn rests, ere the loud world awakes, Were the beautiful eyes of the maiden. "A saint, Without mortal blemish or weak human taint," Said Maurice to himself. To himself Roger said: "The touch of her soft little hands on my head Would convert me. What peace for a world weary breast To just sit by her side and ...
— Three Women • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... far from attempting to cast a blemish on the opera, or to excommunicate Signor Senesino or Signora Cuzzoni. With regard to myself, I could presume to wish that the magistrates would suppress I know not what contemptible pieces written against the stage. For when the English and Italians hear that ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... good Crystal, as free as possible from blemish, care must be taken to keep it is much as possible in a dark place when not in use. The best covering therefore is a black one of soft material, such as velvet, which will not scratch the polished surface of the quartz.[*] Exposure to the sun's rays not only scores the faces of the ...
— How to Read the Crystal - or, Crystal and Seer • Sepharial
... sight, to whom he did not wish to give explanations to the prejudice of any of his fellow-students. Mr Fraser, however, saw his black eye well enough, but was too discreet to ask questions, and appeared quite unaware of the transitory blemish. ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... we regard as exaltation of the landscape may be really such, as respects only the moral or human point of view. Each alteration of the natural scenery may possibly effect a blemish in the picture, if we can suppose this picture viewed at large—in mass—from some point distant from the earth's surface, although not beyond the limits of its atmosphere. It is easily understood ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... ceased, and Christian kings ruled throughout the world, then others too in succession emulated the Martyrs' zeal and divine desire, and, wounded at heart with the same love, considered well how they might present soul and body without blemish unto God, by cutting off all the workings of sinful lusts and purifying themselves of every defilement of flesh and spirit. But, as they perceived that this could only be accomplished by the keeping of the commandments ...
— Barlaam and Ioasaph • St. John of Damascus
... that such a view of the atonement does not in the least degree conflict with the justice of God. It merely teaches, that God has provided for the salvation of the world by the sufferings of Jesus Christ, who was without spot or blemish. Surely we cannot find it in our hearts to object, that the sufferings of Christ for such a purpose are not consistent with the justice of God, if we will only read a single page in the great volume of nature and of providence. It has been said by Bishop Butler, that such an objection ...
— A Theodicy, or, Vindication of the Divine Glory • Albert Taylor Bledsoe
... been considered but the benefit of the contractor, and for this purpose the solicitude shown in all the provisions could not be exceeded. One of the first things that struck Mr. Hastings as a blemish on his gift was the largeness of the penalty which he had on former occasions settled as the sanction of the contract: this he now discovered to be so great as to be likely to frustrate its end by the impossibility ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... previously marked takes place: those in which no defect can be found receive a second mark, and the rest are condemned. A few months afterwards a third and last scrutiny is made; the prime rams and ewes receive a third and final mark, but the slightest blemish is sufficient to cause the rejection of the animal." These sheep are bred and valued almost exclusively for the fineness of their wool; and the result corresponds with the labour bestowed on their selection. Instruments have been ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... Man's Name, hiding one Thought of him, and explaining what you hide by saying something to his Advantage when you speak, a Merchant hurt in his Credit; and him who, every Day he lived, literally added to the Value of his Native Country, undone by one who was only a Burthen and a Blemish to it. Since every Body who knows the World is sensible of this great Evil, how careful ought a Man to be in his Language of a Merchant? It may possibly be in the Power of a very shallow Creature to lay the Ruin of the best Family in the most opulent ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... defileth, neither what worketh abomination nor maketh a lie," would alone satisfy him, or rather alone not give him actual pain. It may give an idea of this exquisite nicety of feeling to mention, that one day he took in his fingers a half-bloomed rose, without blemish, and, smiling with an infinite joy, remarked, "This is perfect. On earth a flower ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... various earlier documents.[168] The Firbolgs, defeated in the first battle, join the Fomorians, after great losses. Meanwhile Nuada, leader of the Tuatha De Danann, lost his hand, and as no king with a blemish could sit on the throne, the crown was given to Bres, son of the Fomorian Elatha and his sister Eri, a woman of the Tuatha De Danann. One day Eri espied a silver boat speeding to her across the sea. From it stepped forth a magnificent hero, and without ...
— The Religion of the Ancient Celts • J. A. MacCulloch
... have been in an agony of impatience to be alone with his beloved, commanded his feelings admirably. He signified his approbation of the poem by saying that the lines were smooth and the rhymes absolutely without blemish. The stanzas reminded him forcibly of one of the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various
... how different she was from Miss Laura, who loved any creature all the more for having some blemish about it. "What shall I do?" said Mrs. Montague. "I miss my little bird so much. I shall have to get a new one. Carl, will you ...
— Beautiful Joe - An Autobiography of a Dog • by Marshall Saunders
... and Angle; but Thorbiorn Angle showed forth his weapons first; and he had the short-sword, Grettir's-loom; but when he showed it many praised it and said that it was an exceeding good weapon, but that it was a great blemish, that notch in the edge thereof; and asked him withal what ...
— The Story of Grettir The Strong • Translated by Eirikr Magnusson and William Morris
... friendly to her, from long association, and moving the mantel ornaments to occupy the old places more exactly. Certain eccentricities of the place had been faults; now they were beauties wherein she found no blemish. The worn hollows in the kitchen floor, so hard to wash on a Monday, seemed exactly to fit her feet. And while she stood with her elbows on the window-sash, looking out and planning her garden, Jake Preble ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... altar; for we deduce from the repetition of the word "man" (in Lev. xvii.) that the non-Jews can offer voluntary sacrifices, like the Israelites]; thou wilt see if they sacrifice it." Caesar sent a calf without a blemish, but in transit a blemish appeared on the large lip [the upper lip], others say on the lid of the eye (dokin (Dalet Vav Qof Yod FinalNun)) ["tela,"[112] as in Is. xl. 22 Dok (Dalet Vav Qof)], which constitutes a blemish for us, but not for the Romans [they could offer ...
— Rashi • Maurice Liber
... bargaine upon the next offer, saying, he was mistaken and deceived, and therefore no reason he should keep the bargaine; this was often the case with the Farmers of the Customes; He was infinitely inclined to peace, but more out of feare then conscience, and this was the greatest blemish this King had through all his Reign, otherwise might have been ranked with the very best of our Kings, yet sometimes would hee shew pretty flashes of valour which might easily be discerned to be forced, not naturall; and ...
— Characters from 17th Century Histories and Chronicles • Various
... character. There is, moreover, no construction in the narrative, and little or no progress in the events. Yet it is very daintily told. The mind of the author wells out in the purest streams. Having to deal with one foul incident, the tale is nevertheless without speck or blemish. A virgin nymph, born of a lily, could not have unfolded her thoughts more delicately. And, in spite of its improbability, Rosamond Gray is very pathetic. It touches the sensitive points in young hearts; and it was by no ...
— Charles Lamb • Barry Cornwall
... portions showing how full of loving-kindness and mercy God is; at the same time, being just, He can by no means overlook iniquity. On this account it was that He gave us the inestimable gift of His Son, the Lamb without spot or blemish, to die instead of sinful man. And He requires now that men should believe that Christ thus died for their sakes, that His blood atones for all their sins, that God receives them, rebels though they have hitherto been, as His dear children, and makes them holy by His own good Spirit, ...
— The Voyage of the "Steadfast" - The Young Missionaries in the Pacific • W.H.G. Kingston
... playes she neuer will be knowne, And to be tauerne guest she euer hates, Shee scornes to be a streete-wife (Idle one,) Or field vvife ranging vvith her vvalking mates: She knows how wise men censure of such dames, And how with blottes they blemish their ...
— The Bride • Samuel Rowlands et al
... out. Soon she saw a fine-looking stick close at hand; but it had a slight blemish near one end, so she said: "No; I can do better than that." Then she saw another that was perfect but for a little curve in the middle, so she ...
— Woodland Tales • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... had married at sixteen a man of equal birth, but old, dull, and pompous—a caricature rather than a portrait of that great French noblesse, now almost if not wholly extinct. But her virtue was without a blemish—some said from pride, some said from coldness. Her wit was keen and court-like—lively, yet subdued; for her French high breeding was very different from the lethargic and taciturn imperturbability of the English. All silent people ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Troy, it is said, was beautiful enough to spare the tip of her nose; and if Cleopatra's had been an inch shorter Mark Antony would never have become infatuated with her wonderful charms, and the blemish would have changed the history of the world. Anne Boleyn's fascinating smile split the great Church of Rome in twain, and gave a nation an altered destiny. Napoleon, who feared not to attack the proudest monarchs in their capitols, ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... themselves. I pledge you my word, if I was asked what was the great blemish in my manner, I'd have said it ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... the Lady, her bed turns out not to have been well made; they have had to put her in a new place to-day. Observe, she made that bed herself, no servants being up, and had found a blemish or DEFAUT of"—word wanting: who knows what?—"in the mattresses; which I believe hurt her exact mind, more than her not very delicate body. She has got, in the interim, an apartment promised to somebody else; and she will have to leave it again on Friday or Saturday, and go into ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle
... she looked at her jewels except for the purpose of making a selection, according to their settings or their colors. On this occasion, however, she admired the size of the rubies and the brilliancy of the diamonds; she grieved over every blemish and every defect; she thought the gold light, and the stones wretched. The goldsmith, as he entered, found her thus occupied. "M. Faucheux," she said, "I believe you supplied ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... will not blast its chances of acceptance if the "story" is all there and is typed into a presentable appearance and illustrated with interesting photographs. A good style will enhance the manuscript's value, but want of verbal skill rarely will prove a fatal blemish. Not so long as there are "re-write men" around ...
— If You Don't Write Fiction • Charles Phelps Cushing
... those who had committed their Opinions to Writing, they were made publick who traced more closely therein the Laws of Christ and Christianity, and were judged Persons pure, free from and innocent of that stain and blemish of depriving the Indians of their Treasures by Theft and Rapine, which Riches had contaminated and sullied the Hands, but much more the Souls of those who were enslav'd by those heaps of Wealth and Covetousness, now this obstinate and hot pursuit after ...
— A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies • Bartolome de las Casas
... Mary, a dignity without blemish, O my Lord as far as Heaven, O King of the white angels, wilt Thou stay for me till I ...
— The Latin & Irish Lives of Ciaran - Translations Of Christian Literature. Series V. Lives Of - The Celtic Saints • Anonymous
... bonzes insisted that a member of her family must pass the night before her door, so that none might entertain the least suspicion of an entry to her. When the woman returned to her home, the child was already formed. It was born fat and beautiful always, and without any blemish. ...
— Eastern Shame Girl • Charles Georges Souli
... the aid of the botchwork of human hands, which possesses as much or as little power as the wood, gold, and ivory that compose it? If the worshipper does not appeal to the statue, but to the goddess, I fear it will be no less futile. So I shall consider it no blemish if you see in my Demeter a mortal woman, and no goddess; nay, it reconciles me in some degree to her weaknesses, to which I by no means close my eyes. I, too—I confess it—often feel a great desire to give the power of imagination greater play, and I know ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... thread of resolution, it declined to comply with that most modest demand. Then the sword came out and struck at our life. "Was it matter of choice with us whether we would fight? Not unless it were also matter of choice whether we would become the very sweepings and blemish of creation. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... a personal experience of Shakespeare, and as one might expect in this case it does not accelerate but retard the action of the drama; it is, indeed, altogether foreign to the drama, an excrescence upon it and not an improvement but a blemish. Moreover, the reflective, disillusioned, slightly pessimistic tone of the narrative is alien and strange to the optimistic temper of the play; finally, this garb of patient sadness does not suit Claudio, who should be all love and eagerness, and diminishes ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... governed by chenoos, with a power nearly absolute, and having mafooks under them, who were chiefly employed in the collection of revenue. The people were merry, idle, good-humoured, hospitable, and liberal, with rather an innocent and agreeable expression of countenance. The greatest blemish in their character appeared in the treatment of the female sex, on whom they devolved all the laborious duties of life, even more exclusively than is usual among negro tribes, holding their virtues also in such slender esteem, that the greatest chiefs unblushingly made it an object of traffic. ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... lord," persisted his son, "the absolute necessity for giving her a course of fashionable life, if it were only to remove this constitutional blemish. If it were discovered, she is ruined; to blush being, as your lordship knows, contrary to all the laws and statutes of fashion in that ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... rhythmic beauty, and with them their attendants, daughters of resident foreigners. Following upon these was the long line of bleating victims, black bulls with gilded horns and ribbon-decked rams without blemish. And next—but here the people leaned from parapet, house-roof, portico, and ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... blemish," said I, sweetly, "upon an otherwise perfect character. And it is true," I continued, after an interval of meditation, "that I have, in my time, encountered some very foolish women. There was, for instance, Elena Barry-Smith, ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... of representing man's supreme happiness, relative and absolute: one is to depict nature at her best, untouched by sin, and to show man free from every defect and blemish, in the full perfection of his being. Naturally the imagery in this case is the imagery born of finite human experiences. The other method describes, as we said, not scenes of happiness but transcendent conditions of the soul as it is brought into ultimate communion ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery
... edict, by which it was clear that those who believed a mole to be a blemish were quite safe, and those who did not believe it, were in no manner of danger, set everything to rights; the metropolis was again filled with aspirants, the air tortured with the music of the mandolins, and impregnated with the ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Captain Frederick Marryat
... day these eyes, though clear, To outward view, of blemish or of spot, Bereft of light, their seeing have forgot; Nor to their idle orbs doth sight appear Of sun, or moon, or star, throughout the year, Or man, or woman. Yet I argue not Against Heaven's hand or will, nor bate a jot Of heart or hope, but ...
— Initiation into Literature • Emile Faguet
... however, could tamely submit to the insulting charges and coarse insinuations with which the Corporation has long been assailed by malevolent or ignorant individuals. That the civic system is free from spot or blemish, no one in his senses would pretend to assert. But it may honestly and truly be asserted that the Court of Aldermen have both the power and the inclination to amend whatever is defective, and to introduce whatever reforms are desirable, without the irritating and officious interference of the ...
— The Corporation of London: Its Rights and Privileges • William Ferneley Allen
... new trial. If a citizen have a cause involving the title to his farm, if it exceed two thousand dollars in value, he may bring his cause to the Supreme Court; but if it involves his liberty or his life, he can not. While we permit this blemish to exist on our judicial system, it behooves us to watch carefully the judgments inferior courts may render; and it is doubly important that we should see to it that twelve jurors shall concur with the Judge before a citizen shall be hanged, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... of two principles, one bad, the other good. The first had created matter; the second, the soul, which, for generation after generation passes from one body to another until it achieves salvation. Matter is the cause and the seat of evil; all contact with it constitutes a blemish,[23] consequently the Cathari renounced marriage and property and advocated suicide. All this was mixed up with most ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier
... whose works must now be accepted with great reserve. Darwin was quite right in saying, "The ignoring of all transmitted mental qualities will, as it seems to me, be hereafter judged as a most serious blemish in the works of Mr. Mill." (Descent of Man, p. 98.) A quotation from the Principles of Political Economy (Vol. 1, p. 389) will give an idea of Mr. Mill's point of view: "Of all the vulgar methods of escaping from the effects of social and moral influences on the mind, the most vulgar is ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... not know what he had found. I shall tell you what it was. It was a solid piece of good luck without flaw or blemish, and it was almost the only piece I ever heard tell of. Yes; that was what it was—a solid piece of good luck; and as for Jacob Stuck, why, he was not the first in the world by many and one over who has failed to know a piece of good luck when they have found it. Yes; it looked just ...
— Twilight Land • Howard Pyle
... this three-years-day these eyes, though clear To outward view of blemish or of spot, Bereft of light, their seeing have forgot; Not to their idle orbs doth sight appear Of sun, or moon, or star, throughout the year, Or man, or woman. Yet I argue not Against Heav'ns hand or ...
— The Principles of English Versification • Paull Franklin Baum
... daughter, was born at Corbie, in Picardy, in 1380. Her parents, out of devotion to St. Nicholas, gave her the name of Colette, the diminutive of Nicholas. She was brought up in the love of humiliations and austerities. Her desire to preserve her purity without the least blemish made her avoid as much as possible all company, even of persons of her own sex, unless it was sometimes to draw them from the love of the world by her moving discourses, which were attended with a singular ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... be at fault, and that is in the constant introduction of love on our stage. We cannot frequent the theatre without being sickened by the repetition of some nauseous courtship and love-making, the particulars of which, even in real life, can be agreeable to none but the parties themselves. This blemish is said to have arisen during the earlier periods of the drama, from the vanity of the female sex; who, however much they were kept under control, and their opinions disregarded in ancient days, have amply made ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 20, Issue 561, August 11, 1832 • Various
... never returned to tell, and even had they done so, the pride of the Bangletops would not have permitted them to listen to the explanation. The Bangletop escutcheon was clear of blots, no suspicion even of a conversational blemish appearing thereon, and it was always a matter of extreme satisfaction to the family that no one of its scions since the title was created had ever been known to speak directly to any one of lesser rank than himself, communication with inferiors being always had through ...
— The Water Ghost and Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... the patient presented quite a favorable appearance. M. Nibor took off his clothes, which tore like tinder from having been too much dried in Father Meiser's furnace. The body, when naked, was pronounced entirely free from blemish and in a perfectly healthy condition. No one would yet have guaranteed success, but every one was full ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... friendless; yet she has bravely fought her way through the storm, without asking anybody's assistance. True, she may not now have a heart; that was trampled upon, years ago, but her character has not suffered blemish since the day a foul ...
— Deadwood Dick, The Prince of the Road - or, The Black Rider of the Black Hills • Edward L. Wheeler
... Caffre kingdom of Sofala. We have seen that these kings of Sofala were regarded as gods by their people, being entreated to give rain or sunshine, according as each might be wanted. Nevertheless a slight bodily blemish, such as the loss of a tooth, was considered a sufficient cause for putting one of these god-men to death, as we learn from the following passage of an old Portuguese historian: "It was formerly the custom ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... immortal marble. That alone would have elicited merely my admiration. But there is that in her which wins my profoundest respect and love—I had almost said my veneration. Her frame is but the crystal-clear covering of a bright and pure soul, without stain or shadow or blemish. It does not seem possible for her to be otherwise than good. And yet, within this goodness, there is an hereditary character intrenched, capable, under necessity, of all heroism—a fearless and a potent soul. And, besides all this, ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... the sun itself, Galileo observed on the surface of that luminary a spot or blemish which gradually changed its shape, suggesting that changes were taking place in the substance of the sun—changes obviously incompatible with the perfect condition demanded by the metaphysical theorists. But however disquieting ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... appears in history without blemish. Highly educated and accomplished, he was no less upright and generous. In the bloom of life, he left all his brilliant prospects in the old world to follow the fortunes of the new. When his father had made himself poor in nurturing the Massachusetts ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... good, a gloss, a glass, a flower, Lost, faded, broken, dead within an hour. And as good lost is seld or never found, As fading gloss no rubbing will refresh, As flowers dead lie wither'd on the ground, As broken glass no cement can redress, So beauty blemish'd once, for ever's lost, In spite of physic, painting, pain ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... ye answer, And consider, children dear;— In our image I would make him, Free from stain, from blemish clear. ...
— Songs of Labor and Other Poems • Morris Rosenfeld
... studied the fair, little face, the penciled eyebrows and fringed eyelids,—dark like her own,—the firm, rounded arms, the rosy-palmed hands, their dainty fingers and finger-nails, the well-proportioned and well-nourished body, without smallest mark or blemish upon it, sound, wholesome, and complete. All these she studied long and carefully, while the dancing glow of the firelight played over the child's delicate flesh, and it extended its little arms in the pleasant warmth, holding them up, as in act of adoration, ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... sequel, and revealing in its elementary stage the same indifference to real justice, and the same blindness. Whatever the moral cause of the ancestor's drunkenness or debauch, the same punishment may be meted out in mind and body to the descendants of the drunkard or the debauchee. Intellectual blemish will almost always accompany material blemish. The soul will be attacked simultaneously with the body; and it matters but little whether the victim be imbecile, mad, epileptic, possessed of criminal instincts, or only vaguely threatened with ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck
... occasion, the chief of the council, and was always called the dear and beloved son of his father. He intimates, (but very obscurely,) that, by the aspersions of some, his fame sustained for a short time some blemish in ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... priests were required to prove their descent from Aaron, to be free from all bodily defect or blemish; must not be observed mourning except for near relatives; must not marry a woman that had been a harlot; or divorced, or profane. The priest's daughter who committed whoredom was to be burned, as profaning her father. The priests were ...
— Conversion of a High Priest into a Christian Worker • Meletios Golden
... with a prior and privy design, now fully carried out, the recipient of these documents had official guaranty, stamped, sealed and delivered, that when he set foot on the soil of these United States he would do so without cloud upon his title as a sovereign voter, without blemish on his name and without fear of prosecution in his heart. And the upshot of it all was that the story was more than a peach; it was a pippin. The rehabilitation of Private Pasquale Gallino, sometime known as Stretchy Gorman, gangster, and more latterly ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... "The score of 'Don Giovanni' has exercised the influence of a revelation upon the whole of my life; it has been and remains for me a kind of incarnation of dramatic and musical impeccability. I regard it as a work without blemish, of uninterrupted perfection, and this commentary is but the humble testimony of my Veneration and gratitude for the genius to whom I owe the purest and most permanent joys of my life as a musician." In his "Autobiographical Sketch" Wagner ...
— A Book of Operas - Their Histories, Their Plots, and Their Music • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... apprehension of a secret innocence and spirituality in nature—a prescience of some bourn, incalculably distant perhaps, to which we are all moving; of a time when the heavenly rain shall have washed us clean from all spot and blemish. This unexpected peace which I had found now seemed to me of infinitely greater value than that yellow metal I had missed finding, with all its possibilities. My wish now was to rest for a season at this spot, so remote and lovely and peaceful, where I had experienced such unusual ...
— Green Mansions - A Romance of the Tropical Forest • W. H. Hudson
... fleshly belief is annihilated, and every spot and blemish on the disk of consciousness is removed, then, and not till then, will immortal Truth be found true, and scientific teaching, preaching, and practice be essentially one. "Happy is he that condemneth not himself in that thing ...
— Retrospection and Introspection • Mary Baker Eddy
... people were mad with delight to welcome their hero Karmos and their beloved Naya. Karmos was crowned, and then began that government whose morality and justice and love and purity have passed into the proverbs of my race. There was, however, one blemish upon it. Poor Naya's evil genius had not yet exhausted his malevolence. A rumour was spread by evil tongues that she was plotting to possess the crown, and Karmos, sacrificing the husband's love, the father's joy, ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... employed by speculative reason of demonstrating the existence of a Supreme Being, is not only, like the first, illusory and inadequate, but possesses the additional blemish of an ignoratio elenchi—professing to conduct us by a new road to the desired goal, but bringing us back, after a short circuit, to the old path which we had deserted ...
— The Critique of Pure Reason • Immanuel Kant
... one of those men-about-town, without visible means of support, who always manage to maintain an outward show of wealth. No club is so exclusive that it does not contain one or more members of the Cooper type. Their pedigrees are without blemish. Their social position is secure through a long line of honorable ancestors. But their means of livelihood are precarious. Friends and fellow club members may wonder where they obtain the money for their dues, but somehow their ...
— The Substitute Prisoner • Max Marcin
... his hands and his feet, he undressed, he descended and bathed. He came up, and wiped himself. They brought him golden garments, and he dressed, and he sanctified his hands and his feet, and went forth and offered the ram for himself, and the ram for the people, and seven lambs without blemish of a year old. The words of R. Eleazar. R. Akiba said, "with the morning sacrifice they were offered." And the bullock of burnt-offering and the he-goat,(240) which was prepared without, were ...
— Hebrew Literature
... The maiden explains to her father that she is a bride of Christ. She is without spot or blemish. Her weeds are washed in the blood of Christ.] "My makele[gh] lambe at al may bete," Q{uod} scho, "my dere destyn Me ches to hys make al-a[gh] vnmete, Su{m} tyme semed {a}t assembl 760 When I wente fro yor worlde ...
— Early English Alliterative Poems - in the West-Midland Dialect of the Fourteenth Century • Various
... sayest thou? This mark upon the fairness of thy arm which I have thought a blemish, and therefore have not questioned thee thereon—sayest thou it is a dakkh, what thou callest a tattoo mark? And if so what has it to do with the man whose name is ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... of that attractive beauty so closely observed and described in all its most delicate shades by the graphic pen of the Duke de Saint-Simon when at a more advanced period of her life, but on which beauty, by a miracle of art and nature, the wasting hand of time had as yet scarcely brought a blemish. ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... all great blushers know, a fact discernible only by the person more immediately concerned in the blush. The propriety, therefore, of making Mabel perceive the blush, rather than Sir Hubert, is undeniable. The writer must either have left out the hushing altogether, which would have been a great blemish in the picture, or he must have written as he has done. How profoundly versed in the physiology of blushing he must be! We are doubtful, however, whether the costume of the picture is altogether appropriate; for we question very much whether the Italian ladies ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844 • Various
... makes us suffer. How often the most evil thoughts assail us, and what battles we have to fight in order to drive away these children of our brain! Anger, ambition, revenge give birth to the most detestable thoughts, which make us blush with shame as we should at some horrible blemish. And yet they are not ours, for we have not evoked them; but they defile us nevertheless, and leave us in despair at not being masters of our ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... is obvious, but this blemish is immaterial, for the whole story is unnatural. The deterioration in Ambrosio's character—though Lewis uses all his energy in striving to make it appear probable by discussing the effect ...
— The Tale of Terror • Edith Birkhead
... symmetrical, but his head was long, out of all proportion; for which reason, in nearly all his statues he is represented wearing a helmet, as the sculptors did not wish, I suppose, to reproach him with this blemish. The Attic poets called him squill-head, and the comic poet Cratinus, in ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... first witnessed the peculiar manner in which the markets in Mizora are conducted. Everything, as usual, was fastidiously neat and clean. The fruit and vegetables were fresh and perfect. I examined quantities of them to satisfy myself, and not a blemish or imperfection could be found on any. None but buyers were attending market. Baskets of fruit, bunches of vegetables and, in fact, everything exhibited for sale, had the quality and the price labeled upon ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley
... agreeably deceived by the applause that the public gave to an acquisition so beautiful and so unique. This diamond was called the "Regent." It is of the size of a greengage plum, nearly round, of a thickness which corresponds with its volume, perfectly white, free from all spot, speck, or blemish, of admirable water, and weighs more than 500 grains. I much applauded myself for having induced the Regent to make ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... in passing the guards, owing to the presence of von Holtz, and in half an hour they were rolling through a charming, peaceful country that as yet had suffered no blemish ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces in the Red Cross • Edith Van Dyne
... There was no blemish in the entire record of his singularly active and useful life. His whole span of years appears to have been spent with a conscience void of offense, and he approached the end with a sereneness of mind well ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... this honourable house descended, in our time, the gallant Sir Murray Maxwell, whose daughter, Mrs. Carew, became the wife of the too well-known Colonel Waugh; the events which followed are still fresh in the public mind. Until that blemish, loyalty, honour, and prosperity marked out the Maxwells of Monreith for "their own." In 1681, William Maxwell was created a baronet of Nova Scotia. Various marriages and intermarriages with old and noble families kept the blood pure, a circumstance as much prized by the Scotch ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... to see the blemish in the distant neighbor's style, You can point to all his errors and may sneer at him the while, And your prejudices fatten and your hates more violent grow As you talk about the failures of the man you do not know, But when drawn a little closer, ...
— A Heap o' Livin' • Edgar A. Guest
... down and saw her shapely foot on the rock. The light was strong where she sat, and he noticed a freckle on her cheek, and this slight blemish drew ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read
... to describe the church militant in terms appropriate only to the church triumphant. We see and deplore the vices and errors of each other; and after that acknowledgment, do not, worthy Barton, call us uncandid if I add, we also discover yours. I will go further, and own, that we record that as a blemish which you produce as a beauty; I mean your zeal to promote separation, so plainly contradictory, not merely to a dubious text, a difficult chapter, or even an epistle hard to be understood, but to the whole tenor of the New Testament, which, from St. Matthew to the Revelations, ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... aware of the fickle dispositions of kings, who will one moment take offence at a salutation, and at another make an honorary dress the return for an act of rudeness; and they have said, That to be over much facetious is the accomplishment of courtiers and blemish of the wise.—Be wary, and preserve the state of thine own character, and leave sport and buffoonery to jesters ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... than any other in view of the deep veneration shown for the pickaxe. Maimed persons would probably not be acceptable victims to the goddess, according to the rule that the sacrifice must be without spot or blemish. The other classes have already been discussed under the exemption of first victims. Among the Deccan Thugs if a man strangled any victim of a class whom it was forbidden to kill, he was expelled from the community ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... more hear me! there's a precious gem, You have not any richer in all the realm: If fire do blemish it, art never more To his true colour can the ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VIII (4th edition) • Various
... into the great Canadian pilgrimage when thousands of hunted black men hurried northward and crept beneath the protection of the lion's paw. She became teacher, editor, and lecturer; tramping afoot through winter snows, pushing without blot or blemish through crowd and turmoil to conventions and meetings, and finally becoming recruiting agent for the United States government in gathering ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... counteraction, which, in the natural and in the political world, from the reciprocal struggle of discordant powers draws out the harmony of the universe. These opposed and conflicting interests, which you considered as so great a blemish in your old and in our present Constitution, interpose a salutary check to all precipitate resolutions. They render deliberation a matter, not of choice, but of necessity; they make all change a subject of compromise, which naturally begets moderation; they produce temperaments, preventing ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... fall of valor in the soul. Men may seem detestable as joint stock-companies and nations; knaves, .. fools, and murderers there may be; men may have mean and meagre faces; but man, in the ideal, is so noble and so sparkling, such a grand and glowing creature, that over any ignominious blemish in him all his fellows should run to throw their costliest robes. That immaculate manliness we feel within ourselves, so far within us, that it remains intact though all the outer character seem gone; bleeds with keenest anguish at the undraped spectacle of a valor-ruined man. Nor ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... mistake! The bankrupt departed from the court without a blemish on his character. He had been indiscreet in entering heedlessly upon so large an undertaking, and must pay dearly for that in discretion. He was strictly liable and bound to pay what he had acknowledged with his hand to be a lawful debt. There was no help for him. The young man was ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 54, No. 335, September 1843 • Various
... among the Welsh iron-workers at West Stockbridge, and some Methodists, but none of either heresy save David in Stockbridge, which, with this exception was, as a parish, a Congregational lamb without blemish. No wonder then that David was a thorn in the side to the authorities of the church, nor was he less despised by the common people. There was not a drunken loafer in town who did not pride himself upon the fact ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... sum of pleasure on the whole. This, of course, will vary with the different modes of poetry;—and that splendour of particular lines, which would be worthy of admiration in an impassioned elegy, or a short indignant satire, would be a blemish and proof of vile taste in a tragedy or an ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... much soever the author bears himself upon the specious title of Verulam. Unless, perhaps, I should particularly suggest in your name, that these words were there inserted, by way of caution; and lest malignity and rashness should any way blemish the fame of ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon |
