"Weak point" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "That is the weak point of our system, which has a hundred strong points, while it has this besetting vice. Our laws are not only made, but they are administered, on the supposition that there are both honesty and intelligence enough in the body of the community to see them well made, and well administered. But ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... which was at that moment perhaps the most important in the Government. With equal modesty and candour he distrusted his own ability to fill it, and he still more distrusted his own want of caution and prudence, which was his weak point. He accepted it, however, to relieve the Government from embarrassment, but he accompanied his acceptance with a declaration to Lord Grey that he would gladly resign his office whenever a better man could be found to fill it. It had previously ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... himself that the boat could not help him he would have readily risked life and limb for his fancy. A few moments' reflection showed him, however, that there need be no great danger in the undertaking, for the defence had a weak point. The foundations on which the walls stood were above water by several inches and were wide enough to give him a foothold if he could only keep himself upright against the flat surface. The latter difficulty could easily be overcome ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... have been visible as early as the time of Aurelian, but is only particularly mentioned by Procopius, an historian of the sixth century, who relates that Belisarius, in strengthening the city against a siege of the Goths, attempted to repair this weak point in the wall, but was hindered in his intended labour by the devout populace, who declared that it was under the peculiar protection of St. Peter, and that it would be consequently impious to meddle with it. The general submitted without remonstrance ...
— Antonina • Wilkie Collins
... last found. The king is too young, too ardent, too much the genius and poet, to be completely unimpassioned. Even Achilles was not impenetrable in the heel, and Frederick has also his mortal part. Do you know, Fredersdorf, who will discover the weak point, and send ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... "The weak point of Adco is that it does nothing to overcome one of the great difficulties in composting, namely the absorption of moisture in the early stages. In hot weather in India, the Adco pits lose moisture so rapidly that the fermentation stops, the ...
— Organic Gardener's Composting • Steve Solomon
... disposed of the Judiciary and the Executive, we come to the Legislative. And here I submit is the weak point in our American system,—manifestly the weak point, and to those who, like myself, have had occasion to know, undeniably so. I am here as a publicist; not as a writer of memoirs: so, on this head, I do not now propose to dilate or bear witness. I will only briefly say that having ...
— 'Tis Sixty Years Since • Charles Francis Adams
... Besides all of which it is fluent in language and correct in syntax. The rest of the literary department in this issue is devoted to verse. "To a Friend," by Alice M. Hamlet, is particularly pleasing through the hint of old-school technique which its well ordered phrases convey. The one weak point is the employment of thy, a singular expression, in connexion with several objects; namely, "paper, pen, and ready hand." Your should have been used. The metre is excellent throughout, and the whole piece displays a gratifying skill on ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... the intrenchments and to make openings through them for the passage of the cavalry into the camp, make up the sum total of all the science exhibited by Eugene in order to carry out his rash undertaking It is true he selected the weak point of the intrenchment; for it was there so low that it covered only half ...
— The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini
... in the First Congressional District was that we could not carry the Ninth Ward. But for this weak point we would have felt assured at any time. With the Ninth Ward eliminated we could control the district barely. With the Ninth Ward for us it would be a walk-over. But the ward ...
— A Man and a Woman • Stanley Waterloo
... the major the minutely careful report which his mother had addressed to him on this topic, Mrs. Milroy read and reread it, and failed to find the weak point of which she was in search in any part of the letter. All the customary questions on such occasions had been asked, and all had been scrupulously and plainly answered. The one sole opening for an attack which ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... Colonel, who used to assert That naught his digestion could hurt, Was forced to admit That his weak point was hit When they gave him hot ...
— Toaster's Handbook - Jokes, Stories, and Quotations • Peggy Edmund & Harold W. Williams, compilers
... Athens, that the revelation is not far off, if Heaven be willing and you desirous of it. {21} So long as a man is in good health, he is unconscious of any weakness; but if any illness comes upon him, the disturbance affects every weak point, be it a rupture or a sprain or anything else that is unsound in his constitution. And as with the body, so it is with a city or a tyrant. So long as they are at war abroad, the mischief is hidden from the world at large, but the close grapple ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 1 • Demosthenes
... the forest, I tackled a glass panel and began to finger it in every direction, hunting for the weak point on which to press in order to turn the door in accordance with Erik's system of pivots. This weak point might be a mere speck on the glass, no larger than a pea, under which the spring lay hidden. I hunted and hunted. I felt as ...
— The Phantom of the Opera • Gaston Leroux
... this to be the weak point in our armor, and are open to further light. Yet more, for the sake of hypothesis, we will assume it proved. What follows? Are we to get no more sugar while we smoke? By no means. Hard by the stomach lies the pancreas, an organ so similar in structure to the ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... examinations; and that thus the only grievance their opponents have against them will fall to the ground." It is only doing justice to the foremost champion of reform to acknowledge that he was never tired of insisting on the weak point; and in order to convince oneself that the examination question has always been considered the key-stone of the problem of the organisation of higher education in France, it is only necessary to look ...
— Introduction to the Study of History • Charles V. Langlois
... have liked to contradict my opinionated servant, at that moment. But, excellent as the story was in itself, I felt that he had hit on the weak point, so far as Jarber's particular purpose ...
— A House to Let • Charles Dickens
... the end of all my struggles and strivings. I was to be led back again like a poor silly sheep who has broken through the hurdles. They little knew me who could fancy that I should submit to such a fate. I had heard enough to tell me where the weak point of these two men was, and I showed, as I have often showed before, that Etienne Gerard is never so terrible as when all hope seems to have deserted him. With a single spring I seized one of the clubs and swung it over the ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Rocklands, was the first man to go to the plate. He was known to be a most remarkable little hitter, without a weak point that any pitcher had ...
— Frank Merriwell's Cruise • Burt L. Standish
... you will note a weak point in our administration of charity, which has been repeatedly brought to my attention. England has every intention to act generously and warm-heartedly with the Belgian people, who you may say have been sacrificed for the Allies. They tender homes for refugees and transportation from ...
— The New York Times Current History: the European War, February, 1915 • Various
... the "on," and, curiously enough, nearly all found their way between two of our men, the "mid-wicket on" and the "long on," just out of the reach of either. I could not help wondering why neither of these fellows altered his place, so as to guard the weak point. ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... I say is, the men is splendid, but I'm none so easy about the staff. That's your weak point, ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie
... us lest it become contaminated. Perhaps we couldn't! Why? Because our temptations do not happen to lie in that particular direction, that's all! But we are all law-breakers; not one keeps the Ten Commandments to the letter—not one! Attack us on our own weak point and see how quickly we run up the flag of surrender—and perhaps the poor sinner we denounce for his guilt would scorn just as bitterly to give in to the weakness that gets the best of us. Sin is sin, and one defect is as hideous as another. ...
— One Day - A sequel to 'Three Weeks' • Anonymous
... was the condition of the fort he had been sent to hold. Moultrie was clearly the weak point of the situation. Already informed, to some extent at least, by the superior military genius of General Scott, in his recent interviews with that distinguished commander, Major Anderson now more forcibly, ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... that related to his race was the weak point of the Armenian. I did not flatter the Armenian with respect to his race or language. "An inconsiderable people," said I, "shrewd and industrious, but still an inconsiderable people. A language bold and expressive, and ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... which is not the nominative of the Armenian noun for bread, but the accusative: now, critics, ravening against a man because he is a gentleman and a scholar, and has not only the power but also the courage to write original works, why did not you discover that weak point? Why, because you were ignorant, so here ye are held up! Moreover, who with a name commencing with Z, ever wrote fables in Armenian? There are two writers of fables in Armenian—Varthan and Koscht, and illustrious ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... least in some nurseries. In many it is probably a fitful game, and since the days of the Brontes there has not been a large family without its magazine. The weak point of all this literature is its commonplace. The child's effort is to write something as much like as possible to the tedious books that are read to him; he is apt to be fluent and foolish. If a child simple enough to imitate were also simple ...
— The Children • Alice Meynell
... have drawn from the preceding experiments, and combats the explanation which we have given of the phenomena of fermentation. [Footnote: International Science Series, vol. xx, pp. 179-182. London, 1876.—D. C. R.] It is an easy matter to show the weak point of M. Schutzenberger's reasoning. We determined the power of the ferment by the relation of the weight of sugar decomposed to the weight of the yeast produced. M. Schutzenberger asserts that in doing this we lay down a doubtful ...
— The Harvard Classics Volume 38 - Scientific Papers (Physiology, Medicine, Surgery, Geology) • Various
... somebody might steal them, but if Mr. Haralson had the handling of them under number nobody could steal them. You have got title to them and control them just as well as when you keep them right on your place where they haven't a chance to show whether they are hardy or not. There is the weak point in this seedling business for Minnesota, ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various
... hurricane, the whirlwind—these are wild combatants that may be overcome; the storm can be taken in the weak point of its armour; there are resources against the violence which continually lays itself open, is off its guard, and often hits wide. But nothing is to be done against a calm; it offers nothing to the grasp of which ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... that I am right in saying that, from the date of Salamis downwards, history records no decisive naval victory in which the victorious fleet has not succeeded in concentrating against a relatively weak point in its enemy's formation a greater number of its own ships. I know of nothing to show that this has not been the rule throughout the ages of which detailed history furnishes us with any memorial—no matter what ...
— Sea-Power and Other Studies • Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge
... fellow, gentlemanly in appearance, said it was a hard run between him and Prince Albert who should have the Queen of England. He had written and received several letters from her. I discovered they had all some weak point, and the doctor gave me the cue. I felt quite at ease amongst them: nearly all are unrestrained; and, strange to say, they never talk to each other, or molest each other in any way. We then visited the House of Correction ...
— Journal of a Voyage across the Atlantic • George Moore
... killed six men. All his plans of battle were arranged for projectiles. The key to his victory was to make the artillery converge on one point. He treated the strategy of the hostile general like a citadel, and made a breach in it. He overwhelmed the weak point with grape-shot; he joined and dissolved battles with cannon. There was something of the sharpshooter in his genius. To beat in squares, to pulverize regiments, to break lines, to crush and disperse masses,—for ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... albeit his prowess was eclipsed by his more peaceful virtues. This, however, should be returned in kind. He would make no attack to be put in the wrong, arrested, perhaps, after the Colbury interpretation of assault and battery. But Walter had many a weak point in his armor, glaringly apparent now ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... to break into their dwellings. But he had learned two things of far greater importance. The first was, that some grievous calamity was preparing, and almost ready to fall upon the heads of the miners; the second was—the one weak point of a goblin's body; he had not known that their feet were so tender as he had now reason to suspect. He had heard it said that they had no toes: he had never had opportunity of inspecting them closely enough, in the dusk in which they always appeared, ...
— The Princess and the Goblin • George MacDonald
... young man on his weak point, and got some brief answers in reply to my remarks on the attractiveness of locomotives and the virtues of cars. But as any venture away from the important subject was met with the silence of the clam, I had at last to give up with a wild desire to shake the young man until ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... what he chafed at, was, that she showed no wonder concerning an incident which her last statement made all the more remarkable. She began to turn to go towards the house, and the mind of Caius hit upon the one weak point in her own ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... sir, the Crotchets have plenty of money, and the old gentleman's weak point is a hankering after high blood. I saw your acquaintance, Lord Bossnowl, this morning, but I did not see his sister. She may be there, nevertheless, and doing fashionable justice to this fine May morning, by lying ...
— Crotchet Castle • Thomas Love Peacock
... almost inexplicable, but nevertheless true that life tries all of us, tests every weak point to breaking, and sets off and exaggerates our powers. Burns saw this when ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 1 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... A weak point in the first Marconi apparatus was that anybody within the working radius of the sending-instrument could read its messages. To modify this objection secret codes were at times employed, as in commerce and diplomacy. ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - Invention and Discovery • Various
... deeply. He remembered the power of weak woman—how she had ruined many a strong man, and that this was the weak point in Andrii's nature—and stood for some time in one spot, as though rooted there. "Listen, my lord, I will tell my lord all," said the Jew. "As soon as I heard the uproar, and saw them going through the city gate, I seized a string of pearls, in ...
— Taras Bulba and Other Tales • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... seen without a sort of school-boy satchel at his back, containing a small hammer and other useful tools, which, it was believed, had actually carried his lesson-books years ago. All the villagers knew his strong-and-weak point, and he rarely appeared amongst them without having various stones and imaginary curiosities presented to him, particularly by the young people. Many of these stones found their way into his bag, and it was not to be wondered at that he had a somewhat round back, as he frequently carried a load ...
— Gladys, the Reaper • Anne Beale
... of the room? That's not like Egerton, who is civil, if formal—at least, to most men. You must have offended him in his weak point." ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... slate from top to toe; the other gable-end joins directly on to the row of houses of which it is the beginning or the end; at the back, however, it is an example of the proverb that everything has its weak point. There, an upstairs piazza has been built onto the house, not unlike half a crown of thorns. Supported by roughly-hewn wooden posts it runs along the upper story and expands toward the left into a little room. There is no direct entrance to it from the upper story of the house. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... spends his time sitting before a table, on which are placed six dice and a dice-box. One end of the table is covered with a pile of gold, for the purpose of exciting the cupidity of the courtiers and of the people by whom the sultan is surrounded. He, knowing the weak point of his subjects, speaks to them in this way: "Slaves! I wish you well; my aim is to enrich you and render you all happy. Do you see these treasures? Well, they are for you! try to win them; let each one in turn take this box and these dice; whoever shall have the good luck to raffle six, will ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier
... meet the drafts of Death at sight, must be an unmatched tonic. We saw our light-hearted youth come back with the modest gravity of age, as if they had learned to throw out pickets against a surprise of any weak point in their temperament. Perhaps that American shiftiness, so often complained of, may not be so bad a thing, if, by bringing men acquainted with every humor of fortune and human nature, it puts them in fuller possession ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... air in the lungs, and therefore permit the final words to drop, is so strong that unless a student watch it and assiduously guard against it he will discover that he has fallen victim to this weak point before he is twelve ...
— The Young Priest's Keepsake • Michael Phelan
... had chosen the right weapon with which to combat his wife's inclinations toward the Woman's Rights mania. A love of flattery was her weak point. It is with half her sex. We too often say, by way of expressing our disapproval of a certain man, "O, he is a gross flatterer!" thus very frequently condemning the quality we most admire in him;—or, if not the one we most admire, at least the one which ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... descend upon any portion of the adversary's coast it chose, and to dominate the country inland for several miles with its gun-fire. All the enemy's sea-coast towns would be at its mercy. It would be able to effect landing and send raids of cyclist-marksmen inland, whenever a weak point was discovered. Landings will be enormously easier than they have ever been before. Once a wedge of marksmen has been driven inland they would have all the military advantages of the defence when it came to eject them. They might, for example, encircle and block some fortified post, and force ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... little carriage, and Baptiste can drive, so you'll have nothing to do but hold your umbrella, and keep your gloves nice," returned Amy, with a sarcastic glance at the immaculate kids, which were a weak point ...
— Little Women • Louisa May Alcott
... showing off its charms to my friend Herr Kalm, who knows so well how to appreciate them. But," continued he, looking round admiringly on the bands of citizens and habitans who were at work strengthening every weak point in the fortifications, "my brave Canadians are busy as beavers on their dam. They are determined to keep the saucy English out of Quebec. They deserve to have the beaver for their crest, industrious fellows that they are! I am sorry I kept ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... is," answered Screw reluctantly, for this was the weak point in his argument. "However, it would be just like such a leg to make everything sure in playing a big game. You see he has left himself the rear platform, so he can jump off when his ...
— Doctor Claudius, A True Story • F. Marion Crawford
... with Laurence's plans; but every now and then he laid a finger unerringly upon some weak point which, unnoticed and uncorrected, would have made those plans barren of result. He amended and suggested. I have seen him breathe upon the dry bones of a project and make it live. It satisfied that odd sardonic ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... emigrating. They were like those of so many others, vague and unfounded: times were bad at home; they were said to have a turn for the better in the States; and a man could get on anywhere, he thought. That was precisely the weak point of his position; for if he could get on in America, why could he not do the same in Scotland? But I never had the courage to use that argument, though it was often on the tip of my tongue, and instead I agreed with him heartily, adding, with reckless originality, "If the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... sons, himself and a brother, many years his junior. Now this brother was very dear to Mr. Caresfoot; his affection for him was the one weak point in his armour; nor was it rendered any the less sincere, but rather the more touching, by the fact that its object was little better than half-witted. It is therefore easy to imagine his distress and anger when he heard that a woman who had till shortly before been kitchen-maid ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... had really too little experience. He knew it, but determined to do his best. The weak point of his whole scheme lay in that it was going to be impossible for him to allow the prospective purchaser a chance of examining the pine. That difficulty Thorpe hoped to overcome by inspiring personal confidence in himself. ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... showed the garrison the British flags flying above the ramparts of the two other forts, yet they showed no signs of giving in. Though the guns were well placed for defence on the west side, the rear offered a weak point. ...
— From Powder Monkey to Admiral - A Story of Naval Adventure • W.H.G. Kingston
... had a great effect upon me. I cannot deny it. My weak point was touched; and I forgot, for a moment, that the contemplation of these sublime subjects was not worth the loss of liberty. Besides, I trusted to the future to decide this grave question. So I ...
— Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea • Jules Verne
... She knew the weak point in the character of Ahasuerus, and she forgot not the power of beauty, the influence of personal charms, as she arrayed her fair form in the rich and splendid vestments that so well became her, and summoned all ...
— Notable Women of Olden Time • Anonymous
... are models of their kind, and, at the first view, it would seem that the town, if well garrisoned, might bid defiance to any hostile power; but it has its weak point: the western side is commanded by a hill, at the distance of half a mile, from which an experienced general would cannonade it, and probably with success. It is the last town in this part of Portugal, the distance to the Spanish frontier being ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... were not essential to Cambridge, but absolutely so at this weak point was plain to both Dudley and Bradstreet, who forthwith made ready for the change accomplished in 1634, when at least one other child, Dorothy, had come to Anne Bradstreet. Health, always delicate and always fluctuating, was affected more seriously than usual at this time, no date being given, ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... before Pelle whatever the house could provide. He always found everything in order, and he understood what efforts it must cost her—considering the smallness of the means which she had at her disposal. There was no weak point in her defences; and this made the position still more oppressive; he could not evoke an explosion, a ventilation of her grievances; it was impossible to quarrel with her and make ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... and strikes at the weak point of his adversary's argument. "You appeal to scholars," he says in substance; "you admit that I am one; now you don't like my choice of words or metre; I do; who, then, shall decide? Why, the public, of course, which ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 51, January, 1862 • Various
... Mrs. Muir's weak point. Nothing pleased her better than to believe that she could act the part of physician in the family, and prescribing for Madge was a source of unflagging interest. When she informed Graydon of their decision in the morning, he muttered something ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... I can keep him and Eradicate from trying to pull off rival detective stunts, or 'deteckertiff,' as Rad calls it, I'll be all right. Now let's have another go at that carburetor. There's our weak point, for it's getting harder and harder all the while to get high-grade gasolene, and we'll have to come to alcohol of low proof, or kerosene, ...
— Tom Swift and his War Tank - or, Doing his Bit for Uncle Sam • Victor Appleton
... in the little ones. He's got all the water supply grabbed and is makin' a fortune from that alone. He runs the store, the post-office, and the stage line. He's got the freight contracts and the beef contracts. He's got brains. Only one weak point about him—he'll underestimate us. We got brains too. Zurich knows that, but he don't quite ...
— Copper Streak Trail • Eugene Manlove Rhodes
... time I talked at random, directing my whole conversation to him as the law demands. By accident, or luck, I learned that the weak point in his armor of polite reserve was color prints. Just talk color prints to a collector and you can pick his pocket ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little
... widest sense, he did know it in the narrowest. He always knew the law that served his turn. When he drew an assignment for a client, no man could break it. And when he undertook a case, he was sure to find his opponent's weak point. He would pick flaws in pleas; he would postpone; he would browbeat witnesses; he would take exceptions to the rulings of the court in order to excite the sympathy of the jury; he would object to testimony on the other side, ...
— The Mystery of Metropolisville • Edward Eggleston
... "the only weak point in your story is that the girl had a meagre bosom. A woman without breasts is like a bed without pillows. But don't you know, d'Anquetil, ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... homogeneous squadron, four other sizable warships, and nine new gunboats. All spars and rigging that could be dispensed with were taken down; all hulls camouflaged with Mississippi mud; and all decks whitened for handiness at night. A weak point, however, was the presence of mortar-boats that would have been better out of the way altogether. These boats had been sent to bombard the forts, which, according to the plan preferred by the Government, were to be taken before New Orleans was attacked. In other words, the Government ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood
... first; but, when the provost-marshal learned my story, he sent for me, and I was conducted to his office. Just as I came out of the depot, you went in. He wanted to question me, he said. Well, I happened to know him, though he did not know me. I knew his weak point; and, in a word, I bamboozled him. I assured him I was an officer in the Third Tennessee, and that, on further inquiry, he would find I was all right; that I had rendered greater service to my country by going over to the Yankees than I could possibly have done by remaining ...
— The Young Lieutenant - or, The Adventures of an Army Officer • Oliver Optic
... Ruth had made very considerable progress, and did not much fear the result of the examination, but she was not so sure about French. That was always her weak point, perhaps on account of the very English fashion in which she had learnt it at Miss Green's. Still she persevered with it, and ...
— Ruth Arnold - or, the Country Cousin • Lucy Byerley
... so baffling. That was his weak point and she had picked it out infallibly. Whatever his suspicions, he had been able to prove nothing, though he suspected much in the buying and selling ...
— Constance Dunlap • Arthur B. Reeve
... bound, to be cheerful, but for awhile were somewhat unsuccessful. The third floor front wasted no time in speech, but ate and drank copiously. Miss Sellars, retaining her gloves—which was perhaps wise, her hands being her weak point—signalled me out, much to my embarrassment, as the recipient of her most polite conversation. Mrs. Peedles became reminiscent of parties generally. Seeing that most of Mrs. Peedles' former friends and acquaintances were either dead or in more or less trouble, her efforts ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... The weak point of Froude's Erasmus is the inaccuracy of its verbal scholarship. "Sir," said Dr. Johnson of a loose scholar, "he makes out the Latin from the meaning, not the meaning from the Latin." This biting sarcasm would be inapplicable to Froude, who ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... uncle paused, feeling for the latch of the gate. My father had now come up, and caught his hand. "What are all the printers that ever lived, and all the books they ever printed, to one wrong to thy fine heart, brother Roland? Shame on me! A bookman's weak point, you know! It is very true, I should never have taught the boy one thing to give you pain, brother Roland,—though I don't remember," continued my father, with a perplexed look, "that I ever did teach it him, either! Pisistratus, as you value my blessing, respect as your ancestor ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... to be able to say for Miss Prescott that she absolutely reaches the end of the book without a suicide or a murder, although the heroine for a moment meditates the one and goes to the theatre to behold the other. The dialogue, usually a weak point with this writer, is here for better managed than usual, having her customary piquancy, with less of disfigurement from flippancy and bad puns. The plot shows none of those alarming pieces of incongruity and bathos which ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... asserted that right; and all the more determinedly because Elsley seemed now and then not to like it. "I will teach him how to behave to a charming woman," said he to himself; and perhaps he had been wiser if he had not said it: but every man has his weak point, ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... statement Von Holzen showed his own weak point. For, like many clever men, he utterly failed to give to women their place—the leading place—in the world's history, as in the little histories of our daily lives. He never detected Dorothy between every line of Cornish's ...
— Roden's Corner • Henry Seton Merriman
... his oration which we are sure he will one day wish to blot) would seem to be, that, having the honor of her acquaintance, they may apply very contemptuous epithets to everybody that disagrees with them. The only weak point in our case is, that Mr. Choate himself seems to allow them the one merit of knowing something of Geography,—for he says they wished to elect a "geographical President,"—but, perhaps, as they did not succeed in doing so, he will forgive them the possession ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... was suddenly uneasy. There was one weak point in her schemes, a weakness of her own creating. Ever since she had told Jeanne the truth about her lack of fortune, she had felt that it was a mistake. Suppose she should be idiot enough to give the ...
— Jeanne of the Marshes • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... The weak point with the Americans seemed to be lack of a suitable navy. A navy costs money, and the Colonists were poor. In 1775 they fitted out several swift sailing-vessels, which did good service. Inside of five years they captured over five hundred ships, cruised ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye
... sea-girt fortress was almost impregnable. Two ancient cannon lying at its gate show that the conqueror of Agincourt thundered against it in vain. Its weak point was want of water: it had none but the rain-water collected in a great cistern. In these days it could not hold out an hour against ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... story, existing in many forms, of Beauty and the Beast. There is written, with all the authority of a human scripture, the eternal and essential truth that until we love a thing in all its ugliness we cannot make it beautiful. This was the weak point in William Morris as a reformer: that he sought to reform modern life, and that he hated modern life instead of loving it. Modern London is indeed a beast, big enough and black enough to be the beast in Apocalypse, blazing ...
— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton
... absence blasts and sears you: You're his friend—for that he hates you, First obliges, and then baits you, Darting on the opportunity When to do it with impunity: 50 You are neither—then he'll flatter, Till he finds some trait for satire; Hunts your weak point out, then shows it, Where it injures, to expose it In the mode that's most insidious, Adding every trait that's hideous— From the bile, whose blackening river Rushes ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... all right. I have been a little nervous lest if he came the other way our horse might make some slight noise and attract his attention; that was our only weak point." ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty
... afraid not," he said gently. "That's another weak point in your interpretation of the role, that I'll come to in a minute. We'll give you an Irish name by way of charity—it'll help to make your classical English sound like brogue. We'll call you Coogan—Michael Coogan—that lets you off with plain ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... investigating. Then the great parrot-beak laid hold on the shell, expecting to crush it. Making no impression, however, it slid tentatively all over the exasperating prize, seeking, but in vain, for a weak point. ...
— Kings in Exile • Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
... eternal tears." She could not see without pain his extreme devotion to her daughter, whose rich nature, so spontaneous, so original, so foreign to her own, gave rise to many anxieties and occasional antagonisms. This touches the weak point in her character. She was not wholly free from a certain egotism and intellectual vanity, without the imagination to comprehend fully an individuality quite remote from all her preconceived ideas. She was slow to accept the fact that her system of education was at fault, and her failure to mold ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... canvass was renewed, and we had another convincing speech on the subject of the virtue of "a stake in society"; for Lord Pledge was tactician enough to attack the citadel, once assured of its weak point, rather than expend his efforts on the outworks of the place. That night the attorney arrived from town with the title-deeds all properly executed (they had been some time in preparation for Lord Pledge), and the following ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... Gazette about the House of Lords, and said: "I am open to wager a considerable sum that if the Government fights a general election next year they will win back all their lost by-elections and get an increased majority besides." Such rashness proves that grammar is not Mr. Cooper's only weak point. ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... full scope. Those endowed with a fertile imagination will evolve plans and combinations leading to favourable issues. The less endowed player, however, is not left quite defenceless; he has necessarily to adopt a different system, namely, to try to find a weak point in the arrangement of his opponent's forces and concentrate his attack on that weak spot. As a matter of fact, in a contest between players of equal strength, finding the weak point in the opponent's ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... The weak point in our chryso-aristocracy is the same I have alluded to in connection with cheap dandyism. Its thorough manhood, its high-caste gallantry, are not so manifest as the plate-glass of its windows and the more or less legitimate heraldry ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... a laugh. 'It's very possible she is doing just what she ought to be—neither more nor less. Her health seems to be the weak point.' ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... given forth. And I marvelled greatly at the lordly, river-like roll of the narrative, sometimes widening out into lakes and shallowing meres, but never stagnating in fen or marshlands. The language, too, which I did not then recognise as the weak point, being little more than a boiling down of Chateaubriand and Flaubert, spiced with Goncourt, delighted me with its novelty, its richness, its force. Nor did I then even roughly suspect that the very qualities which set my admiration in a blaze wilder than ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... any story, "The Antiquary" may be placed among the most careful. The underplot of the Glenallans, gloomy almost beyond endurance, is very ingeniously made to unravel the mystery of Lovel. The other side-narrative, that of Dousterswivel, is the weak point of the whole; but this Scott justifies by "very late instances of the force of superstitious credulity, to a much greater extent." Some occurrence of the hour may have suggested the knavish adept with his divining-rod. But facts are never a real excuse for the morally incredible, or all but ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... the camp-wagon. Washington would lift it with one hand and throw it in the wagon as easily as if it were a pair of saddle-bags. He could hold a musket with one hand and shoot with precision as easily as other men did with a horse-pistol. His lungs were his weak point, and his voice was never strong. He was at that time in the prime of life. His hair was a chestnut brown, his cheeks were prominent, and his head was not large in contrast to every other part of his body, which seemed ...
— George Washington, Vol. II • Henry Cabot Lodge
... weak point," said Hector, laughing. "Walter was never cut out for a scholar. I don't mean, of course, that he hasn't fair capacity, but his taste doesn't lie that way. However, he won't give you any trouble, only ...
— Hector's Inheritance - or The Boys of Smith Institute • Horatio Alger
... Ireland is our weak point, and, as we have to atone there for cruelty, and injustice, and neglect, too long persisted in, that will be the quarter from which we shall receive our share of the national judgments which are being executed all over ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... cheerfully. "Great generals always prepare for a retreat, and so shall I, but only as the last extremity. Indeed, I think our affairs look more encouraging just now. It seems next to impossible, for such a plot to hold together in all its parts; we shall be able probably, to find out more than one weak point which will not ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... D. 1.—The weak point of all this peaceful development was that the northern regions of the island remained unsubdued. It was all very well for the Roman Treasury, with true departmental shortsightedness, to declare (as Appian[255] reports) that North Britain was ...
— Early Britain—Roman Britain • Edward Conybeare
... equal for mischief, and for the last years we had him we could do nothing with him. He was perpetually getting into the fields of grain, and leading all the other cattle after him. We used to hobble him in all sorts of ways, but he would manage to push or rub down the fence at some weak point, and unless his nose was fastened down almost to the ground by a chain from his head to his hind leg, he would let down the bars, or open all the gates about the place. There was not a door about the barn but he would open, if he could get at the ...
— Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago • Canniff Haight
... defend against Luther the weak point of a bad cause. He would not declare for him—but he would not go over to his enemies. Yet, unless he quarrelled with Adrian, he could not be absolutely silent; so he chose a subject to write upon on which all schools of theology, Catholic or Protestant—all ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude
... had always been to her husband, and proud as she was of his genius and accomplishments, and sympathetic as they were in all else that their lives touched upon, her keen, penetrating mind had long since divined the principal fault that lay at the bottom of her husband's genius. She saw that the weak point in his make-up was not his inventive quality, but his inability to realize any practical results from his inventions when perfected. She saw, too, with equal certainty how rapidly their already slender means were being daily depleted in costly experiments— many of which were abandoned ...
— The Fortunes of Oliver Horn • F. Hopkinson Smith
... The weak point in the system of the Circles—if a humble Square may venture to speak of anything Circular as containing any element of weakness—appears to me to be found in their relations ...
— Flatland • Edwin A. Abbott
... which he is perpetually thrown back, while they stand invulnerable, untouched by the flashing sword which only turns and loses its edge against those stones. His satire, his wit, his keen perception of a weak point, are all lost upon the immovable preacher, whose determined conviction that he himself is right in every act and word is as a triple defence around him. This conviction keeps Knox from perceiving what he is by no means incapable ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... was the leader, director and counsellor of all the forces. He threw himself into it with all the zeal of a man fighting for his life. He made pledges right and left, seeming to discover every man's weak point, and used entreaty, flattery and promises without stint, and, if he were himself to be believed, without much scruple. When somebody said to him in my hearing, "You must have used a good deal of diplomacy, Judge, at that Convention." "Diplomacy," replied ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... circumstances. After a great victory his enemies might indeed say they had conquered the King of Prussia, but never that they had subdued him. He stood ever undaunted, ever ready for the contest, prepared to attack them when they least expected it; to take advantage of every weak point, and to profit by every incautious movement. The fallen ranks of his brave soldiers appeared to be dragons' teeth, which produced ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... independent course of their own. 'But it soon appeared that, unconsciously I think more than consciously, he is set upon the object of avoiding the responsibility either of taking the government with the Peel squadron, or of letting in Stanley and his friends.' Here was the weak point in a strong and capable character. When Graham died ten years after this (1861), Mr. Gladstone wrote to a friend, 'On administrative questions, for the last twenty years and more, I had more spontaneous ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... which is not the nominative of the Armenian noun for bread, but the accusative: now, critics, ravening against a man because he is a gentleman and a scholar, and has not only the power but also the courage to write original works, why did you not discover that weak point? Why, because you were ignorant, so here ye are held up! Moreover, who with a name commencing with Z, ever wrote fables in Armenian? There are two writers of fables in Armenian—Varthan and Koscht, and illustrious writers ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... the duke, with the colour mounting to his cheek. "Any officer in Europe might envy the decision, the daring, and the success. His sagacity in discovering the weak point of the enemy's position, and his skill in its attack, deserve all praise. His flank movement was ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... So far the quarrel had been familiar and commonplace, like a conversation about the weather, but her neck, hidden under grubby lace, was Ada's weak point. ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... he was observed, then settled back and gazed stolidly into the fire. The old Oneida had played directly into his hand; by letting slip the motive for the Seneca raid of the winter before, he had strengthened the one weak point in the speech Menard meant ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin
... ceased to deposit it, they need no care nor attention, beyond an occasional cleaning of the outlet brook. Now and then, from the proximity of willows, or thrifty, young, water-loving trees, a drain will be obstructed by roots; or, during the first few years after the work is finished, some weak point,—a badly laid tile, a loosely fitted connection between the lateral and a main, or an accumulation of silt coming from an undetected and persistent vein of quicksand,—will be developed, and repairs will have to be made. ...
— Draining for Profit, and Draining for Health • George E. Waring
... there is no positive evidence, at present, that any group of animals has, by variation and selective breeding, given rise to another group which was even in the least degree infertile with the first. Mr. Darwin is perfectly aware of this weak point, and brings forward a multitude of ingenious and important arguments to diminish the force ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
... systems fell in this country. Dr. Darwin is as reticent about teleology as Buffon, and presumably for the same reason, but the evidence in favour of design was too obvious; Paley, therefore, with his usual keen-sightedness seized upon this weak point, and had the battle all his own way, for Dr. Darwin died the same year as that in which the 'Natural Theology' appeared. The unfortunate failure to see that evolution involves design and purpose as necessarily and far more intelligibly than ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... track this savage animal. They attacked the boar with spears, or surrounded him and drove him into nets. He was a ferocious antagonist to both dogs and men, and when sore pressed would wheel about, prepared to fight to the death. Before the dogs could grip him by the ear, his one weak point, and pin him down, his sharp teeth would often wound or even kill both the hunter and his dogs. The pluckier the animal the louder the praise sung in his honor when his head was brought into the hall. The great head, ...
— Yule-Tide in Many Lands • Mary P. Pringle and Clara A. Urann
... My lord, in his heart of hearts, now knew his favourite to be a Government spy; and Mrs. Henry (however she explained the tale) was notably cold in her behaviour to the discredited hero of romance. Thus in the best fabric of duplicity there is some weak point, if you can strike it, which will loosen all; and if, by this fortunate stroke, we had not shaken the idol, who can say how it might have gone with ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and he scatters it like corn among the hens; but the money would be little use without brains. The Germans admire him greatly, and he certainly seems a man to be wondered at. But he is the one weak point, nevertheless—the only key that can open a door ...
— Hira Singh - When India came to fight in Flanders • Talbot Mundy
... moment, she had firmly believed in her capacity to realize her own visionary project. It was only when she had her foot on the step that a doubt of the success of the coming experiment crossed her mind. For the first time, she saw the weak point in her own reasoning. For the first time, she felt how much she had blindly taken for granted, in assuming that Mrs. Glenarm would have sufficient sense of justice and sufficient command of temper to hear her patiently. All her hopes ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins
... was designated to uphold the negative, and for an hour we argued the matter pro and con. Whinney advanced a number of arguments, the difference in our nationalities, our standing in our home communities (which I thought an especially weak point), our lack of a common language, and several other trivial objections, all of which Swank and I demolished until Whinney got peevish and insisted that he and I ...
— The Cruise of the Kawa • Walter E. Traprock
... a weak point, anywhere, as far as your play goes," Mr. Morton responded. "In many respects your play has been better than Cobber's. ...
— The High School Freshmen - Dick & Co.'s First Year Pranks and Sports • H. Irving Hancock
... gracefulness of his manner when speaking.... His style is polished, but has no appearance of the effect of previous preparation. He displays considerable acuteness in replying to an opponent; he is quick in his perception of anything vulnerable in the speech to which he replies, and happy in laying the weak point bare to the gaze of the House. He now and then indulges in sarcasm, which is, in most cases, very felicitous. He is plausible even when most in error. When it suits himself or his party he can apply himself with the strictest closeness ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... character; his brooding temper turned slights into injuries, gave substance to mere suspicion, and once in the morbid mood he was utterly reckless of the means of vengeance. His most playful scratch had poison in it. His eye was equally terrible for the weak point of friend and foe. But giving this all the value it may deserve, the weight of the evidence is in favor of his amiability. The testimony of a man so sweet-natured and fair-minded as Dr. Delany ought to be conclusive, and we do not wonder that Mr. Forster ...
— The Function Of The Poet And Other Essays • James Russell Lowell
... narrow to be used as a means of entrance, even if any one was brave enough to repeat the disastrous experiment of the other chief. The single door had already resisted the strongest shock they could give it, and no weak point was visible. ...
— The Story of Red Feather - A Tale of the American Frontier • Edward S. (Edward Sylvester) Ellis |
