"Blemish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... clandestine, and scarce was Delvile out of sight, before she regretted her consent to it as the loss of her self-esteem, and believed, even if a reconciliation took place, the remembrance of a wilful fault would still follow her, blemish in her own eyes the character she had hoped to support, and be a constant allay to her happiness, by telling her how unworthily she had ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... The friend does us a true kindness who tells us of the things in our character, habits, manners, which appear as blemishes, although many people have too much vanity to be told of their faults. They resent it as a personal insult when one points out any blemish in them. But this is most foolish short-sightedness. To learn of a fault is an opportunity to add a new line of beauty to the life. Our prayer each day should be that God would show us our secret faults, whatever messenger he may ...
— Girls: Faults and Ideals - A Familiar Talk, With Quotations From Letters • J.R. Miller
... Faucit's features; but I was told by my next neighbor that they were as true to the antique as her figure. Miss Faucit's voice is fine and impassioned, being deep for a female voice; but in this organ lay also the only blemish of her personation. In her last scene, which is injudiciously managed by the Greek poet,—too long by much, and perhaps misconceived in the modern way of understanding it,—her voice grew too husky to execute the cadences of the intonations: yet, even in this scene, her fall to the ...
— The Notebook of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas de Quincey
... eighty-four. His father was by position a member of the ancient noblesse, and by profession, a soldier: his mother a woman of fashion, and attached to the court. According to M. Colmache, he came into the world "without spot or blemish," and we are led to infer that his lameness—the cause of so much suffering and injustice to him in after-life—was not congenital, as has been generally believed, but the result of want of care in his childhood; for, as it was not the ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various
... exceed her far, To whom you offer, and whose nun you are. Why should you worship her? her you surpass As much as sparkling diamonds flaring glass. A diamond set in lead his worth retains; A heavenly nymph, belov'd of human swains, Receives no blemish, but ofttimes more grace; Which makes me hope, although I am but base, Base in respect of thee divine and pure, Dutiful service may thy love procure; 220 And I in duty will excel all other, As thou in beauty dost exceed Love's mother. Nor heaven nor thou were made to gaze upon: As heaven preserves ...
— The Works of Christopher Marlowe, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Christopher Marlowe
... people, when time and experience have something allayed their ardour, will often find their dainty taste offended at discovering a mole on the bosom, or a yellow shade in the neck, or any other trifling bodily blemish, which was as visible before marriage as after, had they looked with the same scrutinizing eyes. Be resolute in repelling every emotion of anger or disgust. Never permit a choleric or bitter expression to escape you; for wedded love is but too often of a tender and perishable nature, and ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... her, they be both 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 ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... property of Christian or Pagan masters, could not improve their temporal condition by changing their religion. I am ignorant by what guides the Abbe Raynal was deceived; as the total absence of quotations is the unpardonable blemish of his entertaining history.] ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... allied are these two parables, that if we had regarded repetition as a formidable blemish in our lessons, we would not have proposed to expound them separately and successively. The two lines are coincident throughout their whole length, except at one point; but there the diversity is broadly marked, amounting in one aspect to a specific contrast. ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... they found him without scratch or blemish, save for a curious and inflamed disfiguration on his left arm, just below the shoulder. Though this soon healed, it was long before its mystery was explained; but when Truman Flagg saw it, he pronounced it to be the tattooed ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... before he began to practise it. Of the early work of the greater artist a good half is that of a man in the throes of education: the ideas, the thoughts, the passion, the poetry, the humour, are of the best, but the expression is self-conscious, strained, ignorant. Thackeray had no such blemish. He wrote dispassionately, and he was a born writer. In him there is no hesitation, no fumbling, no uncertainty. The style of Barry Lyndon is better and stronger and more virile than the style of Philip; and unlike the other man's, whose latest ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... benediction, the accused plunges his hand into the boiling fluid, and takes out the coin. The arm is afterwards again sealed up until the time appointed for a re-examination. The seal is then broken; if no blemish appears, the prisoner is declared innocent; if the contrary, he suffers the punishment due to his crime."... On this trial the accused thus addresses the element before plunging his hand into the boiling oil:—"Thou, O fire! pervadest ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... all the conditions. At last a young man came who had served as the model for the image of the god in his temple. There was no question, therefore, of soundness of limb, and when he underwent the form of examination no spot nor blemish was found on him. The priest asked him whether he was in trouble, and especially whether he was disappointed in love. He said he was in no trouble; that he was betrothed to a girl to whom he was devoted, and that they had intended to be married that month. "I am," he declared, ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... Philip Darcy. All this was heart-rending in the extreme to the poor girl; but yet her faith never faltered for a single moment in the truth and fidelity of her lover; and what cared she for aught else in the world, so long as he was left her without spot or blemish. Observing the foothold that Lauder had in the house and estimation of her relatives, she did not feel herself at liberty to treat him with all the contempt and severity that he deserved; so that she was too often, ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh
... 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 it. Small ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley
... he loved a fight. He never was worsted, the nearest thing to it being a draw between himself and Terry Barr. After that Terry went to the States and became a professional pugilist of note. Bill's social record was not without blemish. He was known to have appropriated a rope, to the far end of which was attached another man's horse. He certainly had been in jail once and should have been there a dozen times, for worse crimes than fighting. And yet Bill was firmly established ...
— The Preacher of Cedar Mountain - A Tale of the Open Country • Ernest Thompson Seton
... stoutest among men. Then hied they them into the gate, and great were the strokes given; but the outcome thereof was such wise that the victory was to Harald and he stormed the gates. Sore smote was Halldor, a deep wound gat he in the countenance, and to him was it a blemish all ...
— The Sagas of Olaf Tryggvason and of Harald The Tyrant (Harald Haardraade) • Snorri Sturluson
... on his deathbed, and there will be no throb even then in his heart of stone—in that heart without stain or blemish! ...
— Dream Tales and Prose Poems • Ivan Turgenev
... madmen, as there are of tame, All humor'd not alike. We have here some So apish and fantastic, play with a feather; And though 'twould grieve a soul to see God's image So blemish'd and defac'd, yet do they act Such antick and such pretty lunacies, That, spite of sorrow, they will make you smile. Others again we have, like angry lions, Fierce as wild bulls, untameable as ...
— The Works of Charles Lamb in Four Volumes, Volume 4 • Charles Lamb
... eyes and luxuriant tresses, and the face often shows richness of colour. A few blondes are seen among the brunes; but whether fair or dark they have all the same exuberance of nature. The teeth are rarely good after early youth. The cause of this blemish is said to be the water, which, passing through a sandy soil, ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... on June 1, Dr. Le Plongeon had the great satisfaction of discovering a monument, a splendid work of art in all its pristine beauty, fresh as when the artist put the finishing touch to it, without blemish, unharmed by time, and not even looked upon by man since it was concealed, ages ago, where Dr. Le Plongeon discovered it through his interpretations of certain inscriptions. It was probably hidden to save it from ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 458, October 11, 1884 • Various
... of Adam Kadmon: Heva, naked Eve. She had no navel. Gaze. Belly without blemish, bulging big, a buckler of taut vellum, no, whiteheaped corn, orient and immortal, standing from everlasting to everlasting. Womb ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... this noble poem reads That tells the tale of Rama's deeds, Good as the Scriptures, he shall be From every sin and blemish free. Whoever reads the saving strain, With all his kin the heavens shall gain. Brahmans who read shall gather hence The highest praise for eloquence. The warrior, o'er the land shall reign, The merchant, luck in trade obtain; And Sudras listening(42) ...
— The Ramayana • VALMIKI
... trait of Coyote is that he won't drink nothin' but water. Despite this blemish, however, when the camp gets so it knows him it can't he'p but like him a heap. He's so quiet an' honest an' ignorant an' little an' lame, an' so plumb p'lite besides, he grows on you. I can almost see the weasened old outlaw now as he comes rockin' into town with ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... words are often divided. A subheading of two lines should never be divided in the first line when it is possible to turn the full word over on to the next line. The shortening of the first line is never a blemish, but a too short second line following a hyphened first ...
— Division of Words • Frederick W. Hamilton
... If she had only an Intrigue with the Fellow, why the very best Families have excus'd and huddled up a Frailty of that sort. 'Tis Marriage, Husband, that makes it a Blemish. ...
— The Beggar's Opera • John Gay
... (b) should be as nearly equal as possible. Modern printers, even the best, pay very little 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 piece of printing. ...
— The Art and Craft of Printing • William Morris
... parts of conversation which please ladies, and finding these qualities in his friend, would often depute Cassio to go (as he phrased it) a courting for him: such innocent simplicity being rather an honour than a blemish to the character of the valiant Moor. So that no wonder, if next to Othello himself (but at far distance, as beseems a virtuous wife) the gentle Desdemona loved and trusted Cassio. Nor had the marriage of this couple made any difference in their behaviour to Michael Cassio. ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... There, each girl was a lady. There, she was going to walk among free souls, her co-mates and her equals, and all petty things would be put away. Ah, if only she did not bite her nails! If only she had not this blemish! She wanted so much to be perfect—without spot or blemish, living the high, ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... falling so gracefully, so much like thin beautiful threads as here. Yet even this cataract has its blemish. What beautiful object has not something which more or less mars its loveliness? There is an ugly black bridge or semicircle of rock, about two feet in diameter and about twenty feet high, which rises some little way below it, and under which the water, after reaching the bottom, ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... Seger was there though after that he sayd, I saw her there, I knew her well I know God will require her blood at my hands if I should testifie falsly. Allso bec he sd he saw her kittle, there being at so great a distance, they doubted that these things did not only weaken & blemish his testimony, but also in a great measure disable it for standing ...
— The Witchcraft Delusion In Colonial Connecticut (1647-1697) • John M. Taylor
... opinion that the Clan Quhele of Wyntoun were the Camerons, who appear to have about that period been often designated as Macewans, and to have gained much more recently the name of Cameron, i.e. Wrynose, from a blemish in the physiognomy of some heroic chief of the line of Lochiel. This view of the case is also adopted by Douglas in his Baronage, where he frequently mentions the bitter feuds between Clan Chattan and Clan Kay, and identifies the latter sept in reference to the events of 1396, with the Camerons. ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... with the enlarged sentiments and cool reflection of a legislator, but with the intemperate zeal of a sectary; and by over looking the circumstances of the times, served rather to inflame that religious fury which he meant to repress. But this blemish is more to be regarded as a general imputation on the whole age, than any particular failing of Laud's; and it is sufficient for his vindication to observe, that his errors were the most excusable of all those which prevailed ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part E. - From Charles I. to Cromwell • David Hume
... poor patron's money? Be generous, my lord, and spare his weakness for the sake of his wife and children. Is it to practise upon the simple heart of a virtuous lady? You might as well storm the Tower single-handed. But you may blemish her name by light comments on it, or by lawless pursuits—and I don't deny that 'tis in your power to make her unhappy. Spare these innocent ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... commissioner's ear! A friend could not get within hail. Just or unjust, every complaint came and squatted in a ring around him. Maybe some were just—such as soldiers not being able to get their pay, for instance. There was never but one who lived without spot or blemish. But of course we knew that the old Admiral wasn't really a tyrant, cruel and a fool! Of course not. Carvajal's man was prepared to fight any man of his own class who would say that to his face! He'd fight, too, for the Adelantado. Don Francisco de Bobadilla had no sooner landed than he began ...
— 1492 • Mary Johnston
... South or in West. To encounter the combined efforts of a great European coalition he had only himself and his Anglo-Saxons to rely on. Harold is depicted as coming forth perfect from the hands of nature, without blemish from head to foot, personally brave before the enemy, gentle among his own people, and endowed with natural eloquence. His enemy's passion for, and knowledge of, war were not in him; the taste of the Anglo-Saxons ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... regard to these reminiscences, that "elle se souvenait avec gout." Still, pleasant as her recollections were, she often looked back self-reproachfully upon passages of her youth; and Sainte-Beuve, though he calls her coquetry "une coquetterie angelique," recognizes it as a blemish. "She, who was so good, brought sorrow to many hearts, not only to indignant and soured men, but to poor feminine rivals, whom she sacrificed and wounded without knowing it. It is the dark side of her life, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... in the baggage-carrying business. For Cuff to allow Ginger the advantage of an undisputed descent upon the luggage of the approaching vessel would be not only to forfeit all "considerations" from the passengers, but, by proving him a laggard in his calling, to cast a damaging blemish upon his reputation. Liberally as he might lend himself to a friend, it could not be done at that sacrifice. After a minute or two of fidgety waiting for the song to end, Cuff's patience could endure no longer, and, cautiously hazarding ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 121, November, 1867 • Various
... hath me and my niece and two other women to hold up the silken cloth betwixt her body and the world; so that I have seen her as God made her; and I shall tell thee that when he was about that work he was minded to be a craftsmaster; for there is no blemish about her that she should hide her at all or anywhere. Her sides are sleek, and her thighs no rougher than her face, and her feet as dainty as her hands: yea, she is a pearl all over, withal she is as strong as a knight, and I warrant her hardier of heart than ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... in the Poet's behalf, will not allow any thing to be true that infers the least moral blemish in his life: he therefore utterly discredits the story in question, and hunts it down with arguments more ingenious than sound. In writing biography, special-pleading is not good; and I would fain avoid trying to make ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... just complaint among refined and cultivated people that many, even of the well-educated young women of the present day, talk too loudly and vehemently; are given to exaggeration of statement and slang expressions. The greatest blemish of the conversation and manners of the young people of to-day is obtrusiveness and exaggeration. By obtrusiveness I mean a style of speech and manners that attracts attention and remark; by exaggeration I mean the too constant use of the ...
— Letters to a Daughter and A Little Sermon to School Girls • Helen Ekin Starrett
... greatest immediate pleasure compatible with the largest 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 ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... truth, "Omne animal ex ovo," and clearly proved that the essential part of the egg, that in which the reproductive processes begin, was not the chalazae, but the cicatricula. This Fabricius had looked upon as a blemish, a scar left by a broken peduncle. Harvey described this little cicatricula as expanding under the influence of incubation into a wider structure, which he called the eye of the egg, and at the same time separating into a clear and transparent part, in which ...
— Fathers of Biology • Charles McRae
... exercis'd to ridicule any unavoidable Defects and Deformities of Body or Mind; for since nothing is a moral Blemish, but as it is the Effect of our own Choice, nothing can be disgraceful but what is voluntary, and brought freely upon our selves; and since nothing is the proper Object of Raillery and Ridicule, but what is shameful, it must be a Violence to Reason and Humanity, to reproach ...
— Essay upon Wit • Sir Richard Blackmore
... "Thus shalt thou see thyself, without blemish or fault even for this crown of hair to the heel of thy foot. But I fear me the sight will change all thy thoughts and incline thee to ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... were the only blemish to the handsome Plantagenet face of the Earl, were lowered at ...
— A Forgotten Hero - Not for Him • Emily Sarah Holt
... is the part that wild animals always begin with, and that it is also the first choice of our men. Were it not a wise arrangement that only the strongest males should continue the breed, one could hardly help pitying the solitary buffalo expelled from the herd for some physical blemish, or on account of the weakness of approaching old age. Banished from female society, he naturally becomes morose and savage; the necessary watchfulness against enemies is now never shared by others; disgusted, he passes into a state of chronic war with all who enjoy life, ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... We glory in this growth only as the glory of Christ is involved in it. It is an earnest of what Christian union will do even through very imperfect instruments. What will the harvest be, when the prayer of Jesus is answered and all his followers are united in one "glorious church, holy and without blemish, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing" (Eph. 5:27), going forth to the evangelization of the world "fair as the moon, clear as the sun, terrible as an army with banners," "looking forth as the morning" ...
— To Infidelity and Back • Henry F. Lutz
... you should do it with as much earnestness and interest as those who are engaged in the greater works do their parts. If your part is not done well, there will not be completeness in the divine plan. A single stitch dropped shows a blemish in the garment. In the sight of God the most menial task is as sacred as that of the highest order, and when well done ...
— How to Live a Holy Life • C. E. Orr
... make me grieve? It is true that he is handsome—and yet what of that?—most men are handsome in the eyes of maids. But he appears the paragon of men. Is he indeed not all a man should be? Where were the blemish, the exception; who shall challenge nature, saying, in his form, that here she has given too little, there too much?—Ah, me! I am not happy, yet ...
— The Advocate • Charles Heavysege
... remained sufficient to occupy a large part of his time. Every month, every day, brought its inevitable round of sacrifices, prayers, and processions. On the 1st of the second Elul, the King of Babylon had to present a gazelle without blemish to Sin; he then made an offering of his own choosing to Shamash, and cut the throats of his victims before the god. These ceremonies were repeated on the 2nd without any alteration, but from the 3rd to the 12th they took place during the night, ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... unveiled, the maidens of Athens, walking in 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, ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... with pearls. What surprised me most was a sparkling light which came from above the bed. Being curious to know whence it proceeded, I ascended the steps, and, lifting up my head, saw a diamond as large as the egg of an ostrich, lying upon a low stool; it was so pure that I could not find the least blemish in it, and it sparkled with so much brilliancy that when I saw it by daylight I could not endure ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Anonymous
... me from head to foot. Do not feel displeased with me—his are pure and royal lips! They have been touched by the sacred fire; they never have lied; never have there fallen from them other than proud and noble words; they modestly recount the history of a life without blemish Ah! why are you not here? I have a thousand things to say to you, which you alone could comprehend; others do not ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez
... For the present it is enough to observe that his immediate scholars, Raffaello da Montelupo, and Gian Angelo Montorsoli, caught little from their master but the mannerism of contorted form and agitated action. This mannerism, a blemish even in the strong work of Buonarroti, became ridiculous when adopted by men of feeble powers and passionless imagination. By straining the art of sculpture to its utmost limits, Michael Angelo expressed vehement emotions in marble; and the forced attitudes ...
— Renaissance in Italy Vol. 3 - The Fine Arts • John Addington Symonds
... which might better have been filled with exciting incidents. But this very elaboration, tardy and idle though it may seem, was necessary to the completion of the author's plan, and—in our eyes—instead of being a blemish upon a fair story, is one of its principal charms. On this very account, however, the book will be less popular, and fewer persons will admire it wholly; but, as thoughtful readers draw near to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... self-governed Church, like our own, has a right to look, and, in all probability, will continue to look until the thing is found. An Appendix to a manual of worship, whether the manual be Prayer Book or Hymnal,[41] is and cannot but be, from the very nature of things, a blemish to the eye, an embarrassment to the hand, and a vexation to the spirit. Such addenda carry on their face the suggestion that they are makeshifts, postscripts, after-thoughts; and in their lack of dignity, as well as of convenience, ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington
... unfortunately had an editor whose only object was to make a few pounds, and who was willing to sacrifice to that object my reputation and his own. He took the very worst report extant, compared it with no other report, removed no blemish however obvious or however ludicrous, gave to the world some hundreds of pages utterly contemptible both in matter and manner, and prefixed my name to them. The least that he should have done was to consult the files of The Times newspaper. ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 4 (of 4) - Lord Macaulay's Speeches • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... critical and distressful situation, it shall be my hourly prayers that you may be delivered without blemish to that fair fame which has hitherto, like ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... 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, and your hands and shoulders ...
— A Heap o' Livin' • Edgar A. Guest
... of Desdemona; genius is a rare thing, but abstract goodness is rarer. In Desdemona, we cannot but feel that the slightest manifestation of intellectual power or active will would have injured the dramatic effect. She is a victim consecrated from the first,—"an offering without blemish," alone worthy of the grand final sacrifice; all harmony, all grace, all purity, all tenderness, all truth! But, alas! to see her fluttering like a cherub in the talons of a ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... other folks we faults can spy, And blame the mote that dims their eye; Each little speck and blemish find: To ...
— Favourite Fables in Prose and Verse • Various
... 800 I scarcely can believe my ears or eyes, Or find out Cibber through the dark disguise. Pritchard[64], by Nature for the stage design'd, In person graceful, and in sense refined; Her art as much as Nature's friend became, Her voice as free from blemish as her fame, Who knows so well in majesty to please, Attemper'd with the graceful charms of ease? When, Congreve's favoured pantomime[65] to grace, She comes a captive queen, of Moorish race; 810 When love, hate, jealousy, despair, and rage With wildest tumults in her breast engage, ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... bore pretty much the same testimony, and so did the next. It was plain that John Mason was not the right kind of a man, and rather a blemish upon the village of Moorfield, notwithstanding he was one of the principal property-holders ...
— Off-Hand Sketches - a Little Dashed with Humor • T. S. Arthur
... 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
... and action. That he, like most great men, felt keenly the value of health, is evidenced not only by his own practice, but by his oft repeated warnings to his nephew when choosing a wife to see that whatever other qualities she might have she be healthy. The blemish of nearsight he considered a no small defect and sufficient to render a young woman unworthy of entry into the proud family of the Buonarroti. To his own father he wrote: "Look to your life and health, for a man does not come back again to ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... unpopular, partly from the idea that it is a sign of weakness of constitution—a notion for which there appears to me to be no foundation in fact. The slightest spot of black, or even a very dark shade, is regarded to be a blemish of the most serious kind when observed on the pelt of a Shorthorn. The Herefords are partly white, partly red; the Devon possesses in general a deep red hue; the Suffolks are usually of a dun or faint reddish tint; the Ayrshires are commonly spotted white and red; and the Kerrys are seen ...
— The Stock-Feeder's Manual - the chemistry of food in relation to the breeding and - feeding of live stock • Charles Alexander Cameron
... thunder-cloud passed over Ned Harris' face—"and set adrift upon the world, homeless and 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
... mind corrupt, just as it is beginning to possess its powers. I never have known any but bad men, worthless men, men unworthy of any portion of respect, who took delight in, or even kept in their possession, writings of the description to which I here allude. The writings of SWIFT have this blemish; and, though he is not a teacher of lewdness, but rather the contrary, there are certain parts of his poems which are much too filthy for any decent person to read. It was beneath him to stoop to such means of setting forth that wit ...
— Advice to Young Men • William Cobbett
... of flat prose twisted into rhyme; Pope seems to have intentionally pitched his style at a prosaic level as fitter for didactic purposes; but besides this we here and there come upon phrases which are not only elliptical and slovenly, but defy all grammatical construction. This was a blemish to which Pope was always strangely liable. It was perhaps due in part to over-correction, when the context was forgotten and the subject had lost its freshness. Critics, again, have remarked upon the poverty of the rhymes, and observed that he makes ten rhymes to "wit" ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... garrisons of those strong places having, in the year 1799, from the turn of public affairs, judged it expedient to capitulate to Ferdinand and his allies, on conditions which should leave their honour without blemish, and assure their own safety and that of the city; and this capitulation having been solemnly accepted and ratified by Cardinal Ruffo, as the king's legate and plenipotentiary, by the late Sir Edward Foote, as acting commodore of the British force, and by the representatives of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... extreme front had a view, as the road dipped into a valley, of the trophies which are the proof of victory. Here were both guns and prisoners. Among the guns nicely parked you might have your choice between the latest 77's out of Krupps' and pieces of the vintage of the '80's. One 77 had not a blemish; another had its muzzle broken off by the burst of a shell, its spokes slashed by shell-fragments, and its armored shield, opened by a jagged hole, was as crumpled ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... sustains the conviction that, though he was a man, he was also more than man. The most critical research, the most careful examination of his life, his motives, his teachings, only compel the testimony that he was "without spot or blemish." The great have studied his sayings and his life, and have bowed in admiration before the sublime teachings of the Son of Man. The simple and unlettered have listened to his words of truth and been comforted. Faith has been awakened, hope inspired, ...
— History of Education • Levi Seeley
... sneer shows wisdom, That a gibe outvalues a reason, That slang, such as thieves delight in, Is fit for the lips of the gentle, And rather a grace than a blemish, Thick-headed public! ...
— The Book of Humorous Verse • Various
... hath said. 6:4. Were made partakers of [the] Holy Spirit. 4:7. He again defineth a certain day. 9:14. Who through [the] eternal Spirit offered himself without 9:8. The Holy Spirit this blemish ...
— The Spirit and the Word - A Treatise on the Holy Spirit in the Light of a Rational - Interpretation of the Word of Truth • Zachary Taylor Sweeney
... this subject have supposed this defect to proceed from a disease of, or want of proper correspondence in, the muscles of the eyes, which not acting in proper concert with one another, as in persons free from this blemish, are not able to point both eyes to the same object. But this, I think, is very seldom the cause, for when the other eye is shut, the distorted eye can be moved by the action of its muscles, in all possible directions, ...
— Popular Lectures on Zoonomia - Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease • Thomas Garnett
... approached she saw something else about this unlovely woman. On her neck was a great, livid scar, of a hand's breadth, and which looked like a scald, or burn. No attempt was made to conceal this unsightly blemish. ...
— Nan Sherwood at Pine Camp - or, The Old Lumberman's Secret • Annie Roe Carr
... something about this in the chapter read. He here says: "Ye were REDEEMED, not with corruptible things, with silver or gold, from your vain manner of life handed down from your fathers; but with the precious blood, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot, even the blood of Christ.... Ye have purified your souls in your obedience to the truth; ... having been begotten [or born] again, ... through the word of God, which ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... bull be found, without blemish, and let him be slain upon the altar and his carcass be burned before me, and I shall be satisfied; for ye can offer me no more acceptable sacrifice than this and your obedience to my commands. It is enough. I have spoken. Henceforth, trouble ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... 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, who threw me over ...
— The Cords of Vanity • James Branch Cabell et al
... perhaps he could do something, something in the way of a crown or bridge. "Let's look at that again," he said, picking up his mirror. He began to study the situation very carefully, really desiring to remedy the blemish. ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... this matter to Aristo the tragedian; a man of good family and fortune, which neither of them receive any blemish by that profession; nothing of this kind being reputed a ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... it to you, I'd like to know, after she had examined the piece, and declared that it suited her, whether there was a blemish in it or not, if she ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa
... surprised you. Could he, or the Lucases, have pitched on any man within the circle of our acquaintance, whose name would have given the lie more effectually to what they related? Mr. Darcy, who never looks at any woman but to see a blemish, and who probably never looked at you in his life! ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah came Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon unto Jerusalem, and besieged it. . . . And the king spake unto Ashpenaz the master of his eunuchs, that he should bring certain of the children of Israel, and of the king's seed, and of the princes; children in whom was no blemish, but well favoured, and skilful in all wisdom, and cunning in knowledge, and understanding science, and such as had ability in them to stand in the king's palace, and whom they might teach the learning and the tongue of the Chaldeans. . . . Now among these were of the children of Judah, ...
— The Astronomy of the Bible - An Elementary Commentary on the Astronomical References - of Holy Scripture • E. Walter Maunder
... sympathy and sorrow for Henry Surface's son, and not repulsion, for he had read it in her face. But she could not forgive him a personal dishonor. And he was glad that, so believing, she would do as she had done; it was the perfect thing to do; to demand honor without a blemish, or to cancel all. Never had she stood so high in his fancy as now when she had ordered him out of her life. His heart leapt with the knowledge that, though she would never know it, he was her true mate there, in ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... find them for yourself in Debrett. In me you behold a Prince of the Holy Roman 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 most ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... fear towards the Lord is plain from many an act and devotion of his. In the first place, a certain reverend prelate of England used to relate that for ten years he held the office of confessor to King Henry: but he declared that never throughout that long time had any blemish of ...
— Henry the Sixth - A Reprint of John Blacman's Memoir with Translation and Notes • John Blacman
... 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 ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... other game. I think it is very likely that some scores of monthly medals have been lost through a too precipitate destruction of the scoring card when everything seemed to be going the wrong way. Every player should remember that it is indeed a perfect card that is without a blemish, and that on the other hand there are few rounds played by a man who knows anything about the game that are bad all through. But some men, because they have the misfortune to be debited with a couple of 8's in the first four or five holes, forthwith ...
— The Complete Golfer [1905] • Harry Vardon
... A blemish in the cut appears; Alas! it cost both blood and tears. The glancing graver swerved aside, Fast flowed the artist's vital tide! And now the apologetic bard ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... he'd covered his poor body with tattoo marks—his body that I've a-washed hundreds o' times, and loved to feel his legs kickin' agen' me. Beautiful skin he had as a child; soft as satin the feel of it, and not a blemish anywhere. 'Tis hard to think of it criss-crossed with them nasty marks. But there! thank the Lord God he's safe, this passage! Read me what he says, there's a kind soul; but you'll have to bear a child afore you know what ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... old, judge of the county court. He was very proud of his old Virginian ancestry, and in his hospitalities and his rather formal and stately manners, he kept up its traditions. He was fine and just and generous. To be a gentleman—a gentleman without stain or blemish—was his only religion, and to it he was always faithful. He was respected, esteemed, and beloved by all of the community. He was well off, and was gradually adding to his store. He and his wife were very nearly happy, but not quite, for they had no children. The ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... 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 ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... rate it was worth the trial: the man came, was very quiet, did not promise anything, but united the parts, bandaged them together, had the patient fastened down in the position in which he chose him to lie, and after some weeks of careful tending, the animal was restored to his master even without blemish. It was only by passing the hand along the parts which had been severed, that the scar could be detected; and he was afterwards sold for a ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... of "Perigrine Pickle," but at the same time added to its dissolute character and its immediate popularity by the forced insertion of the licentious "Memoirs of a Lady of Quality." Now a serious blemish, these memoirs formed at the time an added attraction to the book. They were eagerly read as the authentic account of Lady Vane, a notorious woman of rank, and were furnished to Smollett by herself, in the hope, ...
— A History of English Prose Fiction • Bayard Tuckerman
... help thinking how different she was from Miss Laura, who loved any creature all the more for having some blemish about it. ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders
... the fair face of Beauty is not regarded as a blemish, but the very contrary, by Asiatics—or by Europeans either, else why did the ladies of the last century patch their faces, if not (originally) to set off the clearness of their complexion by contrast with the little black wafer?—though (afterwards) often to hide a pimple! Eastern ...
— Flowers from a Persian Garden and Other Papers • W. A. Clouston
... Her eyes sparkled as she spoke, and every gesture betokened rather the grand young creature that she was than the valetudinarian going forth for healing. Her cheek, turned now and again, showed a clear-cut and untouched soundness that meant naught but health. It showed also the one blemish upon a beauty which was toasted in the court as faultless. Upon the left cheek there was a mouche, excessive in its size. Strangers might have commented on it. Really it covered a deep-stained birth-mark, the one blur upon a peerless beauty. ...
— The Mississippi Bubble • Emerson Hough
... from which every later one, in a direct line or a lateral, depends. We may proceed in this investigation, certain that we shall find such, or at least that such there is to be found. For nothing can be more certain than this (and the non-recognition of it is a serious blemish in Johnson's Dictionary), that a word has originally but one meaning, that all other uses, however widely they may diverge from one another and recede from this one, may yet be affiliated to it, brought back to the one central ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... fur skin should be without break or bruise, from nose to tail. A trap set as above described, would of course catch its victim by the head or neck, and the fur would be more or less injured at the very spot where it should be particularly free from blemish. ...
— Camp Life in the Woods and the Tricks of Trapping and Trap Making • William Hamilton Gibson
... himself a husband. Our human wedlock and married love is a pattern of some divine mystery. 'Husbands love your wives, as Christ also loved the Church, and gave Himself for it, that He might present it to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle, but that it should be holy and without blemish.' Blessed words, which we cannot pretend to explain or understand, but can only believe and adore, and find, as we shall find, in proportion as we are loving and faithful in wedlock, that God's Spirit bears witness with our spirit, that they ...
— Sermons for the Times • Charles Kingsley
... pieces of dried fish are first placed on the tympan, the high rack above the fire-place, then removed and tied to the ridge-pole of the house, amidst shouts of Ho, hoi, hoi, hoi. The poor then sacrifice a fowl, and the rich a pig without blemish (uba tlem), to u Suid nia and ka Iaw-bei (the spirits of deceased ancestors of the family), and present them with dykhot, or pieces of flesh. Two or three days afterwards, the bride, accompanied by her female relatives, pays a visit to the bridegroom ...
— The Khasis • P. R. T. Gurdon
... Burr's trial for treason is the one serious blemish in his judicial record, but for all that it was not without a measure of extenuation. The President, too, had behaved deplorably and, feeling himself on the defensive, had pressed matters with most unseemly zeal, so that the charge of political persecution raised by Burr's attorneys ...
— John Marshall and the Constitution - A Chronicle of the Supreme Court, Volume 16 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Edward S. Corwin
... prize was indeed one to be proud of; his length from tip of nose to tip of tail was nine feet eight inches, he stood three feet nine inches high, and it took eight men to carry him back to camp. The only blemish was that the skin was much scored by the boma thorns through which he had so often forced his way in carrying ...
— The Man-eaters of Tsavo and Other East African Adventures • J. H. Patterson
... he has not met with his usual success in depicting amiable characters. The exemplary couple, together with their children and Friendly, are much less real than the villain and his fellows. And so the importance of the Heartfrees in Jonathan Wild seems to me a double blemish. A satire is not truth, and yet in Mr. and Mrs. Heartfree Fielding has tried—though not with success—to give us virtuous characters who are truly human. The consequence is that Jonathan Wild just fails of being a consistently ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... too high to be back in time for her to recover, and over both of us went kerlash in the mud. I was skeered more about her than myself, lest she should git the skin of her knee cut, for to a knowing one's eye that's an awful blemish. It's a long story to tell how such a blemish warn't the hoss's fault, for I'd rather praise than apologize for a critter any time. And there is one thing few-people knows. Let the cut come which way it will, the animal ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... soft regret. "And I think you underestimate Giles Winterborne. Remember, I was brought up with him till I was sent away to school, so I cannot be radically different. At any rate, I don't feel so. That is, no doubt, my fault, and a great blemish in me. But I hope you will put up with ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... fruit to be preserved be quite dry, and without blemish. Take a bottle that is perfectly clean and dry within, and put in the fruit in layers, sprinkling sugar between each layer, put in the bung, and tie bladder over, setting the bottles, bung downwards, in a large stewpan of cold water, with hay between to prevent breaking. When the skin is just ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... the Siena tondo, is so pronounced that, when standing close to the wall on which the relief is fixed, one can see the Virgin's second eye—unduly prominent and much too near to the nose. This is a needless and distracting mannerism, though, of course, the blemish is only noticeable from one point of view, being quite invisible as one sees the relief from the front, or in a photograph. The Berlin Museum has another large Madonna comparable for its scale and rich colouring ...
— Donatello • David Lindsay, Earl of Crawford
... your Hermetick Philosophers present us, together with divers Substantial and noble Experiments, Theories, which either like Peacocks feathers make a great shew, but are neither solid nor useful; or else like Apes, if they have some appearance of being rational, are blemish'd with some absurdity or other, that when they are Attentively consider'd, ...
— The Sceptical Chymist • Robert Boyle
... some conversation about Nollekens the sculptor, whose inordinate love of money was such a curious blemish in his character. Macaulay told one or two stories illustrating his parsimony. Then he came to speak of art in general, and said he did not think the faculty for it a high gift of mind. This opinion was strongly combated by Mr. Blore the architect and others, but I remember Macaulay gave, as in some ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various |
