"Set-off" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the build needful to climb the stacks of smouldering boughs, see to the fires, cord the cut wood and the burnt wood, lead the asses, cook the dinner, call the men —to be, in fact, what Jack should be. Jack he was, and Jack he should be called. Falve held out for a thrashing as a set-off; it seemed unnatural, he said, to have a belt and a boy at arms'-length. It was outvoted on account of the lateness of the hour, but only delayed. The beds were made ready, and Jack and his masters ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... this movement of passion, since undoubtedly it broke and disturbed the else uniform stream of public indignation, by investing the original aggressor with something like the character of an injured person; and therefore with some set-off to plead against his own wantonness of malice;—his malice might now assume the nobler aspect ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... thrown open a gulf of treachery between himself and the architect which nothing in life could ever close. Before leaving the telegraph-office Dare had despatched the following message to Paula direct, as a set-off against what he called Somerset's ingratitude for valuable information, though it was really the fruit of ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... As a set-off to this picture of moral chaos, it should be remembered that these people when called upon to die for their revolutionary faith did so with the greatest heroism. Nor is the picture true of all revolutionaries; some of the noblest men it has ever been my good fortune to meet ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... chiefly, as Bowring says, upon his defence of the Jewish law, was suppressed for fear of the law of libel.[228] The Fragment was published anonymously, but Bentham had confided the secret to his father by way of suggesting some slight set-off against his apparent unwillingness to emerge from obscurity. The book was at first attributed to Lord Mansfield, Lord Camden, and to Dunning. It was pirated in Dublin; and most of the five hundred copies printed appear ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... seemed uninclined to soar, at the set-off—though Hector didn't. The next summer began a presidential campaign, and Hector, knowing that I was chairman of my county committee, and strangely overestimating my importance, came up to see me: he asked me to use my influence with the National Committee to have him sent ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington
... of the boy, though all the while the trouble dwelt upon his weather-beaten old face; "but I bet on Jim, an' I wish it was him had the chance ye speak of. Mebbe it is, now; an' if it was, it'd be 'most a set-off agin the other not havin' it. I set a lot ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... of set-off to the imposition of income tax, which it should be noted was at the time said to be "temporary," Mr. Gladstone wiped out a capital debt of four millions, but it must be pointed out that, in the fifty ...
— Ireland and the Home Rule Movement • Michael F. J. McDonnell
... the faculties and resources of the people. In the course of his speech he remarked, that the favourable appearance of our affairs in the East Indies, and of the safe arrival of our numerous commercial fleets, were matters for congratulation: evidently designing these as a kind of set-off for our reverses in the West, and as encouragements to ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... lover had been with her. The Melmottes of course knew of the engagement and quite approved of it. Madame Melmotte rather aspired to credit for having had so happy an affair arranged under her auspices. It was some set-off against Marie's unfortunate escapade. Mr Brehgert, therefore, had been allowed to come and go as he pleased, and on that morning he had pleased to come. They were sitting alone in some back room, and Brehgert was pressing for an early day. 'I don't think ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... am, and although enjoying good digestive organs, I must have only one meal every day; but I find a set-off to that privation in my delightful sleep, and in the ease which I experience in writing down my thoughts without having recourse to paradox or sophism, which would be calculated to deceive myself even more than my readers, for I never could make up my mind to palm counterfeit coin upon them ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... done at last. As Willis saw his confession consigned to Mohun's pocket-book, his avarice gave him courage to try one last effort to gain something by the transaction—a salve to his bruises—a set-off against the relicta ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... invited to bask for a short time on the evening of the day before the appointment of the new captain. He had been there once before when his father and mother had come over to visit him. And even with their presence as a set-off, the evening had been one of the most awful experiences of his life. But now that he was to go all alone to partake of state tea with those two, this shy awkward boy felt about as cheerful as if he had been walking ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... in his own handwriting, dated the 6th September, 1805, it appears that his earnings at such work as "fitting the first set of iron loames," "fitting up shittles," and "making moddles," were 3s. 6d. a day; and he must, during the same time, have lived with his employer, who charged him as a set-off "14 weaks bord at 8s. per weak." He afterwards seems to have worked at piece-work in partnership with one Andrew Gamble supplying the materials as well as the workmanship for the looms and shuttles. His employer, Mr. George Dickinson, also ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... hundred pounds; shop-fittings, fifty; business as it stands, say three hundred. The rent is ninety-five. Floor above the shop let to a family, who pay twenty-four shillings a week—a substantial set-off against the rent; but I should like to get rid of the people, and use the whole house for business purposes. There's three years of Denbow's lease to run, but this, he says, the landlord would be willing to convert into a seven years' lease to a new tenant. Then one must ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... now lasted several hours, and neither side had gained any material advantage. Some junks had been sunk, and a good many Chinamen killed; but as a set-off against this, there could be no doubt that the brig had lost several men. Jack, too, observed that she now only fired when the junks pressed very close round her, and he could not but suspect that she was running short of ammunition. The ...
— The Three Midshipmen • W.H.G. Kingston
... the admiral, "and you'd better tell him. The mutinous rascal! he wants all the honour he can get, as a set-off against his drunkenness and other ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... As a set-off against such discussions as these there had come an improvement in their pecuniary position, which earlier in their experience would have made them cheerful. Jude had quite unexpectedly found good employment at his old trade almost directly he arrived, the summer weather suiting his ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... wife accompanied him on the spinnet, and encourage his daughters to wed men in what was their then sphere of life, rather than those who might not consider the gentle blood they inherited, and their superior education, a sufficient set-off to their limited means and humble station. Suddenly, riches poured in upon him: his eldest daughter, true to the faith she plighted, would marry her humble lover, and her father's subsequent harshness to her favourite ...
— Turns of Fortune - And Other Tales • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... As a set-off we append here a romantic story paraphrased from the Midrash Shir Hashirim. A certain Israelite of Sidon, having lived many years with his wife without being blessed with offspring, made up his mind to give her a bill ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... critical instant, took command, and the enemy was heavily repulsed. Madocks engaged in a point-blank rifle duel with the frock-coated top-hatted Boer leader, and had the good fortune to kill his formidable opponent. Twenty-one Boer dead and many wounded left upon the field made a small set-off to the disaster of ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... paper, in the New Monthly Magazine, is by no means novel; but the fine, cutting satire—the pleasant, lively banter on our vices and follies—which pervades every page of the article, is a set-off to the political frenzy and the literary lumber of other Magazines of the month. Each of them, it is true, has a readable paper, but one gem only contributes to a Magazine in the proportion of one swallow ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 529, January 14, 1832 • Various
... which he had commenced his relations with his pupils, namely, that they were not only the natural enemies of the master, but therefore of all law, theology had come in and taught him that they were in their own nature bad—with a badness for which the only set-off he knew or could introduce was blows. Independently of any remedial quality that might be in them, these blows were an embodiment of justice; for "every sin," as the catechism teaches, "deserveth God's wrath and curse both in this life and that which is ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... As a set-off against the previous sad story I may relate an amusing one, in which I was myself a principal actor, and which occurred soon after my arrival at Mesopotamia. Butler was much exercised about some experimental grass-growing he was carrying on about three ...
— Five Years in New Zealand - 1859 to 1864 • Robert B. Booth
... be charged against him that he ought to have known the proper accentuation of Niagara, it may be mentioned as a set-off that Sir Walter Scott, in dealing with his own country, mis-accentuated "Glenaladale," to say nothing of his having made of Roseneath an island. Another characteristic of the Traveller is the extraordinary choiceness ...
— Goldsmith - English Men of Letters Series • William Black
... but I can affirm that they have made me many friends, and that I have had encouragement enough from fellow craftsmen, from professional critics, and from casual readers at home, in the colonies, and the United States to bolster up the courage of the most timorous man that ever held a pen. As a set-off against all this, I have received one very noble and dignified rebuke from a Contemporary in Fiction, whom the world holds in high honour, who regrets that I am not engaged in creative work—in lieu of this—and pleads that 'authorship should be allowed the distinction ...
— My Contemporaries In Fiction • David Christie Murray
... her all, and I am glad I did so. She found in her simple, womanly heart just the counsel that I needed. One feels that she is used to giving consolation. She possesses the secret of that feminine deftness which is the great set-off to feminine weakness. Weak? Yes, women perhaps are weak, yet less weak than we, the strong sex, for they can raise us to our feet. She called me, "My dear Monsieur Fabien," and there was balm in the very way she said the words. I used to think she wanted refinement; she does not, she only lacks ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... being a fair show of reason for considering the world a wretched place enough, heaven felt where the burden was most galling, and to prove that it knew how to make happy people, created lords for the satisfaction of philosophers. This acts as a set-off, and gets heaven out of the scrape, affording it a decent escape from a false position. The great are great. A peer, speaking of himself, says we. A peer is a plural. The king qualifies the peer consanguinei nostri. ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... More recently, St. Chamans, Nouvel Essai sur la Richesses des Nations, 1824, 83 ff. To some extent, even Dietzel, System der Staatsanleihen, 1855, 200. This is a dangerous error, since to every credit there is a set-off in the nature of a debit of an equal amount; and the evidences of debt are nothing but claims on the future revenue of the state. This was fully recognized by Cantillon, 291 ff. One of the principal advocates of ...
— Principles Of Political Economy • William Roscher
... springs to a height which brings the local plane 130 feet above the highest spring tides. The top of the base is 30 inches above high water, and, the tower's diameter being less than that of its plinth, the set-off forms an excellent landing-stage when the ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors - Vol. II Great Britain And Ireland, Part Two • Francis W. Halsey
... the facts which I liked, there was a set-off for this: it was the absence of those stupid trade-regulations which in England, and on the continent of Europe, hamper so annoyingly the movement of commerce, and complicate so vexatiously the relations between employers and employed. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 428 - Volume 17, New Series, March 13, 1852 • Various
... the 27th of November, the British and their allies had met with a serious repulse at Faisowah, through pressing too closely upon the retiring Ashantis; that this repulse was considered both by the Ashantis and by our native allies as a set-off against the failure of the attack on Abracampa; that the Houssa levy was in a state of panic, and no reliable information as to the position of the enemy was obtainable. It was under such circumstances that these two men ...
— The History of the First West India Regiment • A. B. Ellis
... weight,) should be diligently rubbed into the skin of the animal. This was, however, an arch trick on the part of the sultan, for he was indebted to the Landers in a considerable sum for some buttons, which he had purchased of them, and this butter affair was intended as a kind of set-off, as the sultan said he did not approve of paying for the butter out of his own pocket. On the 1st August, the sultan sent a messenger to inform them that they were at liberty to pay their respects, and take their farewell of ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... Sanskrit never was indigenous to any part of India, not even the most north-western; and there is an extension of this opinion which—rightly or wrongly—similarly excludes it from Persia. So much doubt should be relieved by the exhibition of some universally admitted fact as a set-off. ...
— The Ethnology of the British Colonies and Dependencies • Robert Gordon Latham
... without her bonnet than she had looked in the church, he thought: the rich dark-brown hair gathered in a great knot at the back of the graceful head; the perfect throat circled by a broad black ribbon, from which there hung an old-fashioned gold cross; the youthful figure set-off by the girlish muslin dress, so ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... the antagonist principle of evil: virtue, to be sincere and practical, cannot be divested entirely of the blindness and impetuosity of passion! It has been made a plea (half jest, half earnest) for the horrors of war, that they promote trade and manufactures. It has been said, as a set-off for the atrocities practised upon the negro slaves in the West Indies, that without their blood and sweat, so many millions of people could not have sugar to sweeten their tea. Fires and murders have been argued to be beneficial, as they serve ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... educate Ida Palliser during the space of three years, to give her the benefit of instruction from the masters who attended the school, and to befit her for the brilliant and lucrative career of governess in a gentleman's family. As a set-off against these advantages, Miss Pew had full liberty to exact what services she pleased from Miss Palliser, stopping short, as Miss Green had suggested, of a ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... characteristics of the French people in modern times,—at any rate, they strikingly characterize them as compared with us; I think everybody, or almost everybody, will feel that. I will not now ask what more the Athenian or the French spirit has than this, nor what shortcomings either of them may have as a set-off against this; all I want now to point out is that they have this, and that we have it in ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... rate, to seal the new alliance, in all sisterly freedom she gave me her hand, and did not appear to notice how long I kept it in the darkness. This was certainly a considerable set-off against the feeling of loneliness, and, if not quite content, I was at least more so. I wondered, among other things, if Irma's heart kept knocking in a choking kind of way against the bottom of ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... to smile, "but I should have had my own way then, and starved you shockingly. No talk then of 'little parties' and such like. But you must not now turn the tables against me, nor bring your L420 a year as a set-off to my L130." ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... play-bill with "The White Slave of England" printed on it, evidently intended as a set-off against the dramatizing of "Uncle Tom" in London, at some of our penny theatres. Of course I went to see it, and never laughed more ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... reasons in favour of Separation. They are set down simply as deductions from the immense evils of a policy which no Englishman can regard as other than most injurious to the whole United Kingdom. The reason why it is wise to dwell on this kind of set-off against the ill effects of Separation is that Home Rule, while involving almost all the evils of Separation, will be found on examination not to hold out anything like the same hopes of ...
— England's Case Against Home Rule • Albert Venn Dicey
... was 35,000, so that as the inhabitants were soon farther reduced to one-half, there remained but one individual to each house. On the other hand, the twenty-five monasteries and convents in the town were repeopled—with how much advantage as a set-off to the thousands of spinners and weavers who had wandered away, and who in the flourishing days of Ghent had sent gangs of workmen through the streets "whose tramp was like that of an army"—may be ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... player. Finally, take note that in Rome, Caput Mundi, and in Tuscany, Garden of Italy, Faro, Zecchinetto, Rossa e Nera were prohibited, as acknowledged pests of social existence and open death to honest customs,—as a set-off for which deprivation, the game of the Lottery is ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... the English commenced, in October, 1428, the siege of Orleans. The approaches to the place were occupied in force, and bastilles closely connected one with another were constructed around the walls. As a set-off, the most valiant warriors of France, La Hire, Dunois, Xaintrailles, and the Marshal La Fayette threw themselves into Orleans, the garrison of which amounted to scarcely twelve hundred men. Several towns, Bourges, Poitiers, and La Rochelle, sent thither money, munitions, and militia; the states-general, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... and at my feet, and my shift drawn over my head, so that my cap, slightly fastened, came off with it, and brought all my hair down (of which, be it again remembered without vanity, that I had a very fine head) in loose disorderly ringlets, over my neck and shoulders, to the no unfavourable set-off of my skin. ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... Singapore, Penang, &c., occupied altogether, or chiefly, for the purposes of foreign commerce, partially from political views, but assuredly not at all with reference to colonial objects. If he be not content with this bargain of a set-off, we are quite ready to call over the account with him at any time, crediting him not more liberally than justly besides, with all the prodigal waste imposed upon the country by the colonial imposture facetiously styled the "self-supporting system," in his ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... And think to burst out into sudden blaze, Comes the blind Fury with the abhorred shears, And slits the thin-spun life. 'But not the praise,' Phoebus replied, and touched my trembling ears. 'Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil, Nor in the glistering foil Set-off to the world, nor in broad rumour lies, But lives and spreads aloft by those pure eyes, And perfect witness of all-judging Jove; As he pronounces lastly on each deed, Of so much fame in Heaven expect thy meed.' O fountain Arethuse, and thou honoured flood, Smooth-sliding ...
— The Hundred Best English Poems • Various
... a set-off against these honours may be mentioned, the virulent and unceasing attacks of almost all the party scribblers of the day; but their abuse he shared in common with men, whose talents and virtues have outlived the malice of their ...
— William Lilly's History of His Life and Times - From the Year 1602 to 1681 • William Lilly
... way at last of coming up cheap from Twickenham, to open my son's gallery. I found out the inn where the market-gardeners baited their horses; I made friends with one on 'em, and now, for a glass of gin a day, he brings me up in his cart on the top of the vegetables!' As a set-off to all this, we have now and then a spasmodic act of kindness: he rebukes Wilkie for talking about the fine effect of the snow falling while poor Lawrence's coffin was being lowered into the grave in ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... ordinary book-buyer to rely on his purchases as a representation of value. If he does not view the matter in that light, or chooses to let the instruction or pleasure derived from his acquisitions become a set-off against the outlay, it is very well; what he or his heirs get for the property is in ...
— The Book-Collector • William Carew Hazlitt
... but I would be ashamed to set down what I paid for stockings to her. Altogether I spent so great a sum upon this pleasuring (as I may call it) that I was ashamed for a great while to spend more; and, by way of a set-off, I left our chambers pretty bare. If we had beds, if Catriona was a little braw, and I had light to see her by, we were richly enough ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... music, enabling the composer to exhaust every aspect and quality of his melodic material, and, in Beethoven's manner, to work miracles of beauty, expression and significance with the briefest phrases. As a set-off against this, it has led Wagner to indulge in repetitions that would be intolerable in a purely dramatic work. Almost the first thing that a dramatist has to learn in constructing a play is that the persons must not come on the stage in the second act and tell one another at great length what ...
— The Perfect Wagnerite - A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring • George Bernard Shaw
... But, as some set-off to our disappointment and long, tiring march of fifteen miles, Captain Sir Frederick Frankland, who had gone on to Joh'burg, as it is universally called, to buy what stores he could, turned up just before dinner, not only with a large amount of provisions, but also with a case of excellent champagne, ...
— The Second Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers in the South African War - With a Description of the Operations in the Aden Hinterland • Cecil Francis Romer and Arthur Edward Mainwaring
... existence—and shutting his eyes to future increases of expenditure. Lord Farrer and his colleagues, while agreeing that it was impossible to alter the taxation of Ireland so long as the Union lasted, agreed that additional local expenditure in Ireland could not be regarded as a set-off to undue taxation, not only because such a doctrine was inherently fallacious on economic grounds, and would hardly be listened to in the case of any other country than Ireland, but because Irish expenditure was subjected to no proper means of control. Both Irish ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... himself and his own principles with new earnestness and refreshed independence. Rousseau very soon made up his mind what the world was worth to him; and this, not as the ordinary sentimentalist or satirist does, by way of set-off against the indulgence of personal foibles, but from recognition of his own qualities, of the bounds set to our capacity of life, and of the limits of the world's power to satisfy us. "When my destiny threw me into the whirlpool ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... Hiller actually thought himself justified in proclaiming, for the consolation of his friends, that my day in London was coming to an end, and that my banishment was practically a certainty. This was on the occasion of the Rhenish Musical Festival, which was held at that time. As a set-off against this I reaped great satisfaction from a scene which took place at the close of the eighth and last concert which I conducted—one of those strange scenes which now and again result from the long-suppressed emotion of those ...
— My Life, Volume II • Richard Wagner
... for the theft of the ship and cargo; nor do I believe they would be very hard upon me, seeing that Wilde and the rest compelled me to fall in with their plans. And as for yourself, the fact that you had assisted me to restore the ship to her proper owners would probably be accepted as a set-off against your share of the crime of stealing the ship, especially in view of the fact that we had brought in a cargo of sandalwood in place of the much less valuable cargo which the settlers have appropriated. Now, what ...
— Overdue - The Story of a Missing Ship • Harry Collingwood
... this condition of dependence without a murmur. They had been accustomed, from father to son, to go in and out of the gates of Stone Farm, and do what was required of them, as dutifully as if they had been serfs of the land. As a set-off they allowed all their leaning toward the tragic, all the terrors of life and gloomy mysticism, to center round Stone Farm. They let the devil roam about there, play loo with the men for their souls, and ravish the ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... man that has told us at the bar of the House of Commons that he never made up any contingent accounts; and yet, as a set-off against this bribe, which he received for himself, and never intended to apply to the current use of the Company, he feigns and invents a claim upon them, namely, that he had, without any authority of the Company, squandered away in stationery ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... death which ever stared them in the face, and last, and worst of all, the risk of capture by some Christian foe, by whom they would be chained to the rowers' bench and taste of a bitterness absolutely unimaginable. As a set-off to this the man who aspired to lead must offer to his followers at least a record of success in small things; also he had to be something of an enthusiast, something of an orator, some one subtly persuasive. Against all the disagreeables ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... drink may be poison,—it may kill me,—perhaps it is killing me:—but so would hunger, cold, misery,—so would my own thoughts. I should have gone mad without it. Gin is the poor man's friend,—his sole set-off against the rich man's luxury. It comforts him when he is most forlorn. It may be treacherous, it may lay up a store of future woe; but it insures present happiness, and that is sufficient. When I have traversed the streets a ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... if I could get 'em. He can live in the castle if he likes, or go to the devil. O, and here is Mr. Archer; and I recommend him to take him in—a friend of mine—and Mr. Archer will pay, as I wrote. And I regard that in the light of a precious good thing for Holdaway, let me tell you, and a set-off ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... who were panting to be asked, strove in vain to procure tickets; but others of our friends were more lucky. For instance, through the interest of my Lord Bareacres, and as a set-off for the dinner at the restaurateur's, George got a card for Captain and Mrs. Osborne; which circumstance greatly elated him. Dobbin, who was a friend of the General commanding the division in which their regiment was, came laughing one day ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... training of Eton or Westminster in those days; as, on the other hand, he might have profited by acquiring a livelier perception of the meaning of that virtue of fair-play, the appreciation of which is held to be a set-off against the brutalizing influences of our system of public education. As it was, Pope was condemned to a desultory education. He picked up some rudiments of learning from the family priest; he was ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... eyes—alternately thumping with stiff fingers and feeling her whole hand faint from the wrist on to the notes which fumbled and slurred into each other almost soundlessly until the thumping began again. At the musical evenings, organised by Eve as a winter set-off to the tennis-club, she had both played and sung, hoping each time afresh to be able to reproduce the effects which came so easily when she was alone or only with Eve. But she could not discover ...
— Pointed Roofs - Pilgrimage, Volume 1 • Dorothy Richardson
... we took spell and spell about at the hoe, working like fiends. I had stripped to the vest at the first set-off, and by degrees Weems let his eagerness overpower dignity till he had discarded a similar number of garments. There was not a breath of air stirring, and the sunbeams poured down upon us in a brazen stream. Being used to hard work, I naturally could do the larger ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... he annually diverts from wholesome and useful purposes in the United Kingdom, would be a set-off against the Window Tax. He is one of the most shameless frauds and impositions of this time. In his idleness, his mendacity, and the immeasurable harm he does to the deserving, - dirtying the stream of true benevolence, ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... bog or hauled out of a slough by the aid of plough-horses. In the seventeenth century, scarcely a Quarter Session passed without presentments from the grand jury against certain districts on account of the bad state of the roads, and many were the fines which the judges imposed upon them as a set-off against their bruises and other ...
— The Life of Thomas Telford by Smiles • Samuel Smiles
... some consideration as a student in that field had left me woefully ignorant of general literature. Would the ability to discuss with intelligence the Bengal Regulation of 1818, or the British Guiana Immigration Ordinance of 1891 be welcomed as a set-off to a complete unfamiliarity with Milton's "Comus" and Gladstone's essay on the epithets of motion ...
— An Adventure With A Genius • Alleyne Ireland
... qualem quisque diligentissimus paterfamilias suis rebus adhibet. [Footnote: D. 13, 6, 1 pr.] He could only use a thing for the purpose for which it was lent; he could not keep it beyond the time agreed upon, nor detain it as a set-off against any debt. He was bound to restore the article in the same condition as received, subject only to the deterioration arising from reasonable use, whether a horse, a house, or a carriage. And he was required to make good all injuries caused by his own fault or negligence. If the article perished, ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... said Eugene, as he lighted another cigar, 'I fear my unexpected visitors have been troublesome. If as a set-off (excuse the legal phrase from a barrister-at-law) you would like to ask Tippins to tea, I pledge myself ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... fifty feet in height, and formed part of a peninsula running in a northeasterly direction from the main island. It had been chosen by Mr. Hannam of the Adelie Land party because of its open northerly aspect, and because "wireless" waves would probably have a good "set-off," southward to ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... and the jolliest fellow in the world"—he adds this as a set-off against his nationality, which may, he evidently thinks, suggest secret societies, daggers, carbonari—"married my Aunt. The Chertons are also some sort of distant connection. At least they often stay with Madame. So that she'll be their chaperone. ...
— Happy-Thought Hall • F. C. Burnand
... to the supply of convoy, or to unimportant particular ends. In the East Indies, Mahe de la Bourdonnais made a vigorous use of a small squadron to which no effectual resistance was offered by the British naval forces. He captured Madras (July 24-September 9, 1746), a set-off for Louisburg, for which it was exchanged at the close of the war. In the same year a British combined naval and military expedition to the coast of France—the first of a long series of similar ventures which in the end were derided as "breaking windows with guineas"—was carried ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... had been one about the naming of the children; a matter that was at last compromised by an agreement under which the choice of the girls' names became her prerogative, and that of the boys' her husband's, who limited his field of selection to strict historical precedent as a set-off to Mrs. Chickerel's tendency to stray into the regions ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... it devoted to the invention of the Telegraph, to wit, that, when any special and marked honor has been conferred upon me, there has immediately succeeded some event of the envious or sordid character seemingly as a set-off, the tendency of which has been invariably to prevent any excess of exultation on my part. Can this be accident? Is it not rather the wise ordering of events by infinite wisdom and goodness to draw me away from repose in earthly honor to the more substantial and enduring honor ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... back—dined with all the courses at my hotel, and then lit my cigar and strolled up Franklin. I wore my uniform and spurs on these promenades—wild horses tearing me would not have induced me to doff the spurs! They were so martial! They jingled so! They gave a military and ferocious set-off to my whole appearance, and were immensely admired by the fair sex! Regularly on coming back from my arduous and dangerous duties at camp, I brushed my uniform, put on my red sash, and with one hand resting with ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... at the same time that Patrick should have his portrait of the prince for a set-off to the face of his daughter. He craved the relief it would be to him to lay his colours on the prince for the sparkling amazement of one whom, according to Caroline's description, he could expect to feel with him acutely, which neither his niece nor his lawyer ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... do with him personally. A respect, which amounted almost to fear, characterized his attitude toward the great Scotland Yard detective. He credited T. B. with qualities which perhaps that admirable man did not possess, but, as a set-off against this, he failed to credit him with a wiliness which was peculiarly T. B.'s chief asset. For who could imagine that the detective's chief object in calling upon Poltavo that evening was to allay his suspicions and soothe down his fears. Yet T. B. came for no other reason and with no other ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace
... the jury was instructed to find for the plaintiffs the amount claimed by the papers given in evidence (viz, the official settlements), with interest thereon, is entirely without merit. There was no evidence to impeach the accounts stated, or to show set-off, release, or payment. The instruction was, therefore, in accordance with the legal effect of the evidence, and there were no disputed facts upon ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... manner, very splendid) rattling the dice till it became time to go to his service at Court, and we would spend day after day in this manner. He brought me more jewels,—a pearl necklace, an antique emerald breast ornament, and other trinkets, as a set-off against these losses: for I need not say that I should not have played with him all this time had he been winning; but, after about a week, the luck set in against him, and he became my debtor in a prodigious sum. I do not care to mention ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... bright. He wore his gayest and newest suit, and above all he had donned a most noble and impressive full-bottomed periwig, which drooped down to his shoulders, as white as powder could make it. From his dainty riding-hat to his shining spur there was no speck or stain upon him—a sad set-off to my own state, plastered as I was with a thick crust of the Sedgemoor mud, and disordered from having ridden and worked for two days without rest ...
— Micah Clarke - His Statement as made to his three Grandchildren Joseph, - Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 • Arthur Conan Doyle
... somebody had put into them, and the weary starching and ironing and perking out that must be done for them, beside the simple hem and the one narrow basque ruffling of Leslie's cambric morning-dress, which had its color and its set-off in itself, in the bright little carnations with brown stems that figured it. It was "trimmed in the piece"; and that was precisely what Leslie had said when she chose it. She "dodged" a great deal in the ...
— We Girls: A Home Story • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... wondered that she and her nuns could spend such useless lives. She replied that although she and all good Catholics believe in the atonement of Christ, they also believe that works of piety in excess of what may be demanded of us, even if they are done in secret, are a set-off against the sins of the world. In this form the doctrine has not much to commend itself to me, and it is assumed that the nuns' works are pious. But in a sense it is true. "The very hairs of your head are all numbered." The fall of a grain of ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... you leave behind the din of streets for the sake of stepping forth from your work-table upon a soft lawn, or of looking out upon the old church steeple among the trees, while you hear nothing but bleating and chirping, you must expect some set-off against such advantages: and that set-off is the being among a small number of people, who are always busy looking into ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... The set-off of the Flagg expedition in the gray of early dawn had an element of picaresque adventure ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... measures of policy, and in comprehension of the principles of government. If the losses in business were as great as is ever represented, the educational advantages of a Presidential canvass are an adequate set-off. The people have an opportunity to see and hear the men who are engaged in public affairs and questions are discussed upon their intrinsic merits. In the sixty years of my experience there has been a great advance in the quality of the speeches to which the people ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 2 • George S. Boutwell
... payment will be presented, but give no intimation of any previous condition and annex none to the bill which they present. The account of dignity being thus declared by this demonstration to be settled, it can not be supposed that it will again be introduced as a set-off against an acknowledged pecuniary balance. Before I conclude my observations on this part of the subject it will be well to inquire in what light exceptions are taken to this part of the message, whether as a menace generally or to the particular ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson
... shooting establishments. The late Sir Richard Sutton, a great celebrity in the sporting world, who had the finest shooting in England, and therefore probably in the world, used to say that every pheasant he killed cost him a guinea. On some estates the sale of the game is in some degree a set-off to the cost of maintaining it, just as the sale of the fruit decreases the cost of pineries, etc. Nothing but the fact that the possession of land becomes more and more vested in those who regard it as luxury could have enabled this ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... the angles are double buttresses, on which are two kinds of tabernacles, both are square and occupy the breadth of the buttress, the upper one is recessed in the body of the buttress, the lower one is open on three sides, and had small pillars at the front angles rising from the set-off and carrying the projecting canopy; the tops being finished with crocketed pinnacles. The east end is not so richly ornamented as the west; the window is a very fine one but not so large as the western one, and there are no niches on the sides nor ...
— Ely Cathedral • Anonymous
... either, partly by a doubt whether either had been sufficiently naturalized in English to be safely practised by an unskilful hand, partly by the obvious difficulty of having to provide three rhymes per stanza, against which the occurrence of one line in each without a rhyme at all was but a poor set-off. A second metre which occurred to me is that of Andrew Marvel's Horatian Ode, a variety of which is found twice in Mr. Keble's Christian Year. Here two lines of eight syllables are followed by two of six, the difference between the types being that in Marvel's Ode the rhymes are successive, in ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace
... "Well, sir, I won't say anything about the hextry gas, though a poor widder and sevenpence hextry on the thousand, but I'm thinkin' if you would give my Rosie a lesson once a week on that there pianner, it would be a kind of set-off, for you know, sir, the policeman tells me your winder is a landmark to 'im ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... 'I never thowt to coom down to dog-steealin', but if my comrade sees how it could be done to oblige a laady like yo'sen, I'm nut t' man to hod back, tho' it's a bad business I'm thinkin', an' three hundred rupees is a poor set-off again t' chance of them Damning ...
— Soldiers Three • Rudyard Kipling
... partridges, hares, and pheasants, may now carry more noble arms against the enemies of their country. Our political adversaries may do what they please with that concession. They are welcome to make the most of it. I am sure of a very handsome set-off in the other branch of expense,—the amusements of ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. V. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... of discourses for the most part far more interesting to herself than if they had been what they professed to be. The rapt and impassioned attention which she was observed to bestow on his utterances on such occasions all but gained her the reputation of a saint, and was accepted as a sufficient set-off against the unhallowed affection which she could not help manifesting for the memory of her father. The judicious reluctance of the Caucasian ecclesiastics to inquire over-anxiously into the creeds and customs of the ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... a set-off against the charges complained of, it should be remembered—a point which I did not take into account when formerly writing on the subject—that England bears the cost of ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... from the Board of Works. Belfast is the 'linen capital' of the empire, as Manchester is the 'cotton capital.' The linen trade was fostered in its infancy there by Strafford, and encouraged by William III., as a set-off against the abolition of the woollen trade. The first spinning of flax by steam power was commenced in 1830, by the Messrs. Mulholland, who employ 2,000 hands, principally females. Mills have sprung up in every direction, and it is estimated that they give employment to 15,000 persons. To ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... and idle, he knows no more of England than the Icelander in his sledge: if, on the other hand, he used the libel as a party warfare, he is still one of the "old set,"—and his "crowning carnage, Waterloo," with all its greatness, is but a poor set-off against the more lasting iniquities which he would visit upon his fellow-men. Anyhow, he cannot—he must not—escape from his opinion; we will nail him to it, as we would nail a weasel to a barn-door; "if Englishmen ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... vigilance of the police, which leads to the more frequent detection of crime; whilst, as a set-off against this, there is the fact that education teaches the criminal, by assisting him to the reading of police-court reports and sensational storyettes, to ...
— The Curse of Education • Harold E. Gorst
... in print, and that, too, after Keys swears he saw the assignment, as any one may see by reference to the files of papers; and Gen. Adams himself, in reply to the Sampson's ghost story, was the first man that raised the cry of toryism, and it was only by way of set-off, and never in seriousness, that it was bandied back at him. His effort is to make the impression that his enemies first made the charge of toryism and he drove them from that, then Sampson's ghost, he drove them from that, then finally the assignment charge was ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... natures like hers may possibly be blamed for adopting so readily the maxim that "the end justifies the means," and for plunging so determinedly into what cannot be considered their own business; but let those blame them who will, the good they accomplish may well be made a set-off for any evil they unwittingly cause; and the parable of the man who "fell among thieves," and the heartless wretches who "passed by on the other side," should make us a little slow in blaming the "good Samaritans" who work so enthusiastically even ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... liquors." MORTON, whose great ambition in life is to make people thoroughly comfortable, wants to close the Bar. SYDNEY HERBERT, making a rare appearance as spokesman for the Government on the Treasury Bench, pleads as a set-off against alleged evil example, the large consumption of "lemon squash," which he explains to the House is "a non-intoxicant." CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN sends thrill of apprehension through listening Senate by inquiring ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, July 18, 1891 • Various
... a leshie, or wood-sprite, had been seen in the neighbourhood; and in several households the domovoi, or brownie, had been known to play strange pranks until he was properly propitiated. And as a set-off against these manifestations of evil powers, there were well-authenticated stories about a miracle-working image that had mysteriously appeared on the branch of a tree, and about numerous miraculous cures that had been effected by means of ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... all dead, it is pleasant to know that Pan can be brought to life again for children by the study of Nature. Now that the wonders of the invisible world are closed, the little ones can have no better set-off than in the beauty and marvel of God's visible creation. Here also are food for the imagination and material for poetry. Whatever teaches a child to observe teaches him to think, and strengthens memory, a faculty which in fitting conjunction ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... As a set-off, however, let the stranger visit the gambling tables, which are numerous; the low balls, masked or other, occurring every night, for whites or quadroons, or both; let him visit the low bar-rooms, or even look into that ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... N. discount, abatement, concession, reduction, depreciation, allowance; qualification, set-off, drawback, poundage, agio^, percentage; rebate, rebatement^; backwardation, contango^; salvage; tare and tret^. sale, bargain; half price; price war. wholesale, wholesale price; dealer's price; trade price. coupon, discount coupon, cents-off coupon; store coupon, manufacturer's ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... act of needless and unjustifiable deceit and double-dealing. Sooner or later I was convinced that this part of my character would be made manifest, and that shame and punishment would overwhelm me in utter ruin. The success which had hitherto attended me was no set-off against the risk I ran of losing for ever this lovely girl, and the respect and esteem of her father. For her sake, therefore, I made a vow for ever to abandon this infernal system. I mention this more particularly as it was the first healthy symptom of amendment ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... set-off against Titherington's thoughtlessness and McMeekin's imbecility, I noticed that during the day the nurse became gradually less obnoxious. I began to see that she had some good points and that she meant well by me, though she still did things of which I could not possibly approve. ...
— Lalage's Lovers - 1911 • George A. Birmingham
... his earlier leanings towards Prussia and Italy, the advice of Prince Napoleon ("Plon-Plon") and Lavalette, and the wheedlings of the Prussian ambassador as to compensations which France might gain as a set-off to Prussia's aggrandisement, told on the French Emperor's nature, always somewhat sluggish and then prostrated by severe internal pain; with the result that he sent his proposals for a settlement of the points in dispute, but took no steps towards enforcing them. A fortnight thus slipped ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... Good,Sec. yet came he the same summer to Greenland; and with him had he a priest and teachers, and he took up his abode at Brattalid with his father Eirik. Thereafter did men call him Leif the Lucky; but Eirik, his father, said that the one thing was a set-off to the other: on the one hand was the saving of the ship's crew by Leif & on the other the bringing to Greenland of that 'juggler,' to ...
— The Sagas of Olaf Tryggvason and of Harald The Tyrant (Harald Haardraade) • Snorri Sturluson
... the taffrail, there yawned a mighty hole fringed with splintered deck-planking. The explosion had gutted after-hold, after-cabin, sail-locker, and laid all bare even to the stern-post. 'Twas a marvel the stern itself had not been blown out: but as a set-off against this mercy—and the most grievous of all, though as yet we had not discovered it—we had lost our rudder-head, and the rudder itself ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... English, as of people in other Protestant countries, that it was much better to have the almanack a few days wrong than to adopt a Popish innovation. One often hears of the Papal Bull which settles the question of the earth's standing still. The history of the Gregorian calendar is not a bad set-off against it on the other side. At any rate, the new style was not introduced anywhere until sixty or seventy years after the discovery of Mexico, and five hundred years after the introduction of the Toltec ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... the Bishop White could not prove P-QR3 to be a lost move, for Black, by retaking with the QP, obtains open lines for Q and QB, and in addition to an easy development, retains two Bishops. This is a set-off against a certain weakness in Black's game, which may be found in the fact that after P-Q4, PxP, White has four pawns to three on the King's side, while his three pawns on the Queen's side are able to ...
— Chess Strategy • Edward Lasker
... the Venetian ladies amuse their leisure and show their adroitness in fitting a multitude of little pieces of ivory into a box of cedar-wood, which at the set-off seemed all too small to contain so many. In the same fashion I will pack ideas into your head that no one would have dreamed it could ever hold; and I will fill you with a new wisdom. I will show that, thinking to walk in the right way, you are straying abroad all the ...
— The Well of Saint Clare • Anatole France
... Herculem; but where the analogy lies, wherein the point, or what the application, is not explained. Steevens' original note was superior to this, in so much that he quoted the words of these old poets, thereby giving his readers an opportunity of considering the justness of the deduction. The only set-off to this omission by Mr. Knight is the introduction of "ex pede Herculem," the merit of ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 193, July 9, 1853 • Various
... seasons in the Rocky Mountains are usually fearful and severe. There, snow storms form mountains for themselves, filling up the passes for weeks, even those which are low being impracticable either for man or beast. As a set-off to all this, the scenery is most grand provided the beholder is well housed. If the case is otherwise and he be doomed to combat these terrible storms, his situation is most critical. During the summer months the lofty peaks of this mighty chain of mountains, ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... an occasional, toothsome vegetarian repast as a set-off to the same round of fish, flesh, fowl and wine fumes. No people in the world can prepare such delicious vegetarian banquets as ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang
... does anything to injure the property, or is guilty of misconduct, he may remain answerable for the effect of such misconduct or injury, in the way of set-off against him.[155] ...
— The Laws Of War, Affecting Commerce And Shipping • H. Byerley Thomson
... set-off to these defects, which are of less real consequence than may appear from their brief enumeration, Kingsley has been freely credited with a certain ever-pleasing vivacity and gallantry of style far too rare in literature to be overlooked. The warmest ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... rough, uneducated man, but with a certain amount of native talent which raised him above the level of the majority of his class. I can see him now in his place Sunday after Sunday, rigged out in a suit of my father's cast-off clerical garments—a kind of "set-off" to him at the lower end of the church. In his earlier days Wren had played a flute in the village instrumental choir, and to the last he might be heard whiling away spare moments on a Sunday in the church (for he brought his dinner early in the morning and bivouacked there all day!) recalling ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... wearer look as little like a seaman as need be. It appeared, nevertheless, that the individual in question was Mr. Ebenezer Wyse, my new sailing-master; so I accepted Captain C.'s strong recommendation as a set-off against the silk tartan; explained to the new comer the position he was to occupy on board, and gave orders for sailing in an hour. The multitudinous chain, moreover, so lavishly displayed, turned out to be an ornament ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin) |
