"Blemish" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... battell. The other most honorable L. Generall (whose singular vertues in all respects are of such an excellencie and perfection as neither can my praise in any part increase them, nor any mans enuy any whit blemish or diminish them) vnderstanding, the most noble Earle to be in fight among them, and perceiuing by the M. of his ship, the Arke Royall, that lacke of water, it was not possible, that he might put any neerer, without farther delay, called presently for his Pynnesse, and in the same Pynnesse ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, v. 7 - England's Naval Exploits Against Spain • Richard Hakluyt
... she proved untrue to her marriage vows. Time and again we hear of stolen meetings, and of Launcelot's deep sorrow at deceiving the noble friend whom he continues to love and admire. This is the only blemish in his character, while Guinevere is coquettish, passionate, unfeeling, and exacting, and has little to recommend her aside from grace, beauty, and personal magnetism. At court she plays her part of queen and lady of the revels with consummate ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... 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 ...
— Literary Remains, Vol. 2 • Coleridge
... Church, and gave himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish." Since the Church, then, is a body, her standing is independent of the individual members who may be in her communion; as a responsible agent, even as an individual, she may come under obligation and fulfil it; and through ...
— The Ordinance of Covenanting • John Cunningham
... Yukon), I have endeavored to interfere as little as possible with Sergeant Rundle's pleasant and simple style of narrative, and it has been a pleasure to assist one whose record and character are without stain, and whose loyalty to sovereign and country is without blemish. ...
— A Soldier's Life - Being the Personal Reminiscences of Edwin G. Rundle • Edwin G. Rundle
... complacency in his own very imperfect work only so far as his ear or eye or taste is not yet trained to accurate discrimination; but, as he becomes more accomplished in a fine art, and more appreciative of it, he recognizes every defect or blemish of his previous work, until the musical performance seems a wretched failure and the painting a mere daub. The change, however, is wholly in the workman and not in the work: both the music and the painting are in themselves just what they ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... illustrated volumes, make sure (by referring to a bibliography or standard collation if possible) that it is intact. Frequently a plate or a map is missing, and sometimes an unscrupulous seller will go so far as to remove the 'list of plates' in order that the blemish may remain undetected. With such defects, books of travel ...
— The Book-Hunter at Home • P. B. M. Allan
... want of conduct and navigable rivers, a great blemish as [583]Boterus, [584]Hippolitus a Collibus, and other politicians hold, if it be neglected in a commonwealth. Admirable cost and charge is bestowed in the Low Countries on this behalf, in the duchy of Milan, territory of Padua, in [585]France, Italy, China, and so ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... beings, and what they are we learn from what they do. The transformation of one of the characters from a gay, debonnair bachelor past middle age into a penurious miser of the Blueberry-Jones type is bold, and in less skilful hands would be a blemish, but Mr. Synge has amply justified it, and admirably uses it to cement the structure of his plot. There is no weakness in any chapter, and as we read so secure do we feel in the author's strength that, had he chosen to end the story ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... bending, Doth testify that you exceed her far, To whom you offer, and whose nun you are. Why should you worship her? her you surpass As much as sparkling diamons flaring glass. A diamond set in lead his worth retains; A heavenly nymph, belov'd of human swains, Receives no blemish, but oftimes 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; And I in duty will excel all other, As thou in beauty dost exceed Love's mother. Nor heaven nor thou were made to ...
— Hero and Leander and Other Poems • Christopher Marlowe and George Chapman
... neuer will be knowne, And to be tauerne guest she euer hates, Shee scornes to be a streete-wife (Idle one,) Or field vvife ranging vvith her vvalking mates: She knows how wise men censure of such dames, And how with blottes they blemish their ...
— The Bride • Samuel Rowlands et al
... sorry to believe there was any trouble with Seward but a surface blemish. Though in '61 he advocated a foreign war as a means for bringing together North and South, and desired to shelve practically Lincoln while he himself stood at the front to manage the turmoil, he ...
— The Last Leaf - Observations, during Seventy-Five Years, of Men and Events in America - and Europe • James Kendall Hosmer
... 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, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XVII. No. 101. May, 1876. • Various
... all, all himself given, and taken. Woman, eternal woman, she is the communicant. She receives the sacramental body and spirit of the man. And when she's got it, according to her passionate and all-too-sacred desire, completely, when she possesses her man at last finally and ultimately, without blemish or reservation in the perfection of the sacrament: then, also, poor woman, the blood and the body of which she has partaken become insipid or nauseous to her, she is driven mad by the endless meal of the marriage ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... a remedy for sorrow, that they should in some way confess their sins, at least in general, to God's ministers. Wherefore the Lord said (Lev. 5:17, 18): "If anyone sin through ignorance . . . he shall offer of the flocks a ram without blemish to the priest, according to the measure and estimation of the sin, and the priest shall pray for him, because he did it ignorantly, and it shall be forgiven him"; since by the very fact of making an offering for his sin, a man, in ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... that 'stirred for a bird' was an added excellence to the poet's ear; to our sense it is a serious blemish on lines which have 'the roll, the rise, ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry
... bar there was a partial chord, E-B—a fifth. The Composer's attention was drawn to this blemish. He requested the insertion of a G-sharp between, thus completing ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... religious devotion was by no means a sacrifice without blemish. The sacred zeal for advancing God's reign and righteousness was mingled with many very human motives in the progress of it. Conspicuous among these was the spirit of sectarian competition. The worthy ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... we to think of such as these? Of some we perhaps say within ourselves, "Would that there had been but a little amendment of this blemish! A little more of strength and purpose against that fault! If only this besetting hardness had not been the spoiler of his life, that great heedlessness, that fatal procrastination, this too frequent sin! Oh! but for this or that ...
— The Life of the Waiting Soul - in the Intermediate State • R. E. Sanderson
... gentlewoman in Suffolk, who being with child and passing by a butcher who was killing his meat, a drop of blood sprung on her face, whereupon she said her child would have a blemish on its face, and at the birth it was found marked ...
— The Works of Aristotle the Famous Philosopher • Anonymous
... had originally a foul blemish in it—I mean, the ban of ostracism, which alone would have been sufficient to undo any State. For there is nothing of such important use to a nation as that men who most excel in wisdom and virtue should be encouraged to undertake the business ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton
... giddy height, with a chapel or two to throw a religious calm over all! There was nothing ambitious in this view, which was rural in every feature, but it was the very bean ideal of rustic beauty, and without a single visible blemish to weaken its effect. It was some such picture of natural objects as is formed of love by a confiding and ingenuous youth ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... 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
... 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 ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... often the most evil thoughts assail us, and what battles we have to fight in order to drive away these children of our brain! Anger, ambition, revenge give birth to the most detestable thoughts, which make us blush with shame as we should at some horrible blemish. And yet they are not ours, for we have not evoked them; but they defile us nevertheless, and leave us in despair at not being masters of our own ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... As a second blemish, the Semitic religions practised human immolations longer than any other religion, sacrificing children and grown men in order to please sanguinary gods. In spite of Hadrian's prohibition of those murderous offerings,[42] they were maintained in certain ...
— The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism • Franz Cumont
... Katty Sallagh (* Dirty Katy) on this account: however, this prejudice, whether ill or weil founded, was wearing fast away, since Phaddhy had succeeded to the stocking of guineas, and the Lisnaskey farm. It might be, indeed, that her former poverty helped her neighbors to see this blemish more clearly: but the world is so seldom in the habit of judging people's qualities or failings through this uncharitable medium, that the supposition is rather doubtful. Be this as it may, the arrangements for the breakfast and dinner must be made. There was plenty of bacon, and ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... you say: How if I feel that I am not prepared? Answer: That is also my scruple, especially from the old way under the Pope, in which a person tortured himself to be so perfectly pure that God could not find the least blemish in us. On this account we became so timid that every one was instantly thrown into consternation and said to himself: Alas! you are unworthy! For then nature and reason begin to reckon our unworthiness in comparison with the great and precious good; and then it appears like ...
— The Large Catechism by Dr. Martin Luther
... the State, if Sicily and Africa were visited by some injury to their crops. A vulnerable point in the Gracchan system of sale was exhibited in the fact that no inquiry was instituted as to the means of the applicants. This blemish was vigorously brought home to the legislator when the aged noble, Calpurnius Piso surnamed "the Frugal," the author of the first law that gave redress to the provincials, and a vigorous opponent of Gracchus's scheme, gravely advanced on the occasion ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... luscious that flow through that land, And of mead and of wine is the best at each hand; And of crime there is naught the whole country within, There are men without blemish, and love ...
— Heroic Romances of Ireland Volumes 1 and 2 Combined • A. H. Leahy
... Lord, I swear you quite overpower me with your gallantry! But I promise you that I am too well aware of the danger of such Expeditions to trust myself in a young Nobleman's power! No, no; I have as yet preserved my reputation without blemish or reproach, and I always knew how to keep the Men ...
— The Monk; a romance • M. G. Lewis
... of pigeons will commonly sell at Rome for two hundred nummi, if they are well made, of good colour, without blemish, and of good breed: some times they even bring a thousand nummi, and there is a report that recently L. Axius, a Roman of the equestrian order, declined that sum, refusing to sell for less than ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato
... condition is permanent is characteristic of all severe trials, because if we supposed the condition or difficulty only momentary it would not produce a sufficient trial, and consequent effort to overcome it on our part). This trial (though it may not always be a trial, but an actual blemish of the soul, a serious lack of unselfish love which must at once be strenuously corrected) is given for several reasons—we have become, perhaps, too greedy of enjoyment of prayer: or we have come to take this joyousness of prayer for granted: or we have come ...
— The Prodigal Returns • Lilian Staveley
... two methods of representing man's supreme happiness, relative and absolute: one is to depict nature at her best, untouched by sin, and to show man free from every defect and blemish, in the full perfection of his being. Naturally the imagery in this case is the imagery born of finite human experiences. The other method describes, as we said, not scenes of happiness but transcendent conditions of the soul as it is brought into ultimate ...
— Dante: "The Central Man of All the World" • John T. Slattery
... pecooliar 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 his six ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis
... eyes bereft of sight No blemish bare, no drop-serene, But nothing in this world of light And beauty they had ...
— Poems - Vol. IV • Hattie Howard
... had she looked at her jewels except for the purpose of making a selection, according to their settings or their colors. On this occasion, however, she admired the size of the rubies and the brilliancy of the diamonds; she grieved over every blemish and every defect; she thought the gold light, and the stones wretched. The goldsmith, as he entered, found her thus occupied. "M. Faucheux," she said, "I believe you supplied ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... compactness in her form, that she was often called the little fairy. She had the misfortune to be lame in one of her hips; but by good management, and a briskness and alacrity in carrying herself, it was a very small blemish to her, and looked more like an idle childish gait, ...
— The Governess - The Little Female Academy • Sarah Fielding
... place, and found the freckles, indeed, as their fair mistress had said; but they called them mere beauty spots, the faintest touches of the sun, such as would only heighten the whiteness of her delicate complexion. Bertalda shook her head, and still viewed them as a blemish. "And I could remove them," she said at last, sighing. "But the castle fountain is covered, from which I formerly used to have that precious water, so purifying to the skin. Oh, had I this evening only a single ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... Cowen's hound of the name—was owned by the Hon. Grantley Berkeley. This typical dog was unsurpassed in his time, and his talent in following a line of scent was astonishing. His only blemish was one of character; for, although usually as good-tempered as most of the breed are, he was easily aroused to uncontrollable ...
— Dogs and All About Them • Robert Leighton
... that, The stain of sin remains in the soul even when the act of sin is past. The reason for this is that the stain, as stated above (A. 1), denotes a blemish in the brightness of the soul, on account of its withdrawing from the light of reason or of the Divine law. And therefore so long as man remains out of this light, the stain of sin remains in him: but as soon as, moved by grace, he returns to the Divine light ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... production of the first essay of a journeyman cabinet-maker, on his master's maid: the consequence of which was a big belly, and the loss of a place. He was not in circumstances to do much for her; and yet, after all this blemish, she found means, after she had dropt her burthen, and disposed of me to a poor relation in the country, to repair it by marrying a pastry-cook here in London, in thriving business; on whom she soon, under favour of the complete ascendant ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... between him and his beloved duties. ("He was aye daft for to go sogerin'," his father explained to Captain Blaikie; "but his mother would never let him away. He was ower wee, and ower young.") His rifle, buttons, and boots were always without blemish. Further, he was of the opinion that a merry heart goes all the way. He never sulked when the platoon were kept on parade five minutes after the breakfast bugle had sounded. He made no bones about obeying ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... poor gentleman who inks the seams of his coat, and to whom the like invitation would be really acceptable, may go and sue for it. But to the credit of the ancient Tahitians, it should here be observed that this blemish upon their hospitality is only of recent origin, and was wholly unknown in old times. ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... beauty was added an adorable friendliness and confidence, free from the slightest taint of self-consciousness or the least blemish of coquetry. Intelligent, yet modest to the verge of shyness, eager yet reserved, warm hearted yet charmingly impersonal with him, he realized that she was finding, with him, only the happiness of speech ...
— Blue-Bird Weather • Robert W. Chambers
... only three stoppages upon the way. In spite of the inclement evening it was, therefore, fairly well filled upon the occasion of which I speak. The guard of the train was a tried servant of the company—a man who had worked for twenty-two years without a blemish or complaint. ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... triumph. The people were mad with delight to welcome their hero Karmos and their beloved Naya. Karmos was crowned, and then began that government whose morality and justice and love and purity have passed into the proverbs of my race. There was, however, one blemish upon it. Poor Naya's evil genius had not yet exhausted his malevolence. A rumour was spread by evil tongues that she was plotting to possess the crown, and Karmos, sacrificing the husband's love, ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... saying something to his Advantage when you speak, a Merchant hurt in his Credit; and him who, every Day he lived, literally added to the Value of his Native Country, undone by one who was only a Burthen and a Blemish to it. Since every Body who knows the World is sensible of this great Evil, how careful ought a Man to be in his Language of a Merchant? It may possibly be in the Power of a very shallow Creature to lay the Ruin of the best Family in the most ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... all they that follow her; Them shall no trouble cast down; Though she slay them, yet shall they trust in her, For unsure there is nought nor unjust in her, Blemish is none, neither rust in her; Though it threaten, the night shall not swallow her, Tempest ...
— Songs before Sunrise • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... called Ukika is performed after the birth of a child. It consists of a sacrifice in the name of the child of two he-goats for a boy and one for a girl. The goats must be above a year old, and without spot or blemish. The meat must be separated from the bones so that not a bone is broken, and the bones, skin, feet and head are afterwards buried in the earth. When the flesh is served the following prayer is said by the father: ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India—Volume I (of IV) • R.V. Russell
... me to weep when I think of my beautiful sisters—the one with her laughing rosy cheeks, the other pale as ivory, save for one little black spot, which no man surely could call a blemish. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 8, 1917 • Various
... is his soul, from blemish free; Red with the blood he shed for me; The fairest of ten thousand fairs: A sun amongst ...
— Hymns and Spiritual Songs • Isaac Watts
... heard that it was said, An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." Who said this? Was it some rabbin of the olden time? It was Moses; nay, the old record says that this is the word of the Lord by Moses: "The Lord spake unto Moses, saying [among other things], If a man cause a blemish in his neighbor, as he hath done so shall it be done to him; breach for breach, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; as he hath caused a blemish in a man, so shall it be rendered unto him." (Lev. xxiv. 19,20.) So in Exodus xxi. 24, "Thou ...
— Who Wrote the Bible? • Washington Gladden
... widely discussed than the nine lines I have just summarized. As long ago as the sixteenth century the astronomer Petrus Codicillus pronounced them spurious. Goethe once remarked to Eckermann; (III., March 28, 1827) that he considered them a blemish in the tragedy and would give a good deal if some philologist would prove that Sophocles had not written them. A number of eminent philologists—Jacob, Lehrs, Hauck, Dindorf, Wecklein, Jebb, Christ, and others—have actually bracketed them as not genuine; but if they are interpolations, they ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... curiosity on the constant alert. It was a treat to pretend to be Legree, and to negotiate for a strong likely growing nigger-boy. I discovered I could have bought one for ten pounds sterling, a perfect bargain, warranted free from vice or blemish; but as I was not prepared to stop in Africa just then, I did not close with the offer. It may be a shocking admission to make, but if I were to settle down in Morocco, I confess, I should most certainly keep slaves. There is a deal of sentimental ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... lawes! how shall A Gent[leman] that has a blemish cast Upon his life, faire reputac[i]on, Have satisfaction then? allow no duells! Hel! a man of armes had better live in woods And combate wolves then among such ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... it is said, was beautiful enough to spare the tip of her nose; and if Cleopatra's had been an inch shorter Mark Antony would never have become infatuated with her wonderful charms, and the blemish would have changed the history of the world. Anne Boleyn's fascinating smile split the great Church of Rome in twain, and gave a nation an altered destiny. Napoleon, who feared not to attack the proudest monarchs in their capitols, shrank from the political influence of one independent ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... leg. The 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 ...
— The Man-eaters of Tsavo and Other East African Adventures • J. H. Patterson
... consistent with a correct estimate of the interest which mankind take in the cares of one another. But he lived to feel and to rue the consequences: to repent he could not, for the cause was in the very element of his nature. It was a blemish as incurable as the deformity ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... out of compassion, he being an orphan, but as the chaise is waiting, I will bid thee farewell." "I am afraid I must stop your journey for the present," said the surgeon; "that boy has exactly the same blemish in the eye which a boy had who was in company with the man at Horncastle, from whom my friend received the forged notes, and who there passed for his son." "I know nothing about that," said the Quaker, "but I am determined to be detained here no longer, after ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... had been introduced were of this high world of fancy. They conceived themselves to be perfect, even as they were represented in religious art and in fiction. Their husbands must be models, worthy of their high ideals, and other women must have no blemish of any kind. Aileen, urgent, elemental, would have laughed at all this if she could have understood. Not understanding, she felt diffident and uncertain of ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... growth of a miller's boy and girl should usurp so many pages 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 the end of the narrative, and anxiously hasten ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... see, my lord," persisted his son, "the absolute necessity for giving her a course of fashionable life, if it were only to remove this constitutional blemish. If it were discovered, she is ruined; to blush being, as your lordship knows, contrary to all the laws and statutes of fashion in ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... paroxysms in order to prove his sincerity. To those who regard the declamatory note as indispensable to a national hymn (as we have it, for instance, in "Hail, Columbia," and "The Star-spangled Banner") the low key in which Bjoernson's songs are pitched will no doubt appear as a blemish. But it is their very homeliness in connection with the deep, full-throbbing emotion which beats in each forceful phrase—it is this, I fancy, which has made them the common property of the whole people, and thus in the truest sense national. I could never tell why ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... doth a necessity yet, nor occasion of discontent, force me to these endeavors; nor am I ignorant that small thank I shall have for my pains; or that many would have the world imagine them to be of great judgment, that can but blemish these my designs, by their witty objections and detractions; yet (I hope) my reasons and my deeds will so prevail with some, that I shall not want employment in these affairs to make the most blind ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... was not excused the strictest visitation; nor was it but agreed, that I had not the least reason to be diffident of passing even for a maid, on occasion; so inconsiderable a flaw had my preceding adventures created there, and so soon had the blemish of an over-stretch been repaired and worn out at any age, and in my naturally small make in ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... are free from blemish—make a syrup with half their weight of sugar, and preserve them in the same manner directed for apricots—green gages. The large amber, and the blue plums, are also excellent, done in the ...
— The Virginia Housewife • Mary Randolph
... did appear, somehow she shone. A native instinct in dress,—even more of it than her mother had at the same age,—and in manners and speech, left only so little rusticity as became itself a charm rather than a blemish, suggested the sugar-cane fields; the orange-grove; the plantation-house, with pillared porch, half-hidden in tall magnolias and laurestines and bushes of red and white camellias higher and wider than arms can reach, ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... young 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, ...
— In Search of El Dorado • Harry Collingwood
... [Sidenote: The maiden explains to her father that she is a bride of Christ. She is without spot or blemish. Her weeds are washed in the blood of Christ.] "My makele[gh] lambe at al may bete," Q{uod} scho, "my dere destyn Me ches to hys make al-a[gh] vnmete, Su{m} tyme semed {a}t assembl 760 When I wente fro yor worlde wete. He calde me to hys bon{er}t, 'Cu{m} hyder to me my ...
— Early English Alliterative Poems - in the West-Midland Dialect of the Fourteenth Century • Various
... noble Brahmin's wife, so pure and lovely; He is honour'd, void of blemish. And of justice rigid, stern. Daily from the sacred river Brings she back refreshments precious;— But where is the pail and pitcher? She of neither stands in need. For with pure heart, hands unsullied, She the water lifts, and rolls it To a wondrous ball of crystal This she bears with gladsome ...
— The Poems of Goethe • Goethe
... was dilatory and sluggish; of a swarthy complexion; had a cast in one eye, a blemish, however, which was not visible at a distance; his limbs were well set; his figure was neither tall nor short; he was ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... out of it. I could have sworn. Well, do you think I—particular as I am—would have touched those Union Pacifics with trust money at all, if I hadn't thought it a thoroughly good thing—good without spot or blemish?... And it ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... 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 - to which is prefixed the Musick to each Song • John Gay
... to be Nescience (avidya), and the ascertainment of the true nature of that which is (the Self) by means of the discrimination of that (which is superimposed on the Self), they call knowledge (vidya). There being such knowledge (neither the Self nor the Non-Self) are affected in the least by any blemish or (good) quality produced by their mutual superimposition[44]. The mutual superimposition of the Self and the Non-Self, which is termed Nescience, is the presupposition on which there base all the practical distinctions—those made in ordinary life ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1 • George Thibaut
... philosophic or compassionate tolerance combated. He would never compound with human nature. He accepted nothing of reality. This was his vice and his virtue, his grandeur and his misery. Implacable to the least blemish, he had an immense enthusiasm for the least light, his excited imagination doing its utmost to see in ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... excuse for the numerous expressions in the speeches of Iago from which modesty shrinks. If Shakespeare had written in our days he would not perhaps have dared to hazard them; and yet this must certainly have greatly injured the truth of his picture. Desdemona is a sacrifice without blemish. She is not, it is true, a high ideal representation of sweetness and enthusiastic passion like Juliet; full of simplicity, softness, and humility, and so innocent, that she can hardly form to herself an idea of the possibility ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... cooking and the washing, the elder sister giving lessons at forty sous, and the little one working in pastels—were vaguely conscious of representing something very humble, but sacred and noble—a family without a blemish on their name. They felt that they moved in an atmosphere of esteem and respect. "Those ladies upon the first floor have so many accomplishments," say the neighbors. Their apartment—with its stained woodwork, its torn wall, paper, but where they were ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... imperfect mettles[128] as is yours: But Romans, that are still allur'd by fame, Choose rather death than blemish of their name. But I have haste, and therefore will reward you. Go, soldiers, with as quick despatch as may be, Hasten their death, and bring them to their end, And say in this that ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... Another blemish in English historical work has been noticed by the Rev. Charles Kingsley, and may therefore be referred to by me without offence. Your standard historians, having no unnatural regard for their most indefatigable readers, the wives and daughters of England, ...
— Obiter Dicta • Augustine Birrell
... dazzling of intellectual luminosity; but he is a great man, strong in the cold, steadfast nerve that he inherits from his ancestor, and respectable in the symmetry of an intellect which, like a marble masterpiece, leaves nothing to regret except the thought that its perfection excludes the blemish of a soul. John Sherman will figure creditably in history. Mankind soon forgets the sentimental acrimony of the moment, provoked by the suffering of harsh processes, and remembers only the grand results. Thus John Sherman will figure in history as the ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... God's sake restrain your wrath. You have the renown of all gentleness and nobility; I pray you do not a thing that can lay a blemish on your fair fame, or give men cause to speak of you despitefully. Every man will say it is a great cruelty to put to death such honest persons, who of their own will have put themselves into your hands to save the remainder ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... every ancient excellence, and appears original even in the adoption of acknowledged thoughts and allusions. He is the just and adequate representative of Horace, Juvenal, and Perseus, united, without one indecent blemish; and for my own part, I have always considered him as the most finished gentleman that ever wrote." In his Life, translated by Ozell, we are told, that "he was full of sentiments of humanity, mildness, and justice. He censured vice, and sharply attacked the bad taste ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton
... asserted, a secret agreement existed between himself and James, Duke of Atholl, that the Castle should be saved, can only be determined by a far closer insight into motives than human power can obtain. We may accord to Lord George Murray, without a blemish on his fidelity, a pardonable reluctance to level to the dust the pride of his family; that every effort was made to subdue Blair, except the last, is evident from the testimony of all ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... 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
... year one Thousand six Hundred seventy two, War being proclaimed with Holland, it was looked upon among Nobility and Gentry, as a Blemish, not to attend the Duke of York aboard the Fleet, who was then declared Admiral. With many others, I, at that Time about twenty Years of Age, enter'd my self a Voluntier on board the London, commanded by Sir Edward Sprage, ...
— Military Memoirs of Capt. George Carleton • Daniel Defoe
... damsel that you read of in Acts xvi., to cry out, "These are the servants of the most high God, that shew unto us the way of salvation!" Yes it was, as is evident, for Paul was grieved to hear it. But why did the devil stir up her to cry so? but because that was the way to blemish the Gospel, and to make the world think that it came from the same hand as did her soothsaying and witchery; verse l6-18; "Holiness, O Lord, becomes thy house ...
— The Jerusalem Sinner Saved • John Bunyan
... 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 ...
— The Sagas of Olaf Tryggvason and of Harald The Tyrant (Harald Haardraade) • Snorri Sturluson
... appearance before the magistrates he was confronted with his past; and his past to the great astonishment of the Brethren being free from all blemish with the solitary exception of fourteen days for stealing milk-cans, he was discharged with a caution. The disillusioned Primitive Apostles also ...
— Captains All and Others • W.W. Jacobs
... of writers on 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, as freely ...
— Popular Lectures on Zoonomia - Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease • Thomas Garnett
... it without a human architect, hew out a stone, hew out another, and another, and soon a beautiful edifice arises, in the walls of which there is not a single peep-hole or blemish. Everything fits. So bear yourself toward your future partner for life that when you enter the quarry of your brain for her information, you also enter this quarry of Truth. The stones you now cut out will stand as the buttresses ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... having lost his own, when very small. It has been a life-long want with him. He often shows me a little scar on his face, made by a jealous dog, when his mother was caressing him as an infant. He prizes that blemish much. ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. II • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... whose ancestors, At Cressy, Poitiers, and at Agincourt, With tenfold numbers, combated, and pluck'd The budding laurels, from the brows of France. Back to the charge, once more, and rather die, Burn'd up, and wither'd on this bloody hill, Than live the blemish of your Country's fame, With everlasting infamy, oppress'd. Their ammunition, as you hear, is spent, So that unless their looks, and visages, Like fierce-ey'd Basilisks, can strike you dead; Return, ...
— The Battle of Bunkers-Hill • Hugh Henry Brackenridge
... greens. From other sources we may add gazelles, date wine, butter, cream, honey, garlic, corn, herbs, oil, spices, and incense. Stress is laid upon the quality of the sacrifice.[1473] The animals must be without blemish, and if well nurtured, they would be all the more pleasing in the sight of the gods. The omission of dogs and swine is not accidental. Under that double aspect of sanctity which we find among the Babylonians as among so many nations, certain animals were ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow
... 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. ...
— The Astronomy of the Bible - An Elementary Commentary on the Astronomical References - of Holy Scripture • E. Walter Maunder
... of go-between in his suit; for Othello, fearing that himself had not those soft 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 honor 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 behavior to Michael ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... another close examination of those previously marked takes place: those in which no defect can be found receive a second mark, and the rest are condemned. A few months afterwards a third and last scrutiny is made; the prime rams and ewes receive a third and final mark, but the slightest blemish is sufficient to cause the rejection of the animal." These sheep are bred and valued almost exclusively for the fineness of their wool; and the result corresponds with the labour bestowed on their selection. Instruments have been invented to measure accurately the thickness ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Volume II (of 2) • Charles Darwin
... modest demand. Then the sword came out and struck at our life. "Was it matter of choice with us whether we would fight? Not unless it were also matter of choice whether we would become the very sweepings and blemish of creation. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... asked. "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 scorn ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... Book's a Book." I have not heard from Wordsworth or from Malta since. Charles Kemble, it seems, enters into possession to-morrow. We sup at 109 Russell St. this evening. I wish your brother wouldn't drink. It's a blemish in the greatest characters. You send me a modern quotation poetical. How do you like this in an old play? Vittoria Corombona, a spunky Italian Lady, a Leonardo one, nick-named the White Devil, being on her trial for murder, ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... with the rich traditions of a soul That hates to have her dignity profaned With any relish of an earthly thought: Oh, then how proud a presence doth she bear. Then is she like herself, fit to be seen Of none but grave and consecrated eyes: Nor is it any blemish to her fame, That such lean, ignorant, and blasted wits, Such brainless gulls, should utter their stol'n wares With such applauses in our vulgar ears: Or that their slubber'd lines have current pass From the fat judgments of the multitude, But that this ...
— Every Man In His Humour • Ben Jonson
... not believing in them. He allows also that my scheme has been carried out in spite of what he had said. This time he concludes the article as follows: "In contrasting the expeditions of De Long and Nansen, it is necessary to allude to the single blemish that mars the otherwise magnificent career of Nansen, who deliberately quitted his comrades on the ice-beset ship hundreds of miles from any known land, with the intention of not returning, but, in his own reported words, 'to go to Spitzbergen, ...
— Farthest North - Being the Record of a Voyage of Exploration of the Ship 'Fram' 1893-1896 • Fridtjof Nansen
... law of the Nazarite, when the days of his separation are fulfilled: he shall be brought unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation; And he shall offer his offering unto the LORD, one he-lamb of the first year without blemish for a burnt-offering, and one ewe-lamb of the first year without blemish for a sin-offering, and one ram without blemish for peace-offerings, and a basket of unleavened bread, cakes of fine flour mingled with oil, and ...
— Separation and Service - or Thoughts on Numbers VI, VII. • James Hudson Taylor
... This mark upon the fairness of thy arm which I have thought a blemish, and therefore have not questioned thee thereon—sayest thou it is a dakkh, what thou callest a tattoo mark? And if so what has it to do with the man whose name is unceasingly upon ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... together covered all those parts of the stones which received a direct light. The mimic rocks seemed draped in green velvet, and in the sunlight were studded with pearly bubbles. There was, however, one blemish: the hungry crabs had so nibbled the larger plants that it was deemed necessary to renew them, in order to secure a sufficient supply of food and oxygen. Accordingly, a fine specimen of Enteromorpha was added. It consisted of five or six delicate fronds about five inches in length, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 4, February, 1858 • Various
... gainsay this; but he shook his head doubtfully. The gun seemed to him both the surer and the more amusing way, and he was accustomed to picture to himself a tremendous duel, a lingering slaughter from which he would emerge without spot or blemish, forever set free from the wiles of ...
— Maria Chapdelaine - A Tale of the Lake St. John Country • Louis Hemon
... 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 ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee
... wearying even by the length of his discourse. Once again there rose a hymn of praise such as had never before been heard within those walls—not to Mary, not to any of the saints, but to the Lamb without spot or blemish, slain for the sins of the whole world, that all who believe on Him might not perish, but have everlasting life. No thoughts can be more pure and simple and holy, more full of Gospel truth than are those found in the ...
— The Golden Grasshopper - A story of the days of Sir Thomas Gresham • W.H.G. Kingston
... only adds to its luster, and 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 ...
— History of Education • Levi Seeley
... so bright, so sunny, and to suit so well her snowy complexion and black eyes, that in truth I would not have had it other than it was; and I am sure, that now this very color of her hair, which would be a blemish in any one else, must only add to the charm of Mademoiselle Adrienne's face. She must have such a sweet ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... and Lincoln, which only the future was to make plain. By all that it did know, it ought to have given the honor to Seward, who merited it by the high offices which he had held with distinction and without blemish, by the leadership which he had acquired in the party through long-continued constancy and courage, by the force and clearness with which he had maintained its principles, by his experience and supposed natural aptitude in the higher walks of statesmanship. ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... but rumour, was now made clear to sight, That nought had yet been witness'd so beautiful and bright As those two lovely damsels; 't was plain to every eye; None the slightest blemish in either form ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... her, and that the coldness which had sometimes wounded him was little more than a veil beneath which a proud woman strove to hide her deepest feelings. Mr. Fairfax rather liked this quality of pride in his future wife, even if it were carried so far as to be almost a blemish. It would be the surest safe guard of his home in the time to come. Such women are not prone to petty faults, or given to small quarrels. A man has a kind of security from trivial annoyances in an ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... the greater terror, it would be hard to say. Modern medical science has devised many alleviations, and often restores a patient without spot or blemish. But to have lived at all in that day evidenced extraordinary vitality. Cleanliness was unknown, water being looked upon as deadly poison whether taken internally or applied externally. Covered with blankets, every window tightly sealed, and the moaning ...
— Anne Bradstreet and Her Time • Helen Campbell
... again. Look at the writing, and find if you can, any blemish in the language or orthography." (The writing was, in reality, charming, and the orthography irreproachable.) "You are born to good fortune," said Franz, as he ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... flows in those beauteous shades which no united colors can match, falling in graceful curls below His ears, agreeably couching on His shoulders, and parting on the crown of His head; His dress, that of the sect of Nazarites; His forehead is smooth and large; His cheeks without blemish, and of roseate hue; His nose and mouth are formed with exquisite symmetry; His beard is thick and suitable to the hair of His head, reaching a little below His chin, and parting in the middle below; His eyes are ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson
... wished to invite friends to his home, he had to prove them standard-bred, morally sound in wind and limb, and free from fault or blemish. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... to the sun itself, Galileo observed on the surface of that luminary a spot or blemish which gradually changed its shape, suggesting that changes were taking place in the substance of the sun—changes obviously incompatible with the perfect condition demanded by the metaphysical theorists. But however disquieting for the conservative, the sun's spots served a most ...
— A History of Science, Volume 2(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams
... now jumped on a fallen tree and, without giving the least warning of his intention, launched his spear at McEntire and lodged it in his left side. The person who committed this wanton act was described as a young man with a speck or blemish on his left eye That he had been lately among us was evident from his ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... has performed his duty here below, and has taken his flight to realms above, as unspotted as an angel. What a lesson he has given us! How delightful to dwell upon the idea that he has walked in the paths of virtue during his whole life, without a blemish on his character, and that all his friends may recount his acts with pride and pleasure!' The younger brother is still living in the paternal mansion, and was a member of the last Legislature of Tennessee. The mother of these children afterwards married Mr. James Sanders, of Sumner county, ...
— Americanism Contrasted with Foreignism, Romanism, and Bogus Democracy in the Light of Reason, History, and Scripture; • William Gannaway Brownlow
... shortly mean to touch our northern shore. Perhaps they had ere this, but that they stay The first departing of the king for Ireland. If then we shall shake off our slavish yoke, Imp out our drooping country's broken wing, Redeem from broking pawn the blemish'd crown, Wipe off the dust that hides our sceptre's gilt, And make high majesty look like itself, Away with me in post to Ravenspurgh; But if you faint, as fearing to do so, Stay and be ...
— The Tragedy of King Richard II • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... frequently you get bitter water from sweet, and thistles instead of grapes. Just look at that tricky, mischievous, ill-tempered, wall-eyed little rascal. Where did he get his evil cantrips and his wall-eye? I have known his ancestors for four generations back and they were all without a blemish." The minister made a note of this fact within the book and volume of his brain: it may be useful in the pulpit, and I expect to see it in print when he ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... eyebrows were thick and red, too red, and his round chubby face was flanked by a pair of silky, luxuriant red Dundrearies that would have done credit to a day of hirsute achievements. His linen was strictly without blemish, and he wore a creaseless black frock coat and a waistcoat of brown broadcloth. And as he stood looking up at his tall visitors, head on one side, he reminded them of nothing so much as a sleek cock-robin who had just dined to his ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller
... ambition—which makes him unfit to be trusted with government; therefore the same corruption is in all other men's hearts; even as the face in the water answereth the face out of the water so just, that there is not a spot or blemish in the one but it is in the other. I am sure Paul taught us not so when he said, "In lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves," Phil. ii. 3. Nay, the brother himself hath taken off the edge of his own argument (if it had any) in his epistle printed ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... blasts of raging winds, and Cymo, and Eione, and rich-crowned Alimede, and Glauconome, fond of laughter, and Pontoporea, Leagore, Euagore, and Laomedea, and Polynoe, and Autonoe, and Lysianassa, and Euarne, lovely of shape and without blemish of form, and Psamathe of charming figure and divine Menippe, Neso, Eupompe, Themisto, Pronoe, and Nemertes [1613] who has the nature of her deathless father. These fifty daughters sprang from blameless ...
— Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns, and Homerica • Homer and Hesiod
... that after all your hardships and difficulties you may sit down, and, if the Lord give His blessing, may reape some fruits of your past services. Do not think it a blemish or underrating of your past services, that you are now disbanded; but look upon it as of the Lord's appointing, and with cheerfulness submit thereunto; and the blessing of the Lord be upon you all, and keep you ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... 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
... which Morellet notices, not without slight lifting of the eyebrow, remained with Turgot throughout his life. This was the more remarkable from the prevailing laxity of opinion upon this particular subject, perhaps the worst blemish upon the feeling and intelligence of the revolutionary schools. For it was not merely libertines, like Marmontel, making a plea for their own dissoluteness, who habitually spoke of these things with inconsiderate levity. Grave men of blameless life, like Condorcet, ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Turgot • John Morley
... my lord. You, sister, are the crocodile: you are blemish'd in your fame, my lord cures it; and though the comparison hold not in every particle, yet observe, remember, what good the bird with the prick i' th' head hath done you, and scorn ingratitude. It may appear to some ridiculous ...
— The White Devil • John Webster
... 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 ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... given satisfactory redress to the foreigner. His ambassador made frequent appeals to the Secretary of State, but the Secretary was powerless, as the Constitution does not empower the Federal Government to interfere in state matters. This seems a blemish in the administration of foreign affairs in the United States of America. Suppose a foreigner should be ill-treated or murdered in a state, and no proper redress be given, the Federal Government cannot send its officers ...
— America Through the Spectacles of an Oriental Diplomat • Wu Tingfang
... His Sanctuary. "Christ loved the Church and delivered Himself up for it, that He might sanctify it, cleansing it by the laver of water, in the word of life; that He might present it to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish."(41) ...
— The Faith of Our Fathers • James Cardinal Gibbons
... cannot deny that The Ring and the Book, in its perfection and integrity, fully satisfies the conditions of artistic triumph. Are we to ignore the grandeur of a colossal statue, and the nobility of the human conceptions which it embodies, because here and there we notice a flaw in the marble, a blemish in its colour, a jagged slip of the chisel? "It is not force of intellect," as George Eliot has said, "which causes ready repulsion from the aberration and eccentricities of greatness, any more than it is force of vision that causes the eye to explore the warts ...
— Studies in Literature • John Morley
... a discrepancy between their deeds as men and the artistic thoughts for which they seem to be the unconscious media, that it is inspiring to come into touch with one who rings true as a man whatever demands are made upon him; whose music is free from morbidity or carnal blemish, as pure as the winter wind, as elemental as the ocean, as uplifting as the stars. In Bach let us always remember the noble human traits; for the universal regard in which his work is held could never have come merely from profound skill in workmanship, but is ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... home from the University of Virginia, having completed the law course. The restful peace of the old farmhouse is most enjoyable; but there is another blemish upon the landscape; my father is building a second tobacco barn, and the foreman in charge, a union carpenter, or nine-hour man, as we then called him, is a disturbing element, spending his time, when not at work, chewing tobacco and aggressively talking about the ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt
... thirty thousand inhabitants. The old fortifications, which once gave it an aspect of mediaevalism, are now (by decree of 1903) being torn down, and only the quaintly picturesque Castillet remains. The rest are—at the present writing—a mere mass of crumbled bricks and mortar, and a real blemish to an otherwise exceedingly attractive, gay little city. The automobile garages are all side by side on a new-made street, on the site of one line of the old fortifications, and are suitable enough when found, but no directions which were given us enabled us to house our machine ...
— The Automobilist Abroad • M. F. (Milburg Francisco) Mansfield
... that cannot help being noticed is the number of persons whose eyes are not on the same level. When this does not amount to an actual disfigurement, it is still a blemish which prevents many a young girl from being classed as a beauty. This and the peculiar notched or cleft teeth seem to point to an hereditary taint. Also unmistakable signs of a greater or lesser admixture ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... earth meanwhile uneared and thankless left. Oft, too, 'twill boot to fire the naked fields, And the light stubble burn with crackling flames; Whether that earth therefrom some hidden strength And fattening food derives, or that the fire Bakes every blemish out, and sweats away Each useless humour, or that the heat unlocks New passages and secret pores, whereby Their life-juice to the tender blades may win; Or that it hardens more and helps to bind The gaping veins, lest penetrating showers, ...
— The Georgics • Virgil
... to stand one side and give me this chance, rather than have a blemish on your wife's name ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... there and is typed into a presentable appearance and illustrated with interesting photographs. A good style will enhance the manuscript's value, but want of verbal skill rarely will prove a fatal blemish. Not so long as there are "re-write men" ...
— If You Don't Write Fiction • Charles Phelps Cushing
... folio—a babe, as it were, of his own begetting—a little alter ego in which he took much delight. It was his umbrella. Look at the delicate finish of its lower extremity; look at the long, narrow, and well-made coat in which it is enveloped from its neck downwards, without speck, or blemish, or wrinkle; look at the little wooden head, nicely polished, with the effigy of a human face on one side of it—little eyes it has, and a sort of nose; look closer at it, and you will perceive a mouth, not expressive indeed, but still it is there—a mouth and chin; and ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... none of them satisfied 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, "the happiest man ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... States was "one of the most skilful works which human intelligence ever created; one of the most perfect organizations that ever governed a free people." Experience had shown that its main defect was the doctrine of State sovereignty. This blemish was avoided in the Canadian constitution by vesting all residuary powers in the central government and legislature. The Canadian system would also be distinguished from the American by the recognition of monarchy and of the principle of responsible government. The connection of Canada with ...
— George Brown • John Lewis
... such a way that there was none like to her for those that had eyes to behold her as she was; and none could ever be made like to her, even by such a master-craftsman as could fashion a body without a blemish. ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... fifty-eighth year of his age, and thirty-fifth of his reign, the greatest prince of his time, for wisdom, virtue, and abilities, and the most powerful in extent of dominion of all those that had ever filled the throne of England. His character, in private as well as in public life, is almost without a blemish; and he seems to have possessed every accomplishment, both of body and mind, which makes a man either estimable or amiable. He was of a middle stature, strong and well proportioned; his countenance was lively and engaging; his conversation affable and entertaining; ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... Stallions and mares, Vahuka scanned them all, By Rituparna prayed quickly to choose. Slowly he picked four coursers, under-fleshed, But big of bone and sinew; fetlocked well For journeying; high-bred, heavy-framed; of blood To match the best, yet gentle; blemish-free; Broad in the jaw, with scarlet nostrils spread; Bearing the Avarthas, the ten true marks— Reared on the banks of Indus, swift as wind. Which, when the Raja looked upon, he cried, Half-wrathful: "What thing thinkest thou to do? Wilt thou betray me? How ...
— Hindu Literature • Epiphanius Wilson
... moreover, no construction in the narrative, and little or no progress in the events. Yet it is very daintily told. The mind of the author wells out in the purest streams. Having to deal with one foul incident, the tale is nevertheless without speck or blemish. A virgin nymph, born of a lily, could not have unfolded her thoughts more delicately. And, in spite of its improbability, Rosamond Gray is very pathetic. It touches the sensitive points in young hearts; and it was by no means without success—the author's first success. It sold much ...
— Charles Lamb • Barry Cornwall
... provoke; nor could any sane man believe him to be so infirm of character that sensual allurements would have led him to dissolve a connexion in which he had passed the flower of youth without stain or blemish, and in which he had borne himself in his trial so reverently and honourably."[125] I consider this entirely true in a sense which no great knowledge of human nature is required to understand. The king's personal dissatisfaction was great: ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... least comely. To nail to such a delicate structure as West Hoathly church the kind of dial that one expects to see outside a railway station is a curious lapse of taste. Hever church, in Kent, has a similar blemish, probably dating from one of the recent Jubilee celebrations, which left few loyal villages the richer by a beautiful memorial. Surely it should be possible to obtain an appropriate clock-face for such ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... defacement; mutilation; deforming. chaos, randomness (disorder) 59. [taking form from surroundings] fluid &c 333. V. deface [Destroy form], disfigure, deform, mutilate, truncate; derange &c 61; blemish, mar. Adj. shapeless, amorphous, formless; unformed, unhewn^, unfashioned^, unshaped, unshapen; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... and discover if the Iretons knew anything of Freddy and Margaret. They were now his one hope. In Luxor the fine European hotels were closed, so he found accommodation in the house of one of Abdul's friends, a clean, well-managed native inn. Luxor in May was without one blot or blemish of foreign life. ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... childhood. They have fine 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, contains ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... the tomb of the son of Menoetius, Ere he repos'd him again in his tent, and abandon'd the body, Flung on its face in the dust; but not unobserv'd of Apollo. He, though the hero was dead, with compassionate tenderness eyed him, And with the aegis of gold all over protected from blemish, Not to be mangled or marr'd in the turbulent ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various |
