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Failure   Listen
noun
Failure  n.  
1.
Cessation of supply, or total defect; a failing; deficiency; as, failure of rain; failure of crops.
2.
Omission; nonperformance; as, the failure to keep a promise.
3.
Want of success; the state of having failed.
4.
Decay, or defect from decay; deterioration; as, the failure of memory or of sight.
5.
A becoming insolvent; bankruptcy; suspension of payment; as, failure in business.
6.
A failing; a slight fault. (Obs.)






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Failure" Quotes from Famous Books



... thinking spirit is more limited, it is true, than were desirable for the perfect execution of a definite logical task; but, on the other hand, it is far too rich as well. A soulless play of concepts would certainly not help the cause, and there is no disadvantage in the failure of the history of philosophy to proceed so directly and so scholastically, as, for instance, in the system of Hegel. A graded series of interconnected general forces mediate between the logical Idea and the individual thinker—the spirit of the people, of the age, of the thinker's vocation, ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg

... to gather. "Oh, good-by," she cried. "I'm getting out before I'm told to go—that's all. I made a failure. Thank you, Albert." She put out her hand; she was still moving and looking in the direction ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips

... every direction, searching all hallways and side streets for blocks around, but nothing rewarded their endeavors, and it was a bedraggled and exasperated quartette that finally came together again to compare notes and report failure. ...
— Army Boys on German Soil • Homer Randall

... well enough to wish her to belong to his worst enemy. In the banking business there is a class of security which one is pleased to see discounted by one's rivals. With the stubborn hope of triumph peculiar to his race, Justus, consoling himself for the failure of his first scheme, doubtless considered that Eve would prove a powerful dissolving agent in the Christian family which she had entered, and thus help to make all wealth and power fall into the ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... leaders, naturally flowed from the exhibition of arbitrary power. The introduction of the troops was a suicidal measure to the Loyalists, and in urging their continuance in the Province the crown officials had been carrying an exhaustive burden; while, even in every failure to effect their removal, the Whigs had won a fresh moral victory. There was, in consequence, a more perfect union of the people than ever. The members returned to the General Court constituted a line representation of the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various

... physician, shows this very well. There were evidently as many of them and as many different kinds in Mondeville's time as in our own. In discussing the opposition that had arisen between physicians and surgeons in his time and their failure to realize that they were both members of a great profession, he enumerates the many different kinds of opponents that the medical profession had. There were "barbers, soothsayers, loan agents, falsifiers, alchemists, meretrices, ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh

... return to the village found his way to the tent of Mookoomis, and candidly told him of his complete failure to find anything of comfort or peace of mind in communion with nature. He said he had faithfully carried out his directions, but that everything he hoped would have in it help or satisfaction seemed to have had ...
— Oowikapun - How the Gospel Reached the Nelson River Indians • Egerton Ryerson Young

... undesirable was sufficiently astute to keep free from ordinary military "crime." Nevertheless, his presence in the ranks was a continual menace to the preservation of order and to the peace and property of individuals. Experience later proved that to the failure to thoroughly clear up the situation whilst in Egypt, and to the inability of certain officials in Australia to recognise that the good name of Australia's volunteer army required to be jealously ...
— The 28th: A Record of War Service in the Australian Imperial Force, 1915-19, Vol. I • Herbert Brayley Collett

... away—still missing it, I mean, deliciously. YOU miss it, my dear fellow, with inimitable assurance; the fact of your being awfully clever and your article's being awfully nice doesn't make a hair's breadth of difference. It's quite with you rising young men," Vereker laughed, "that I feel most what a failure ...
— The Figure in the Carpet • Henry James

... extreme rancour. An honourable man may object to the jurisdiction of a person whom he regards as a convicted thief, but he does not usually pursue him with the violence of personal hatred. Now, in 1888 Signor Margiotta became a candidate for the Italian Parliament, and he attributes his failure to the hostility of Lemmi, who, prompted by Gallophobe tendencies, brought his influence to bear against a person who was friendly to the French nation. I submit that this assists us to understand the animus of the converted Mason ...
— Devil-Worship in France - or The Question of Lucifer • Arthur Edward Waite

... of commercial blackmail to the extent of millions of dollars, then he was sternly denounced as an arch thief. If Vanderbilt had confined himself to the routine formulas of business, he might have gone down in failure. Many of the bankrupts were composed of business men who, while sharp themselves, were outgeneraled by abler sharpers. Vanderbilt was a master hand in despoiling ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers

... wrote me about this time, that he was in need of assistance. His crops had been almost a total failure that year, through which he was unable to meet the payments due on a piece ...
— Twenty Years of Hus'ling • J. P. Johnston

... failure," hastily interposed Mrs. Billing. "He was always troubled with a rickety heart, and on several occasions my husband attended him for rather dangerous fainting attacks; no doubt that was partly the reason why he lived so quietly, ...
— The Road to Mandalay - A Tale of Burma • B. M. Croker

... said; "the Chevalier de Lorraine was there, and I feared an utter failure if I asked too much at once. ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... She has troubles of her own, some inherent in the adverse physical conditions, and others due to well-known historical causes, that too often impede the action to which her best thoughts should lead. But the very fact that those who grapple with Irish problems have to work through failure to success will certainly not lessen the value to the social student of the experience gained. I recognise, however, that I must give the reader so much of personal narrative as is required to enable him to estimate the value of my facts, and of the conclusions ...
— The Rural Life Problem of the United States - Notes of an Irish Observer • Horace Curzon Plunkett

... realty or cattle in hand; that no blandishments of salary as manager could induce me to forsake legitimate channels for possibilities in other fields. "Go slow and learn to peddle," was the motto of successful merchants; I had got out on a limb before and met with failure, and had no desire to rush in where angels fear for their footing. Let others organize companies and we would sell them the necessary cattle; the more money seeking investment the better ...
— Reed Anthony, Cowman • Andy Adams

... come and come again, no doubt, for thus would a great country in due time work out its own salvation. But it was no affair of his. This fomenting nucleus into which he and Barlow had come was, he estimated, foredoomed to failure and worse; one fine day Ruiz Rios and Fernando Escobar and their outlaw followings would find themselves with their backs to an adobe wall and their faces set toward a line of rifles. And Zoraida Castelmar had best think upon that, too. For turbulent times ...
— Daughter of the Sun - A Tale of Adventure • Jackson Gregory

... have lamented the failure of Justus Lipsius to comment upon Petronius or edit an edition of the Satyricon. Had he done so, he might have gone far toward piercing the veil of darkness which enshrouds the authorship of the work and the very age in which the composer flourished. To me, personally, the fact that ...
— The Satyricon, Complete • Petronius Arbiter

... have a personal acquaintance, I mean, for of course I know there are other owners who would be glad enough to see him scratched. But is there anybody who would have a particular interest in your failure?" ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew

... I have endeavored to show the ill policy and disadvantages of the war. I believe many of my remarks are new. Those which are not so, I have studied to improve and place in a manner that may be clear and striking. Your failure is, I am persuaded, as certain as fate. America is above your reach. She is at least your equal in the world, and her independence neither rests upon your consent, nor can it be prevented by your arms. In short, you spend your substance in vain, and ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine

... attempted the most horrible reproduction of Emilia's failure. She cried out as if she ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... reared in any form of society are adjusted, shaped and conditioned by the social pattern of which they are a part. Each society attempts to stamp the individuals with its own image and likeness. The success or failure of this effort to assure individual adjustment to the social norm and conformity to its practices varies with the prosilitizing enthusiasm of the society and with the ration of adaptability and self-consciousness of its ...
— Civilization and Beyond - Learning From History • Scott Nearing

... Faust shall be willing to say to the moment: "Stay, thou art so fair"; and Mephistopheles shall harshly cry out: "The clock stands still"; and the graybeard shall sink in the dust; and the holy angels shall fly away with his soul, leaving the Fiend baffled and morose, to gibe at himself over the failure of all his infernal arts. But, meanwhile, it remains true of the man that no pleasure satisfies him and no happiness contents, and "death is desired, and life ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter

... ruined himself by trying to improve the artistic quality of the religious prints so widely sold in France, the faulty execution of which quite irritated him. His last resources had been swallowed up in the failure of a colour-printing firm; and, heedless as he was, deficient in foresight, ever trusting in Providence, his childish mind continually swayed by illusions, he did not notice the awful pecuniary embarrassment of the household; but applied ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola

... loss will they long continue to lament one whose public success as an author was only commensurate with the charm of her private companionship. Inheriting from both parents the intellectual faculties which she so nobly exercised, her work has been ended in the very noontide of life by premature failure of health; and the long exile she endured for the sake of a better climate has failed to arrest, though it delayed, the doom foretold by her physicians. To that exile we owe the most popular, perhaps, of her contributions to the literature of her country, "Letters from ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon

... business, my dear. In matters matrimonial it may be different. But I doubt his failure in that," went on Mrs. Abbot, with a decided snap of her expressive mouth. "He will try by fair means or foul, and, if I know anything of him, he will never relinquish his purpose. He asked you to marry him—and of course ...
— The Story of the Foss River Ranch • Ridgwell Cullum

... the breath of life, and, through my jesting agency, it was cut off. Anastasius Papadopoulos, had he not come under my malign influence would have lived out his industrious, happy and dream-filled days. Lesser, but still great price, too, has been paid. Jealous hatred, misery and failure for the being I care most for in the world, the shame of a sordid scandal to those that hold me dear, the hopeless love and speedy mourning of a woman not ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke

... could attain even eminence as a lecturer or instructor, but lecture or instruct he will not, for he has read Ventura and become smitten. He tries to imitate the Padre's lofty style, and succeeds in "amazing the unlearned and making the learned smile." "Failure" is written large over ...
— The Young Priest's Keepsake • Michael Phelan

... flung himself and his book to the floor in grief at the pitiful ending. He was the Hamlet; youth with a problem of the horrible; called to solve that which shook the brains of statesmen; dying in utter failure with that most pathetic dread of a ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith

... that he failed in both of the objects of his highest ambition. His philosophic Method is demonstrably a failure; his attempt to convert James and Buckingham to his views resulted in his own unjust disgrace with contemporaries and posterity. The truth is, that, cool, serene, comprehensive, and unimpassioned as he appears, he was from his youth actuated ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various

... if the rose-streak of morning Pale and depart in a passion of tears? Once to have hoped is no matter for scorning: Love once: e'en love's disappointment endears; A moment's success pays the failure ...
— Derrick Vaughan—Novelist • Edna Lyall

... think), or (what I conceive to be the true reason) that, after all, the difference between miracle and no miracle is not so great in any case, in the case of any people, as to secure the success or account for the failure of religious truth. It was not that the Israelites were much more hard-hearted than other people, but that a miraculous religion is not much more ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VIII (of 8) • John Henry Newman

... Their model theories might not have been adapted to the various temperaments often found in one family. Their children might have been exceptionally faulty by nature; unsuspected inherited traits may have developed themselves, and interfered with the workings of the model theories. The failure of "those people" shows all the more the need of preparation given "beforehand," and given by those who make the subject a special study, just as the professor of history, or mathematics, or natural philosophy, makes his department a ...
— A Domestic Problem • Abby Morton Diaz

... grouching back to the clubhouse and I took 'em home to breakfast. When we got down to the table old Judge Ballard says: 'What might have been an evening of rare enjoyment was converted into a detestable failure by that cur. I saw from the very beginning that he was determined to ...
— Somewhere in Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson

... always on men's lips, whether it was being first in the heartbreaking stampede to Danish Creek, in killing the record baldface grizzly over on Sulphur Creek, or in winning the single-paddle canoe race on the Queen's Birthday, after being forced to participate at the last moment by the failure of the sourdough representative to appear. Thus, one night in the Moosehorn, he locked horns with Jack Kearns in the long-promised return game of poker. The sky and eight o'clock in the morning were made the limits, ...
— Burning Daylight • Jack London

... by an agent, the agency relationship must have been constituted in a writing signed by the owner before the filing of the notice. The Copyright Office may specifically require in regulations other information to be included in the notice, but failure to provide such other information shall not invalidate the notice or be a basis for refusal to list the restored work in ...
— Copyright Law of the United States of America and Related Laws Contained in Title 17 of the United States Code, Circular 92 • Library of Congress. Copyright Office.

... long time, flat on his back, his eyes dimmed with effort, his gaze on the stars, which now seemed to blink in a friendly way upon his venture. To succeed so far—failure was now impossible. Fearfully he peered over the edge of the cliff upon the velvety tree-tops of the valley below. Three hundred feet, four perhaps, and beyond to the left where the crag fell down to the very bed of the Dukla itself, ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs

... been so excited since the time when he had waited to meet young Lackman. He had never quite forgiven himself for this costly failure, and now he was to have another chance. He took a trolley ride out into the country, and walked a couple of miles to the palace on the hilltop, and mounted thru a grove of trees and magnificent Italian ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair

... of testing is that of testing the brick as a beam subjected to its own weight and not on end. This method has been used for years in Germany and is recommended by the highest authorities in ceramics. It takes into account the failure by tension in the brick as well as by compression and thus covers the tension element which is ...
— Steam, Its Generation and Use • Babcock & Wilcox Co.

... know this search was a failure, and when on the morrow Black Meg arrived to make report and to warn him that Dirk van Goorl's son and his great serving-man, whose strength was known throughout the Netherlands, were on their road to The Hague, he was sure that after all the girl had ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard

... follow their history from first to last, study their organization, classify them in natural groups, disengage the distinctive and dominant characteristics in each, note its ambient surroundings and ascertain the internal or external conditions, or "necessary relationships," which determine its failure or its bloom. For men who live together in society and in a State, no study is so important; it alone can furnish them with a clear, demonstrable idea of what society and the State are; and it is in the law schools that this capital idea must be sought by an educated student body. If ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... a child she had speculated on her marriage. There was to be no nonsense about love. That was all very well in novelettes, but in Cardigan Street love-matches were a failure. Generally the first few months saw the divine spark drowned in beer. She would pick a steady man with his two pounds a week; he would jump at the chance, and the whole street would turn out to the wedding. But, as is common, her far-seeing ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone

... those calm army reports association could read many indications: the telling fact that the German losses in being pressed off the Ridge were as great if not greater than the British, their sufferings worse under a heavier deluge of shell fire, the increased skill of the offensive and the failure of German ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer

... as poor Fauquier could never be prevailed upon to present a bill to a gentleman, sir, and as some of the scions of the best Southern families were still waiting for, or had been recently dismissed from, a position, the experiment was a pecuniary failure. Yet the house was of excellent repute and well patronized; indeed, it was worth something to see old Fauquier sitting at the head of his own table, in something of his ancestral style, relating anecdotes of great men now dead and gone, interrupted ...
— The Story of a Mine • Bret Harte

... This last failure of success completed my discouragement. I abandoned every prospect of fame and advancement; and, without further troubling my head about real or imaginary talents, with which I had so little success, I dedicated my whole time and cares to procure myself and Theresa ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau

... are limited areas in which some clover disease has flourished, and in some years insect attacks are serious. Barring these factors which have relatively small importance when the entire clover area is taken into account, the causes of clover failure are under the farmer's control. The need of drainage increases, and the deficiency in organic matter becomes more marked. The sale of hay and straw, and especially the loss of liquid manures in stables, have robbed many farms. These are adverse influences upon clover seedings, but the most ...
— Crops and Methods for Soil Improvement • Alva Agee

... his fist in the cowboy's face: "It's the only chance. You can do it—I can't. For God's sake, man, be sensible! Either of us would do it—for her. It is only a question of success, and all that it means; and failure—and all that that means. You know the country—I don't. You are experienced in fighting this damned desert—I'm not. Any one of a dozen things might mean the difference between life and death. You would take advantage ...
— The Texan - A Story of the Cattle Country • James B. Hendryx

... Conway, she had not seen. Her father heard from him by post, saw him now and then in the outside world; she did not know what Conway was doing but imagined that he was keeping in touch with Leland for the sake of the irrigation scheme which seemed a still born failure. ...
— The Short Cut • Jackson Gregory

... thou found a failure in all others that might have been entertained to plead thy cause? Some make their sighs, their tears, their prayers, and their reformations, their advocates-"Hast thou tried these, and found them wanting?" Hast thou seen thy state to be desperate, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... of his ideas and his language by a rapid, careless, and imperfect delivery. He appears to have been one of the men who wanted nothing but a clear {290} articulation and effective utterance to be great Parliamentary debaters, and whom that single want condemned to comparative failure. Those who remember the late Sir George Cornewall Lewis, or, indeed, those who have heard the best speeches of Lord Sherbrooke, when he was Mr. Robert Lowe, can probably form a good idea of what Shippen ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume I (of 4) • Justin McCarthy

... after that great illuminating change of heart and mind had come to him? Well, still more important, do you remember the clue Hugo gives us to aberration? There is comfort and strength for so many a heart-breaking failure there. It was the old impetus, we are told, that was as yet too strong for the new control; the old instinct, too dark for the new light in the brain. It takes every vessel some time to answer to its helm; with us, human vessels, years, maybe. Have you never suddenly become sensitive ...
— The Book-Bills of Narcissus - An Account Rendered by Richard Le Gallienne • Le Gallienne, Richard

... blindly wedded to your logic, that you would refuse to try an experiment where there can be no risk? If you are mistaken, you are depriving the nation, as your numerous adversaries believe, of an immense advantage. If the error is on their side, no harm can result, as you yourself say, beyond the failure of a hope. The measure, excellent in their opinion, in yours is negative. Let it be tried, then, since the worst which can happen is not the realization of an evil, but ...
— Essays on Political Economy • Frederic Bastiat

... feudal obligations regularly. They paid their fixed contribution, furnished rations and stores to the army when passing through their territory, and informed the ministers at Thebes of any intrigues among their neighbours.* Years elapsed before they could so far forget the failure of their first attempt to regain independence, as to venture to make a second, and expose themselves to ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 5 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... of government that we have seems to me one of the worst kinds extant A government that does not protect life is a flat failure, no matter what else it may do. Life being almost universally regarded as the most precious possession, its security is the first and highest essential—not the life of him who takes life, but the ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce

... a cul-de-sac. But what is to be done? The experienced can see that many of the offered reforms are but the repetition of old mistakes which will involve us in the unhappy cycle of disillusion and failure. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, if men everywhere are seeking for a sign, a glimpse of a scheme of life, a view of reality, a hint of human destiny and the true outcome of human effort, to be an inspiration and a guide ...
— Bergson and His Philosophy • J. Alexander Gunn

... And what is our failure here but a triumph's evidence For the fulness of the days? Have we withered or agonized? Why else was the pause prolonged but that singing might issue thence? Why rushed the discords in but that harmony should be prized? Sorrow is hard to bear, ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning

... fostered by negotiations begun by Kutusoff for the very purpose of delaying the French retreat. For five weeks Napoleon remained at Moscow as if spell-bound, unable to convince himself of his powerlessness to break Alexander's determination, unable to face a retreat which would display to all Europe the failure of his arms and the termination of his career of victory. At length the approach of winter forced him to action. It was impossible to provision the army at Moscow during the winter months, even ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe

... the reign of confusion outside became too much to bear. He sent for Tarnier, the Installation physician, biologist, and erstwhile Venusian psychologist. Dr. Tarnier looked like the breathing soul of failure; Kielland had to steel himself to the wave of pity that swept through him at the sight of the man. "You're the one who tested these ...
— The Native Soil • Alan Edward Nourse

... of this work, I have been more and more confirmed in the opinion which I expressed at its commencement, that (whatever may be the extent of my own individual failure) "if justice is ever to be done to the easy flow and majestic simplicity of the grand old Poet, it can only be in the Heroic blank verse." I have seen isolated passages admirably rendered in other metres; and there are many instances in which a translation line for line and couplet for couplet ...
— The Iliad • Homer

... the legless man carried a high head, and looked about him with the eye of a landlord. His imagination was so strong that he had already the feelings of a genuine conqueror, and not of a man confronted by the awful possibilities of failure. And by some subtlety of mental communication Barbara was coming more and more into this same opinion of him. And in realizing this, and in allowing their relations to continue, she knew ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris

... undertake any exertion, however arduous; but when it came to deeds, she was so weak, so incapable, so hopelessly confused, that the school, the boarding-house, and the home for Indian children ended successively in failure. ...
— The Fortunes of the Farrells • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... act very differently, were we similarly situated. But we think, in view of all the circumstances, that their position on this subject exposes them to the suspicion that it is the success of education they fear, and not its failure. This apparent misgiving reasonably awakens distrust in the soundness ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs

... baron approached the celebrated Ganimard, introduced himself, and sought to commence a conversation, but that was a failure. Then he broached the real object of his interview, and briefly stated his case. The other listened, motionless, with his attention riveted on his fishing-rod. When the baron had finished his story, the fisherman turned, with an air of ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc

... failure of the Assembly of the Notables, the prime minister, Necker, advised the King to assemble the States-General,—the three orders of the State: the nobles, the clergy, and a representation of the people. It seemed to the Government impossible to proceed longer, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord

... disappointment which the colony sustained from the failure of the contract already mentioned for cattle and provisions which were to have been brought hither by Mr. Bampton, was added the regret which every thinking being among us felt on contemplating the calamitous moments that had, in all probability, brought destruction ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins

... man who had been too frequent a visitor, as Lorraine judged him. He was an oldish man with the lines of failure in his face and on his lean form the sprightly clothing of youth. He had been a reporter,—was still, he maintained. But Lorraine suspected shrewdly that he scarcely made a living for himself, and that he was home-hunting in more ways ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower

... (Messrs Tobin and Co. of Liverpool) he had not been able to ship a cargo suited to the market of Mombas, and if Lieutenant Emery had not kindly cashed a bill for him the speculation would have been a total failure. ...
— Journals Of Two Expeditions Of Discovery In North-West And Western Australia, Vol. 1 (of 2) • George Grey

... a strong authority vanity has over the principles and passions in the weakest and strongest moments of both; I never was remarkable, at that open, ingenuous period of my life, for secrecy; yet did I now take especial care not to invest either this attempt at the miraculous, or its concomitant failure, with anything like narration. It was, however, an act of devotion that had a vile effect on my lungs, for it gave me a cough that was intolerable; and I never felt the infirmities of humanity more than in this ludicrous ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton

... United States; not what is termed a National Convention, represented en masse, such as have been, for the last few years, held at various times and places; but a true representation of the intelligence and wisdom of the colored freemen; because it will be futile and an utter failure, to attempt such a project without ...
— The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States • Martin R. Delany

... "repentance," would therefore have to be translated "radical and complete change of thought." Again, why not? Was not a complete change of thought requisite if one were to become like Jesus? Could mortals think continually of murder, warfare, disaster, failure, crime, sickness and death, and of the acquisition of material riches and power, and still hope to acquire the character of the meek but mighty Nazarene? Decidedly no! And so he went on delving and plodding, day after day, night after night, substituting and changing, but always, ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking

... make up a melancholy lot, a barren failure of a life? What use have I made of my gifts, of my special circumstances, of my half-century of existence? What have I paid back to my country? Are all the documents I have produced, taken together, my correspondence, these thousands of journal ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... they hold up as "better and deeper than satisfied the last century" is a remedy which has been tried once already: and its failure was so palpable, that all the evil of the eighteenth century was but the reaction from that enormous evil which this remedy, if it be one, had at any rate been powerless to cure. Apostolical succession, the dignity of the Clergy, the authority of the Church, were triumphantly maintained for ...
— The Christian Life - Its Course, Its Hindrances, And Its Helps • Thomas Arnold

... to my perception, the most characteristic mark in Browning's portrayal of women is his admiration for dauntlessness and individuality; and this makes explicable to me the failure which I constantly perceive in his dramatic presentment of her whose "innocence" (as the term is conventionally accepted) is her salient quality. The type, immortal and essential, is one which a poet must needs essay to show; and Browning, when he showed it through others, or in his own person ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne

... bagful of magazines. There was a brief passage of arms between him and Miss Blake. She accused him of withholding a box of cartridges, and would not be content till she had poked about his office in dark corners. She came out swearing at the failure of her search. "I needed that shot," she said. "My supply is short. I made sure it'd be here to-day." There were no letters for either of them, and Sheila felt again that queer shiver of her loneliness. But, on the whole, it was a wonderful day, and, under a world ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt

... in his hopes and humiliated in his pride by the failure of his Coromandel scheme, he sought, without consulting his friends, to be examined at the College of Physicians for the humble situation of hospital mate. Even here poverty stood in his way. It was necessary to appear in a decent garb before the examining committee; but how ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving

... the failure of socialism is the encouragement of individualism, for indeed some of the arguments against the former are arguments in favour of the latter. Individualism opens up a new life, a life which is ...
— Rudolph Eucken • Abel J. Jones

... to lift her sons over her own head in education and position, planning extraordinary responsibilities for ordinary men, has proved a misfortune in many cases. Many a young man who would be a success as a carpenter would be a failure as the governor of a State. Mothers are quite apt to overestimate the genius of their children and push them into niches ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton

... along. From daybreak until late at night the troops labored, unceasingly. They knew, by the dull roar echoed and re-echoed among the mountains, that their comrades below were engaged; and the thought that a failure might ensue, owing to their absence from the contest, nerved ...
— For Name and Fame - Or Through Afghan Passes • G. A. Henty

... counsels. Unable to obtain peace, the mighty-armed Krishna, that foremost of men, came back, O monarch, to Upaplavya. Dismissed by Dhritarashtra's son, Krishna returned (to the Pandava camp), and upon the failure of his mission, O tiger among kings, said these words unto the Pandavas, 'Urged by Fate, the Kauravas are for disregarding my words! Come, ye sons of Pandu, with me (to the field of battle), setting ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown

... come to those who were born with the genes of success in their bodies, and failure was as preordained for the rest as was ultimate ...
— When I Grow Up • Richard E. Lowe

... 'Having been first broken by Arjuna of immeasurable prowess, and owing also to the failure of Drona's vow, in consequence of Yudhishthira having been well-protected, thy warriors were regarded as defeated. All of them with coats of mail torn and covered with dust, cast anxious glances around. Retiring ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... Lost has gained by time, it has lost far more as a storehouse of divine truth. We at this day are better able than ever to appreciate its force of expression, its grace of phrase, its harmony of rhythmical movement, but it is losing its hold over our imagination. Strange to say, this failure of vital power in the constitution of the poem is due to the very selection of subject by which Milton sought to secure perpetuity. Not content with being the poet of men, and with describing human passions and ordinary events, he aspired to present the destiny of the whole race of mankind, to tell ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison

... of gentle memory; and that other, silent figure in the tragedy of Failure, the long-lost, erring Eunice, with the hope that, if she still lives, her eye may chance to fall upon this page, and reading the message of this ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson

... health, and maintain greater strength of body and mind, than those who live on a mixed diet. The experiment has not been tried on a sufficiently extensive range to determine its value. It has not proved a failure, nor has it demonstrated, to the satisfaction of all, that flesh ...
— Vegetable Diet: As Sanctioned by Medical Men, and by Experience in All Ages • William Andrus Alcott

... were spent here, and, throughout that time, Henry and his comrades scouted far and wide, going as far as thirty miles beyond the fort. But the woods were bare of Indians, and Henry was confirmed in his belief that Timmendiquas, after the failure at the mouth of the Licking, was concentrating everything on Chillicothe, expecting to resist ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler

... he said at last. "Let's be honest one with another; that's your line, and you say it ought to be mine. Come now, as man to man, you think me a damnable failure now—beg pardon—complete failure—don't you? Don't be afraid of hurting me. I ...
— The Golden Scarecrow • Hugh Walpole

... cleverly maneuvered that she had been invited to spend the month of September at Severndale, and that was all she wanted: once her entering wedge was placed she was sure of her plans. At least she always HAD been, and she saw no reason to anticipate failure now. ...
— Peggy Stewart: Navy Girl at Home • Gabrielle E. Jackson

... become our portion if we continue to destroy our forests three times faster than they are produced, as we are doing now. The principles of forestry, therefore, must occupy a commanding place in determining the future prosperity or failure of our nation, and this commanding position in the field of ideas is naturally and properly reflected in the dignity and high standing which the profession of forestry, young as it is, has already acquired in the United States. This position it must be the first care of every member ...
— The Training of a Forester • Gifford Pinchot

... Shore, a gent has to have capacity to grasp a chance an' savey sufficient to get his chips down right. But this chance, an' whether it offers itse'f to any specific sport, is frequent accident an' its comin' or failure to come depends on conditions over which the party about to be enriched ain't got no control. That's straight, son! You backtrack any fortune to its beginning an some'ers along the trail or at the ...
— Wolfville Nights • Alfred Lewis

... go to the farmer and ask why he had allowed a large portion of his crop to be lost. Suppose he should say, My work was done, as soon as the seed fell from my hand into the soil; I can neither make it grow, nor understand how it grows; it was not in my province that the failure took place, and therefore the failure could not be my fault. No such specimen of hypocrisy is found in the kingdom of nature: no man could hold up his face before his fellow and cover his indolence by such ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot

... out of our churches or our colleges. The man who succeeds must shun, vulgarity. To be satisfied with poor things in one line will tarnish his ideals in the direction of his best efforts. One great source of failure in life is satisfaction with mean things. It is easier to be almost right than to be right. It is less trying to wish than to do. There are many things that glitter as well as gold and which can be had more cheaply. Illusion is always in the market ...
— The Call of the Twentieth Century • David Starr Jordan

... a miserable failure, I am glad you were not awake to hear it,' he said. 'It was intended as a welcome, as an expression of my profound and devoted admiration, in which I hope you will believe now, though you ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford

... engrossing volume was a large folio from her husband's own hand, in which he had recorded every experiment of his scientific career, its original aim, the methods adopted for its development, and its final success or failure, with the circumstances to which either event was attributable. The book, in truth, was both the history and emblem of his ardent, ambitious, imaginative, yet practical and laborious life. He handled physical ...
— Little Classics, Volume 8 (of 18) - Mystery • Various

... mind during the days he had been trying to borrow money had been a picture of the defeat that was ahead of him if he did not succeed; he could imagine the malicious satisfaction with which his three enemies would discuss his failure. ...
— Square Deal Sanderson • Charles Alden Seltzer

... second day after the failure of the French assault upon the town, King Richard would make his own essay. He was not yet wholly recovered of his sickness; but it would have passed the wit of man to devise means by which he could be kept within his pavilion; nor must it be forgotten that ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie

... efforts of my generation for the establishment of a free government. For some time I sustained the weight of this labour. That government has been overthrown. Thus I have myself experienced the immense difficulty, and endured the painful failure, of this great enterprise. Nevertheless, and I say it without sceptical hesitation or affected modesty, I read over again today what I wrote in 1821, upon the means of government and opposition in the actual state of France, with almost unmingled satisfaction. ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot

... and economic working group negotiations continue in 2006 with Slovakia over Hungary's failure to complete its portion of the Gabcikovo-Nagymaros hydroelectric dam project along the Danube; as a member state that forms part of the EU's external border, Hungary has implemented the strict ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... have been enabled by this help to fit themselves for various positions in life, in which they have afterwards distinguished themselves, and it is improbable that any have been kept back by their failure to gain an Exhibition. The Governors further determined to change the character of the Lower School and make the education received there similar to that of a Preparatory School. In order to carry out the second aspiration of the ...
— A History of Giggleswick School - From its Foundation 1499 to 1912 • Edward Allen Bell

... the formation explains why nearly all the caussenards have no water, either for themselves or their animals, except that which they collect from the skies in tanks sunk in the earth. Since the failure of the vines—which formerly flourished upon the causses wherever there was a favourable slope—the peasants have learnt to make a mildly alcoholic liquor by gathering and fermenting the juniper berries, which previously they had ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker

... rank of rear-admiral. In 1805 he was sent to cruise off Finisterre in order to intercept the combined French and Spanish Fleet under Villeneuve, and an engagement took place on June 22nd, as a result of which Admiral Calder was severely censured, both for his mode of attack and his failure to complete the engagement on the following day. On his return to England he was tried by Court-martial, and was found guilty of not having done his utmost to take and destroy the enemy's ships, owing to an error of judgment; and was severely reprimanded. ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)

... hopeful spirit. This is the work of the right imagination; and towards this work every imagination, in proportion to the rightness that is in it, will tend. The reveries even of the wise man will make him stronger for his work; his dreaming as well as his thinking will render him sorry for past failure, and hopeful of ...
— A Dish Of Orts • George MacDonald

... and even he, Sir, did not succeed! Even he, Sir, is what your great men would call a most decided failure." ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... sense of our official importance. But although the head-dress was at once removed by irreverent hands and passed round with some amusement, I regret to say that its effect (from an awe-inspiring point of view) was a total failure. ...
— From Paris to New York by Land • Harry de Windt

... the battlefield of Grandella and the scaffold of Naples. Frenchmen had the next turn—for a brief space only; since Palermo cried to the sound of her tocsins, 'Mora, Mora,' and the tyranny of Anjou was expunged with blood. Spain, the tardy and patient power, which inherited so much from the failure of more brilliant races, came at last, and tightened so firm a hold upon the island, that from the end of the thirteenth to the beginning of the nineteenth century, with one brief exception, Sicily belonged to the ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds

... problem of waste, it may be well to know that leakage in the household is due to three causes. The first one is lack of knowledge on the part of the housekeeper as to the difference between waste and refuse and a consequent failure to market well. As an illustration, many housewives will reject turkey at a certain price a pound as being too expensive and, instead, will buy chicken at, say, 5 cents a pound less. In reality, chicken at 5 cents a ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 1 - Volume 1: Essentials of Cookery; Cereals; Bread; Hot Breads • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences

... a song, but in vain. A hidden smile trembles on your lips, ask of it the reason of my failure. Let your smiling lips say on oath how my voice lost itself in silence like a drunken bee ...
— The Gardener • Rabindranath Tagore

... your Grace may ever command," replied Albany; "but would it become me, of all men on earth, to prompt to your Grace severe measures against your son and heir? Me, on whom, in case of failure—which Heaven forefend!—of your Grace's family, this fatal crown might descend? Would it not be thought and said by the fiery March and the haughty Douglas, that Albany had sown dissension between his royal brother ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott

... our commerce is the support of mercantile credit, without which it is in vain to expect that trade will be carried on to any great amount. In 1772, when a great failure occasioned want of confidence, the exports of the country fell off above three millions, but its imports fell off very little. {163} In 1793, when the internal credit of the mercantile people was staggered, precisely the same effect ...
— An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. • William Playfair

... of the younger officers to a mysterious place called "The Club"—an Estaminet in the village, operated by a French woman and recently "out of bounds" for several days because of failure to ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith

... lived in a garret in Green Arbour Court, Old Bailey, with a single chair in the room, and a window seat for himself if a visitor occupied the chair. For some unknown reason the Coromandel appointment was withdrawn, and failure in an examination as a hospital-mate left no hope ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... It was the intention of government to establish a model farm and mission at the confluence of the Niger and Benue; but the officers, discouraged by sickness, abandoned their original purpose, and the expedition proved another failure, involving a loss of at least ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various

... attraction and repulsion exercised by Jehovah. Instead of the alternating see-saw of absolute peace and absolute affliction, there prevails throughout the whole period a relative unrest; here peace, there struggle and conflict. Failure and success alternate, but not as the uniform consequences of loyalty or disobedience to the covenant. When the anonymous prophet who, in the insertion in the last redaction (chap. vi. 7-10), makes his appearance as suddenly as his withdrawal is abrupt, ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen

... vacillation and lightness, unworthy at least of you, and perhaps of both of us. Notwithstanding which appearance, it was right and just (only just) of you, to believe in me—in my truth—because I have never failed to you in it, nor been capable of such failure: the thing I have said, I have meant ... always: and in things I have not said, the silence has had a reason somewhere different perhaps from where you looked for it. And this brings me to complaining that you, who profess ...
— The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, Vol. 1 (of 2) 1845-1846 • Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Barrett

... at all. For example, a very excited lover, who has had strong erections at the moment when he prepared to copulate, may be suddenly overcome with the idea that he will fail, or by some other thought which paralyzes erection and renders coitus impossible. The remembrance of such a failure and the distress and shame attached to it, even efforts to produce erection indirectly for another attempt, constitute further causes of inhibition of the cerebro-spinal activity; they temporarily extinguish the sexual appetite, and prevent by their interference the ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel

... deranging the plans of the British, it carried conviction to their minds that his Most Christian Majesty was seriously disposed to support them. The good-will of their new allies was manifested to the Americans; and though it had failed in producing the effects expected from it, the failure was charged to winds, weather, and unavoidable incidents. Some censured Count D'Estaing; but while they attempted to console themselves by throwing blame on him, they felt and acknowledged their obligation to the French nation, and were encouraged ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson

... once more of harmonious thought and positive emotion, for here again there will be a temptation to dwell upon the failures of the day. It is so hard to forget some unkind word, some failure on our part to grasp a situation at the right time. We can easily remember the wrong word we ourselves spoke and deeply regret our failure to enter ...
— How to Add Ten Years to your Life and to Double Its Satisfactions • S. S. Curry

... seemed to thrive on the farm; the potato crop was a failure, and the cows got sick; so mother I decided it was best to put off the wedding a year. You see, I thought it didn't matter so much about the wedding as long as the banns had been read. But perhaps it was old-fashioned to ...
— Jerusalem • Selma Lagerlof

... He felt himself to be God's creature, and responsible to Him—God's possession, not his own. He had a great wish to succeed in the schools; a thrill came over him when he thought of it; but ambition was not his life; he could have reconciled himself in a few minutes to failure. Thus disposed, the only subjects on which the two friends freely talked together were connected with their common studies. They read together, examined each other, used and corrected each other's papers, ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman

... It wasn't love of rule that had brought the man home again, but broken health and the want of a bed to die upon! Thus they talked under their breath, unconscious of the secret operation of their own hearts. In a monastery, as elsewhere, failure is the ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine

... perception wrought, That all unheeded were the duties taught; No answers gave he when his trial came, Silent he stood, but suffering without shame; And they observed that words severe or kind Made no impression on his wounded mind: For all perceived from whence his failure rose, Some grief, whose cause he deign'd not to disclose. A soul averse from scenes and works so new, Fear ever shrinking from the vulgar crew; Distaste for each mechanic law and rule. Thoughts of past honour and a patron cool; A grieving parent, ...
— Tales • George Crabbe

... of the War.—The war lasted for nearly three years without bringing victory to either side. The surrender of Detroit by General Hull to the British and the failure of the American invasion of Canada were offset by Perry's victory on Lake Erie and a decisive blow administered to British designs for an invasion of New York by way of Plattsburgh. The triumph of Jackson ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard

... case of John Philpot Curran should give encouragement to every aspiring student of public speaking. He was generally known as "Orator Mum," because of his failure in his first attempt at public speaking. But he resolved to develop his oratorical powers, and devoted every morning to intense reading. In addition, he regularly carried in his pocket a small copy of a classic for convenient reading ...
— Successful Methods of Public Speaking • Grenville Kleiser

... of exhilaration when we have the strength for it, but that even as the ideal itself must be a rational development of life, so the strength to attain it must be secured from interest in life itself. We slowly learn that life consists of processes as well as results, and that failure may come quite as easily from ignoring the adequacy of one's method as from selfish or ignoble aims. We are thus brought to a conception of Democracy not merely as a sentiment which desires the well-being ...
— Democracy and Social Ethics • Jane Addams

... purpose, but her deafness had in each case proved an insuperable obstacle to the success of her teachers. It soon became apparent to her new instructresses, that the present trial must end like the preceding in total failure, therefore they recommended Mrs. Foley to withdraw ...
— The Life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation • "A Religious of the Ursuline Community"

... almost prayerful determination, again and again thwarted by feet that recked not of rhythm or even of bare mechanical accuracy. Those feet, so apparently aimless, so little under control, were perhaps the most mirthful feet the scored failure in the dance. But the face, conscious of their clumsiness, was a mask ...
— Merton of the Movies • Harry Leon Wilson

... or failure in human life, in war or peace, may depend on some little hidden centrality, hardly more than a drop of blood, a pulse-beat, or a breath of air! It is certain that all these weighty matters, democracy in America, Carlyleism, and the temperament for deepest political or literary ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman

... fine, and as what days my fare was savory and sumptuous, I disregarded the bounty of education and nurture of father and mother, and paid no heed to the virtue of precept and injunction of teachers and friends, with the result that I incurred the punishment, of failure recently in the least trifle, and the reckless waste of half my lifetime. There have been meanwhile, generation after generation, those in the inner chambers, the whole mass of whom could not, on any account, be, through my influence, allowed to fall into extinction, ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... fellow!' Lord Romfrey exclaimed. 'Now I have the story. She came to him, he declined the gift, and you were turned into the curtain for them. If he had only been off with her, he would have done the country good service. Here he's a failure and a nuisance; he's a common cock-shy for the journals. I'm tired of hearing of him; he's a stench in our nostrils. He's tired ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... a ready defence against the darts of the enemy, and guard our return. And now in our hands we hold the fate of our children and dear country and of our aged parents; and on our venture all Hellas depends, to reap either the shame of failure or great renown." ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius

... Beowulf of the great sorrow caused to him by Grendel's terrible deeds, and of the failure of all the attempts that had been made by the warriors to overcome him; and afterwards he bade him sit down with his followers ...
— Famous Tales of Fact and Fancy - Myths and Legends of the Nations of the World Retold for Boys and Girls • Various

... was a single moment when a feeling of regret and mortification got the better of his longings to save the life of the youth. The simple and well-intentioned old man would have felt, at witnessing any failure of firmness on the part of a warrior, who had so strongly excited his sympathies, the same species of sorrow that a Christian parent would suffer in hanging over the dying moments of an impious child. But when, instead of an impotent and unmanly struggle ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper

... fact, that an attempt was made to resuscitate Brodie immediately after the execution. The operator was Degravers, whom Brodie himself had employed. His efforts, however, were utterly abortive. A person who witnessed the scene, accounted for the failure by saying that the hangman, having been bargained with for a short fall, his excess of caution made him shorten the rope too much at first, and when he afterwards lengthened it, he made it too long, which consequently proved fatal ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 237, May 13, 1854 • Various

... hints as to the nature of the criminal charges against me. But my purpose I did not disclose to my friend. In due time he reported that no copies for the given dates were to be had. So that quest proved fruitless, and I attributed the failure to the ...
— A Mind That Found Itself - An Autobiography • Clifford Whittingham Beers

... paper is floundering on the edge of failure. They'll have to swing in line with the side that pays them best at election time. One could buy up their debts now for a few thousand dollars, perhaps not twenty thousand. Another fifty or so would swing her off on an independent tack. There's been a great ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut

... and unconsciously touched the scar on his brow. His dealings with the Belwards had not been all joy. Begun with youthful pride and affectionate interest, they had gone on into vexation, sorrow, failure, and shame. While Gaston was riding into his kingdom, Lionel Henry Varcoe was thinking how poor his life had been where he had meant it to be useful. As he stood musing and listening to the music of the choir, a girl came softly ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... Engravings of Scenes from Real Life, by George Cruikshank. London: Printed for John Cumberland. 1828." This "Life in Paris" was known to me by dim literary repute; but I had never seen, the actual volume before. Its publication was a disastrous failure. Emboldened by the prodigious success of "Life in London,"—the adventures in the Great Metropolis of Corinthian Tom and Jerry—Somebody—and Bob Logic, Esquire, written by Pierce Egan, once a notorious chronicler of the prize-ring, the compiler of a Slang Dictionary, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 87, January, 1865 • Various

... Bludston, of Barney Bill, of the model days, of the theatre, of Jane, of his father; and he showed her the cornelian heart and expounded its significance; and he talked of his dearest lady, Miss Winwood, and his work on the Young England League, and his failure to grip in this disastrous election, and he went back to the brickfield and his flight from the Life School, and his obsessing dream of romantic parentage and the pawning of his watch at Drane's Court; and in the full tide of it all a perturbed ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke

... thought which Mr. Bozzle's conscience had not forced him to entertain to the prejudice of his professional arrangements; but now, as he conversed with his employer, and became by degrees aware of the failure of Trevelyan's mind, some shade of remorse came upon him, and made him say a word on behalf ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope

... there had been no suggestion of the reputed dangers of the road. But trouble is never far off in Mexico, since the failure of its rapidly changing governments to put down bands of marauders has given every rascal in the country the notion of being his own master. The sun was just setting when, among several groups coming and going, I heard ahead five peons, maudlin with mescal, singing ...
— Tramping Through Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras - Being the Random Notes of an Incurable Vagabond • Harry A. Franck

... says it is his luck. All right. Call it his luck. I look around and I see folks movin' up or movin' down, winners or losers everywhere. All luck, of course. But since folks can be born that different in their luck, where's your equality? No, seh! call your failure luck, or call it laziness, wander around the words, prospect all yu' mind to, and yu'll come out the same old trail of inequality." He paused a moment and looked at her. "Some holds four aces," he went on, "and some holds nothin', and some poor fello' gets the ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister

... may not be a coward, feeling your mercy in my success alone; but let me find the grasp of your hand in my failure. ...
— Fruit-Gathering • Rabindranath Tagore

... however, was foredoomed to failure. It was shown scant favour by the Babylonian Kassites. No record survives to indicate the character of the agreement between Kadashman-Kharbe and Ashur-uballit, but there can be little doubt that it involved the abandonment by Babylonia of its historic claim upon Mesopotamia, ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie

... thieves using ladders to get into a bedroom while dinner was going on downstairs. Now, in the usual contrary way of things, the man who had the key had ridden away, forgetting all about it in his haste to bring help. Father stamped with impatience while the men were reporting their failure and asking further instructions. It was getting more and more difficult to hear, with that horrid roar coming up from below, and Mr ...
— The Heart of Una Sackville • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... private—in high places and in low—each man now suspected his brother. Crafty as Danville was, even he fell under suspicion at last, at headquarters in Paris, principally on his mother's account. This was his first political failure; and, in a moment of thoughtless rage and disappointment, he wreaked the irritation caused by it on Lomaque. Suspected himself, he in turn suspected the land-steward. His mother fomented the ...
— After Dark • Wilkie Collins

... misfiring, fresh hesitations, followed by efforts, as though the engine was pluckily striving to do its duty. And then suddenly came the final failure, a dead stop at the side of the road, a ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc

... but some sixty yards away when he leaped a hedge into a narrow lane. Mark followed without hesitation, but as he leaped into the road he heard a jeering laugh and the sharp sound of a horse's hoofs, and knew that the man he was pursuing had gained his horse and made off. Disgusted at his failure, he went slowly back to the house. The shutters ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty

... supper had been delayed owing to the failure of some supplies to arrive on time, and the lumbermen had just started eating when the radio boys ...
— The Radio Boys Trailing a Voice - or, Solving a Wireless Mystery • Allen Chapman

... effect checkmate, as when there are only two kings left on the board, or king and bishop against king, or king with one knight, or two knights against king, or from perpetual check. One of the players can call upon the other to give checkmate in fifty moves, the result of failure being that the game is drawn. But, if a pawn is moved, or a piece is captured, the counting ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various

... man was Heinrich Dorn. Although, after the failure of three operas, he had retired in disgust from the theatre to devote himself exclusively to the commercial side of music, yet the success of his opera, Der Schoffe von Paris, in Riga helped him back ...
— My Life, Volume I • Richard Wagner

... passage about what he would gain if he succeeded, about all that he was risking, the impossibility of failure, if he kept his wits about him. "It's only a matter of two months or so," he went on; "stay where you are, dear, or go to my Dad. He'll be glad to have you. There's my mother's room. There's no one to say 'No' to your fiddle ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... the cook can do no wrong; and a cook in a Southern kitchen finds abundance of heads and shoulders on which to lay off every sin and frailty, so as to maintain her own immaculateness entire. If any part of the dinner was a failure, there were fifty indisputably good reasons for it; and it was the fault undeniably of fifty other people, whom Dinah ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe



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