"Imperfect" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... himself both the enjoyments and the afflictions of this world! How easily must he acquiesce under missing the former, and how patiently will he submit to the latter, who is convinced that his failing of a transitory imperfect reward here is a most certain argument of his obtaining one permanent and complete hereafter! Dost thou think then, thou little, paltry, mean animal (with such language did he treat our truly great man), that I will forego such comfortable expectations for any pitiful ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... Friendship, as thinking himself most worthy to be Chaucer's friend, for his like natural disposition that Chaucer had; he writes, That none that lived with him, nor none that came after him, durst presume to revive Chaucer's lost labours in that imperfect Tale of the Squire, but only himself: which he had not done, had he not felt (as he saith) the infusion of Chaucer's own sweet Spirit surviving within him. And a little before, he calls him the most ...
— The Lives of the Most Famous English Poets (1687) • William Winstanley
... Romanorum Pontificum:"—imperfect, commencing with fol. 11; some leaves also lost at the end. It closes with the year 1359, in the times of ...
— Notes And Queries,(Series 1, Vol. 2, Issue 1), - Saturday, November 3, 1849. • Various
... forms part of the subject-matter of the artist, but the morality of art consists in the perfect use of an imperfect medium. No artist desires to prove anything. Even things that ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde
... be a very interesting piece: and yet I might say so without vanity, so much of the disposition of the scenes is your own. I do not yet know, Sir, what alterations you propose to make; nor do I perceive where the second and fourth acts want amendment. The first in your manuscript is imperfect. If I wished for any correction, it would be to shorten the scene in the fourth act between the Countess, Adelaide, and Austin, which rather delays the impatience of the audience for the catastrophe, ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... body would be a perfect animal and it would stand higher than man, as every part of it would possess all the faculties which man possesses only in the whole of him. Further, there would be no reason for not extending what is true of the polype to all monads, the most imperfect of all creatures, and ultimately to the plants, which are also alive, etc., etc." By using dialectical tricks of this kind a writer betrays that he is secretly conscious of being in the wrong. Because it was said that the creature's whole body is sensitive to light, and is therefore possessed ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; The Art of Controversy • Arthur Schopenhauer
... 3. The imperfect development of the generalized notion of the WORKABILITY of the feeling or idea as equivalent to that SATISFACTORY ADAPTATION to the particular reality, which constitutes the truth of the idea. It is this ...
— The Meaning of Truth • William James
... has produced a definitive or exhaustive work. It seems therefore desirable to indicate the main authorities upon which such a biographer would have to rely, and which have been consulted for the purpose of the following necessarily brief and imperfect sketch. ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... been very strange if here, where so suitable an opportunity presented itself, the founder of the Old Economy had omitted all reference to the founder of the New Economy, and had limited himself to the intervening, more imperfect divine communications. But, on the other hand, it would have been as strange if Moses had taken no notice of them at all,—if, supposing that a series of false prophets would appear, he had been satisfied to lay down in chap. xiii. 2 sqq. the distinctive marks of true and false prophets, ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... imperfect means of communicating by speech was a great impediment to confidential intercourse, and a drawback upon their happiness. Emma, whose imagination had been a good deal excited by the prospect of a new brother, was a little disappointed. In her own private mind, she thought ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 11, No. 65, March, 1863 • Various
... commence? Physically by one criterion, legally by another, morally by a third, intellectually by a fourth—and all indefinite. Equator, absolute equator, there is none. Between the two spheres of youth and age, perfect and imperfect manhood, as in all analogous cases, there is no strict line of bisection. The change is a large process, accomplished within a large and corresponding space; having, perhaps, some central or equatorial ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... so as to make them its defenders, and to remove from among the people the men of energy who incite the masses to insurrection. By opening out in this way to the public ambition paths that are at once difficult and easy, easy for strong wills, difficult for weak or imperfect ones, a State averts the perils of the revolutions caused by the struggles of men of superior powers to rise to their proper level. Our long agony of forty years should have made it clear to any man who has brains that social superiorities are a natural outcome of the order of things. ...
— The Country Doctor • Honore de Balzac
... Apparently he knew by a glance at a man, or a look round at his garden, whether to recommend the book as "an absolutely up-to-date achievement, the finest thing of its kind in the world of modern science" or as "at once quaint and imperfect, a thing to buy and to keep as a tribute to those dear old times that are gone." So he went on with this quaint though usual business, putting aside the memory of that night as an occasion on which he had "somewhat exceeded" as they say in circles where a spade is called neither a ...
— Tales of Wonder • Lord Dunsany
... and a powerful intellect, but it remains dogmatism still. In oratory excessive emphasis often carries all before it, but it is different in writing—there it is sure to provoke opposition and to defeat its own object. Had he spoken of Macpherson's stilted style, or his imperfect taste, few would have contradicted him, but the word "trash" startles and exasperates, and it does so because it is unjust; it is too slump and too summary. Had he said that critics had exaggerated Macpherson's merits, this too had been permitted to pass, but when he declared them in ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 1, November 1875 • Various
... of the sea," delivered us from our peril and brought us safely to our desired haven, where we were warmly welcomed by dear friends and where we found ourselves famous as having come from the "Far West," a part of the world of which their ideas were most vague and imperfect. The story of our little Andrew created intense excitement, and crowds of people came to see a child who had so thrilling a history. Among these visitors came Mrs. Divie Bethune and the widow of Alexander Hamilton, who were lady patronesses of an orphan asylum in ...
— 'Three Score Years and Ten' - Life-Long Memories of Fort Snelling, Minnesota, and Other - Parts of the West • Charlotte Ouisconsin Van Cleve
... such a tribe of Germans is brought before you. Then go still further back into the pre-historic times, and form an image of the pile-builders and their mode of life, and of the cave-dwellers and their imperfect weapons and tools, and you will have to confess that these are separated from the present Europeans by a greater gap than are the uncultured inhabitants of the earth of to-day. And yet these cave-dwellers and pile-builders ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, August 1887 - Volume 1, Number 7 • Various
... or rooms, injure or destroy the health of multitudes of wives, and injure the health of multitudes of infants and children. Tobacco using injures the unborn child by giving it a puny body and an imperfect start in life. Tobacco using is ...
— Cole's Funny Picture Book No. 1 • Edward William Cole
... apparently representing au, from Turkish ahv. This seems unsupported by evidence, and the v is already represented by the ff, so on Sir James's assumption coffee must stand for kahv-ve, which is unlikely. The change from a to o, in my opinion, is better accounted for as an imperfect appreciation. The exact sound of a in Arabic and other Oriental languages is that of the English short U, as in "cuff." This sound, so easy to us, is a great stumbling-block to other nations. I judge that Dutch koffie and kindred forms are imperfect attempts at the ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... MOURNERS.]—This attribution of the different speeches or songs to different speakers is, of course, conjectural. Ancient dramas come down to us with no stage directions and very imperfect indications of the speakers. ...
— Agamemnon • Aeschylus
... outline of Mr. Nordby's career can, however, give but an imperfect view of his activities, while it gives none at all of his influence. He was a teacher who impressed his personality, not only upon his students, but upon all who knew him. In his character were united force ...
— The Influence of Old Norse Literature on English Literature • Conrad Hjalmar Nordby
... his hearers, have by some of them (too partial in his favour) been thought worth revising and transcribing; and these transcripts have been frequently lent to others. Hence copies have been multiplied, in their nature imperfect, if not erroneous; some of which have fallen into mercenary hands, and become the object of clandestine sale. Having therefore so much reason to apprehend a surreptitious impression, he chose rather to submit his own errors to the world, than to seem answerable for ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... in the use of these words is due largely to an imperfect understanding of their respective meanings. Crime is the violation of the law of a state; hence, as the laws of states differ, what is crime in one state may not be crime in another. Vice is a course of wrong-doing, ...
— The Verbalist • Thomas Embly Osmun, (AKA Alfred Ayres)
... whiteness. When she moves her tongue to speak, she utters a sweet and most agreeable voice; and expresses herself in such terms, as sufficiently indicate the vivacity of her wit. The whitest alabaster is not fairer than her neck. In a word, by this imperfect sketch, you may guess there is no beauty likely to exceed her in ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 2 • Anon.
... complex, old in the simple. Woman's love of the complex has been illustrated abundantly during the last few years, in her enthusiasm for certain great imperfect writers, who have been able to stir up the mud in the fountain of life (doubtless, to medicinal ends) but unable to bring it clear again. An eternal enigma herself, woman is eternally in love with enigmas. Like a child, she loves any one who will show her the 'works' ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... improv'd from those inestimable Writings, I need not to enlarge, since it is highly conspicuous that they are the Foundation of all Divine Literature; and how ignorant and imperfect we should have been without them, is no great difficulty to explain; and who can sufficiently admire the Psalter of David, which fills the Soul with Rapture, and gives an Anticipation of ...
— A Vindication of the Press • Daniel Defoe
... man with a narrow forehead and glasses, two undistinguished women in plain skirts and blouses, and a middle-aged couple, very fat and alike in black, Mr. and Mrs. Alderman Dunstable, of the Borough Council of Marylebone. These were seated in an imperfect semicircle about a very copper-adorned fireplace, surmounted by a ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... interest in Benjamin Franklin, before referred to, sometimes called B. F., or more frequently Frank, in imitation of that felicitous abbreviation, combining dignity and convenience, adopted by some of his betters. My acquaintance with the French language is very imperfect, I having never studied it anywhere but in Paris, which is awkward, as B. F. devotes himself to it with the peculiar advantage of an Alsacian teacher. The boy, I think, is doing well, between us, notwithstanding. The following is an UNCORRECTED French exercise, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... left the Chateau de Campvallon, armed with these imperfect instructions; and, further, with a letter from the ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... himself this sort of man he had given a great deal of study and a great deal of hard labor. The result was that he had shaped himself into something like an old-fashioned country clergyman, without his education, his manners, his religion, or his clothes. Imperfect similitudes of these Stephen Petter had acquired, but this was as far as he had gone. A well-read man who happened also to be a good judge of human nature could have traced back every obvious point of Stephen Petter's character to some English author of the last century or the first ...
— The Squirrel Inn • Frank R. Stockton
... the arm as he spoke, and led her forward for two or three steps. At first the darkness appeared impenetrable, but presently her eyes became accustomed to the imperfect light, and she saw that she was standing in a long apartment, filled with all manner of odd, injured, and useless articles. Scraps of broken furniture, balks of timber, and strangely-shaped pieces of iron lay on every side. It was evidently a lumber-room of past generations which had been deserted ...
— Sisters Three • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... into this man's eyes and saw there the end of the earthly story of a man who had not been a good man because he had never had a chance, who had never really earned his spurs as a Western badman, because he was of too small calibre, who was after all a vessel that had come imperfect from the hands of the potter. Now Jimmie answered, his voice hushed, his eyes wide, his ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... deprecated Miss Wickham's carelessness in not altering her will, but had reminded Miss Marsh that she should be grateful to her late employer for having had such kindly intentions toward her, vaguely ending her remarks with the statement that as her dear husband had always said in this imperfect world one had often to ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett
... usually are. I have myself experienced both the right way of teaching and the wrong way, and therefore I want to help others towards the right way. I write upon the subject because it is one which is very near to the heart of my Master, and much of what I say is but an imperfect echo of what I have heard from Him. Then again, during the last two years, I have seen much of the work done in the Central Hindu College at Benares by Mr. G.S. Arundale and his devoted band of helpers. I have seen teachers glad ...
— Education as Service • J. Krishnamurti
... my occasional visits to Scarborough, my attention was drawn to the imperfect design of the lifeboats of the period; the frequent shipwrecks along the coast indicating the necessity for their improvement. After considerable deliberation, I matured a plan for a metal lifeboat, of a cylindrico-conical or chrysalis form, to be propelled by a screw at each end, turned by ...
— Men of Invention and Industry • Samuel Smiles
... was sorry. She remembered the old story—nay, she had one of Prometesky's own figures modelled in terra cotta, defective, of course, as a work of art, but with that fire that genius can breathe into the imperfect. She believed it had been meant for the Hope of Poland. Alas! the very name reminded one of the old word for despair, "Wanhope." But Harold admired it greatly, and both he and George Yolland seemed to find ...
— My Young Alcides - A Faded Photograph • Charlotte M. Yonge
... scheduled; and the climaxes and tableaux were all more beautifully presented than on the opening night. But the eloquent speeches were delivered by Palmer in a thick-tongued voice; his pronunciation was so imperfect that many of the most beautiful speeches were lost upon the audience. Palmer did not ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field
... [26] [A very imperfect character of Princess Lieven, with whom Mr. Greville was at this time but slightly acquainted. But in after years he became one of her most intimate and confidential friends, and she frequently reappears in the course ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... friend, till his own untimely end, he devoted himself more than he had ever before, to literary pursuits and the labours of his profession. A life of Lord Erskine was nearly arranged for the press at the time of his decease, and it is to be regretted that as yet his labours have not been given, imperfect as they are, to the world; no one could have had better opportunities or have been better calculated for the task; alike the counsellor in his difficulties, the companion of his mirthful hours, the springs of action, ...
— A Sketch of the Life of the late Henry Cooper - Barrister-at-Law, of the Norfolk Circuit; as also, of his Father • William Cooper
... till then, had not allowed his face to be seen by Sullivan, except in the imperfect light of his wigwam, now fronted him, allowing the sun's rays to fall upon his person, and revealed to the astonished young man the features of the very same Indian whom, five months before, he had so cruelly repulsed. An expression ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... to tire you, look around you! What contrasts of figures and faces you see in the crowd! What a vast field for the exercise of meditation! A half-seen glance, or a few words caught as the speaker passes by, open a thousand vistas to your imagination. You wish to comprehend what these imperfect disclosures mean, and, as the antiquary endeavors to decipher the mutilated inscription on some old monument, you build up a history on a gesture or on a word! These are the stirring sports of the ...
— An "Attic" Philosopher, Complete • Emile Souvestre
... abstraction. What has been said of Spinoza is true no less of Philo.[179] "The tendency to unity, to the infinite, to religion, overbalanced itself till, by its mere excess, it seemed to be changed into its opposite. But this is not his spirit, only the dead ultimate result of an imperfect logic that confuses an abstract with a concrete unity." In truth, the moment man tries to define his conception of God's essence in words, he either impairs and perverts his idea, or he must use words that do not really make the idea any clearer than it was unexpressed. ...
— Philo-Judaeus of Alexandria • Norman Bentwich
... Bigio as well, without his permission, for he wished to give a few more finishing touches. So angry was he, on arriving in the cloister, to see a crowd of people admiring his work in what he felt to be an imperfect condition, that in an excess of rage he mounted on the scaffolding which still remained, and, seizing a hammer, beat the head of the Madonna to pieces, and ruined the nude figure breaking the rod. The monks hastened to the scene ...
— Fra Bartolommeo • Leader Scott (Re-Edited By Horace Shipp And Flora Kendrick)
... not tend to form, as for instance the experimental, and again the philosophical; but that is because it is theology, not because of the gift of infallibility. But, as far as this goes, I think it could be shown that physical science on the other hand, or again mathematical, affords but an imperfect training for the intellect. I do not see then how any objection about the narrowness of theology comes into our question, which simply is, whether the belief in an infallible authority destroys the independence of the mind; and I consider ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... perhaps, be said to lie in the line of a remark which Elder Witham was fond of making in his quaint sermon against the Universalists. "Justice," quoth the Elder, "certainly does not get done in this brief, imperfect life of ours. Many of the worst wrongs men do us go unredressed in spite of our best efforts to square ...
— When Life Was Young - At the Old Farm in Maine • C. A. Stephens
... certain; but the story, confessedly fiction, is no more monstrous than the reality. It was a ghastly murder. As those who know best about it (if still alive) have told nothing, and will not, any narrative of the circumstances must be imperfect. ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... secret of the long poem; the abstract idea of the "heroic" epic which was in all their minds had to wait for embodiment till Paradise Lost. In a way their treatment of the pastoral or eclogue form was imperfect too. They used it well but not so well as their models, Vergil and Theocritus; they had not quite mastered the convention on ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair
... witchcraft ever known. Printed from an imperfect manuscript by her father Abraham Schweidler, the pastor of Coserow, in the Island ...
— The Amber Witch • Wilhelm Meinhold
... post, indeed, which I closely examine, is myself, because my station is most convenient for inspecting that. Yet, though I have a fuller view of myself than any other can have of me, my imperfect sight—that is, my ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... peering more closely into the face of the girl, recognized, though uncertainly, a known face, she too uttered a kind of howl, and straightway raising Letty's head drew her into the house. It is the mark of an imperfect humanity, that personal knowledge should spur the sides of hospitable intent: what difference does our knowing or not knowing make to the fact of human need? The good Samaritan would never have been mentioned by the mouth of the True, had he been even ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... also for mechanics. He conceived the idea of making a timepiece, a clock, and about the year 1770 constructed one. With his imperfect tools, and with no other model than a borrowed watch, it had cost him long and patient labor to perfect it, to make the variation necessary to cause it to strike the hours, and produce a concert of correct action between the hour, the minute, and ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... in the midst of prosperity, they would not be unmindful of the vicissitudes of fortune. Apharban concluded his discourse in the style of eastern allegory, by observing that the Roman and Persian monarchies were the two eyes of the world, which would remain imperfect and mutilated if either of ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... than the cattle in the stalls and styes of many a country Squire. And this is certainly our ultimate ambition, but for the present distress something might be done on the lines of district nursing, which is only in very imperfect operation. ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... system in almost every point of view; of the constitution and mode of election of the existing corporations, and of their government of the towns over which they presided. It declared that "even where they existed in their least imperfect form, and were most rightfully administered, they were inadequate to the wants of the present state of society." But they charged them also with positive offences of no venial kind. "They had perverted ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... on another praia; and, on our arrival, came to lay their case before Senor Cardozo, as the delegado of police of the district. The mild way in which the old man, without a trace of anger, stated his complaint in imperfect Tupi quite enlisted our sympathies in his favour. But Cardozo could give him no redress; he invited the family, however, to make their rancho near to ours, and in the end gave them the highest price for the surplus oil which ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... time could determine latitudes almost as accurately as it is now done, but they had very imperfect means of determining longitudes. These pirates, of course, had no chronometer. The best they could do was to keep account each day of the courses and estimated distances that they sailed, to reduce this to numbers of miles eastward and westward in different latitudes ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various
... various grades of assimilation of the Kayan culture. Some, which in the lives of the older men were still nomadic, still build very poor houses and boats, cultivate PADI very imperfectly, and generally exhibit the Kayan culture in a very imperfect state. ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... I rather thought never to have returned at all, and I gave them all my books, among which were many of Plato's and some of Aristotle's works: I had also Theophrastus on Plants, which, to my great regret, was imperfect; for having laid it carelessly by, while we were at sea, a monkey had seized upon it, and in many places torn out the leaves. They have no books of grammar but Lascares, for I did not carry Theodorus with me; nor have they any dictionaries but Hesichius and Dioscerides. They esteem Plutarch ...
— Utopia • Thomas More
... to remonstrate, in the sweetest, most imperfect Hindustani in the world, when the man followed her at ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... gives us to understand that Howe still had Hoste's Treatise at his elbow, and with Hoste for his mentor we may be sure that, in common with other tactical students of his time, he soon convinced himself that Rodney's manoeuvre was usually dangerous and always imperfect. Knowles himself in his old age, though a devout admirer of Rodney, denounced it in language of characteristic violence, and maintained to the last that Rodney never intended it, as every one now agrees was the truth. Nelson presumably also approved Howe's cardinal improvement, or ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett
... artistic ideal. The young man studies the picture on the postcard; on the coloured almanack given away at Christmas by the local grocer; on the advertisement of Jones' soap, and thinks with discontent of Polly Perkins, who in a natural way is as pretty a girl as can be looked for in this imperfect world. Thus it is that woman has had to take to shorthand and typewriting. Modern woman is being ...
— The Angel and the Author - and Others • Jerome K. Jerome
... where, during the period of our human history, we in our newborn consciousness and imperfect knowledge, have grieviously interfered with the laws of nature. The ancient proprietary family, treating the woman as a slave, keeping her a prisoner and subject to the will of her master, cut her off at once ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... soul has rejoiced in the contemplation of His great magnificence and mercy. May He be blessed for ever!—for I see clearly that He has not omitted to reward me, even in this life, for every one of my good desires. My good works, however wretched and imperfect, have been made better and perfected by Him Who is my Lord: He has rendered them meritorious. As to my evil deeds and my sins, He hid them at once. The eyes of those who saw them, He made even blind; and He has blotted them out of their ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... as Pascal long ago remarked, although a mere reed, he is a thinking reed; and in virtue of that wonderful capacity of thought, he has the power of framing for himself a symbolic conception of the universe, which, although doubtless highly imperfect and inadequate as a picture of the great whole, is yet sufficient to serve him as a chart for the guidance of his practical affairs. It has taken long ages of toilsome and often fruitless labor to enable man to look steadily at the shifting scenes of the phantasmagoria of Nature, to notice ...
— The Making of Arguments • J. H. Gardiner
... pistol and binoculars were his books, an oddly assorted library that included the child's pictorial history already mentioned, Dryden's translation of the Iliad, an imperfect copy of The Three Musketeers, and The Descent of Man. These, indeed, made up the full list of books belonging to the keep, and Constans had been permitted to appropriate them, nobody else caring to waste time over ...
— The Doomsman • Van Tassel Sutphen
... not be made in this communication to touch upon all the facts which throw light upon the progress and consummation of this scheme of annexation. A very brief and imperfect reference to the facts and evidence at hand will exhibit its character and the incidents in which ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland
... [beta] and [gamma] lies the wonderful ring-nebula 57 M, of which an imperfect idea will be conveyed by the last figure of Plate 3. This nebula was discovered in 1772, by Darquier, at Toulouse. It is seen as a ring of light with very moderate telescopic power. In a good 3-1/2-inch telescope the nebula exhibits a mottled appearance ...
— Half-hours with the Telescope - Being a Popular Guide to the Use of the Telescope as a - Means of Amusement and Instruction. • Richard A. Proctor
... frame had been shattered by his excesses, or that the insulting language of the note touched him to the quick, he seemed perfectly unable to govern his feelings; the lines were written hastily, and the light, as I said before, was faint and imperfect, and he was forced to pause over each word as he proceeded, so that "the iron had full time ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Rabelais and Montaigne was more mature. But in Spenser, as in Hooker, all these tentative essays of vigorous but unpractised minds have led up to great and lasting works. We have forgotten all these preliminary attempts, crude and imperfect, to speak with force and truth, or to sing with measure and grace. There is no reason why they should be remembered, except by professed inquirers into the antiquities of our literature; they were usually clumsy and awkward, sometimes ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... moment she was going to have said—"that we should live together rather than die together,"—but maiden modesty, not unfamiliar even among savages, restrained her, and Cheenbuk, who was not observant in the matter of imperfect speech, took no notice ...
— The Walrus Hunters - A Romance of the Realms of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne
... for. The utmost exertions of medical skill were applied in vain. The powers of life were manifestly yielding to the force of the disorder; speaking, which was painful from the beginning, became almost impracticable: respiration became more and more contracted and imperfect, until half past eleven on Saturday night; when, retaining the full possession of his intellect, he expired without ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 5 (of 5) • John Marshall
... malady as the prayers and holy services subsequently had at the altars of the greatly revered martyr St. Vitus. We may, therefore, ascribe it to accident merely, and to a certain aversion to this demoniacal disease, which seemed to lie beyond the reach of human skill, that we meet with but few and imperfect notices of the St. Vitus' dance in the second half of the fifteenth century. The highly colored descriptions of the sixteenth century contradict the notion that this mental plague had in any degree diminished in its ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... any more. This was worse than a thousand whippings, and Tom's heart was sorer now than his body. He cried, he pleaded for forgiveness, promised to reform over and over again, and then received his dismissal, feeling that he had won but an imperfect forgiveness and established but a ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... would have shown a spirit in emergency better adapted to wrestle with the times than had been discovered by His Majesty. Certain it is she was generally esteemed the most proper to be consulted of the two. From the imperfect idea which many of the persons in office entertained of the King's capacity, few of them ever made any communication of importance but to the Queen. Her Majesty never kept a single circumstance from her husband's knowledge, and scarcely ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... faults was this: I had a very imperfect knowledge of my Breviary and of my duties in choir, simply because I was careless and given to vanities; and I knew the other novices could have taught me. But I never asked them, that they might not know how little I knew. It suggested ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... Ralph's curiosity as to the manner in which he obtained this provender. Luckie Morrine bestowed it upon him for services rendered, he said; which was a true, though somewhat abbreviated and imperfect ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... crammed with sonnets on ladies' hats, opera-singers, canary birds, births, deaths, and marriages, and ponderous pedants of all sorts and descriptions. Why, a lady who set up as the muse of a hot-tempered and brow-beating creature like Alfieri, a man whom consciousness of imperfect education made horribly sensitive—such a lady would have lost all the accustomed guests of her salon in ten days' time. Herein, therefore, consisted the uniqueness of the Countess of Albany, in the fact that she was everything to Alfieri, which ...
— The Countess of Albany • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... occurs also in the alembic of the alchemists. And the fact that the sun maiden at the end of the story releases her six planet brothers, sounds exactly as when the tincturing power of gold at the end of six days perfects the six imperfect metals and ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer
... This imperfect sketch of 'the combination and the form' of that Wonderful Man, whom I venerated and loved while in this world, and after whom I gaze with humble hope, now that it has pleased Almighty God to call him to a better world, will serve to introduce to the fancy of my readers the capital ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell
... considerable labor before the surface is in a proper condition to receive a suitable polish from the buffer. The least reflection in the world should teach any one that so long as the undulatory character continues upon the surface of the plate, it is in a very imperfect condition for buffing, because the buffer cannot touch every point equally; the elevated portions alone receiving a high degree of polish while the depressed portion, from their roughness acting as nuclei, gather dust, rouge, and other foreign bodies, so detrimental ...
— American Handbook of the Daguerrotype • Samuel D. Humphrey
... In concluding this imperfect notice of one of the most remarkable of our early writers, we cannot but echo the regret expressed by one of his biographers, that "What ought most to be lamented is, that we are able to say so very little of one in his ...
— The Ship of Fools, Volume 1 • Sebastian Brandt
... 1: The farmyard dung was burnt slowly in a heap in the open air to an imperfect or coaly ash, and 32 cwts. of ash ...
— Talks on Manures • Joseph Harris
... action. It is, in fact, above morality, or, in other words, whatever is necessary is moral. Recognized rights (i.e., treaty rights) are never absolute rights; they are of human origin, and, therefore, imperfect and variable. There are conditions in which they do not correspond to the actual truth of things. In this case infringement of the right ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various
... seen, even from this short and imperfect sketch, that its situation gives to Bayonne, considered as a military post, a superiority over most cities; inasmuch as it affords peculiar facilities towards rendering it a place of great strength. On one side ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig
... against all laws which punish the voluntary acts of adult men when those acts injure no one except themselves. The social censure, or the judgment of opinion, rightly extends much further, though it is often based on very imperfect knowledge or realisation. It is probable that, on the whole, opinion judges too severely the crimes of passion and of drink, as well as those which spring from the pressure of great poverty and are accompanied by great ignorance. The causes of domestic anarchy are usually of such an intimate ...
— The Map of Life - Conduct and Character • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... tense of the verb standing alone is indefinite. It may be present, imperfect, present or past, &c., according to the context; as dia ada, he is; tatkala sahaya ada di sana, when I was there; kalau sahaya ada d[)e]kat, if I am, should be, were, or had been near. This applies equally to the forms created by prefixing ber- and me-, mem-, men-, ...
— A Manual of the Malay language - With an Introductory Sketch of the Sanskrit Element in Malay • William Edward Maxwell
... them not being symbols of many things), logical, free from pleonasm or tautology, smooth, certain, free from bombast, agreeable or sweet, truthful, not inconsistent with the aggregate of three, (viz., Righteousness, Wealth and Pleasure), refined (i.e., free from Prakriti), not elliptical or imperfect, destitute of harshness or difficulty of comprehension, characterised by due order, not far-fetched in respect of sense, corrected with one another as cause and effect and each having a specific object.[1694] I shall not tell thee anything, prompted by desire or wrath or fear or cupidity or abjectness ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... years to the labour of illustrating this topic, has need of the earnest support of all who prize the truth; and, considering the extent and profundity of his subject, his work, at the best, must be very imperfect, requiring all the forbearance, and even ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... intent only on a dinner for himself. Humanity is served out of all proportion to the intention of service. Even the noble souls, never wanting in history, who follow not a bait, but belief, see only in imperfect survey the connections and relations of their deeds. Each is faithfully obeying his own inward vocation, a voice unheard by other soul than his own, and the inability to calculate consequences makes the preeminent grandeur of his position; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... that Byron was not depraved at heart; no man possessed a more ready sympathy, a more generous mind to the distressed, or was a more enthusiastic admirer of noble actions. These feelings all strongly delineated in his character, would never admit, as Sir Walter Scott has observed, "an imperfect moral sense, nor feeling, dead ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Issue 262, July 7, 1827 • Various
... Darteneuf.—Alas! how imperfect is human felicity! I lived in an age when the noble science of eating was supposed to have been carried to its highest perfection in England and France. And yet a turtle feast is a novelty to me! Would it be impossible, do you ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton
... Goddess of all Mediterranean peoples, while calling her Mary, the Mother of Christ. Eusebius studied the subject, somewhat superficially, in his Praeparatio Evangelica, in which he argued that much old pagan belief was to be explained as an imperfect preparation for the full light of the Gospel. And it is certainly striking how the Anatolian peoples, among whom the seed of the early Church was chiefly sown, could never, in spite of Jewish monotheism, give up the beloved Mother Goddess for whom mankind craves, or the divine "Faithful Son" who ...
— Five Stages of Greek Religion • Gilbert Murray
... Doctor, to some extent." At hearing this the Doctor made very evident signs of discontent. "You cannot alter the ways of the world suddenly, though by example and precept you may help to improve them slowly. In our present imperfect condition of moral culture, it is perhaps well that the company of ...
— Dr. Wortle's School • Anthony Trollope
... of New Zealand, which it seemed very unadvisable to give here, as the subject must be resumed when we come to the third voyage of Captain Cook. It was equally objectionable to anticipate fuller information now, and to repeat imperfect notices hereafter. The present omission will be made up to the reader's content. We now go on with the remainder ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 13 • Robert Kerr
... stovepipe to the men's berths. While this apparatus was in good order, a moderate fire produced a current of air of the temperature of 87 deg., at the distance of seventeen feet from the fireplace; and with a pipe of wood, or any other imperfect conductor of heat, which would not allow of its escaping by the way, it might undoubtedly be carried to a much greater distance. By these means we were enabled to get rid of the moisture about the berths where the people messed; but when the weather ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry
... that while I have taxed your patience, I have given but an imperfect presentation of the subject. If this endeavor shall serve to incite members of the Club to investigate the subject for themselves, my ...
— Anti-Slavery Opinions before the Year 1800 - Read before the Cincinnati Literary Club, November 16, 1872 • William Frederick Poole
... and effort of the Christian minister everywhere, that God would deepen in his own heart the sense of sin, and create it in the mind of the heathen. And then the imperfect medium of a language very far from thoroughly known! It is by continual prayer, the intercession of Christ, the power of the Spirit (we well know) that the work must be carried on. How one does understand it! The darkness seems so thick, the present visible world so wholly engrosses the ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... although few grammars mention it, one of the uses of the present and imperfect subjunctive in an independent verb is when the verb is accompanied by some word meaning 'perhaps,' usually quizs or tal vez. One can supply an expression of possibility and que, but the fact remains that this is just as good a case of a subjunctive in a main ...
— Heath's Modern Language Series: Mariucha • Benito Perez Galdos
... Kaiser's charge, black as hell, and big with death, witness Pershing's charge, reported loosely by a French boy, with his imperfect knowledge of English, translated out of the French newspapers on July 18, 1917. Pershing's brief address ...
— The Blot on the Kaiser's 'Scutcheon • Newell Dwight Hillis
... Ferdinand that a persecution of the New Christians would flood his coffers with gold extorted from suspected misbelievers. No merely fabled El Dorado lay in the broad lands and costly merchandise of these imperfect converts to the faith. It sufficed to insist upon the peril to the State if an element so ill-assimilated to the nation were allowed to increase unchecked. At the same time, the Papacy was nothing loth to help them in their undertaking. Sixtus V., one of the worst of Pontiffs, sat then on ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... that 'tis impossible to manage it, and the quantity of Matter is so small that it is destitute of Heat, without which the Intelligence cannot perfectly form all parts of the Body. If the Matter turns to a Male, he will be too dull and too cold to Engender, and will be imperfect in his privy Parts; if it proves a Female, she will in time be of too hot and dry a Nature, and will be Deficient of Organs for the Seed and menstruous Blood, in order to Form and ...
— Tractus de Hermaphrodites • Giles Jacob
... quite sure that I have never heard of any of these names," he answered, still with that curious smile. "Nevertheless I can understand your surprise. It sometimes happens that the mind, owing an an imperfect adjustment of its faculties, resembles the uneducated vision in its method of judgment, regarding the things which are near as great and important, and those further away as less important, according to their distance. In ...
— A Crystal Age • W. H. Hudson
... were the centre of the European press. The later Renaissance, which achieved by monuments of solid work what dilettantism had begun and interrupted in the Medicean age, was due to them and to the refuge they provided for persecuted scholars. Their government, imperfect and awkward in its forms, became the most intelligent of the European governments. It gave the right of citizenship to revolutionary principles, and handed on the torch when the turn of England came. There the sects were reared which made this country free; ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... Kenmure into Laura's chamber. It was dusk, but the after-sunset glow still bathed the room with imperfect light, and he lay upon the bed, his hands ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... not grasp too much, or I lose all. (Aloud) Lady, I know your thoughts, and do not blame you. You are divided, as frail mortals are In this imperfect state, 'twixt heaven and earth, Your holy wishes check'd by love maternal; Now would I know the course that you would steer Between the two. We can arrange this point. The church is generous, and she oft resigns That she might claim in justice. ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... little more to add to these last words of my Mother's Recollections. The preceding pages will have given the reader some idea—albeit perhaps a very imperfect one—of her character and opinions. Only regarding her feelings on the most sacred of themes, is it needful for me to say a few words. My mother was profoundly and sincerely religious; hers was not a religion of mere forms and doctrines, but a solemn deep-rooted faith ...
— Personal Recollections, from Early Life to Old Age, of Mary Somerville • Mary Somerville
... who Burnished the sword, blew on the drowsy coal, Held still the target higher, chary of praise And prodigal of counsel - who but thou? So now, in the end, if this the least be good, If any deed be done, if any fire Burn in the imperfect page, the ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... much resembles the Chinese ke. They have also many other instruments, especially various kinds of imperfect guitars, a few rude violins, and the usual outfit of trumpets, reed pipes and instruments of percussion. Like all the other barbarous nations, they have never had harmony until since they began to learn ...
— A Popular History of the Art of Music - From the Earliest Times Until the Present • W. S. B. Mathews
... some knowledge of Latin, and knew French and Italian. French was to her almost a mother-tongue, but not quite; she had retained her Scots, and her attempts to write English are, at first, curiously imperfect. She had lived in a profligate Court, but she was not the wanton of hostile slanders. She had all the guile of statesmanship, said the English envoy, Randolph; and she long exercised great patience under daily insults to her religion and provocations from Elizabeth. She was generous, pitiful, ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... of all this yet existed, Scripture is right in calling the earth "without form." We could also say of the heavens that they were still imperfect and had not received their natural adornment, since at that time they did not shine with the glory of the sun and of the moon, and were not crowned by the choirs of the stars. These bodies were not yet created. Thus you will not diverge from the truth in saying that the heavens ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume I - Basil to Calvin • Various
... shuddered, and then tried to hide it in a laugh. Margaret walked on beside her, her hand on the cart's edge. Somehow this creature, that Nature had thrown impatiently aside as a failure, so marred, imperfect, that even the dogs were kind to her, came strangely near to her, claimed recognition ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 49, November, 1861 • Various
... the imperfect light, they noticed the flushed cheeks, and for the first time they detected the quick breathing. When they walked away the two friends were nearer than ever by ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... dependent for her support on such efforts as she is still capable of making. These, were she a person of common fortitude, energy and hopefulness, would be very small, for to her great privation is added very imperfect general health. Yet she has struggled on in the hope of gaining such a competency as should ultimately secure 'a home that she may call her own.' I commend Miss Davenport to all who feel for the afflicted and who wish to ...
— Gifts of Genius - A Miscellany of Prose and Poetry by American Authors • Various
... their imperfect and perfect states, food enough to fatten many a good trout: but they are not all. See these transparent brown snails, Limneae and Succinae, climbing about the posts; and these other pretty ones, coil laid within coil as flat as a shilling, Planorbis. ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... Cyclopaedia of Naval Science and Nomenclature, is still a desideratum. That of Falconer is imperfect and out of date. We have heard that the design of such a work has been entertained, and materials for its execution collected, by Captain W. H. Smyth, whom, we earnestly recommend to prosecute an undertaking of such promise to the service of which he is so experienced and ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... head cook, could give no information whatever. When the alarm was given, he had rushed, with the other servants, to the scene of the murder, and in his imperfect English, accompanied by expressive French gestures, he tried to convey his horror and grief at the situation, but that ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... misled in taking the thickness of that layer, whenever it may be exposed to our view, as a record of time in the manner in which we are now regarding this subject, as it would give us only an imperfect and partial record: it would seem to represent too ...
— Darwiniana • Thomas Henry Huxley
... statistics of the towns and villages of Asben—after all, a very imperfect affair. Nevertheless, it is the best which I could ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 2 • James Richardson
... deed in possession of Frank Sherman Benson, Esq. There is an imperfect copy in Ranger's Deeds ...
— John Eliot's First Indian Teacher and Interpreter Cockenoe-de-Long Island and The Story of His Career from the Early Records • William Wallace Tooker
... distant, haunted horizon of mere surmise or imagination, to the actual [127] feeling of sorrow in his heart, as he reclined one morning, alone instead of in pleasant company, to ponder the hard sayings of an imperfect old Greek manuscript, unrolled beside him. His former gay companions, meeting him in the streets of the old Italian town, and noting the graver lines coming into the face of the sombre but enthusiastic student of intellectual structure, who could hold ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater
... it impious and absurd to hold that the Creator would have given us the faculty of reason, or that the Redeemer would in so many varied forms of argument and persuasion have appealed to it, if it had been useless or impotent. I believe that the imperfect human understanding can be effectually exerted only in subordination to, and in a dependent alliance with, the means and aidances supplied ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... Catholic Church for every kind of religious organization, suiting all the varieties of mind and character and circumstance. If collisions and misunderstandings often come between those who have the same great end in view, this is the result of human infirmity, and only shows how imperfect and partial are human ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... to the different editions of his works, down to the year 1805, are very imperfect; in that year a new, and, in general, far better edition than any of the preceding ones, was published in Paris, to which a sketch of his life was also added; but it contains rather just criticisms on his works, than any very novel or satisfactory anecdote concerning himself. ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton
... in the fullest sense, including a poor-law and a system of education, higher and elementary, for the whole country. But it was in the first place a Book of the Church. And while its 'system of national education was realised only in its most imperfect fashion, its system of religious instruction was carried into effect with results that would alone stamp the First Book of Discipline as the most important document in Scottish history' (Hume Brown). Even on the Church side it is somewhat too despotic. The power of discipline and of exclusion which ...
— John Knox • A. Taylor Innes
... of mere mechanical habit, to look at her more closely, she drew over her head and shoulders, the soft folds about her exquisite face completing a classic picture of such radiant beauty as is seldom seen nowadays among the increasingly imperfect and repulsive specimens of female humanity which 'progress' combined with sensuality, produce for the 'advancement' ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... presence of Omniscience; Think on the punishments with which the church Threatens imperfect and reserved confessions This is the sin to everlasting death, For this is ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... scenery then gained have helped to create an atmosphere and to give reality to my picture. History is more than a mere record of events; and I shall be satisfied if the reader gets from these pages an idea, however imperfect, of the conditions of life under which all empire builders labored in India a hundred and ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... admitted. In all there were figures, most of them like the manlike creatures I had seen, but not all in the same fashion of garb, nor all with wings. There were also the effigies of various animals and birds, wholly strange to me, with backgrounds depicting landscapes or buildings. So far as my imperfect knowledge of the pictorial art would allow me to form an opinion, these paintings seemed very accurate in design and very rich in colouring, showing a perfect knowledge of perspective, but their details not arranged according to the rules of composition acknowledged by our artists—wanting, as it ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... rest. Side passages opened into it, so far as the islander could discern, descending from several portals in the wall; but as the oils and gums with which the lamps in these passages were fed diffused a dim vapour around, it was difficult to ascertain, from the imperfect light, either the shape of the hall, or the style of its architecture. At the upper and lower ends of the chamber, there was a stronger and clearer light. It was when they were in the middle of this huge and long ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... last conversation with Sir Joseph Banks. I saw with sorrow that death was going to rob us of him. We talked much of the present mode adopted by all museums in stuffing quadrupeds, and condemned it as being very imperfect: still we could not find out a better way, and at last concluded that the lips and nose ought to be cut off and replaced with wax, it being impossible to make those parts appear like life, as they shrink to nothing and render the stuffed specimens ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... necktie. He could see only one immediate, decisive chance against him. M. de Valorsay might possibly recognize him. He thought not, but he was not sure; and anxious on this account, he at first decided to disguise himself. However, on reflection, he concluded not to do so. An imperfect disguise would attract attention and awaken suspicion; and could he really disguise his physiognomy? He was certain he could not. Very few men are capable of doing so successfully, even after long experience. Only two or three ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... reduces the weight and size of the whole body, it will also reduce the size and weight of the brain.[7] Dr. Arthur Keith when dealing with the so-called Piltdown skull in his book "The Antiquity of Man" says to the same effect that the size of brain is a very imperfect index of mental ability in that we know that certain elements enter into the formation of the brain which take no direct part in our mental activity, so that a person who has been blessed with a great robust ...
— The Black Man's Place in South Africa • Peter Nielsen
... stones, each a gem of great value, so set that they appeared to form but one solid mass, yielding a strange radiance that changed its hue at every movement, and multiplied the sunlight a thousand-fold. Were I to seek a comparison for my friend's eyes, I might find an imperfect one in this masterpiece of the jeweler's art. They were dark and of remarkable size; when half closed they were long and almond-shaped; when suddenly opened in anger or surprise they had the roundness and bold keenness of the eagle's sight. There was a depth of life and ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... and dislikings, affections, aims public and private. These things, and whatever else constitutes, the recognizable content of our present temporal individuality, are all in derogation of our ideal of impersonal being—saving consciousness, the manifestation of being. In some minute, imperfect, relative, and almost worthless sense we may do right in many of our judgments, and be amiable in many of our sympathies and affections. We cannot be sure even of this. Only people unhabituated to introspection and self-analysis are quite sure of it. These are ever those who are loudest in their ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... very hopeful notion. Only, my dear sir, one is quite self-conceited enough in this imperfect state. What intolerable coxcombs we should all be if we were perfect, and could sit admiring ourselves for ever ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... needful a work. And, alike in thanksgiving or prayer, we approach thy Throne in the prevailing name and through the powerful mediation of Jesus Christ, whose own holy words also we couple still with our imperfect address.' The Archdeacon here ...
— McGill and its Story, 1821-1921 • Cyrus Macmillan
... tortured out of bleeding rajahs, who smokes a hookah in public, and in private carries about a guilty conscience, diamonds of untold value, and a diseased liver; who has a vulgar wife, with a retinue of black servants whom she maltreats, and a gentle son and daughter with good impulses and an imperfect education, desirous to amend their own and their parents' lives, and thoroughly ashamed of the follies of the old people. If you go to the house of an Indian gentleman now, he does not say, "Bring more curricles," like the famous Nabob of Stanstead Park. He ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... comfort, the mind quickly accommodates itself. We may find happiness in either prosperity or adversity. But, what true happiness is there for a loving heart, if, from the only source of reciprocation, there is but an imperfect response? A strong mind may accommodate itself, in the exercise of a firm religious philosophy, to even these circumstances, and like the wisely discriminating bee, extract honey from even the most unpromising ...
— Heart-Histories and Life-Pictures • T. S. Arthur
... symbolize our aspirations, our theorizings, our souls and our consciences, and fondly dream we are painting pictures. Or we shall copy with a hopeless effort after literalness the first face or weed we meet, and call the imperfect, mechanical result ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... then having found his disciples firmly adhering to Hinayanism without knowing that it was a modified and imperfect doctrine, he had to lead them up to a higher and perfect doctrine that he might lead them up to Buddhahood. With this object in view Shakya Muni preached Vimalakirtti-nirdeca-sutra[FN117], Lankavatara-sutra, ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya
... viewpoint of his own. This was mid-winter, two years after the end of the War, where Dick and his uncle had worked in the Ambulance Corps to the limit of their capacities—Dick, no soldier, because of what seemed to him a diabolic eccentricity of imperfect sight, and Raven, blocked by what he felt to be the negligible disability of age. John Raven had, with the beginning of the War—which, as early as 1914 he had decided to be his war—made up his mind that although he was ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... high and thick within him as he came into the royal apartments. His education abroad, conducted, as it had been, on a narrow and limited scale, had given him but imperfect ideas of the grandeur of a Court; and the philosophical reflections which taught him to set ceremonial and exterior splendour at defiance, proved, like other maxims of mere philosophy, ineffectual, at the moment they were weighed against the impression naturally made on the ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... that it reached downe to her hammes; having most amorous cole-black eyes, a sweet and pleasant round face, with lips as red as a cherry; her cheekes of a rose colour, her mouth small, her neck white like a swan; tall and slender of personage; in summe, there was no imperfect place in her: she looked round about with a rolling hawkes eye, a smiling and wanton countenance, which neere-hand inflamed the hearts of all the students; but that they perswaded themselves she was a spirit, which made them lightly passe away such ...
— The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus • Christopher Marlowe
... that as the populace are impatient, they are also often un-reasonable, and jump to the hastiest and most inconsiderate conclusion when, in witnessing scientific experiments, any of the arrangements happen to be imperfect, and the results in any respect ...
— Wonderful Balloon Ascents - or, the Conquest of the Skies • Fulgence Marion
... will sell at top market prices, and the culls a little under. The Prince grove harvest is never graded, as he finds ready sale at highest prices for the entire output just as it runs after sorting out the few imperfect nuts. ...
— Walnut Growing in Oregon • Various
... as there appears some reason for believing that before long we may see another outburst of the same star. In the years 945, 1264, and 1572, brilliant stars appeared in the region of the heavens between Cepheus and Cassiopeia. Sir J. Herschel remarks, that, 'from the imperfect account we have of the places of the two earlier, as compared with that of the last, which was well determined, as well as from the tolerably near coincidence of the intervals of their appearance, we may suspect them, with Goodricke, to be one and ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... the imperfect compensations which time makes for its devastations on the person,—giving a wreath of laurel while it causes baldness, honors for infirmities, wealth for a broken constitution,—and at last, when a man has everything that seems desirable, death seizes him. To contrast ...
— Passages From The American Notebooks, Volume 1 • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... one's impression of a masked ball from the attempts at this mode of entertainment in our country, is but to conceive a most imperfect and erroneous notion. With us, the first coup d'oeil is everything; the nuns, the shepherdesses, the Turks, sailors, eastern princes, watchmen, moonshees, milestones, devils, and Quakers are all very well in their way as they pass in the review before us, but ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... tricks. They kill the calf's mother or slit the calf's tongue so it can't suck and so loses its mother. They steal and hide a calf and watch it till it's big enough to fare for itself, and then brand it. They make imperfect brands and finish them at ...
— The Light of Western Stars • Zane Grey
... His fancy is exuberant; his imagination brilliant, florid, verging at times almost upon the apoplectic. But the cognate mental member, invention, is most sadly destitute of free and sweeping action. His plots are of the simplest, and betray indubitably a numbness or imperfect development of the inventive faculties of the brain. People who read novels for the denouement, who ride a steeple chase through them, leaping a five-page fence here, a ditch of a chapter there, and anon clearing at a mighty bound a rasper of some score or more ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol III, Issue VI, June, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... tells us much of the Association in Worcestershire which he had helped to form in 1653, and adds that similar associations sprang up afterwards in Cumberland and Westmorland, Wilts, Dorset, Somersetshire, Hampshire, and Essex. These Associations are to be conceived as imperfect substitutes for the regular Presbyterian organization, and most of the ministers belonging to them were eclectics or quasi-Presbyterians, like Baxter himself, making the most of untoward circumstances, while ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... he considered it; for in life no trouble is surmounted but another appears to confront us; nor is the most perfect success of an imperfect world without its drawback. Now that he held the elixir his, now that in fancy he had it in his grasp, the problem of the mode and the quantity which had seemed trivial and negligible a few days or hours before, grew to formidable dimensions; nor could he of himself discover ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... defeated Dombrowski there, and retained possession of the town and bridge. Victor and Oudinot, indeed, advanced immediately to succour Dombrowski, and re-took Borizoff; but Witgenstein burnt the bridge before he re-crossed the Beresina. Imperfect as Victor's success was, Napoleon did not hear of it immediately. He determined to pass the Beresina higher up, at Studzianska, and forthwith threw himself into the huge forests which border that river, adopting every ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart |
