"Counterbalance" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "'As a counterbalance to this advantage, the Count de Lippe caused Valencia d'Alcantara to be attacked, sword in hand, by the British troops; who carried it, after an obstinate resistance. The loss of the British troops, who had the principal share in this affair, is luckily but inconsiderable: and consists ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... and swum now for about a year in this World-Maelstrom of London; with much pain, which however has given me many thoughts, more than a counterbalance for that. Hitherto there is no outlook, but confusion, darkness, innumerable things against which a man must "set his face like a flint." Madness rules the world, as it has generally done: one cannot, unhappily, without loss, say to it, Rule then; and yet must say it.—However, ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, - 1834-1872, Vol. I • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... assent, as was indeed certain. Nothing ill was known of Captain Bruce, and nothing noticed in him unlikeable, or unworthy of liking. And even as to his family, who wrote to him constantly, and whose letters he often showed, there had appeared sufficient evidence in their favor to counterbalance much of the suspicions against them, so that the earl was glad he had leaned to the charitable side in making his cousin welcome to Cairnforth; glad, too, that he could atone by warm confidence and extra kindness for what now seemed too long a neglect ...
— A Noble Life • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... reckoning. The poor manager,—with his keen, meagre, and anxious countenance, at this moment rendered doubly anxious by the throes of an arithmetical computation,—seemed the antagonist pole of the Dutchman: he was endeavouring, with little success, to bring the night's receipts into something like a counterbalance to the daily bill: this had just been presented by the landlord, who had placed his bulky person immediately behind him, looked over his shoulder, and having encircled him with his arms for the sake of leaning with his knuckles upon the table, had fairly pinned in the poor manager, who continued ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. I. • Thomas De Quincey
... A chill to counterbalance all the glowing promise of the day was prompt enough in coming. No sooner had he followed the timber-merchant in at the door than he heard Grammer inform him that Mrs. Fitzpiers was still more unwell than she had been in the morning. Old Dr. Jones being in the neighborhood ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... he owed victory at Towton to wind and snow, he owed it to a mist at Barnet. This last action was fought on the 14th of April, 1471, and the prevalence of the mist, which was very thick, enabled Edward so to order his military work as to counterbalance the enemy's superiority in numbers. The mist was attributed to the arts of Friar Bungay, a famous and most rascally "nigromancer." The mistake made by Warwick's men, when they thought Oxford's cognizance, a star paled with rays, was that ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 55, May, 1862 • Various
... to the main shaft of the intermediate gear by means of a collar fixed on it. The main shaft is bored out sufficiently deep to admit a steel rod, against which bear the three ends of the governor arms. The steel rod presses against the counterbalance, which is made exactly the right weight to withstand the force tending to raise it, when the intermediate motion is running at its designed speed. The forks between which the belt runs are also provided with a balance weight. This brings them ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 613, October 1, 1887 • Various
... which the occurrences themselves excite in my own—I will answer for it the book shall make its way in the world, much better than its master has done before it.—Oh Tristram! Tristram! can this but be once brought about—the credit, which will attend thee as an author, shall counterbalance the many evils will have befallen thee as a man—thou wilt feast upon the one—when thou hast lost all sense and remembrance of ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... the credit of the Conservative party that after a while they co-operated cordially with Mr. Gladstone in his reforming work of 1885. This was a triumph for Mr. Gladstone of an entirely satisfactory character; but he had sore trials to counterbalance it. He found himself drawn into a series of wars in North and South Africa; and he, whose generous sympathy had of late been so much given to Ireland, and who had introduced and carried another land bill for Ireland, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various
... that political theory which is now known as the Monroe doctrine, the claims of which can scarcely be made good without an adequate sea-force; and next, that the alliance with France, and subsequently with Spain, brought to the Americans that which they above all needed,—a sea power to counterbalance that of England. Will it be too much for American pride to admit that, had France refused to contest the control of the sea with England, the latter would have been able to reduce the Atlantic seaboard? Let us not kick down the ladder by which we mounted, nor refuse ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... was the only legitimate sovereign in the island, a confessor for their beloved Church, a captive princess and beauty driven from her throne, and kept in durance by a usurper. Thus every generous feeling was enlisted in her cause, with nothing to counterbalance them save the English hatred of the Spaniard, with whom her cause was inextricably linked; a dread of what might be inflicted on the country in the triumph of her party; and in some, a strange inconsistent personal loyalty to Elizabeth; but all ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... friends of that measure acquiesced in it, to strengthen their party and make sure of their object. Many of both sides thought that the dignity of Great Britain required something of the kind to counterbalance the loss of authority that might result from her yielding to the clamours of the colonists. The Act for this purpose was called the Declaratory Act, and was, in principle, more hostile to America's rights than the Stamp Act; for it annulled those resolutions and acts of the Provincial Assemblies ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 1 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Egerton Ryerson
... to head-quarters, a council of war was instantly summoned to deliberate upon what was best to be done. Without the help of the fleet, it was evident that, adopt what plan of attack we could, our loss must be such as to counterbalance even success itself; whilst success, under existing circumstances, was, to say the least of it, doubtful. And even if we should succeed, what would be gained by it? We could not remove anything from Baltimore, for want of proper conveyances. Had the ships ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig
... merely lead to enforced labor, it also redeems that labor. Not merely does a man face up to his job because it is in a sense done for love's sake, but love itself supplies the necessary respite and counterbalance to the burden of toil. We all need recreations. The tightly drawn string must be relaxed. Moods come when normal and quite Christian men say, "Oh, I can't stick it any longer; I want to enjoy myself." We naturally ...
— Men, Women, and God • A. Herbert Gray
... over those who are by nature equal with us.' BOSWELL. 'Yet, Sir, we see great proprietors of land who prefer living in London.' JOHNSON. 'Why, Sir, the pleasure of living in London, the intellectual superiority that is enjoyed there, may counterbalance the other. Besides, Sir, a man may prefer the state of the country-gentleman upon the whole, and yet there may never be a moment when he is willing to make the change to ...
— Life of Johnson - Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction by Charles Grosvenor Osgood • James Boswell
... which would give European or Asiatic Powers a justifiable right under the law of nations to interfere. Up to the present time, as we have seen, such interference has promised to be too costly; but the time may well come when the advantages of interference will more than counterbalance the dangers of a forcible protest. Moreover, in case such a protest were made, it might not come from any single European Power. A general European interest would be involved. The United States might well find her policy of America for the ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... Romans, and John XXIII., had agreed to convene a council at Constance; and the faithful were beginning to cherish a hope that the schism which had so long desolated the Church might be drawing to a close. But this distant prospect of relief was not sufficient to counterbalance the actual sufferings of the moment; and Francesca beheld with ever-increasing pain the amount of sin and of misery which filled the city of her birth. Her exertions, her labours, her bodily and mental trials, told at last upon her enfeebled frame, and about this time she fell ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton
... acquired broad and powerful tones about which there was nothing forced, and which were most agreeable. This development was communicated to the neighboring notes. But did not these advantages take from the compass of the scale? If so, were they a counterbalance to the injury? I repeat that I dare not ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... pleasure I received from the public commendation of my wisdom. This self-admonition, like a memento mori or mortalis es, must be, in my opinion, a very dangerous enemy to flattery: indeed, a weight sufficient to counterbalance all the false praise of the world. But whether it be that the generality of wise men do not reflect at all, or whether they have, from a constant imposition on others, contracted such a habit of deceit as to deceive themselves, I will not determine: it is, I believe, most ...
— From This World to the Next • Henry Fielding
... had determined to remain single. In fact, as she was of a very ambitious disposition she had resolved to marry none but a man of high rank; but although she was very rich, her fortune was not found a sufficient bribe, even at court, to counterbalance the malignant dispositions of her mind, and the disagreeable ...
— Paul and Virginia • Bernardin de Saint Pierre
... permanently maintained." The law which his experiments verified was the same as that on which Mr. Ward, in 1842, founded his invaluable proposal for increasing the purity of the air in large towns, by planting trees and cultivating flowers in rooms, THAT THE ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE RESPIRATIONS MIGHT COUNTERBALANCE EACH OTHER; the animal's blood being purified by the oxygen given off by the plants, the plants fed by the carbonic acid breathed out ...
— Glaucus; or The Wonders of the Shore • Charles Kingsley
... although in reality it was a kind of car, of metal, weighing some hundreds of pounds and capable of bearing some thousands of pounds with it in its flight. By producing, with the aid of the electrical generator contained in this car, an enormous charge of electricity, Mr. Edison was able to counterbalance, and a trifle more than counterbalance, the attraction of the earth, and thus cause the car to fly off from the earth as an electrified pithball flies from ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putnam Serviss
... direction of the bearing A, it passes through alternate stationary and revolving rows of blades, finally emerging at F and going out by way of G to the condenser or to atmosphere. H, J, and K represent three stages of blading. L, M, and Z are the balance pistons which counterbalance the thrust on the stages H, J, and K. O and Q are equalizing pipes, and for the low-pressure balance piston similar provision is made by means of passages (not shown) through the body of ...
— Steam Turbines - A Book of Instruction for the Adjustment and Operation of - the Principal Types of this Class of Prime Movers • Hubert E. Collins
... opinion of me, though what it is I cannot conjecture. I have gained much to-day—more than I had any right to expect; but if I have forfeited the good opinion of your sister, the loss of her friendship will counterbalance all ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... Force, and its association with the universe at large, there was seen at once the necessity of another Force, of an opposite character, which would form the companion and complementary force to Attraction; a repulsive, repellent force, one tending or repelling from a centre, so as to counterbalance the influence of the Centripetal Force which ever tends towards ...
— Aether and Gravitation • William George Hooper
... four thousand crowns a-year, great affection and consideration for her, may, in her opinion, counterbalance in marriage the inequality of our age, she may take me for her husband; if not she may choose elsewhere. If she can be happier without me, I do not object; I prefer to see her with another husband rather ...
— The School for Husbands • Moliere
... their proper place,—only for a short time, for the rain soon returned, and did not cease till midnight. Not all the garden scenery about Aubonne and Allaman (ad Lemannum), nor all the vineyards which yield the choice white wine of the Cote, could counterbalance the united discomfort of the rain, and the cold which had got into the system in the two glacieres; and matters were not mended by the discovery that Bradshaw was treacherous, and that a junction with ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne
... story is particularly interesting as illustrating the leaning of Dickens's mind toward the spiritualistic and mystical fancies current in his time, and the counterbalance of his common ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... as arguments for democracy. When De Tocqueville says that 'it is hard for a democracy to begin or to end a war,' the second is truer than the first. And, secondly, the educational value of democracy is so great that it may be held to counterbalance many defects. Mill decides in favour of democracy mainly on the ground that 'it promotes a better and higher form of national character than any other polity,' since government by authority stunts the intellect, narrows the sympathies, and destroys ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge
... a foreign nation, and we all feel happy that the first visit was to Latin America. You will find everywhere the same admiration for your great country, whose influence in the advance of moral culture, of political liberty, and of international law has begun already to counterbalance that of the rest of the world. Mingled with that admiration you will also find the sentiment that you could not rise without raising with you our whole continent; that in everything you achieve we shall have our share ...
— Latin America and the United States - Addresses by Elihu Root • Elihu Root
... ponds on the very tops of hills are but little affected." Can this difference be accounted for from evaporation alone, which certainly is more prevalent in bottoms? or rather have not those elevated pools some unnoticed recruits, which in the night time counterbalance the waste of the day; without which the cattle alone must soon exhaust them? And here it will be necessary to enter more minutely into the cause. Dr. Hales, in his Vegetable Statics, advances, from experiment, that "the moister the earth ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 2 • Gilbert White
... often promised issue of the positive philosophy, which had already been twice commenced in print (The Ages of the World, 1815; Mythological Lectures, 1830), was both times suspended. Being called to the Berlin Academy by Frederick William IV., in order to counterbalance the prevailing Hegelianism, Schelling delivered lectures in the university also (on Mythology and Revelation), which he ceased, however, when notes taken by his hearers were printed without his consent.[5] His collected works were published ...
— History Of Modern Philosophy - From Nicolas of Cusa to the Present Time • Richard Falckenberg
... fleet from the Mediterranean so that Ireland might be screened from attack. Pitt's views also underwent a change. Foreseeing the collapse of Austria, he sought to assure peace with France and Spain by conquering enough territory oversea to counterbalance the triumphs of Bonaparte and Moreau in Italy and the Rhineland. If he could not restore the Balance of Power on the Continent, he strove to safeguard British interests at all essential points. Failing to save Holland from the Jacobins' grip, he conquered and held the Cape. This ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... meal,—a sort of vegetable phenomenon which is particularly disagreeable when it appears in the middle of a pale, dull, and uninteresting face. In one sense she was all that a worldly mother, thirty-eight years of age and still a beauty with claims to admiration, could have wished. However, to counterbalance her personal defects, the marquise gave her daughter a distinguished air, subjected her to hygienic treatment which provisionally kept her nose at a reasonable flesh-tint, taught her the art of dressing well, endowed her with ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... with our journey, and desirous of taking some repose, begged he might conduct us to our lodgings. It was in vain that we protested against a compliment which we had certainly no title to expect, but that of being strangers; a circumstance which seemed, in the opinion of this generous Livonian, to counterbalance every other consideration. In our way we passed by two guard-houses, where the men were turned out under arms, in compliment to Captain Gore; and were afterward brought to a very neat and decent house, which the major gave us to understand ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... in the preceding pages, many objections will be urged, and the evils of the practice I recommend be declared more than sufficient to counterbalance its advantages. Of these it is necessary that I should now take notice, and obviate them as well as ...
— Hints on Extemporaneous Preaching • Henry Ware
... Thermopylae,(40) when the alternative was a base flight, or a glorious death. The deaths of generals are glorious, but philosophers usually die in their beds. But still Epicurus here mentions what, when dying, he considered great credit to himself. "I have," says he, "a joy to counterbalance these pains." I recognise in these words, O Epicurus, the sentiments of a philosopher, but still you forgot what you ought to have said. For, in the first place, if those things be true, in the recollection of which you say you rejoice, ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... operate with respect to us. I hope we shall persevere vigorously in our military operations, and thereby not only quiet the fears and suspicions of those who apprehend some secret understanding between us and this Ministry, but also regain the possession of those places, which might otherwise counterbalance other demands ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various
... have been invalided by boards of doctors as being unfit for service, either from the effects of wounds or climate, and this would be a good opportunity for sending them home. Many of them are still fit for easy work, and would, at any rate, counterbalance your Italian crew. Of course I should formally take a passage for them in Mr. Blagrove's ship. The prize mounts six guns, but I would advise you to keep well out of the way of French privateers. Of course the final result ...
— At Aboukir and Acre - A Story of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt • George Alfred Henty
... Brumaire. Bonaparte had cast his eyes on the Minister of Justice to be one of his colleagues when he should be at liberty to name them, because his previous conduct had pledged him as a partisan of the Revolution. To him Bonaparte added Lebrun, to counterbalance the first choice. Lebrun was distinguished for honourable conduct and moderate principles. By selecting these two men Bonaparte hoped to please every one; besides, neither of them were able to contend against his fixed determination and ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... and the ladies are all at their Livres d'Heures, posting masses and prayers to the credit side, to counterbalance the sins and frailties committed during the carnaval in the account which they keep in the Ledger of Heaven. Dancing and masquerading are now over and Requiems and the Miserere the order of the day at ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye
... the same time I find so much to counterbalance those things, that I should not object to bearing them myself, in view of the recompense. Where do we go and what do we ...
— A Girl Of The Limberlost • Gene Stratton Porter
... this unsavory institution; he led much the same life there as at the government office, save that the club servants let him sleep on the sofa until morning if he chose, and he earned no pay while he slumbered. As a counterbalance, the brandy and soda was cheaper and better than that which had been sent to him from the public house opposite to the Stamp and Sealing Wax, and he had all his time to devote to his system, while in the office he had occasionally a ...
— The King's Men - A Tale of To-morrow • Robert Grant, John Boyle O'Reilly, J. S. Dale, and John T.
... breaker among the fairer one. Reckless, debonair, utterly irresponsible, he was still "terrible Teddy" as his father had jocosely dubbed him long ago. Yet he was quite as lovable as he was irrepressible, and had a manifest grace to counterbalance every one of his many faults. His soberer brother Larry worried uselessly over Ted's misdeeds, and took him sharply to task for them; but even Larry admitted that there was something rather magnificent about Ted and that possibly in the end he ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... nothing else, on account of the escape of gas through balloons ill-constructed, and varnished with no better material than the ordinary varnish. It seemed, therefore, that the effect of such escape was only sufficient to counterbalance the effect of some accelerating power. I now considered that, provided in my passage I found the medium I had imagined, and provided that it should prove to be actually and essentially what we denominate atmospheric ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 1 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... is not impossible that here, at length, a means may have been found for combating the horrors of hydrophobia. Its higher pretensions of clairvoyance and provision, if not proved, are at least not yet satisfactorily disproved. Its admitted usefulness may, perhaps, counterbalance its perils; but in every exercise of it, whether curative or speculative, it is never to be forgotten, that the phenomena are those of disease, and that the production of disease, save for the counteraction of other maladies more hurtful, ...
— The International Monthly Magazine - Volume V - No II • Various
... arrangement the consumer would not be injured. It is true he might have to pay a little more duty on a given article in one year, but, if so, he would pay a little less in another, and in a series of years these would counterbalance each other and amount to the same thing so far as his interest is concerned. This inconvenience would be trifling when contrasted with the additional security thus afforded against frauds upon the revenue, in which every ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 5: James Buchanan • James D. Richardson
... passed by Goethe on the "Faustus" of his English predecessor in tragic treatment of the same subject is somewhat more than sufficient to counterbalance the slighting or the sneering references to that magnificent poem which might have been expected from the ignorance of Byron or the incompetence of Hallam. And the particular note of merit observed, the special point of the praise conferred, by the great German poet should be no ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... 364. This was behaving with a tolerable degree of prudence and good sense. But let not the bibliomaniac imagine that it is my wish to degrade honest old Elias Ashmole, by the foregoing delineation of his weaknesses and follies. The ensuing entries, in the said Diary, will more than counterbalance any unfavourable effect produced by its precursors; and I give them with a full conviction that they will be greedily devoured by those who have been lucky enough to make good purchases of the entire libraries of deceased characters ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... place. It is always desirable that the ripening be as even as possible and that there be no green and hard spots either at the surface or in the flesh, but often perfection in this respect is correlated with such lack of size and solidity as to counterbalance it. Rapidity in ripening, in a general way, is desirable for fruit to be used at home, and undesirable in that which ...
— Tomato Culture: A Practical Treatise on the Tomato • William Warner Tracy
... her. He had heard enough, and as he knew that it was impossible for any one in Heaven or Hell to tell an untruth, he nodded to her, saying: 'That was, beyond dispute, a good deed, but it is too small to counterbalance the great weight of your bad deeds. Perhaps it may lighten your punishment. Still great riches were meted out to you on earth, and what were a few nuts to you! The motive that urged you to bestow them is pleasing in the sight ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... To counterbalance these restrictions, duties were imposed on salted and dried fish caught or imported by other vessels than those belonging to subjects of the crown; and additional regulations were made for enforcing the prohibition of the culture of ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall
... position was held by the church, and the antithetical attitudes of hindrance and help continued to exist. As valuable as was the spirit instilled into the hearts of His followers by the tenderness of the Master, it was never sufficient to counterbalance the deterrent effects of the religion which they espoused. The retardation was caused by two related beliefs which permeated the church: The first was the doctrine of the power of demons in the lives of men, especially in the production of disease; and the second ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten
... than his hair, and is kept close-trimmed. He has a broad, full forehead; honest, open blue eyes, not pale blue, but a fine deep colour, and they meet one frankly and fearlessly. His mouth is really too handsome for a man, but his chin is firm enough to counterbalance that. His manners are fine, and he has evidently been reared a gentleman. I chanced to hear him sing last night, and he has a wonderfully high tenor voice—an unusual voice; clear and sweet, and soft in ...
— Against Odds - A Detective Story • Lawrence L. Lynch
... combines the favorite and (may I add?) characteristic French doctrine, that the chief topic of mythology is the adoration of the generative power, and to rescue such views from their materializing tendencies, imagines to counterbalance them a clear, universal monotheism. "We claim to have shown," he says (p. 154), "that the grand conception of a Supreme Unity and the doctrine of the reciprocal principles existed in America in a well defined and clearly recognized form;" and elsewhere that "the monotheistic idea stands ...
— The Myths of the New World - A Treatise on the Symbolism and Mythology of the Red Race of America • Daniel G. Brinton
... saw in it their chief enemy. The Czech leader Palacky rejected the invitation to Frankfurt in 1848 and summoned a Slav Congress to Prague. It is true that Palacky at that time dreamt of an Austria just to all her nations. He advocated a strong Austria as a federation of nations to counterbalance Pan-Germanism. Yet at the same time Palacky has proved through his history and work that Bohemia has full right to independence. He was well aware that a federalistic and just Austria would have to grant independence ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek
... bird during our whole excursion, or heard a single note but the hideous screams of the peacock and parrot—tones which dame Nature, in her even-handed style of doing things, has probably bestowed upon these dandies of the woods, to counterbalance the ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... debate, and Southern delegations in Congress were urged to exert themselves to secure a repeal of the law against the slave trade in order that the South might have some means of increasing its laboring population to counterbalance the advantages which the East and Northwest derived from immigration. A paramount purpose of these gatherings was to solidify the South and to harmonize the interests of the border States with those of the lower South. In the background ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd
... which could be run out to its extremity, or fixed at any part of it. The other arm was the one by means of which the stones were hoisted. When a stone had to be raised; its weight was ascertained, and the movable weight was so fixed as exactly to counterbalance it. By this simple contrivance all the cumbrous and troublesome machinery of long guys and bracing-chains extending from the crane to the rock ...
— The Lighthouse • Robert Ballantyne
... provisions tends to raise it. The plenty of a cheap year, on the contrary, by increasing the demand, tends to raise the price of labour, as the cheapness of provisions tends to lower it. In the ordinary variations of the prices of provisions, those two opposite causes seem to counterbalance one another, which is probably, in part, the reason why the wages of labour are everywhere so much more steady and permanent than ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... I not had success to counterbalance failure? And can I forego this lofty and august hope, worthy alone of our high condition,—the hope to form a mighty and numerous race with a force and power sufficient to permit them to acknowledge to mankind their majestic conquests ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... christened Saba. The name was taken out of the Psalms for the Fourteenth Day of the Month, and was bestowed on her in obedience to her father's conviction that, where parents were constrained to give their child so indistinctive a surname as Smith, they ought to counterbalance it with a Christian name more original and vivacious. Saba Smith became the wife of the eminent physician, Sir Henry Holland, and died in 1866. The other children were—a boy, who was born and died in 1803; Douglas, born in 1805, died in 1829; Emily, wife of Nathaniel Hibbert, born in 1807, died ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... of Lasso, the successive toquis of the Araucanians continued the war with more rashness than skill; none of them, like Antiguenu and Paillamachu, having sufficient judgment to repair the losses sustained by the nation, and to counterbalance the power and arms of the Spaniards by skill and conduct. Quepuantu, who was advanced to the rank of toqui after the defeat at Alvarrada, retired to a sequestered vale under the covert of thick woods, where he built a house with four opposite doors, to facilitate ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... countenance so sadly altered, and the many marks of languor and remaining disorder which evidently appeared, so that he really looked ten years older than he had done ten months before. I had, however, a satisfaction sufficient to counterbalance much of the concern which this alteration gave me, in a renewed opportunity of observing, indeed more sensibly than ever, in how remarkable a degree he was dead to the enjoyments and views of this mortal life. When I congratulated him on the favourable ...
— The Life of Col. James Gardiner - Who Was Slain at the Battle of Prestonpans, September 21, 1745 • P. Doddridge
... retaliation &c. 718 equalization &c. 27; robbing Peter to pay Paul. set-off, offset; make-weight, casting-weight; counterpoise, ballast; indemnity, equivalent, quid pro,quo; bribe, hush money; amends &c. (atonement) 952; counterbalance, counterclaim; cross-debt, cross-demand. V. make compensation; compensate, compense[obs3]; indemnify; counteract, countervail, counterpoise; balance; outbalance[obs3], overbalance, counterbalance; set off; hedge, square, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... direction is thrown beyond its centre, unless the base be enlarged to counterbalance it, the person or body will fall. A person in stooping to look over a deep hole, will bend his trunk forward; the line of direction being altered, he must extend his base to compensate for it, which he does by ...
— The Book of Sports: - Containing Out-door Sports, Amusements and Recreations, - Including Gymnastics, Gardening & Carpentering • William Martin
... Lord Hervey's account he often even sacrificed his interest to his vanity. The description given of Lord Chesterfield by one as bitter as himself implies, indeed, that great pains were requisite to counterbalance the defects of nature. Wilkes, one of the ugliest men of his time, used to say, that with an hour's start he would carry off the affections of any woman from the handsomest man breathing. Lord Chesterfield, according to Lord Hervey, required ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 1 • Grace Wharton and Philip Wharton
... a day what von Baer and Mueller had taken weeks of painful endeavour to discover.[386] But the democratisation of morphology which followed upon the facilitation of its means of research left an evil heritage of detailed and unintelligent work to counterbalance the very great and real advances which ...
— Form and Function - A Contribution to the History of Animal Morphology • E. S. (Edward Stuart) Russell
... increase the punishment in proportion to the temptation. The facility to commit a crime, is one great element in the temptation to commit it; and this facility has been always considered (as in the case of forgery) to call for a counterbalance in the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... Swiss snows. In this case, however, while the Rhone itself is on this account highest in summer and lowest in winter, the Saone, on the contrary, is swollen by the winter's rain, and falls during the fine weather of summer. Hence the two tend to counterbalance ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock
... that the convex outside curve of wings allowed the wind to escape over them, while the under side, being concave, held every breath. Thus the upward stroke did not simply counterbalance the downward and keep him stationary. Moreover, she showed him how the feathers underlapped each other so that the downward stroke pressed them closely together to hold the wind, whereas in the upward stroke ...
— Jimbo - A Fantasy • Algernon Blackwood
... but it is the Devarajahs who, having command of the "elements" of which that etheric double must be composed, arrange their proportion so as to fulfil accurately the intention of the LIPIKA. It is they also who constantly watch all through life to counterbalance the changes perpetually being introduced into man's condition by his own free will and that of those around him, so that no injustice may be done, and Karma may be accurately worked out, if not in one way then in another. A learned dissertation upon ...
— The Astral Plane - Its Scenery, Inhabitants and Phenomena • C. W. Leadbeater
... hear any of its deliberations during the first five sessions. It then yielded to public opinion and opened its doors when acting in its legislative capacity, going into secret session only when exercising its executive powers. To counterbalance these extraordinary functions, the House had only the exclusive right of originating ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks
... sentiment of suspicion came to counterbalance in his mind the sudden, irresistible impression which he had experienced at the sight of Cecily. He seized, with delight, the occasion to receive into his solitary dwelling the ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... make an escape? Her heart is in it. If she effect it, the triumph she will have over me upon it will be a counterbalance for all ...
— Clarissa, Volume 6 (of 9) - The History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... fresh, and will stand to the bull as readily as yearlings. I grant that if you were to put them on luxuriant pasture, and give them full allowance of turnips through the winter and spring, they would be fit for the butcher, and not for the bull. The advantages more than counterbalance the disadvantages. Their parts will be strong and open, and they will calve with safety; while, on the other hand, the calving of those served at a year old will always be attended with difficulty; the parts will often be injured and lacerated, and mortification of the womb and the ...
— Cattle and Cattle-breeders • William M'Combie
... even in this life neither work, device, knowledge, nor wisdom, are effective in obtaining good or in shielding their possessor from life's vicissitudes. The swift—does he always win the race? Are there no contingencies that more than counterbalance his swiftness? A slip, a fall, a turned muscle, and—the race is not to the swift. The strong—is he necessarily conqueror in the fight? Many an unforeseen and uncontrollable event has turned the tide ...
— Old Groans and New Songs - Being Meditations on the Book of Ecclesiastes • F. C. Jennings
... early attachment. Others, guided either by a stronger passion, or a weaker judgement, break through these restraints, and it would be hard indeed, if the gratification of so delightful a passion as virtuous love, did not, sometimes, more than counterbalance all its attendant evils. But I fear it must be owned that the more general consequences of such marriages are rather calculated to justify than to repress the forebodings ...
— An Essay on the Principle of Population • Thomas Malthus
... grunting and ruffling up his crest of curly black hair. He had a large heart by way of counterbalance to his many failings, and he was interested in Arithelli, for he had come across her once or twice in the stables, and had heard various picturesque stories of her exploits. He might have been a success in his own profession, but ...
— The Hippodrome • Rachel Hayward
... day. Fanning and myself were appointed to the command of the vanguard, in conjunction with Mr Wharton, a wealthy planter, who had brought a strong party of volunteers with him, and whose mature age and cool judgment, it was thought, would counterbalance any excess of youthful heat and impetuosity on our part. Selecting ninety-two men out of the eight hundred, who, to a man, volunteered to accompany us, we set out ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... modifications of form, possesses a character in its neuration to which the same degree of certainty can be attached. The spur on the anterior tibiae is also found in some of the Hesperidae, and is therefore supposed to show a direct affinity between the two groups: but I do not imagine it can counterbalance the differences in neuration and in every other part of their organization. The most characteristic feature of the Papilionidae, however, and that on which I think insufficient stress has been laid, is undoubtedly the peculiar structure of the larvae. ...
— Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection - A Series of Essays • Alfred Russel Wallace
... had found much to counterbalance the anxieties of my position in the delightful novelty and variety of life around me, and not a little to raise my hopes; for I had watched keenly for several hours as much as I could see from the wharf of what was going on in this ship and that, and I began to feel less ...
— We and the World, Part II. (of II.) - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... spite of his detestable taste, was a man of genius; and therefore to find his type among us would be difficult, if not impossible, unless an excess of the former quality, for which he was conspicuous, might counterbalance a deficiency in the latter. Are our employes less pompous and empty than Gil Blas and his companions? our squires less absurd and ignorant than the hidalgoes of Valencia? Let any one read some of the pamphlets on Archbishop Whately's Logic, or attend an examination ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... with the even and steady movement of a paper kite. In the case of any bird soaring, its motion must be sufficiently rapid so that the action of the inclined surface of its body on the atmosphere may counterbalance its gravity. The force to keep up the momentum of a body moving in a horizontal plane in the air (in which there is so little friction) cannot be great, and this force is all that is wanted. The movements of the neck and body of the condor, we must suppose, is sufficient for this. ...
— The Voyage of the Beagle • Charles Darwin
... been wholly impossible. Even granting that Mr. Burke did not welcome the schism as a relief, neither the temper of the men nor the spirit of the times, which converted opinions at once into passions, would have admitted of such a peaceable counterbalance of principles, nor suffered them long to slumber in that hollow truce, which Tacitus has described,—"manente in speciem amicitia" Mr. Sheridan saw this from the first; and, in hazarding that vehement speech, by which he provoked ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... uncertainty of our prospect after death. Suppose it were more uncertain, might not the magnitude of the interests that must be involved in a new and untried existence hereafter, and which must be measured on the scale of eternity, be more than sufficient to counterbalance the difference? "Let us be only fully convinced that our present life is (or may be) the beginning of an eternal duration, and how irresistibly are we urged to a mode of conduct answerable to that accession of importance which our present condition in the world derives from ...
— Modern Atheism under its forms of Pantheism, Materialism, Secularism, Development, and Natural Laws • James Buchanan
... To counterbalance the stories of foolish people which have been related above, we will conclude this chapter with some stories of clever people, stories which were popular as long ...
— Italian Popular Tales • Thomas Frederick Crane
... including all the forces available for that battle, was about thirty-five thousand men. That of the enemy was, perhaps, forty-five thousand men. The advantages of attack and surprise would, General Johnson thought, more than counterbalance his numerical inferiority. If Buell brought reinforcements to his opponents, by forced marches, in advance of his army, he would feel their effect only in a stronger line, and more stubborn resistance upon the front—his flanks ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... Crimea the battles were fought at much closer quarters, and hence the weapons of the time were as effective, or more so, than the present ones. That this increased distance between the combatants will always counterbalance the increased deadliness of the weapons in the future is more than probable, since the range of effectiveness has been increased both in rifle and in artillery fire. In the present campaign the effect of the latter was very noticeable, since the Boers were, as a rule, quickly displaced by shell ...
— Surgical Experiences in South Africa, 1899-1900 • George Henry Makins
... years, his farm every six months, and his occupation every season! an agriculturist yesterday, a shoemaker to-day, and a school master to-morrow! that epitome of all the unsteady and profitless propensities of the settlers without one of their good qualities to counterbalance the evil! Nay, Richard. this is too bad ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... to the ordinary price of their whale oil, or they must accept the conditions which this government offers, for the establishment they have proposed at Dunkirk. Your Excellency will judge, what conditions may counterbalance, in their minds, the circumstances of the vicinity of Nova Scotia, sameness of language, laws, religion, customs and kindred. Remaining in their native country, to which they are most singularly attached, excluded from commerce with England, taught to look to France as the only ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... her keel and hull had not been strong enough in its rusted state to resist the hammerblow of the reef. But it was heavy enough, together with her big metal steering apparatus, to counterbalance any buoyant qualities left ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... and admired the Spectator, Adventurer, Rambler, and World, but still with a certain regret, that they were so thoroughly and entirely English. Alas! have I often said to myself, what are all the boasted advantages which my country reaps from the Union, that can counterbalance the annihilation of her independence, and even her very name? I often repeat that couplet of ...
— The Letters of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... time, before the dark catalogue of vices was made complete by the wicked inventions of men, or the evil made to counterbalance the good in the world, the Arch Enemy of mankind, deeply sensible of the vantage-ground occupied by the antagonistic Being, and anxiously casting about him for the means of securing an equilibrium of power, called around him ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... to account. They indulge, therefore, at first in endless invectives against the prevailing dishonesty; but gradually, when they have paid what Germans call Lehrgeld, they accommodate themselves to circumstances, take large profits to counterbalance bad debts, and generally succeed—if they have sufficient energy, mother-wit, and capital—in making a ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... number of peers of France, the great seigneurs who held directly from the crown, at twelve,—six laic and six ecclesiastical. The first were the dukes of Burgundy, Normandy, and Guyenne, the counts of Champagne, Flanders, and Toulouse, and, to counterbalance these puissant lords, six ecclesiastics, all the more attached to the king that they were without landed property and consequently without much temporal power, the Archbishop of Reims and the bishops of Laon, ...
— Paris from the Earliest Period to the Present Day; Volume 1 • William Walton
... can you find twelve men more radically different mentally and temperamentally than the Apostles? Yet the Holy Spirit did not establish separate churches to cater to and further develop these temperamental eccentricities. All were united in one church so they could counterbalance and complement each other and thus perfect their own character and give greater symmetry to the church. "And when the day of Pentecost was fully come they were all with one accord in one place" (Acts 2:1). After three thousand were added unto them we read, "They continued daily with one ...
— To Infidelity and Back • Henry F. Lutz
... side-whiskers, and wears a suit of clothes, shirt, cravat, and stockings with pronounced horizontal stripes. If my face lacks fierceness and dynamic force, it needs a brisk, arrogant moustache; or if it has too much of these qualities, a long, sad, drooping moustache will counterbalance them. I read in my volume of Romantic Love and Personal Beauty that 'the movements of the moustache are dependent on the muscle called depressor alae nasi. By specially cultivating this muscle, men might in course of ...
— The Perfect Gentleman • Ralph Bergengren
... to counterbalance this mercifulness in the matter of permanent damage, unlike most other infections, one attack of rheumatic fever, so far from protecting against another, renders both the individual and the joint more liable to other attacks. The historic motto ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... observe, that no class of men have a stricter idea of the propriety of dress, than private soldiers. To dress well is half a passport to a soldier's respect; whilst on the other hand, it requires many excellent qualities, to counterbalance in his mind a careless and slovenly exterior. Colonel Vavasour had an independent fortune, which he spent at the head of his regiment. Many a dinner party was given by him, for which the corps he commanded ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman
... was one which would have caused him to abjure Catholicism, viz. the critical one. Or I should rather say that he had the critical faculty very highly developed in every point not touching religious belief; but that possessed in his view such a co-efficient of certainty, that nothing could counterbalance it. His piety was in truth, like the mother o'pearl shells of Francois de Sales, "which live in the sea without tasting a drop of salt water." The knowledge of error which he possessed was entirely speculative: a water-tight compartment prevented ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... question, both tribes having heavy bodies, with feeble organs of flight, so that they are disabled from taking their food on the wing. The purpose of the enormous bill here becomes evident; it is to enable the Toucan to reach and devour fruit whil remaining seated, and thus to counterbalance the disadvantage which its heavy body and gluttonous appetite would otherwise give it in the competition with allied groups of birds. The relation between the extraordinarily lengthened bill of the Toucan and its mode of obtaining food, is therefore precisely similar to that between the long ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates |
