"Failure" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... women of the earth. This custom originated, probably, from a sense of kindness to the girl herself. It was the expression of a desire on the part of the parents to insure their daughter, at an early date, against failure to attain that which all Hindus regard as the summum bonum of a woman's life—marriage. But, in their short-sighted policy, they failed to realize the myriad evils which would follow this pernicious custom. The girl's will or desire must not be regarded ...
— India's Problem Krishna or Christ • John P. Jones
... going to Torwood Park to see him myself; only about his public work, of course, and the wonderful stand he is making for his principles. I think this Budget is the greatest thing in English history. If it fails, it will be the most heroic failure in English history. Are you an admirer of your great kinsman, ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton
... firm in that town, Watts & Duncan, are considerably indebted to me, and I have doubts as their solvency. In the event of their failure I want to realize as much as possible of my claim. I don't want the other creditors ...
— Frank and Fearless - or The Fortunes of Jasper Kent • Horatio Alger Jr.
... see. I can't tell you all; I was half out; but just this for a sample: I had a sitter last week, an old lady; an' the sittin' was a failure. Yes, I was fishin' and pumpin', but she was close-mouthed an' suspicious. I got it out of her that she was worried about her boy. I tried a bad love affair for a lead, an' there was nothing doing. I tried bad habits and it was just as far away; and I give it up and was thankful ...
— The House of Mystery • William Henry Irwin
... in which it fell to my lot to perform a distinguished character, took place soon after the communication which I received from my respected friend. It was convened with the especial object of inquiring into the circumstances connected with the failure of Mr George Whitefield Bunyan Smith. The chapel was, if possible, fuller than on the former evening, and the majority of members was, as before, women. A movement throughout the assembly—a whispering, and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... leaning against the mantelpiece and looking across at his father's picture. He began to contrast his father with himself. He was a success, his father had been a failure. At seven-and-twenty he was Deemster at all events; at thirty his father had died a broken man. He had got what he had worked for; he had recovered the place of his people; and yet how mean a man he was compared to him who had ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... obvious. The years 1849 and 1850 were years of the greatest material prosperity, and of an overproduction that did not manifest itself until 1851. This was especially promoted at the beginning of 1851 by the prospect of the Industrial Exposition; and, as special causes, there were added, first, the failure of the cotton crop of 1850 and 1851; second, the certainty of a larger cotton crop than was expected: first, the rise, then the sudden drop; in short, the oscillations of the cotton market. The crop of raw silk in France had been below the average. Finally, the manufacture of woolen ...
— The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte • Karl Marx
... nothing but a plain humdrum Sermon. I recollect how, when on the Sunday before Commemoration one year, a number of strangers came to hear me, and I preached in my usual way, residents in Oxford, of high position, were loud in their satisfaction that on a great occasion, I had made a simple failure, for after all there was nothing in the Sermon to hear. Well, but they were not going to let me off, for all my common-sense view of duty. Accordingly they got up the charitable theory which this Writer revives. ...
— Apologia Pro Vita Sua • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... invasion, Philip immediately in vehement indignation started from Demetrias in Thessaly for Chalcis, and when he found no trace of the enemy there save the scene of ruin, he went on to Athens to retaliate. But his attempt to surprise the city was a failure, and even the assault was in vain, greatly as the king exposed his life; the approach of Gaius Claudius from the Piraeeus, and of Attalus from Aegina, compelled him to depart. Philip still tarried for some time in Greece; but in a political and in a military point of view his successes ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... be dreaded, and that indirect action is remediable we are encouraged to cultivate the pear, though we have lost more than five hundred of one variety and almost all of the other varieties before we discovered the real cause of the failure. "Where you lose you may find;" success does not indicate merit, and "fools never learn by experience." As a celebrated surgeon said in his lecture. "A good oculist is made at the expense of a hatful ...
— Prairie Farmer, Vol. 56: No. 3, January 19, 1884. - A Weekly Journal for the Farm, Orchard and Fireside • Various
... and the Massachusetts problem was for the moment lost sight of in the presence of the larger issues. The colony returned to its former position of independence and soon reasserted its former authority over New Hampshire and Maine. To all appearances the failure of the royal commissioners was complete, but appearances were deceptive. The issue lay not merely between a Stuart King and a colony seeking to preserve its liberties; it was part of the larger and more fundamental ...
— The Fathers of New England - A Chronicle of the Puritan Commonwealths • Charles M. Andrews
... all grades of officers, to the men in the ranks: they are faults of theory and faults of practice,—of plan in those who direct, and of self-management in those whose whole duty is to obey. The root of this is the failure to fully understand and count the cost, and to prepare to meet it as men generally do in the management of their common affairs. In civil life, when prudent men intend to effect any purpose by the aid of motive power, whether of water, steam, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various
... forgotten that he ever had an uncle. His family had effaced itself. Backed by an estate and a good income, there was no reason why its last surviving member should not be a conspicuous social success. Well, it seemed that he was a conspicuous social failure. ...
— The Tysons - (Mr. and Mrs. Nevill Tyson) • May Sinclair
... where. How miserable is the fine lady's lot, who cannot forget, and who is forgotten by the world in a moment! How much more miserable still is the condition of a would-be fine lady, working her way up in the world with care and pains! By her, every the slightest failure of attention, from persons of rank and fashion, is marked and felt with a jealous anxiety, and with a sense of mortification the most acute—an invitation omitted is a matter of the most serious consequence, not ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... prince and decided to get rid of his mother. Pretending a reconciliation, he invited her to Baiae, where an attempt was made to drown her on a vessel especially constructed to founder. As this proved a failure, he had her put to death at her country house. Agrippina wrote memoirs of her times, referred to by Tacitus (Ann. iv. 53). Her character is set ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... Disgusted with his failure, but more angry than ever, the panther lay down for a while to consider what he should do next, and as he was thinking, an ...
— The Orange Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... you will say, left a priceless heritage to the immortal race. But if Greece and Rome and a host of older nations, of which History has often forgotten the very name, have failed and died, can anything but ultimate failure await the race? Is human history to prove a story told by an idiot, or does it "signify" something? Is the great march of humanity, which Carlyle so vividly depicts, "from the inane to the inane, or from ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler
... "I am what you have made me. Take all the praise, take all the blame; take all the success, take all the failure; in ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... Walcheren expedition see Alison, vol. viii.; James, vol. iv.; as also for Gambier's failure at Rochefort. The letters of Sir Byam Martin, then cruising off Danzig, show how our officers wished to give timely aid to Schill ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... his dress and his spurious English than of any learning or accomplishment, and the unreasoning tool of his official superiors. He had been checkmated by Coristine, and felt terribly disappointed at the failure of his mission; but the thought that he had been engaged in a most dishonest attempt did not trouble him in the least. Yet, had he been offered a large bribe to commit robbery in the usual ways, he would have rejected the ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... passengers. The Americans exulted at the failure of the man-of-war's man, and the English doubted. To them, deference to the crown was habitual, and they were displeased at seeing a stranger play a king's boat such a trick, in what they justly enough thought to be British waters. Although ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... the reason brute apathy or sheer foolhardihood? He refused either explanation, feeling sure some darker and more momentous motive dictated this obstinate avoidance of the public eye. Exasperation aroused by failure to fathom the mystery took precedence in his thoughts even to the personal solicitude excited by last night's ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... they were only half as many as Lady Ludlow had feared; but they were twice as many, four, eight times as many as the captain had anticipated. His openly- expressed disappointment made him popular again. The rough country people could not have understood silent and dignified regret at the failure of his plans, but they sympathized with a man who swore at his ill success—sympathized, even while they chuckled over his discomfiture. Mr. Brooke, the retired tradesman, did not cease blaming him for not succeeding, and for swearing. ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... to imply that it means belief in the resurrection. The scripture, which they 'knew' as scripture, was for John suddenly interpreted, and he was lifted out of the ignorance of its meaning, which till that moment he had shared with his fellow-disciples. Their failure to understand Christ's frequent distinct prophecies that He would rise again the third day has been thought incredible, but is surely intelligible enough if we remember how unexampled such a thing was, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... will be absent for a longish time, that we turn up at the railway station. The dearer the friend, and the longer the journey, and the longer the likely absence, the earlier do we turn up, and the more lamentably do we fail. Our failure is in exact ratio to the seriousness of the occasion, and to the depth of ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... determined to end it, conclusively, that evening, but Mrs. Feverel's gloom and Dahlia's little attempts at coquettish gaiety frightened him. The conversation, supported mainly by Dahlia, fell into terrible lapses, and the attempts to start it again had the unhappy air of desperate remedies doomed to failure. Dahlia's pathetic glances failed of their intent. Robin was too deeply engaged in his own gloomy reflections to notice them, but her eyes filled with tears, and at last her efforts ceased and a horrible, gloomy silence fell like a choking fog ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... beginning, and the visitor squirmed around in embarrassment. His pride was rather hurt at the man's failure to recognize him, and he could scarcely announce, just at the outset, that he had run away from the minister and had come to him as a companion in iniquity. Suddenly he thought of a remark that had hitherto never failed to arouse the liveliest ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... big! Bigger than I have even hinted at. It is daring. Of course, I take a chance of sinking everything I have out there and finding only failure in the end." ...
— Under Handicap - A Novel • Jackson Gregory
... writers of these operas were great men who put their best into their work; the cause of the failure of these operas was not on account of the music, but the ideas and thoughts with which this music was saddled. What were the books which people read and loved in those days (1750-1800), that is, books upon which operas might be built? In ...
— Critical & Historical Essays - Lectures delivered at Columbia University • Edward MacDowell
... for the present season, and by the next I hope we shall be fully prepared for him. In this belief I am strengthened not only by the prodigious loss he has sustained at the position he has just quitted, but by the failure of his fleet to pass ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... added to its business the manufacture of farming tools, in 1870 of sewing machines and in 1874 of typewriters. The last-named industry was sold to another company in 1886, and soon afterwards, on the failure of the original Remington company, the fire arms factory was bought by a N.Y.C. firm, though the Remington name was retained. The spot where Eliphalet had his primitive forge on the Ilion gorge road, just south of the town, is marked by a tablet ...
— The Greatest Highway in the World • Anonymous
... pretty far apart, don't they?" replied the Weather expert, with a smile. "Yet one of the great tragedies of military history, one which led to the death of hundreds of thousands of men and changed the map of the world, was due to a failure to study the colors ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler
... the garrison remained under arms behind their work at the breach lest any treacherous attempt should be made. The mutineers, however, who were evidently much depressed by the failure, carried the bodies off quietly, and ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... attempt, tradition and circumstance finally proved too strong; and Augustan poetry, outside of a few definite forms, is largely a chronicle of failure. This was most eminently so in the drama. Augustan tragedy seems never to have risen for a moment beyond mere academic exercises. Of the many poets who attempted it, nothing survives beyond a string of names. Lucius Varius Rufus, the intimate friend of both Virgil ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail
... Gerald saw the failure of Prince Charlie's expedition to Scotland; and the terrible disasters, that befell all who had taken part in the movement, showed him the wisdom of the course he had adopted—of standing aloof from all intrigues ...
— In the Irish Brigade - A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain • G. A. Henty
... called from home by the duties of his commandership, that he could not fairly be expected to call upon Mr. Caryl Carne. Yet that gentleman, being rather sensitive—which sometimes means very spiteful—resented as a personal slight this failure; although, if the overture had been made, he would have ascribed it to intrusive curiosity, and a low desire to behold him in his ruins. But truly in the old man's kindly heart there was no sour corner for ill blood to lurk in, and no dull fibre for ill-will to feed on. He kept on meaning ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... bad," he said to his wife, after describing the events of the day. "So far as I can see there are but two alternatives—either peace or a long and destructive war with failure at its end. It is even more hopeless trying to conquer a vast country like this, defended by irregulars, than if we had a trained and disciplined army to deal with. In that case two or three signal victories might bring the war to a conclusion; but fighting with irregulars, a victory means nothing ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty
... her friend, replying to the bachelor, "we acquire drawing-room graces more easily; but why? Because most of us think we must. A man may find success in one direction or another; but a woman has got to be a social success, or she's a complete failure. She can't snap ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... roof. Before him, on yellowing paper, was old Gid's name, and at it he slowly shook his head, for fretfully he nursed the consciousness of having for years been the dupe of that man's humorous rascality. The plantation was productive, the old fellow had gathered many a fine crop, and for his failure to pay rent there could be no excuse, except the apologies devised by his own trickish invention. Year after year, in his appeals for further indulgence, he had set up the plea of vague obligations pressing upon him, some old debt that he was striving to wipe out and ...
— An Arkansas Planter • Opie Percival Read
... if you turn out badly when the year is over he will be blamed, and his experiment prove a failure. That would be a pity, wouldn't it? when he wants to do so much for you, and can do it if his kind heart does not get in the way ...
— Eight Cousins • Louisa M. Alcott
... Johnson writes tragedy," said Garrick, "'declamation roars and passion sleeps':* when Shakespeare wrote, he dipped the pen in his own heart." Garrick did what he could with the play, but it was a failure, and although Johnson continued to believe that it was good, he wrote no ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... the police made sure that everything was right. Much relieved by this performance, the boys waited anxiously for a reply, and when it came found little comfort in it. Cousin Horace had done his duty like a man, but regretted that he could only report a failure. The owner of the black poodle was a suspicious character, but told a straight story, how he had bought the dog from a stranger, and exhibited him with success till he was stolen. Knew nothing of his history ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, Nov 1877-Nov 1878 - Scribner's Illustrated • Various
... wind I heard the game go forward—stroke after stroke. I tried to believe that I could not hear voices; but that attempt was a failure. ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... brazen noises of the mighty city, sounded like a requiem to him as in the darkest part of the promenade deck he leaned over the railing and nursed his agony, the supreme agony of an ambitious man—failure. ...
— The Pawns Count • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Brand, turning with lazy indifference toward Padre Ricardo, "ever after this I resolved not to take the risk of such another chance of failure, and this is the reason why I first ...
— Captain Brand of the "Centipede" • H. A. (Henry Augustus) Wise
... been told by a great many men that the idea I have, that by restoring competition you can restore industrial freedom, is based upon a failure to observe the actual happenings of the last decades in this country; because, they say, it is just free competition that has made it possible for the big to crush ...
— The New Freedom - A Call For the Emancipation of the Generous Energies of a People • Woodrow Wilson
... once produce a circular motion. "Of the many rotary engines heretofore offered to the notice of the world," he wrote, in 1833, "none have stood the test of practical use and experience. The cause of this uniform failure has been the great difficulty of obtaining, within the machine, a base of resistance on which the steam might act in propelling the moveable piston." He did not quite overcome this difficulty, but he succeeded in producing what the foremost critic ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane
... others as foolishly suspected—we have occasionally listened to advice which should not have been taken, or rejected what would have proved advantageous; and the consequence has been some diminution of fortune, some disappointment of our expectations, some failure in the crop of earthly enjoyment which we had anticipated. If it were possible to recall the years which have for ever rolled away, or if the felicity of a rational and immortal being consisted in the possession of temporal ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. II • Francis Augustus Cox
... been made to find compounds which do not conform to these laws, but all such attempts have resulted in failure. If such compounds should be found, the laws would be no longer true, and the hypothesis of Dalton would cease to possess value. When an hypothesis has been tested in every way in which experiment can ...
— An Elementary Study of Chemistry • William McPherson
... all in hardware, drugs, or law, runs the risk of failure. If his neighbor can rise earlier, walk faster, talk faster, work harder, and hold on longer, he will get the avails that might suffice for both. This unalterable ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... however, and never gave the faculty reason to complain of any failure on our part to keep up in our studies. When examination time came we hired an impecunious coach and, retiring from the world, acquired in five days knowledge that our fellows had taken eight months to imbibe. It is true that the college at large viewed us with some disgust, but we chose ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... thorough failure, for before many minutes had passed, his thinking powers seemed to be rendered misty by a sunny glow through which he was wafted back to England, Kent, and his own ...
— Fitz the Filibuster • George Manville Fenn
... from the Emperor. If circumstances proved favourable to his daring project, this treaty with the Emperor facilitated its execution; if on the contrary, the course of things ran counter to it, it would at least afford him a brilliant compensation for the failure of his plans. But how could he consider an agreement valid, which was extorted from his sovereign, and based upon treason? How could he hope to bind the Emperor by a written agreement, in the face of a law which condemned to ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.
... United States, annoyed by the failure of this naval campaign in the Mediterranean, resolved to act with more vigor in that direction. A squadron of seven vessels was placed under the command of Commodore Preble, and sent to ...
— Harper's Young People, July 27, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... which she was subjected thereafter she made no sign, possibly because she eluded it whenever she felt inclined with the utmost ease, and no tales were carried back. The servants beneath Mrs. Halstead's iron rule were too fearful of losing their positions to admit a failure of duty unless they were cornered and secretly they sympathized with the strange young lady. Thus Willa came and went as her pleasure dictated in ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... friends left, and Mr. McGibony, a detective, is one of them. I think I can trust him. He was to have come North to escort my husband to Montgomery, if the Governor had granted the requisition; but he would not, and Maroney will hear of my failure to-day, as I wrote to him last evening. De Forest is a useful friend, and I think him also a very handsome man. I left Montgomery, feeling very unhappy, and was obliged to go to Athens and Danielsville. ...
— The Expressman and the Detective • Allan Pinkerton
... although well treated, not driven from their native land, and kept from the use of spirits. He attributes this, in great part, to the undoubted fact that the men greatly exceed the women in number; but he does not know whether this is due to a failure of female offspring, or to more females dying during early youth. The latter alternative, according to all analogy, is very improbable. He adds that "infanticide, properly so called, is not common, though very frequent recourse is had to abortion." If ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... that is satisfied with the present unhappy condition of society? It is conceded that life is a dark and wretched failure for the great mass of mankind. The many are plundered to enrich the few. Vast combinations depress the price of labor and increase the cost of the necessaries of existence. The rich, as a rule, despise the poor; and the poor are coming to hate the rich. The face of labor grows sullen; the old tender ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... failure, when he flung the dagger on the floor of the House of Commons, and produced nothing but a smothered laugh, and a joke from Sheridan.—"The gentleman has brought us the knife, but where ...
— The Jest Book - The Choicest Anecdotes and Sayings • Mark Lemon
... fun with Cap'n Jonadab over his not landing a rich husband for the Seabury girl. Looked like the millionaire crop was going to be a failure that summer. ...
— Cape Cod Stories - The Old Home House • Joseph C. Lincoln
... had rung the bell, and the servants, who were equally interested as their master in Turk's failure to perform his mission, had attended the summons. The dog was taken downstairs, and immediately placed in a large tub of hot water, in which he was accustomed to be bathed. It was now discovered that in addition to mud and dirt, which almost ...
— The Junior Classics Volume 8 - Animal and Nature Stories • Selected and arranged by William Patten
... a large supper at the Savoy, and I sat next to Charley Wimpole. He came in late, after everybody had finished, and I attacked him while he was eating his supper. He said he had been rehearsing 'Caste' after the performance; that they've put it on as a stop-gap on account of the failure of the 'Triflers,' and that he knew revivals were of no use; that he would give any sum for a good modern comedy. That was my cue, and I told him I knew of a better comedy than any he had produced at his theatre in five years, and that it was going begging. ...
— The Lion and the Unicorn and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... already crying the news of the downfall of his house when, late that afternoon, Philip pushed aside the velvet curtain and stepped into Adam's studio. He had bought an extra on his way uptown and held it in his hand. "Failure in Wall Street! Philip Colton & Co. ...
— Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman • F. Hopkinson Smith
... in the centre of this battle, which became continually more fierce, until she was eighteen. Then she fell in love with Mark Sirrett, married him, and left her parents alone with their mutual hostility, now complicated by a sort of paralysis of surprise and sense of mutual failure. They had forgotten that their child's future might hold a lover, a husband. Now they found themselves in the rather absurd position of enemies who have quarrelled over a shadow which suddenly vanishes away. They had lost their love for each ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens
... in comedies such as "Troilus" and "Measure for Measure." Disappointment, disillusion, a new sense of the evil and foulness that underlie so much of human life, a loss of the old frank trust in its beauty and goodness, threw their gloom over these comedies. Failure seems everywhere. In "Julius Caesar" the virtue of Brutus is foiled by its ignorance of and isolation from mankind; in Hamlet even penetrating intellect proves helpless for want of the capacity of action; the poison of ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green
... that she would break the bad news to him herself, Tess keeping out of sight for the present. After her first burst of disappointment Joan began to take the mishap as she had taken Tess's original trouble, as she would have taken a wet holiday or failure in the potato-crop; as a thing which had come upon them irrespective of desert or folly; a chance external impingement to be ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... movements, and then, with a war-whoop, rush in three or four at a time upon a body of Christians twenty times their number, giving no quarter, expecting none—to die, or to conquer! The expedition was not a failure, but it gained little. The Spanish flag was hoisted in several places, including Sulu (Jolo), where it remained from February 29, 1876, until the Spanish evacuation of the Islands ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... from reading an account of the failure of a large Wall Street brokerage house, Kerr Parker & Co., and the peculiar suicide of Kerr Parker. "Yes, it's impossible, just as it is impossible for the regular detectives to antagonize the newspapers. Scotland Yard found that ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... Signor Alberti Bozetti. The first bass is Signor Tomassi, and the buffo bass Signor Spontini. They have been so much prone, and public expectation has been so much excited, that we supposed it probable that the first evening at least would be a failure to a certain extent. Besides, the Mexican audience, if not very experienced, is decidedly musical; and they have already had a pretty good opera here, have heard Madame Albini, la Cesari, Garcia (the father of Malibran) and the beux restes ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... Cochrane, "that you don't mind the test being made, so long as you don't have to accept responsibility for its failure—and so long as you get the credit for its success if it works. ...
— Operation: Outer Space • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... first bewildering sense of failure—not knowing what to say or what to do next—Mrs. Ferrari mechanically obeyed. Lady Montbarry, rising on the sofa for the first time, watched her with undisguised scrutiny as she crossed the room—then sank back into a reclining position once more. ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins
... laxing tension about the men that morning. There was delay in getting to work, which might have been accounted for by the cessation of one job and the starting of another. But knowing what he did, Stratton felt that the flat failure of their plot had ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... more on the subject. We have failed, and accounting for won't mend the failure. As for this bull-headed fellow, he deserves his fate for his old insolence. He was for ever putting himself in my way, and may not complain that I have at last put him out of it. But come, we have no further need to remain here, though just as little ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... fifteen minutes must have occurred between the moment when Guert discharged his rifle and that in which the battle really began. All this time the fire was gathering head, our tardy attempts to extinguish it proving a complete failure. But little apprehension was felt on this account, however, the flames proving an advantage, by casting their light far into the fields, and even below the rocks, while they did not reach the court at all; thus placing a portion of ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... persons unseen greeted Tik-Tok's failure, and the new arrivals in this strange land found it very uncomfortable to realize that there were many creatures around them who were invisible, ...
— Tik-Tok of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... heterodoxies; but he did not love the school, and as long as he was able had taught his boys himself, and likewise taken a few day-pupils of the upper ranks, who were preparing for public schools. But when his failure of health rendered this impracticable, the positive evil of idleness was, he felt greater than any possible ones that might arise from either the teaching or the associations of the town school, and he trusted to home influence to counteract any such ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... recollect, it kept raining in torrents; dripping down Quarter-master Shoemaker's pants into his boots; running over Colonel Anderson's back. Major Christopher looked dry, in order to get a drink: but that was a failure. Captain Westcott looked sad; in fact he said it was the wettest time he ever knew or heard tell of—wondered if old Noah ever ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett
... the necessity of being born again. Soon he renounces the life of contemplation, and during fifty years of ceaseless wanderings preaches, makes converts, organizes his followers. Whether true or false historically, this tale is psychologically exact. A fixed and besetting idea, trial followed by failure, the decisive moment of Eureka! then the inner revelation manifests itself outwardly, and through the labors of the master and his disciples becomes complete, imposes itself on millions of men. In what respect does this mode of creation differ ...
— Essay on the Creative Imagination • Th. Ribot
... as if he had ever done manual labor. He was too young to have turned from ill health or failure in the city to the refuge of the land. Indeed, his quiet gray suit of good material indicated unostentatious prosperity. Evidently he was well-bred and evidently he was not an agent for a new style of seeding ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... Falklands on October 22 to join the Monmouth, Glasgow, and auxiliary cruiser Otranto in a sweep along the west coast. The old battleship Canopus, with 12-inch guns, but only 12 knots cruising speed, was properly judged too slow to keep with the squadron. It is difficult to say whether the failure to send Cradock reenforcements at this time from either the Atlantic or the Pacific was justified by the preoccupations in those fields. Needless to say, there was no hesitation, after Coronel, in hurrying ships to the scene. On November 1, when the Admiralty Board was reorganized with ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... soiling and drooling. Even those reflexes which are only partially under voluntary control, like those of blinking and swallowing, may be in abeyance; for instance, saliva may collect in the mouth because it is not swallowed, and tube-feeding is frequently necessary on account of the failure of the patient to swallow anything that is put into his mouth. The eyes may remain open for such long periods of time that the conjunctiva and sclera may become quite dry and ulcerate. In these extreme cases there is, of course, no response to verbal commands. What is more striking, ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch
... works." These tools, he said, "have increased in number just like those in the modern mechanical workshop—the men who work them remain the same." Reuleaux went on to say that the theory and practice of machine-kinematics had "carried on a separate existence side by side." The reason for this failure to apply theory to practice, and vice versa, must be sought in the defects of the theory, he thought, because "the mechanisms themselves have been quietly developed in practical machine-design, by invention and improvement, regardless of whether or not they were accorded ...
— Kinematics of Mechanisms from the Time of Watt • Eugene S. Ferguson
... troubles. This peculiarity gave rise to unfavorable comments in the public press of the North, and to unfounded apprehensions in the popular mind. There was fear that he was either indifferent to the peril, or that he failed to comprehend it. The people did not understand Mr. Lincoln. The failure to comprehend was on their part, not on his. Had he on that journey gratified the aggressive friends of the Union who had supported him for the Presidency, he would have added immeasurably to the serious troubles which already confronted ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... worse with failure. Seeking to injure his former people and failing at every turn, Braxton Wyatt hated them more and more all the time. His wrath was particularly directed against the five who had been such great instruments in sending his careful plans astray. His scheme with the Indian league had failed ...
— The Free Rangers - A Story of the Early Days Along the Mississippi • Joseph A. Altsheler
... crushing things he had said to the wicked bosses during those victorious resignings.... Clerk in a general store, in a clothing-store, in a hardware-store—all these in Ohio. A quite excusable, almost laudable, failure in his own hardware-store in a tiny Wisconsin town. Half a dozen clerkships. Collector for a harvester company in Nebraska, going from farm to farm by buggy. Traveling salesman for a St. Paul wholesaler, for a Chicago clothing-house. Married. Partner with his brother-in-law in a drug, ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... the Vicar of a country Church in Wales; but owing to the total failure of my last attempt to distrain on the stock of a neighbouring farmer, on which occasion I was tossed over a hedge by an infuriated cow, my family and myself are starving. I wish to know if I can legally pawn the lectern, the ancient ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 25, 1891 • Various
... speaking her wish to find Constance, and Mr. Travers' failure, came to her mind, and she eagerly caught ...
— Fan • Henry Harford
... to make a dash for his life as soon as the cover should take fire, and he peered up into the soldier's face as the latter blew on the brand; but the flame had died, the thistles were not dry, and the fire was a failure; so, growling again, the soldier threw down the smoking stick and went away. As soon as he was safely afar, Rolf gathered a handful of soil and ...
— Rolf In The Woods • Ernest Thompson Seton
... eagerly, and they both looked into the hiding-place, expecting what should be there. It was empty! They looked into each other's faces with blank astonishment. Everything had been so strangely true, and so strangely false, up to this moment, that they could not comprehend this failure at the last moment. It was the strangest, saddest jest! It brought Middleton up with such a sudden revulsion that he grew dizzy, and the room swam round him and the cabinet dazzled before his eyes. It had been magnified to a palace; it had dwindled down to Liliputian size; and yet, up ...
— The Ancestral Footstep (fragment) - Outlines of an English Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... greatness of soul, so the pusillanimous man shrinks from great things out of littleness of soul. Secondly, it may be considered in reference to its cause, which on the part of the intellect is ignorance of one's own qualification, and on the part of the appetite is the fear of failure in what one falsely deems to exceed one's ability. Thirdly, it may be considered in reference to its effect, which is to shrink from the great things of which one is worthy. But, as stated above (Q. 132, A. 2, ad 3), opposition between vice and virtue depends rather on their respective ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... deserves the attention of science. But no advance will be made till scientifically trained inquirers themselves arrange and test a large number of experiments. Knowledge of the geological ignorance of the dowsers, examples of fraud on their part, and cases of failure or reported failure, with a general hostile bias, may prevent such experiments from being made by scientific experts on an adequate scale. Such experts ought, of course, to avoid working the dowsers ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... difficulty and danger—succeeded in reaching the reserves of Sir Henry Barnard's division, which was to have stormed something, I forget what; but when they found the attack upon the Redan was a failure, very wisely abstained. Here I found plenty of officers who soon relieved me of my refreshments, and some wounded men who found the contents of my bag very useful. At length I made my way to the Woronzoff ...
— Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands • Mary Seacole
... complete their misfortunes, the Liverpool public did not in the least tumble to Miss Beaumont's rendering of the part of the heroine. The gallery thought she was too fat, the papers said she was not sprightly enough, and on Wednesday night the old Cloches had to be put up. By this failure the management sustained a heavy loss. They had laid out a lot of money on dresses, property and scenery, all of which were now useless to them; and the other two operas were beginning to droop and lose their drawing power, having been on the road for the last three years. ...
— A Mummer's Wife • George Moore
... was as nearly certain as it was possible to be. Yet, if he had remembered what had been the end of campaigns adorned by the brilliant victories of Crecy and Poitiers, he might have known that all that he could do would end in ultimate failure, and that the day must come when divided France would unite to cast out, if not himself, at least his heirs. It was significant that when his Chancellor, Beaufort, announced to Parliament the king's intention, he took for his text, after the manner of political speakers in ...
— A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) - From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII • Samuel Rawson Gardiner
... fiancee, the leading lady; and continued in it as jeune premier because she refused to be made love to on the stage by anybody else. In assuming a role for which he was incredibly ill-qualified he seemed likely to facilitate the achievement of his purpose, namely to make the play a hopeless failure and so secure the deliverance of his lady from the thraldom of her mother's ambitions and set ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. CL, April 26, 1916 • Various
... was an eccentric but kind hearted man, given over entirely to scientific farming, of which, so far, sad to relate, he had made a rather costly failure. He spent all of his time over his agricultural books and in the fields, and was glad enough to get the boys off his hands by sending them to ...
— The Rover Boys on the Ocean • Arthur M. Winfield
... supervision, care, inspection, surveillance, control, charge; overlooking, connivance, omission, failure, inadvertence, default, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... all untruths unlawful," forgetful of the Egyptian midwives, and Rahab, and Solomon, and even of Him "who, the more to touch the hearts of the disciples with a holy dalliance, made as though he would have passed Emmaus." He is thinking of their failure to apply a principle which was characteristic of his mode of thought, that even a statement about a virtue like veracity "hath limit as all things else have;" but it is odd to find Bacon bringing against ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... My deliberate failure is "The Night of Nuptials." I discovered an allusion to the case of Charles the Bold and Sapphira Danvelt in Macaulay's "History of England"—quoted from an old number of the "Spectator"—whilst I was working upon the case of Lady Alice Lisle. There a similar episode is mentioned as being ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... science entered pell-mell. Which came off the worse, I neither know nor care, believing defeat to be far less discreditable to either party, and especially to the students, than the fact of their engaging in such a brawl. Where the matter itself is essentially disgraceful, success or failure is indifferent, as it regards the honor of the actors. Among the Dragoners, a great bully of a fellow, who appeared to be their leader, wielded a huge club, formed from an oak limb, with a gnarled excrescence on the end, heavy enough to battle with an elephant. A student remarkable for his ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... beauty of tender green; its wealth of blossoms, and sweet fragrance of growing things. Then came the summer; that terrible summer, when all the promises of spring were broken; when no rain fell for weary months, and the settlers, in the total failure of ...
— The Shepherd of the Hills • Harold Bell Wright
... between life and death, with a terrible fever, so ill that he could do nothing. He knew that he was now so weak that he would never be able to go and preach to the Saracens and be martyred. He would have to go home again, a failure. This was much harder to him than any danger or suffering, and the way he bore it, cheerfully and patiently for the love of Christ, made him much more pleasing to God than anything else. For God loves humble people, who are willing to do His Will, ...
— Stories of the Saints by Candle-Light • Vera C. Barclay
... influences which they would dread above all others. There is no right to offer, except to men, capable of its thorough apprehension, any new or questionable or unsettled doctrine. Prof. Agassiz should have been in a condition to receive in his own person the consequences of a failure to establish his theory. We have no fears as to the result of the controversy upon which he has entered. No man worthy to be called a Christian scholar, deprecates the subjection of the Bible to any tests that are possible. It has withstood in the last two centuries ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Vol. I. No. 3, July 15, 1850 • Various
... acts was to issue, under his own name, two violent works for the purpose of inciting the Catholics of England to rise against Elizabeth: "The Declaration of the Sentence of Sixtus V.'' a broadside, and a book, All Admonition to the nobility and people of England (Antwerp, 1588). On the failure of the Armada, Philip, to get rid of the burthen of supporting Allen as a cardinal, nominated him to the archbishopric of Malines, but the canonical appointment was never made. Gregory XIV. made him librarian ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... and by those who reject it. Negative criticism has assailed the doctrine and has devised ingenious theories to explain on natural grounds the testimony on which it is received. The diversity of such explanations goes far to refute them, and their utter failure to account for the marvellous effects which the appearances of the risen Jesus produced on the witnesses, or for the place which the doctrine held in their teaching, has tended rather to establish than to discredit the reality ...
— Exposition of the Apostles Creed • James Dodds
... There is no difference between the growth of a plant and the prosperous development of an experience. It is not easy, in either case, to seize upon just the factors which make for its best movement. But study of cases of success and failure and minute and extensive comparison, helps to seize upon causes. When we have arranged these causes in order, we have a method ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey
... me no effect with your gesture of Hippocrates refusing Artaxerxes' bric-a-brac. I excuse you from the task of soothing me. Moreover, I am sad. What do you wish me to say to you? Man is evil, man is deformed; the butterfly is a success, man is a failure. God made a mistake with that animal. A crowd offers a choice of ugliness. The first comer is a wretch, Femme—woman—rhymes with infame,—infamous. Yes, I have the spleen, complicated with melancholy, with homesickness, plus hypochondria, and I am vexed and ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... in the course of that contest had exhibited the most heroic examples of promptitude and courage, were nautically represented, we may suppose, by the elite who walked the decks of the Alceste and the Medusa. If any calamity should happen to either, it could not be attributed to a failure of that brilliant gallantry, which the English and French had equally displayed on the ...
— Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly
... came when the detective was recalled to London and heartily chaffed for his failure; but his own unusual disappointment disarmed the amusement at his expense. The case had presented such few apparent difficulties that Brendon's complete unsuccess astonished his chief. He was content, however, to believe Mark's own conviction: that ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... since, go to prove how often we get off the track. There is no gauge of collegiate conduct whatever, until we can get evidence of the man's work in the world. Your precious scoundrel's evidence is now all in and he is a failure, ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... him drew closer, arranging the folds of the ample veil which partially concealed her face, so that she might watch more closely. But it was on Don Ambrogio Morelli that she fixed her gaze with painful intensity, reading the success or failure of the ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... just coming in by the Allen trail. The Irishman was much crestfallen over his failure to find a better trail than that selected by the scout, and Rosy was giving it to ...
— The Boy Land Boomer - Dick Arbuckle's Adventures in Oklahoma • Ralph Bonehill
... in Maternal Instinct. As a closing contribution to our observations on the chimpanzee, I must record a tragic failure in maternal instinct, as well as in general intelligence, ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... heart of his thought, leaving no ribbon or flower of rhetoric to flutter in the eyes of those with whom he would be utterly honest. And when he had done he read the speech and dropped it from his hand to the floor and stared again from the window. It was the best he could do, and it was a failure. So, with the pang of the workman who believes his work done wrong, he lifted and folded the torn bit of paper and put it in his pocket, and put aside the thought of it, as of a bad thing which he might not better, and turned and ...
— The Perfect Tribute • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... or near, 480 Broadway, New York. No bounties were offered, and, while we all did our best, the result was nearly a failure. Not more than a dozen good men were secured. Our party was heartily sick of the job and sincerely desired to be returned to ...
— Personal Recollections of the War of 1861 • Charles Augustus Fuller
... interest, and Judy, when she dared, took advantage of this for the remission of Black Sheep's penalties. Failures in lessons at school were furnished at home by a week without reading other than schoolbooks, and Harry brought the news of such a failure with glee. Further, Black Sheep was then bound to repeat his lessons at bedtime to Harry, who generally succeeded in making him break down, and consoled him by gloomiest forebodings for the morrow. Harry was at once spy, practical ...
— Kipling Stories and Poems Every Child Should Know, Book II • Rudyard Kipling |
