"Flaw" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... gloomy silence followed, but suddenly Crass brightened up. He detected a serious flaw in ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... ill-natur'd Discoveries with a secret Pride, and applaud themselves for the Singularity of their Judgment which has searched deeper than others, detected what the rest of the World have overlooked, and found a Flaw in what the Generality of Mankind admires. Others there are who proclaim the Errors and Infirmities of a great Man with an inward Satisfaction and Complacency, if they discover none of the like Errors and Infirmities in themselves; for while they are exposing anothers Weaknesses, they are ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... crab, with a sigh, "I made that rule for others, and not for myself. I see now that there is a flaw in it." ...
— The Diving Bell - Or, Pearls to be Sought for • Francis C. Woodworth
... Juan's wedding In her own mind, and that's enough for woman; But then with whom? There was the sage Miss Redding, Miss Raw, Miss Flaw, Miss Showman and Miss Knowman, And the two fair co-heiresses Giltbedding. She deem'd his merits something more than common. All these were unobjectionable matches, And might go on, it well wound up, like ...
— Newton Forster • Frederick Marryat
... readers. The law as there laid down was drawn up and administered by the Brehons, who were the judges and the law-makers of the people, and whose decision was appealed to in all matters of dispute. The most serious flaw of the system—a very serious one it will be seen—was that, owing to the scattered and tribal existence prevailing, there was no strong central rule behind the Brehon, as there is behind the modern judge, ready and able to enforce his ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless
... States, learned to speak English very well, and was residing in Rome 'to perfect himself as an artist.' He had, when Caper first met him, been there two years. In all this time he had never entered the Vatican, and having been told that Michael Angelo's Last Judgment was found to have a flaw in it, he had been waiting for repairs before passing his opinion thereon. On the other hand, he had studied the Roman plebe, the people, with all his might. He knew how they slept, eat, drank, loved, made their little economies, clothed themselves, and, above ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... instant naked, and knew that one of them was evil. One of them was vile. Blackness touched the picture there. The man, his name still out of reach, was sinister, impure and dark at the heart. And for this reason the evocation had been partial only. The admixture of an evil motive was the flaw that marred complete success. ...
— Four Weird Tales • Algernon Blackwood
... which they had driven the jury. He was therefore reprieved, and committed to the Tower, where his wife was allowed to bear him company, and where his youngest son was born. His estates were, in general, preserved to him, but Carr, the infamous minion of the King, under some pretext of a flaw in the conveyance of it by Raleigh to his son, seized upon his manor of Sherborne. In the Tower he continued for twelve years. These years his industry and genius rendered the happiest probably of his life. ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... a jeweller: but it is very large and pear-shaped, and I see no flaw: I don't think you could buy it for ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... lady," replied the traveller "he is an English lord, and, as they say, a Lord of Parliament—but some folk pretend to say there is a flaw in ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... perfectly purified heart. Clarify the medium of vision, and truth undiscerned before breaks on the observer's sight. A mile or two from here skilful artisans make those great object-glasses with which the mysteries of the stars are disclosed. The slightest speck or flaw blurs the image, but with the perfect glass stars unseen by any eye throughout the history of the world are to be in our days discovered. It is a parable of the soul. Each film on the object-glass of character obscures ...
— Mornings in the College Chapel - Short Addresses to Young Men on Personal Religion • Francis Greenwood Peabody
... He who first gave names, gave them according to his conception, and that may have been erroneous. 'But then, why, Socrates, is language so consistent? all words have the same laws.' Mere consistency is no test of truth. In geometrical problems, for example, there may be a flaw at the beginning, and yet the conclusion may follow consistently. And, therefore, a wise man will take especial care of first principles. But are words really consistent; are there not as many terms of praise ...
— Cratylus • Plato
... be superfluous. However it may be, I get much pleasure in the companionship of this lovely creature, the single flaw in the fine fabric of your villainy. Do not fear her convincing me. ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller
... sometimes an actress, sometimes a beautiful Spaniard; but it was always agreed that the Earl of Dorincourt was her deadly enemy, and would not acknowledge her son as his heir if he could help it, and as there seemed to be some slight flaw in the papers she had produced, it was expected that there would be a long trial, which would be far more interesting than anything ever carried into court before. Mr. Hobbs used to read the papers until his head was in a whirl, and in the evening he and Dick would talk it ...
— Little Lord Fauntleroy • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... and the same year it was that called forth Grattan and the Irish volunteers. These volunteers came forward as allies of England against French and Spanish invasion; but once embattled, what should hinder them from detecting a flaw in their commission, and reading it as valid against England herself? In that sense they did read it. That Ireland had seen her own case dimly reflected in that of America, and that such a reference was stirring through the national ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... and turn'd to clay, [Sidenote: Imperious] Might stop a hole to keepe the winde away. Oh, that that earth, which kept the world in awe, Should patch a Wall, t'expell the winters flaw.[4] [Sidenote: waters flaw.] But soft, but soft, aside; heere comes the King. [Sidenote: , but soft ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald
... white-hot fire; and, on the other hand, I suppose the chief bar to the action of imagination, and stop to all greatness in this present age of ours, is its mean and shallow love of jest and jeer, so that if there be in any good and lofty work a flaw or failing, or undipped vulnerable part where sarcasm may stick or stay, it is caught at, and pointed at, and buzzed about, and fixed upon, and stung into, as a recent wound is by flies, and nothing is ever taken seriously nor as it was meant, but always, if it may be, ...
— Modern Painters Volume II (of V) • John Ruskin
... rounds of the rooms with conscientious care, observing, admiring, suggesting, with just that mingling of shyness and interest with which a woman in her situation would view her future home. Having got, by intuition, the idea that he was watching for some flaw in her manner, she was determined that he should find none. It was the beginning of that lifelong schooling to his service to which she had vowed herself, though the effort would have been easier had he not rendered her self-conscious by scanning ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King
... friendly, old-country expression that I have already mentioned: here it was somewhat marred, though, by an over-rigidity of the lines. It is unfortunate that our farmers, when they plant at all, will nearly always plant in straight lines. The straight line is a flaw where we try to blend the work of our hands with Nature. They also as a rule neglect shrubs that would help to furnish a foreground for their trees; and, worst of all, they are given to importing, instead of ...
— Over Prairie Trails • Frederick Philip Grove
... letter written in April of 1919 by her Vice-Chancellor, Mathias Erzberger, also her minister of finance? A very able, compact masterpiece of malignant voracity, good enough to do credit to Satan. Through that lucky flaw of stupidity which runs through apparently every German brain, and to which we chiefly owe our victory and temporary respite from the fangs of the wolf, Mathias Erzberger posted his letter. It went wrong in the mails. ...
— A Straight Deal - or The Ancient Grudge • Owen Wister
... Sikhs of the true Sikh baptism except for the eight of their officers who were European, Outram's Own swept down a living avenue of British troops; and neither gunners nor infantry could see one flaw in them, although picking flaws in native regiments is almost part of the British ...
— Winds of the World • Talbot Mundy
... cast him for one of the puppets. He seemed to see Fate as a thin female with a soppy expression and pince-nez, sniffing a little as she worked the thing out. He could picture her glutinous satisfaction as she re-read her scenario and gloated over its sure-fire qualities. There was not a flaw in the construction. It started off splendidly with a romantic meeting, had 'em guessing half-way through when the hero and heroine quarrelled and parted—apparently for ever, and now the stage was all set for the reconciliation and the slow fade-out ...
— The Girl on the Boat • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... came down upon the gale, and flew past, when it disappeared. I followed the white mass as it sailed down the wind; it did not, as it appeared to me, vanish in the darkness, but seemed to remain in sight to leeward, as if checked by a sudden flaw; yet none of our sails were taken aback. A thought flashed on me. I peered still more intensely into the night. I was now certain. "A sail, ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... think I can dispense with your verbal endorsement.' I felt a little bitter. It was, of course, better that the connoisseur should have discovered the flaw before concluding the transaction; but although I had pointed it out myself I was not entirely pleased ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... closes his only too faithful record. But his claims for his hero—amounting to the assertions that he was never seriously wrong; that he was as good as he was great; that "in the weightier matters of the law his life had been without speck or flaw"; that "such faults as he had were but as the vapours which hang about a mountain, inseparable from the nature of the man"; that he never, in their intercourse, uttered a "trivial word, nor one which he had better have ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... resolve to put it away; but when the great man returns, our knees knock and we are as weak as before. It is suicide to fly from such mortification. A brave boy faces it as well as he can. By-and-by the dazzle abates, he sees some flaw, some coarseness or softness, in this shining piece of metal; he begins to fathom the motives and measure the orbit of this tyrannous benefactor. They are the true friends who daunt and overpower us, to whom for a little we yield more ...
— The Atlantic Monthly , Volume 2, No. 14, December 1858 • Various
... or deposited with, the person whom he succeeds, to be a portion of the inheritance, sells or gives it by way of dowry to another who receives it in good faith, there is no doubt that the latter can acquire the ownership of it by usucapion; for the thing is here not tainted with the flaw attaching to stolen property, because an heir does not commit a theft who in good faith conveys a thing away believing ...
— The Institutes of Justinian • Caesar Flavius Justinian
... matter, Your Majesty, that the women naturally have a say in, so we have, of course, consulted them. They have discussed the matter by themselves, and then with us, and they are agreed without a flaw that it will be good for the Nation and for Womankind that you do this thing. You have shown to them, and to the world at large, what women should do, what they can do, and they want to make, in memory of your great act, the Shroud a garment of pride and honour for ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... "There was a flaw. The priest who performed the marriage was dead. The records were lost. The evil said there had been no marriage, and that you were no rightful member of the great family of De Clermont. We could not prove the marriage then and so you were left for ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... her husband, that Philip had been free from any unkind intention. But she chiefly dwelt on her own Guy, especially that last speech, so unlike some of whom she had heard, who were rather glad to find a flaw in a faultless model, if only to obtain ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... conscience clears me of the offence laid to my charge, and so far was I from avoiding investigation, that I courted it, and instructed my Counsel not to take advantage of any flaw, should there appear one in the indictment, but to force the trial ...
— The Trial of Charles Random de Berenger, Sir Thomas Cochrane, • William Brodie Gurney
... the presence of Home, even when he was not in physical contact with the object, the object moved: e pur si muove. He published a reply to Dr. Carpenter's criticism, and the common-sense of ordinary readers, at least, sees no flaw in Mr. Crookes's method and none in his argument. The experiments of the modern Psychical Society, with paid mediums, produced results, in Mr. Myers's opinion, 'not wholly unsatisfactory,' but far from leading to an affirmative conclusion, if by 'satisfactory' Mr. Myers means 'affirmative'. ...
— Cock Lane and Common-Sense • Andrew Lang
... puny efforts, because faith always sprang afresh in the success of each new venture. Many of the vessels could scarcely be said to be launched at all; they sank like lead, close to the shore. Others floated out for a time, and then, struck by a flaw in the wind, heeled over and disappeared. Some, not well put together, broke into fragments in the bufleting of the waves. Others danced on the flood, taking the sun on their sails, and went away with ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... room which had nice colors in it, clean from the skirting of the boards to the corners of the ceiling, seemed to suit her so thoroughly that she used at first to hunt about for some one to apologize to, or for some flaw in the situation. She had now been six months in London, and she could find no flaw, but that, as she invariably concluded by the time her boots were laced, was solely and entirely due to the fact that she had ...
— Night and Day • Virginia Woolf
... work of genius. But, oh! Jaffery, I do want it to be without a flaw. Don't hate me, dear—I know you've done all that mortal man could do for Adrian and for me. But it isn't your fault if you're not a professional novelist or an imaginative writer. And you, yourself, said the bridges were clumsy. ...
— Jaffery • William J. Locke
... from the galactic plane we perceive that the density decreases with great rapidity. So far we can perceive no flaw in this reasoning if only it be granted (1) that the level planes are continuous and of equal density throughout; and (2) that an absolute and definite limit is set to telescopic vision, beyond which, if stars exist, they elude our sight, and are to us as if they existed not. It would appear ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various
... herself in fury and in despair. The Fates had stung her too hard this time, and she must blaspheme against them with her voice of the streets, her language of the streets, her poor heart—not quite of the streets. The Fates had stung her too hard, for they had put a flaw even in this one self-respect of hers. That one night accused her whenever she thought of Julian, whenever she saw the dissipation deepen round his eyes. She was not to have even one thing that she could be quite proud of; not one thing of which ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... ludicrously devout. She disturbed their devotions, this girl who had betrayed her father, her faith, her class. She ought to repent, of course, and Church was the right place; yet there was something brazen in her repenting there before their very eyes; she was too palpable a flaw in the crystal of the Church's authority, too visible a rent in the raiment of their priest. Her figure focused all the uneasy amazement and heart searchings of these last weeks. Mothers quivered with the knowledge that their daughters could see her; wives with the idea that ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... ignorant girl. Why, there were not six men in the world who had ever reflected that words forced out of a person by horrible tortures were not necessarily words of verity and truth, yet this unlettered peasant-girl put her finger upon that flaw with an unerring instinct. I had always supposed that torture brought out the truth—everybody supposed it; and when Joan came out with those simple common-sense words they seemed to flood the place with light. It was like a lightning-flash at midnight ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Luis on his sentry-march had his back to him, he drew out the blade and turned it under the moon, watching the cold light shiver and flash up along it and down. Not fleck or flaw was upon it; it showed the moon whole within its face. This pair, each absorbed in his own business, ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett
... The great flaw in the teaching of the Old Philosopher was its extremely impractical character, its unsuitability to the needs of men and women engaged in the ordinary avocations of life. In one sense he was an Anarchist, for he held that ...
— The Civilization Of China • Herbert A. Giles
... stood out in the transparent air! How audibly the little ripples on the beach whispered to the open sky! How our irreverent voices seemed to jar upon the privacy of the little cove! The mossy rocks doubled themselves without a flaw in the clear, dark water. The gleaming white beach lay fringed with its deep deposits of odorous sea-weed, gleaming black. The steep, straggling sides of the cliffs raised aloft their rugged angles against the burning blue of the sky. I remember, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... She replied, "By Allah, though thou cut my flesh to bits I will not forswear the faith of Al-Islam! It may be Almighty Allah will bring me speedy relief, for He cloth even as He is fief, and the wise say: 'Better body to scathe than a flaw in faith.'" Thereupon the old man called his eunuchs and women, saying, "Throw her down!" So they threw her down and he ceased not to beat her with grievous beating, whilst she cried for help and no help came; then she no longer ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... conception of which had come to him in 1764 in Rome whilst "musing amongst the ruins of the Capitol"; in 1787 his great work was finished at Lausanne, where he had resided since 1783; modern criticism, working with fresh sources of information, has failed to find any serious flaw in the fabric of this masterpiece in history, but the cynical attitude adopted towards the Christian religion has always been regarded as a defect; "a man of endless reading and research," was Carlyle's ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... increasing because whenever he pressed his ear to the wall he could hear the almost inaudible tickings and vibrations as the bubble's skin contracted or expanded and the Nothing tapped and searched with its empty fingers for a flaw or crack that it could tear into ...
— The Nothing Equation • Tom Godwin
... live in fear their power and position would collapse were their own people to acquire knowledge, information, comprehension about our free society. Their world has many elements of strength, but this one fatal flaw: the weakness represented by their iron curtain and their police state. Surely, a social order at once so insecure and so fearful, must ultimately lose its competition with our ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... Again it came over her, when she saw the brightness, the happy look, the girl brought back, as it had done in the earlier months, that the great trouble was that weak spot of Verena's, that sole infirmity and subtle flaw, which she had expressed to her very soon after they began to live together, in saying (she remembered it through the ineffaceable impression made by her friend's avowal), "I'll tell you what is the matter with you—you don't dislike men as a class!" Verena ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James
... bad! I don't blame you for not wanting to talk about it. They's a flaw in everything, Jig, and this is yours. If I was to be around you much, ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... two Generals, equal in battle, face to face for the first time—could not give the total of the day. It was still an unadded sum, and the guns, despite the night, were steadily contributing new figures. This was the flaw in their arithmetic; nothing was complete, and they saw that they would have to begin again to-morrow. So, with this day's work yet unfinished, they began to prepare, sending for new regiments and brigades, massing more ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... break; The orb of life as it takes the light On one side leaves the other in night. Never was saint so good and great As to give no chance at St. Peter's gate For the plea of the Devil's advocate. So, incomplete by his being's law, The marvellous preacher had his flaw; With step unequal, and lame with faults, His shade on the path ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... transmitters exactly as Mr. Bell requested; but on testing them out, great was the surprise of the inventor to find that his idea, so feasible in theory, refused to work. Nevertheless, his faith was not shaken. He insisted on trying to discover the flaw in his logic and correct it, and as Watson had now completed some work that he had been doing for Moses Farmer, the two began a series of ...
— Ted and the Telephone • Sara Ware Bassett
... inclined toward suffrage. Nothing of the kind. Intensely romantic, she determined to await the grand passion or go it alone. No experimental adventures for her. Be assured that she weighed every new man she met, and finding some flaw discarded him as a matrimonial possibility. Besides, her unusual facilities to view and judge men had shown her masculine phases the average woman would have discovered only after the fatal knot was tied. She did not suspect that ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... butt of one of the pistols that adorned his belt, led the way toward the little settlement, wondering meanwhile what could possibly be the explanation of certain whiffs of a singularly vile and offensive odour which now and then assailed his nostrils when there occurred an occasional flaw in the trade-wind which was sweeping briskly over the island. He might, of course, have asked, but the thought occurred to him that by doing so he might perhaps be betraying his ignorance, and so lay himself open to the chance of being ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... singular, and vaguely asking himself why. It was a sudden new realisation of his physical perfection. His tall, great body was so complete in grace and strength, each line and muscle of it so fine a thing. In the workings of such a physical being there could be no flaw. There was such beauty in his countenance, such strength and faithful sweetness in his firm, full mouth, such pure, strong passion in the deeps of his large, kind, human eye. The handsomest and the tallest man in England he might be, but ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... aware we should attempt the passage north from Uganda. "Oh yes! of course Bana wrote to Bana Mdogo" (the little master) "as soon as he arrived in Uganda and told him and Rumanika all about it." "Wrote! what does that mean?" and I was called upon to explain. Mtesa, then seeing a flaw in K'yengo's statements, called him a story-teller; ordered him and his party away, and bade me ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... Goodrich, and Lily Tracy were still faithful in private—to the world all of them preserved a united front; they would not even discuss her with their children, much less their grandchildren; but they made up their minds that it would be for the good of her soul to let her see, with no flaw in their politeness, just what uncompromisingly sensible women of high moral and social responsibilities ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... ten seconds after I had unpacked it from its wrappings of tissue paper, I took it to the open window and had the satisfaction of seeing it shattered to atoms on the pavement). But stay! I perceive a flaw in my argument. Perhaps you were guided in your choice by a definite wish to insult me. I am sure, on reflection, that this is so. I shall ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor
... sports and his firsthand information in regard to them made common ground between him and Billy Fairfax. With Honey Smith, he talked business, adventure, and romance; with Pete Murphy, German opera, French literature, American muckraking, and Japanese art. The flaw which made him alien was not of personality ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... the perilous heights of public duty, and against all the shafts of malice has borne his breast unharmed. He has stood in the blaze of 'that fierce light that beats against the throne,' but its fiercest ray has found no flaw in his armor, no stain on his shield. I do not present him as a better Republican or as better man than thousands of others we honor, but I present him for your deliberate consideration. I nominate ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... in this morning's Times. You have never voiced the feeling of the moment with more force or keener insight. But you will, I am sure, pardon me when I say that in the fifty-eighth stanza there is a regrettable flaw, which could however quickly be put right. To me, that fine appeal to Monaco to give up its neutrality is impaired by the use of the word "cope," which I have always understood should be avoided by good writers. "Deal" has the same meaning and is a truer word. You will, I am sure, agree with me in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, March 7, 1917. • Various
... proved to demonstration by one of the most learned and responsible men of science in the world, and one of their most sarcastic and hitherto successful flouters had been compelled to confess that he could find no flaw in the calculations of this mathematical Daniel so unexpectedly come to judgment. They did not understand his proofs, but that was no reason why they should reject them, and so they rose as one man in support of their ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... what was the matter. As he hailed the small craft from the lofty poop of the bristling seventy-four, this lieutenant seemed standing on the top of Gibraltar, talking to some lowland peasant in a hut. The reply was, that in a sudden flaw of wind, which came nigh capsizing them, not an hour since, the cutter had lost all four foremost men by the violent jibing of a boom. She wanted help to get back ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... now to the family gathering in the palatial home of Mr. Courtney Van Winkle, just off Fifth Avenue (on the near east side), and it is December. Corky's wife bought the place, furnished. He couldn't stop her. The only flaw in the whole arrangement, according to the ambitious Grand Duchess, was the deplorable accident that admitted a trained nurse into the family circle. It would be very hard to live down. She never could understand why Mr. ...
— Her Weight in Gold • George Barr McCutcheon
... Salem. He was an abstemious man, one of a family of long lives, and he would linger here, increasingly unimportant, for a great while, an old man in new epochs, isolated among strange people and prejudices. Whatever the cause—the small safety or an inward flaw—he had never been part of the corporate sweating humanity where, in the war of spirit and flesh, the vital rewards and ...
— Java Head • Joseph Hergesheimer
... could not say good-bye to Mrs. Kane made the only flaw in Hetty's happiness; but she left a little note for her with Miss Davis, who promised to have it safely delivered. And then, with smiles and good wishes from everyone, and pondering over a few mysterious glances which she caught passing ...
— Hetty Gray - Nobody's Bairn • Rosa Mulholland
... and in the hospital, he repeatedly complained to me of the deficiency of the staffs. I reminded him of it, and he promised to do his best to organize a staff without a flaw. ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski
... and his Erigone; because that little work is without a flaw, is he therefore a greater poet than Archilochus, with all his disorderly profusion? greater than that impetuous, that god-gifted genius, which chafed against the restraints of law? or in lyric poetry would you choose to be a Bacchylides or a Pindar? ...
— On the Sublime • Longinus
... did it as openly as I have said, you'd arrest him at once. But you must remember Cranze will have been thinking out his game for perhaps a year beforehand, till he can see absolutely no flaw in it, till he thinks, in fact, there's not the vaguest chance of being dropped on. If anything happens to Hamilton, his dear friend Cranze will be the last man to be suspected of it. And mark you, he's a clever chap. It isn't your clumsy, ignorant ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... presented some serious difficulties. Its size made it a phenomenon in the diamond market; its colour placed it in a category by itself; and, to add to these elements of uncertainty, there was a defect, in the shape of a flaw, in the very heart of the stone. Even with this last serious draw-back, however, the lowest of the various estimates given was twenty thousand pounds. Conceive my father's astonishment! He had been within a hair's-breadth of refusing to act as executor, and of allowing this ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... did not part. The anchor was afterwards fished up by divers from El-Muwaylah, and its shank was found broken clean across like a carrot. Yet there was no sign of a flaw. Mr. Duguid calculated the transverse breaking strain of average anchor-iron (8 1/2 inches x 4 22 square inches), at 83 1/10 tons; and the tensile breaking strain at 484 tons, or 22 tons to the square ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... more than a sixteen inches to spare in the nether overloop, as I heard after. And saith he, 'That won't do for going to windward in a say, Martin.' And as the words came out of mun's mouth, your worship, there was a bit of a flaw from the westward, sharp like, and overboard goeth my cap, and hitth against the wall, and as I stooped to pick it up, I heard a cry, and it was ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... seem! Their faces beam; I give them all their names, Bertram and Gilbert, Louis, Frank and James, Each with his aims; One thinks he is a poet, and writes verse His friends rehearse; Another is full of law; A third sees pictures which his hand can draw Without a flaw. ...
— Behind the Arras - A Book of the Unseen • Bliss Carman
... very long time before the inquest was over, and Aunt Jane had almost yielded to her niece's impatience and her own, and consented to walk down to meet the intelligence, when Fergus came tearing in, 'I've seen the rock, and there is a flaw of crystal- lisation in it! And the coroner-man ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... mist of tears in which he once was shrouded, the face of the Grey Angel is seen to be wondrously kind. By his mysterious alchemy, he has crystallised the doubtful waters, which once were in the cup of Life and Love, into a jewel which has no flaw. He has kept the child forever a child, caught the maiden at the noon of her beauty to enshrine her thus for always in the heart that loved her most; made the true and loving comrade a comrade always, though on the ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed
... come hither. But when this fairest of the sisters led them through her palace and showed them all the treasures that were hers, envy grew in their hearts and choked their old love. Even while they sat at feast with her, they grew more and more bitter; and hoping to find some little flaw in her good fortune, they asked a ...
— Old Greek Folk Stories Told Anew • Josephine Preston Peabody
... "was the wild scheme which Hamilton Burton brought to me as his letter of introduction. I found no flaw in his plan—aside from its stupendous audacity. You ask me why I put him in a position of power. He rode in on his own ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... ways and habits of her new life. It did not puzzle or disturb her in the least to live in large rooms, be waited on by servants, or have nice things about her; she took to all these naturally. For a few days Mr. and Mrs. Grant watched with some anxiety, fearing to discover a flaw in their treasure, but no flaw appeared. Not that Annie was faultless, but hers were honest little faults; there was nothing hidden or concealed in her character, and in a short time her new friends had learned to trust her ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... your excellency," he stammered, his mouth open, his eyes staring. I could detect no flaw in his acting. ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman
... be free. He even prepared to go away, to leave her in the lurch. But for the first time there was a flaw in ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... have been married in the face of all the people, and in token of it you will both sign the register that I have kept of such marriages, among those of my people who have adopted the Christian Faith. Still, in case there should be any legal flaw I again demand the solemn promise of you both that on the first opportunity you will cause this marriage to be re-celebrated in some civilized ...
— Allan's Wife • H. Rider Haggard
... to the word, she put the helm up just as a flaw of wind came sweeping over the waves. The boat came round; the three sails, caught by the flaw, suddenly flew over, filled on the other side, and the Greyhound careened till she ...
— Hope and Have - or, Fanny Grant Among the Indians, A Story for Young People • Oliver Optic
... it. Now listen to me carefully. I'll give you, step by step, the whole matter." He walked up and down for some minutes and then suddenly stopped beside me and thumped me on the back. "There's not a flaw in it!" he cried. "It's magnificent. My dear fellow, death is only a failure in human perfection. There's nothing mysterious in it. Religion has made a ridiculous fuss about it. There's nothing more mysterious in it ...
— The Blue Germ • Martin Swayne
... came to reflect that this was but an outbreak among old friends on an old occasion, after (I do believe) months of sobriety; that there was no concealment about it; and that though obstinate at first as to how little drunk, &c., he was very repentant afterwards—I cannot let this one flaw weigh against the general good of the man. I cannot if I would: what then is the use of trying? But my confidence in that respect must be so far shaken, and it vexes me to think that I can never be sure of his not being overtaken ...
— Two Suffolk Friends • Francis Hindes Groome
... of error; or where he ventures upon the latter, he often either wilfully or ignorantly misreads Fox, as in the vapid pleasantry wasted upon Joan Lashford, a married maid, as he is pleased to call her;[20] or he triumphs over him by exposing some flaw in the character of a martyr with an eureka, which the honest martyrologist himself did not affect to conceal, and for the knowledge indeed of which Parsons is altogether indebted to him, as where he makes himself merry with the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 19, No. 528, Saturday, January 7, 1832 • Various
... her hold. In July, 1865, the huge steamer left Ireland, dropping the endless coil into the sea. The same men were engaged in this last attempt that had failed in all the previous ones. It is one of the most memorable instances of perseverance on record. But on August 6th a flaw occurred, and the cable was being drawn up for repairs. The sound of the wheel suddenly stopped; the cable broke and sunk into the depths. The Great Eastern returned unsuccessful ...
— Steam Steel and Electricity • James W. Steele
... but Thee, O Sovereign Seer of time, But Thee, O poet's Poet, Wisdom's Tongue, But Thee, O man's best Man, O love's best Love, O perfect life in perfect labor writ, O all men's Comrade, Servant, King, or Priest,— What if or yet, what mole, what flaw, what lapse, What least defect or shadow of defect, What rumor, tattled by an enemy, Of inference loose, what lack of grace Even in torture's grasp, or sleep's, or death's,— Oh, what amiss may I forgive in Thee, Jesus, good ...
— The Ascent of the Soul • Amory H. Bradford
... hearers might have been excused for staring. It may be strange, but is not inconsistent, that a wolf which has eaten ninety-nine children should spare the hundredth. But the fact that a wolf has once spared a child is sufficient to show that there must be some flaw in the chain of reasoning purporting to prove that wolves ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... above that, and so still higher and higher good without limit; and of the natural working of the will, following up and fastening upon what the understanding discerns as good. The desire in question, then, is by no means a necessary evil, or natural flaw, in ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... jest.] Isn't it awful! You can't make him jealous! I think it's a positive flaw in his character! Not like—us, ...
— The Girl with the Green Eyes - A Play in Four Acts • Clyde Fitch
... the other day of an English gentlemen being taken in by one of these scoundrels, and giving a lot of money for land which on examination proved to be worthless. Luckily for him, there was some flaw in his agreement, and his purchase was cancelled. Men who intend buying land should be in no great hurry about their investments; the banks give a fair percentage on deposits, and it is always so much more satisfactory to look around ...
— A Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba • Mrs. Cecil Hall
... he held, and passing one hand caressingly over her shining hair, "My darling, how very, very lovely you are!" he said, the words bursting spontaneously from his lips; "there is no flaw in your beauty, and your ...
— Elsie's Womanhood • Martha Finley
... hundred-ton guns and the crank-shafts of transatlantic steamers are forged by hydraulic pressure, and the worker has but to turn a tap to give shape to the immense mass of steel, which makes a far more homogeneous metal, without crack or flaw, of the blooms, whatever ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin
... gained an archduke's heart by her beauty and the right to wear his honors by her wit. Nothing was known of the stove at this latter day in Hall. The grandfather Strehla, who had been a master-mason, had dug it up out of some ruins where he was building, and, finding it without a flaw, had taken it home, and only thought it worth finding because it was such a good one to burn. That was now sixty years past, and ever since then the stove had stood in the big, desolate, empty room, warming ...
— Bimbi • Louise de la Ramee
... attained not unto the years of his predecessors, yet he wanted not those preserving virtues which confirm the thread of weaker constitutions. Cautelous chastity and crafty sobriety were far from him; those jewels were paragon, without flaw, hair, ice, or cloud in him: which affords me a hint to proceed in these good wishes and ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... as the ice on the bay would bear, there would be coming and going, no doubt; but until then Caius had the restful security that she was near him, and that it could not be many days before he saw her. The only flaw in his conclusion was that the fact did not bear it out; he did not ...
— The Mermaid - A Love Tale • Lily Dougall
... portrait, dated 1609, presented to the Memorial Picture Gallery at Stratford by Mrs. Charles Flower. The numerous other portraits that have been claimed as likenesses of the dramatist have varying degrees of probability, but none has a pedigree without a flaw. Those with most claim to interest are the Ely Palace portrait, the Chandos portrait, the Garrick Club bust, and the ...
— The Facts About Shakespeare • William Allan Nielson
... left Anita by an Uncle William who died in the west. The little lies grow beyond the control of the two girls in an amusing series of climaxes. Most amusing and concerned is Grandma, who has to be convinced that she had a son William. Morgan finally sees a flaw and hires a cowboy and an Indian squaw—actors—to come and blackmail Anita for half the money. They are to represent William's partner and wife. Anita realizes what Morgan has done, so she scares the two with threats and they leave. She then tells Morgan that she gave them the money, but he can't ...
— Why the Chimes Rang: A Play in One Act • Elizabeth Apthorp McFadden
... until the light shone slantwise across it. The delicate, half-petulant features, the finely traced brows, and the thoughtful, humorous eyes were all perfect in their way, and yet the combination left something to be desired. There was a vague sense of a flaw somewhere, in feature or in expression, which resolved itself, when analysed, into a slight out-turning and droop of the lower lip; small indeed, and yet pronounced enough to turn what would have been a beautiful face into ...
— The Doings Of Raffles Haw • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of those scriptures, in order that the solemn question might be safely resolved, 'Can such a fallen sinner rise again?' was like the investigation of the title to an estate upon which a whole livelihood depended. Every apparent flaw must be critically examined. Tremblingly alive to the importance of a right decision, his prayers were most earnest; and at length, to his unspeakable delight, the word of the law and wrath gave place to that of life ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... case there must be a flaw in it," retorted Random, but did not seem to be unmoved by Hope's generous action. "Sit down, Professor; it appears that ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... Just as they was passin' another shell dropped. It was on the same spot as all the others, but blow me if it didn't get three of them infantry. They fell squirmin' right on top o' us an' the instrument, so I concluded that spot wasn't as safe as the F.O. had reckoned, an' there was a flaw in 'is argument somewheres that the Coal-Box 'ad found out. The F.O. saw that too, an' we shifted out quick-time. After that things quietened down a bit, an' the short hairs on the back o' my neck had time to lie down. They ...
— Between the Lines • Boyd Cable
... colt, and aunt Hitty was dressed in deep mourning, with the Widow Buzzell's crape veil over her face, and in her hand a palmleaf fan tied with a black ribbon. Her comment to Si, as she went to her virtuous couch that night, was: "It was an awful dry funeral, but that was the only flaw in it. It would 'a' ben perfect if there' ben anybody to shed tears. I come pretty nigh it myself, though I ain't no relation, when Elder Weeks said, 'You'll go round the house, my sisters, and Mis' Butterfield won't be there; you'll go int' the orchard, and Mis' Butterfield won't ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... a stride towards it. He unscrewed the lens, brought it to the lamp, and peered attentively through it, now into the air, now at his sleeve and hand, as if looking for a flaw in it. Then he replaced it, and pulled up the collar of his dressing-gown ...
— Widdershins • Oliver Onions
... established, beyond a doubt, with that of the legatee, in the eyes of the American agent in possession of all the facts of the case from the London attorney. I examined the codicil closely, and could find no flaw! It purported to be the last will of the Lady Frances Pomfret, who revoked all other bequests, in order to bestow her whole property on her niece, ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... without giving her an opportunity of justifying herself! Another girl in Peggy's position might have blamed Arthur in return, and regarded herself as a martyr, but that was not Peggy's way. Far harder to bear than her own smart would have been the necessity of admitting a flaw in her idol. Her one desire was to justify Arthur, and place him beyond the reach of blame. Before she had taken twenty steps forward, she ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... and quite unworthy of Francis Bullard, as he would have realised for himself had he not been obsessed by the new conviction that the real diamonds, now virtually Alan's, were hidden in the clock in that upper room. Further, it contained a serious flaw, in that it allowed nothing for the possibility of Alan's making a fresh will. And finally, if one may be permitted to put the primary objection last, it depended on the possession of the Green Box which had just passed ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell |
