"Overbalance" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the mere negative argument arising from our ignorance of the true solution of such difficulties, as are, perhaps, insoluble because we are finite, can be no reply; and, secondly, such an amount of this evidence as shall fairly overbalance all the objections which we can appreciate. This is the condition to which God has obviously subjected us as inhabitants of this world; and it is on such evidence we are here perpetually acting. We now believe a thousand things we cannot fully ...
— Reason and Faith; Their Claims and Conflicts • Henry Rogers
... like skaters on thin ice, filling their listener with anxiety lest they should break through. But Madame de Grandmaison and her companion were too well exercised in the gymnastics of gossip to overbalance themselves. Half Quebec was run over and run down in ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... savage customs connected with so unsettled a life. They gained also in political privileges, chiefly through the immunity from military service which their new relations enabled them to obtain. These were circumstances of advantage and gain. But one great disadvantage there was, amply to overbalance all other possible gain; the chances were lost or were removed to an incalculable distance for their conversion to Christianity, without which in these times there is no absolute advance possible on the path of ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... fortunately for him, the weight of his body overbalanced the resistance which the atmosphere offered to the broad surface of the kite; else he might have been carried much higher into the air. Equally fortunate was it, that the amount of overbalance was exceedingly slight—otherwise he might have been dashed with violence to ...
— The Cliff Climbers - A Sequel to "The Plant Hunters" • Captain Mayne Reid
... of Mary, had been rather a gay young man, and this, with some other things which had come to his ears, created a prejudice in the mind of Mr. Howland against him. As to what was good in Markland, and likely to overbalance defects, he did not inquire. The hue of his prejudice colored everything. Men like Mr. Howland, who seek to bend everything into forms suited to their own narrow range of ideas, are rarely successful in attaining their ends. The principle of ...
— The Iron Rule - or, Tyranny in the Household • T. S. Arthur
... Blake. "Will he come back when he knows of the wrecking charge that may be made against him? Even the prospect of seeing Joe may not overbalance that. Yet, I suppose he could send for Joe. They couldn't make any charge against him over in China. But it's a ...
— The Moving Picture Boys on the Coast • Victor Appleton
... writes Bishop Butler, "constituted so as to condemn falsehood, unprovoked violence, injustice, and to approve of benevolence to some preferably to others, abstracted from all consideration, which conduct is likeliest to produce an overbalance of happiness or misery." [Footnote: Dissertations appended to the "Analogy," II, Of the Nature of Virtue. Cf. DUGALD STEWART, Outlines of Moral Philosophy, Part 2, ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton
... the vehemence of her appeal. He allowed himself to listen for a moment—to overbalance all his preconceived plans, but just then his past life, Jordan Morse, his own near approaching end, sank into his mind, and the fire in his eyes went out. There was finality in the ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White
... very sentimental reasons—which overbalance the strong temptation to continue "The Philistine"—I consider it a duty to pay him the tribute of discontinuing ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 2 of 14 - Little Journeys To the Homes of Famous Women • Elbert Hubbard
... Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this in one instance may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly overbalance in permanent evil any partial or transient benefit which the use ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... port, and there remaining, end them. Which is best? I am so near daft that I cannot pretend to say; I only know that I shudder at the thought of going to New Orleans, and that my heart fails me when I think of the probable consequence to mother if I allow a mere outward sign of patriotism to overbalance what should be my first consideration—her health. For Clinton is growing no better rapidly. To be hungry is there an everyday occurrence. For ten days, mother writes, they have lived off just hominy enough to keep their bodies and souls from parting, without being able to procure another article—not ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... weight of a straw overbalance," he said, "only for a hint that you have a soul, I'd freeze it for all time with the contents of ...
— Michael O'Halloran • Gene Stratton-Porter
... seen in linsey-wolsey, woven in the same domestic loom. Knitting was then not only an accomplishment, but a useful art; and the size which a "yarn" stocking gave to a pretty ankle, was not suffered to overbalance the consideration of its comfort. The verge of nakedness was not then the region of modesty: the neck and its adjacent parts were covered in preference to the hands; and, in their barbarous ignorance, the women thought it more shame to appear in public half-dressed, ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... he has an inclination to display his children to advantage. This, however, is a foible which most fond parents will be inclined to pardon. I wish I had half his piety, energy of mind, and zeal for the cause of God. These excellencies, in my opinion, so far overbalance all his defects that I am constrained to consider him a Christian far above the common run. I must now close this defence of Brother Marshman by repeating that all matters of furniture, convenience, etc., are things belonging to the economy of the station at Serampore, and that no ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... a profile is often one of great beauty, only here the variety is apt to overbalance the unity or run of the line. The most beautiful profiles are usually those in which variety is subordinated to the unity of the contour. I fancy the Greeks felt this when they did away with the hollow above the nose, making ...
— The Practice and Science Of Drawing • Harold Speed
... of you!..." she laughed. "What happens when you two overbalance and don't happen to be near enough to catch each other?... Does the dinner come in and find you both ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... kind to man than he is to himself, and dulls his faculties against the deformities and discords of his own creating. From the sense of feeling it is probable we receive more pain than pleasure, but by no means so much more as to overbalance the great preponderance of delights coming through the other avenues: a great part of such pain is cautionary, and much can be avoided by voluntary action; and the stimulus thus given by the wise severity of Nature begets that activity of the moral life from which results the highest form ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... are not likely to obey other laws, and the respect for law among all classes steadily diminishes as our people become familiar with, and tolerant to, wholesale criminality. Whether the moral and economic results of Prohibition overbalance this rising wave ...
— The Constitution of the United States - A Brief Study of the Genesis, Formulation and Political Philosophy of the Constitution • James M. Beck
... sort of thing, for I heard her rejoicing over it. That girl will be injured by Chautauqua; I know it as well as though I already saw it; and the question with me is, whether the amount of evil done will not overbalance the good. At the same time I am inconsistent enough to wish with all my heart that I ...
— Four Girls at Chautauqua • Pansy
... as those insults might be, addressed to a cardinal, to a minister in possession of entire confidence, and at the head of affairs, the public, who envied him and did not like him, well remembering whence he had sprung, would consider the victim too illustrious; that the chastisement would overbalance the offence, and would be complained of; that violent resolutions, although necessary, should always have reason and appearances in their favour; that therefore I was against allowing punishment to follow too quickly upon the real offence, inasmuch as M. le Duc ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... Occidental must look uncouth in such an Oriental setting; you feel you ought at least not to stand up in a place like that; I mean for aesthetic reasons—you overbalance the composition. ...
— From Edinburgh to India & Burmah • William G. Burn Murdoch
... when he met this small, shabby lad, and passed him as he might have passed some way-side weed, what was in his mind. If people, when they meet, could know half the workings of one another's minds, the recoils from the shocks might overbalance creation. But Doctor Prescott never saw the phantom paupers slouching through his clover-fields, and Simon Basset never jostled Mindy Toggs on his threshold. However, Mindy Toggs had once lived ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... intuitions; he considers him as looking upon this complex scene of ideas and sensations, and finding everywhere objects that immediately excite in him sympathies which, from the necessities of his nature, are accompanied by an overbalance of enjoyment. ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various
... match for the enemy, then a favourable result is hardly to be expected from this second combat: but if it is so strong that it can undertake the second combat without regard to the first, then it may be able by a favourable issue to compensate or even overbalance the first combat, but never to make it ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz
... formidable opposition to the break-up of these unnatural alliances between east and west, between Democracy and Autocracy, between the twentieth century and the Dark Ages, will not come from the Balancers of Power. They are not really Balance of Power alliances: in fact, they are tending to an enormous overbalance of power in favor of the east as against the west and in favor of Militarist Autocracy as against Democracy. They are at root absolutely unpatriotic, even absolutely conscienceless products of commercial finance; and the Balance of Power ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... to be known, is of more importance than to be right. 'Change,' says Hooker, 'is not made without inconvenience, even from worse to better.' There is in constancy and stability a general and lasting advantage, which will always overbalance the slow improvements of gradual correction. Much less ought our written language to comply with the corruptions of oral utterance, or copy that which every variation of time or place makes different from itself, and imitate those changes, which will again be changed, while ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... could be little question in any man's mind, that eventually he would win his way to a solitary throne, by a policy so full of caution and subtlety. He was sure to risk nothing which could be had on easier terms; and nothing, unless for a great overbalance of gain in prospect; to lose nothing which he had once gained; and in no case to miss an advantage, or sacrifice an opportunity, by any consideration of generosity. No modern insurance office but would have guaranteed an event depending upon the final success ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... ordained that population should increase much faster than food. This general law (as it has appeared in the former parts of this Essay) undoubtedly produces much partial evil, but a little reflection may, perhaps, satisfy us, that it produces a great overbalance of good. Strong excitements seem necessary to create exertion, and to direct this exertion, and form the reasoning faculty, it seems absolutely necessary, that the Supreme Being should act always according to general laws. The constancy of the laws of nature, or the certainty with which we may ...
— An Essay on the Principle of Population • Thomas Malthus
... plan. Hollerith obviously wasn't sure of his own men any more—and neither would I have been, in his spot. But he had the advantage of surprise and superior arms; he was clearly hoping that would overbalance the lack of discipline, training and order in his force. Besides, there was nothing else he could do; he was outvoted, all ...
— The Man Who Played to Lose • Laurence Mark Janifer
... starts to shelve, turn off radar and motor and start crawling. Eternal slow reach out, grab, shove, haul, with my heart in my mouth; then suddenly the nose breaks water and I am hauling myself out with a last wave doing its best to overbalance me. ...
— The Lost Kafoozalum • Pauline Ashwell
... Gerontides laughed. "If you were made of gold, to Genoa you go. I've a bigger stake in a quick landing at Genoa than any sum you could name would overbalance. Best ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... the heavens. According to the nature and degree of his merit, his heavenly existence is prolonged, or perhaps repeated many times in succession; or, if his next birth occurs on earth, it is under happy circumstances, as a sage or a king. But when he expires, should there, on the other hand, be an overbalance of ill desert, he is born as a demon in one of the hells, or may in repeated lives run the circuit of the hells; or, if he at once returns to the earth, it is as a beggar, a leprous outcast, a wretched cripple, or in the guise of a rat, a snake, or ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... able to hold her until his horse slackened speed, or would they both overbalance and hurtle to the ground together? Would there be time to stop the horse, or would they all be hurled into ...
— Leonie of the Jungle • Joan Conquest
... wheels of a machine. Overwork and worry have both to be guarded against. For over-brain-work is strain-work; and it is exhausting and destructive according as it is in excess of nature. And the brain-worker may exhaust and overbalance his mind by excess, just as the athlete may overstrain his muscles and break his back by attempting feats beyond the strength of his ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... with fresh beef; and we took on board about fifteen tons of water, which we brought off in the country boats, at the rate of about three shillings per ton. Ships are allowed to water with their own boats; but the many inconveniencies attending it, more than overbalance the expence of hiring shore-boats, which is ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World Volume 2 • James Cook
... are too often of the melancholic or overcholeric type, our wonder grows that we are not doomed to defeat at birth. Were it not for the possibilities in the germ-plasm of choosing the much of good also in our heredity, often enough to overbalance the bad, and for the proved power of environment and training to modify or even altogether overcome the harmful parts of our birthright, there would be little hope ...
— Applied Psychology for Nurses • Mary F. Porter
... something indescribably fascinating yet terrible attracts me to her; it is an evil attraction, I know, but I cannot resist it. There is something wicked in every man's nature; I am conscious enough that there is something detestably wicked in mine, and I have not sufficient goodness to overbalance it. And this woman,—this silent, gliding, glittering-eyed creature that has suddenly taken possession of my fancy—she overcomes me in spite of myself; she makes havoc of all the good intentions of my life. ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... nearest him by the collar, he slung him through the open doorway. His brother rushed at him, but the young Devonshire man met him with such a facer that he dropped in a heap upon the ground. Unfortunately, the violence of the blow caused him to overbalance himself, and, tripping over his prostrate antagonist, he came down heavily upon his face. Before he could rise, the old hag sprang upon his back and clung to him, shrieking to her son to bring the poker. John managed to shake himself clear of them both, but ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... safe," she called. "See, hold thou the plank! I will stand on the farther side of the stone so that it may not overbalance with your greater weights. Now, come, oh Holly, for presently ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... steel, while the attraction is assisted by the same inductive action. Make this clear to your minds, and verify it by your experiments. In some cases you can actually make the attraction due to the temporary magnetism overbalance the repulsion due to the permanent magnetism, and thus cause two poles of the same kind apparently to attract each other. When, however, good hard magnets act on each other from a sufficient distance, the ...
— Fragments of science, V. 1-2 • John Tyndall
... smudge of smoke told of what had really been, and a black heap of ruins where the familiar house had stood for so long confirmed their fears for their own property; but to see the village content and smiling, except for a poor building or two, was joy enough to overbalance the ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... only then, Joe came to life. Leaping toward the door he seized the owner of the voice by the shoulders with a force that threatened to overbalance him. ...
— Glenloch Girls • Grace M. Remick
... bear was getting the best of them, for the beating on the head maddened him. He began to climb up the edge of the canoe, and his great weight was beginning to overbalance it. I called to them, but as I do not speak the white man's language, they did not understand. Fear gripped at their hearts, and, as the bear climbed into the canoe, they leaped into the river and swam for shore, ...
— The Shagganappi • E. Pauline Johnson
... possesses were likely to be applied to the practical operation of the scheme, the evils which are dreaded and foreseen might be mitigated and avoided; but this is very far from the case, and the evils will, in all probability, more than overbalance the good which humanity aims at effecting; nor is it possible to view the settlement (as it is called, for all changes are settlements now-a-days) of this question without a misgiving that it will only produce some other great topic for public agitation, some great interest to be overturned ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... acts of the federal States I shall speak presently: but these three were the main ones used against the common head. Now, suppose it be admitted that all of these are evils in the system; do they overbalance and outweigh the advantages and great good which this same Government affords in a thousand innumerable ways that cannot be estimated? Have we not at the South, as well as the North, grown great, prosperous, and happy under its operations? Has any part of the World ever shown such rapid ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... Laddie. "I've only to visit the offices, and examine the business of those of my family living by law, to KNOW that it's the truth. Of course there's another side! There are times when there are great opportunities to do good; I recognize that. To some these may seem to overbalance that to which I object. If they do, all right. I am merely deciding for myself. Once and for all, for me it is land. It is born in me to love it, to handle it easily, to get the best results from stock. ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter
... She has taken the paddle!" Even as she objected she obeyed. The frail craft rocked as she slid into it, careful only not to overbalance; next moment it rocked more dangerously and then settled evenly into the water ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... in favor of that, and reasons against it," he said, thoughtfully. "I am inclined, however, to think that the arguments in favor overbalance the objections; still, the serious objection is, that a faithful teacher wants little personal talks with her pupils, and will contrive to be personal in a way that she cannot do so ...
— The Chautauqua Girls At Home • Pansy, AKA Isabella M. Alden
... labour. What he thought sufficient, he did not stop to make better; and allowed himself to leave many parts unfinished, in confidence that the good lines would overbalance the bad. What he had once written, he dismissed from his thoughts; and, I believe, there is no example to be found of any correction or improvement made by him after publication. The hastiness of his productions might be the effect of necessity; ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... previous sanction. Her majesty's government are satisfied that, although the late operations in the Canton River were attended with immediate success, the risk of a second attempt of the same kind would far overbalance any advantage to be derived from such a step. If the conduct of the Chinese authorities should, unfortunately, render another appeal to arms inevitable, it will be necessary that it should be made after due preparation, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... one hand, as my self-accusation does not amount to a confession of guilt, so, on the other, it is possible that, if it did, the benefit resulting to others from the record of an experience purchased at so heavy a price might compensate, by a vast overbalance, for any violence done to the feelings I have noticed, and justify a breach of the general rule. Infirmity and misery do not of necessity imply guilt. They approach or recede from shades of that dark alliance, in proportion to the probable motives and prospects of the offender, and the palliations, ...
— Confessions of an English Opium-Eater • Thomas De Quincey
... demands, I order you—after considering the aforesaid points and others of which you may be advised (since the matter is a current one), and difficulties that might arise, if you find, to the contrary, no others so important as to overbalance them—to give orders that there be no further trade or importation of the said merchandise and Chinese wares to that land for the purpose of sale. You will have the merchants engaged in this commerce advised and notified of this decree. You will provide for its public proclamation, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume VI, 1583-1588 • Emma Helen Blair
... will long continue to impart such a pleasure to mankind as he who is sensible of the extent of that pleasure will be desirous to impart. The end of Poetry is to produce excitement in coexistence with an overbalance of pleasure. Now, by the supposition, excitement is an unusual and irregular state of the mind; ideas and feelings do not in that state succeed each other in accustomed order. But if the words by which ...
— Lyrical Ballads, With Other Poems, 1800, Vol. I. • William Wordsworth
... successes, and the reasonable expectation that on this occasion another will be added to the list. Yet in spite of this there is a good deal of unavoidable uncertainty as to how this new play may strike the fickle public, and on the whole the doubt and fear overbalance the certainty and pride, for there is more of the pale grey than of the orange, and the whole thought-form vibrates like a flag flapping in a gale of wind. It will be noted that while the outline of the orange is exceedingly ...
— Thought-Forms • Annie Besant
... alternating with fire traps. Moreover attention to individual tracts does not improve surrounding conditions, and the latter may easily become so bad as to make the cost of individual patrol, as well as the risk, far overbalance any financial disadvantage ...
— Practical Forestry in the Pacific Northwest • Edward Tyson Allen
... self-support and adjustment overbalance a hundred times any little remnant defects in its machinery or gearing. Easily ninety-nine per cent of all our troubles through life are due to inevitable wear and tear, scarcity of food-fuel, of water, of rest, and external accidents—injuries and infectious diseases. Still, it occasionally ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... impressions of greater or less intensity and duration. That is called good which produces pleasure; that is called evil which produces pain. These are general names, applicable to every class of causes, from which an overbalance of pain or pleasure may result. But when a human being is the active instrument of generating or diffusing happiness, the principle through which it is most effectually instrumental to that purpose, is called virtue. And benevolence, or the desire to ...
— A Defence of Poetry and Other Essays • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... upon it with levity. He understood his brother's character and foibles too well, and feared that notwithstanding his many admirable qualities, his vanity and want of firmness, or, in other words, of self-dependence, might overbalance ...
— Phelim O'toole's Courtship and Other Stories • William Carleton
... together; and upon his death the huge fabric he had reared naturally fell to pieces. The Spanish Empire is but another instance showing that geographical and other elements of disconnection must not overbalance those which relate remote sections to each other, and bind them together in a common interest, else dissolution will be the result. In respect to the United States, all these conditions are reversed. Every interest in the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... but in consequence of the mixed principles resulting from mixed marriages, or of other unforeseen causes, he may be so alarmed about the unsteady disposition of his children and their future prospects, that the pain which he feels on these accounts may overbalance the pleasure, which he acknowledges in the constant prudence, goodness, solicitude, and affection, of his wife. This may be so much the case, that all her consolatory offices may not be able to get the better of his grief. A man, therefore, in such circumstances, may truly repent of his ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume II (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... consummate harmony in music or in verse; and yet consummate harmony in either has never been found where the natural gift has not made itself conspicuous long before. Spenser's Hymns, and Shakespeare's "Venus and Adonis," and "Rape of Lucrece," are striking instances of the overbalance of mere sweetness of sound. Even "Comus" is what we should, in this sense, call luxurious; and all four gratify the outward ear much more than that inner and severer sense which is associated with the reason, and requires a meaning even in the very music for its full satisfaction. Compare the ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... across a corner of the Kingsbury farm that morning, to make the distance to his grandmother's shorter, in his unwise fashion, never considering that climbing walls and fences, paddling through the marshy meadows and contriving to get over the ditch would more than overbalance the few steps ...
— The Little Gold Miners of the Sierras and Other Stories • Various
... Caribou killed by native hunters. As the whites rarely enter the region, this is practically all the destruction by man. The annual increase of 30,000,000 Caribou must be several millions and would so far overbalance the hunter toll that the latter cannot make any ...
— The Arctic Prairies • Ernest Thompson Seton
... see all these drawbacks and then decide for yourselves whether the advantages of Christmas overbalance the drawbacks. For my part I believe that they do and I enjoy the day and the season. But don't take my word for it. Decide ...
— Campfire Girls in the Allegheny Mountains - or, A Christmas Success against Odds • Stella M. Francis
... latter component exactly equals the magnetic effect of the exciting coils per se, an equality which holds good for all currents, then we shall have an almost perfect imitation of a tangent galvanometer with permanent magnets. But we can go a step further than this; we can overbalance the exciting coils by setting the deflecting coil at a greater angle than necessary for the mere elimination of the former, and thus attain that an increase of current results in a slight weakening of the field in which the needle swings, thus allowing ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 433, April 19, 1884 • Various
... little more than a year at Bath had but one memorable event, in its course, to me. I was looking one evening, at bedtime, over the banisters, from the upper story into the hall below, with tiptoe eagerness that caused me to overbalance myself and turn over the rail, to which I clung on the wrong side, suspended, like Victor Hugo's miserable priest to the gutter of Notre Dame, and then fell four stories down on the stone pavement of the hall. I was not killed, ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... arrived; I am now indebted to you L30. In spite of philosophy, I am rather ashamed of this unceremonious exsiccation of your financial river. But indeed, my dear friend, the gratitude which I owe you for your society and attachment ought so far to overbalance this consideration as to leave me nothing but that. I must, however, ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... care of his mother, whom, as she was now set free from her husband, he, probably, imagined likely to treat with great tenderness the child that had contributed to so pleasing an event. It is not, indeed, easy to discover what motives could be found to overbalance that natural affection of a parent, or what interest could be promoted by neglect or cruelty. The dread of shame or of poverty, by which some wretches have been incited to abandon or to murder their ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson
... suggested, and gave directions for executing them. He found the different corps in good order, considering the irregular materials of which they were composed, in great force of numbers and high confidence and spirits. And so much did military experience at that moment overbalance all other claims to consequence, that even old Edie, instead of being left, like Diogenes at Sinope, to roll his tub when all around were preparing for defence, had the duty assigned him of superintending the serving out of the ammunition, which he ...
— The Antiquary, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... steadfast man, whose life for the most part was a telling pantomime of action, and not a tame chapter of sounds. Yet, for all his hardy sobriety and fortitude, there were certain qualities in him which at times affected, and in some cases seemed well nigh to overbalance all the rest. Uncommonly conscientious for a seaman, and endued with a deep natural reverence, the wild watery loneliness of his life did therefore strongly incline him to superstition; but to that sort of superstition, which in some organizations seems rather to spring, ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... Charlie threw his arms round him, and, though the smaller boy of the two, extricated himself from the clutch of the bully, and sent him in turn staggering back. Livid with rage, Tom rushed at him; but Charlie eluded him, and left him to overbalance himself and fall sprawling on the paved floor. At this instant the doctor's door opened, and the head master stood gazing ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... extremely prudent, ha, ha, ha! the world will say, Lard! who could have thought Mr Luckless had had so much prudence? This one action will overbalance all the follies ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding
... Dreamers and visionaries were of as frequent occurrence in Erin of ages ago as they are to-day. Then as now the supernatural and marvellous had a wondrous fascination for the Celtic mind. Sometimes the attraction becomes so strong as seemingly to overbalance the faculty of distinguishing fact from fancy. Of St. Bridget we are gravely told that to dry her wet cloak she hung in out on a sunbeam! Another Saint sailed away to a foreign land on a sod from his native hillside! More than once we find a flagstone turned into a raft to bear a missionary band ...
— The Life of St. Mochuda of Lismore • Saint Mochuda
... that as Mr. Hume remarks, there is in Rymer's Foedera a proclamation of Richard, in which he accuses, not the lord Hastings, but the marquis Dorset, of connexion with Jane Shore. Mr. Hume thinks so authentic a paper not sufficient to overbalance the credit due to Sir Thomas More. What little credit was due to him appears from the course of this work in various and indubitable instances. The proclamation against the lord Dorset and Jane Shore is not dated till the ...
— Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the Third • Horace Walpole
... day and night are trusted to my care. I hold the day in my right hand and the night in my left; and I maintain the just equilibrium between them, for if either were to overbalance the other, the universe would either be consumed by the heat of the sun, or would perish with the cold of darkness.—Comte de Caylus, Oriental Tales ("History of ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer
... radiant with her dark lightnings, yet visibly subject to him under the spell of the news he had artfully lengthened out to excite and overbalance her:—and her enthusiasm was all pointed to his share in the altered situation, as he well knew and was flattered ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Republican in politics generally, the rural districts being so strongly so as often to overbalance the normal Democratic plurality in Chicago. Thus another ground of jealousy is found In the distribution of ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... on either side of it. One, who has drawn back in the attitude of striking, looks as if he could fell an ox with a single blow of his powerful arm. The other is a more lithe and agile figure, and there is a quick fire in his countenance which might overbalance the ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... the other to a greater value than it exports to that other, the former necessarily becomes indebted to the latter in a greater sum than the latter becomes indebted to it: the debts and credits of each do not compensate one another, and money must be sent out from that place of which the debts overbalance the credits. The ordinary course of exchange, therefore, being an indication of the ordinary state of debt and credit between two places, must likewise be an indication of the ordinary course of their exports and imports, as these necessarily ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... verse except when a special writer is put on the staff to supply a column of verse a day. Occasionally some topical stanza which agrees with the editorial policy will be accepted from an outsider. It may be pointed out here that very often the humor or appropriateness of a production will overbalance faults in the rhyme and meter. In serious verse an exception of this sort will rarely be found and a thing must stand or fall on ...
— Rhymes and Meters - A Practical Manual for Versifiers • Horatio Winslow
... being handled, disarranged, or removed. But they are also open to the objection that they obstruct the prompt service of the books, by just the amount of time it takes to open the doors or screens, and close them again. This trouble and delay may overbalance the supposed advantages. Certainly they must do so in all large libraries, where the frequentation is great, and where every moment's delay in the book service works disadvantage to numerous readers. While private libraries, ...
— A Book for All Readers • Ainsworth Rand Spofford
... approved and payment had been made to the company. After this confession I hesitated long upon what I should do. On the one hand, I shrank from disgracing Doctor West. On the other, I had a duty to the city. After a long struggle I decided that my responsibility to the people of Westville should overbalance any feeling I might have for any ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... having been made out of odd materials that never could have fitted, is a proved fact. But surely there can be no attraction about a blotched and bloated skin and a "bay window" thrown out to an extent threatening to overbalance the whole structure. Yet what else can be expected, when the youngster starts his beer-drinking with a "Fruhschoppen" at 10 a.m., and closes it with a "Kneipe" at ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome
... on the street, and in his various associations, your child will be exposed to the evil of hearing impure language from vile lips; and if he be not warned, who can blame him for listening? Your home teaching must overbalance all ...
— The value of a praying mother • Isabel C. Byrum
... he, "failure is impossible. The expedition is to start at once, tomorrow night. No man in it has now any ties or home or kin that overbalance his ties to me and to the esprit de ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... of the flourishing of commerce, and the protection and encouragement of letters and arts. Never was the commercial spirit so well reconciled to the nobler principles of social polity as in Florence. It tended there to union and permanence and elevation,—not as the overbalance of it in England is now doing, to dislocation, change and moral degradation. The intensest patriotism reigned in these communities, but confined and attached exclusively to the small locality of the patriot's birth ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... horrible sight, but the boys had little time to observe it. Their attention was now fully occupied with beating off the infuriated mates of the dead birds, who beat the air about the aeroplane with their huge wings until the air-storm created threatened to overbalance it. ...
— The Boy Aviators' Polar Dash - Or - Facing Death in the Antarctic • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... read about them in novels, papers and magazines, anything I could lay hands on. I would read hungrily, at times almost wistfully. But all the stories that I read, however romantic, could never quite overbalance for me that giggling woman I ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... time unfolds the highest energies of the head. Nay, with such consummate art does he manage the fiercest tempests of our being, that in a healthy mind the witnessing of them is always attended with an overbalance of pleasure. With the very whirlwinds of passion he so blends the softening and alleviating influences of poetry, that they relish of nothing but sweetness and health.... He is not wont to exhibit either utterly worthless or utterly faultless monsters; persons too ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... joy of every other person as met her as it was agin her 'n' not agin them, for it was a well-known fact as Mr. Kimball had said hunderds of times as if he had that nose an' leaned over a bridge 'n' see it in the water he 'd be willin' to let it overbalance him then 'n' there 'n' be drowned forever. He got pretty meek at that, for it showed as I was in earnest, 'n' he went on to say as it was large, but he said as afore she took to that way of kind o' shrinkin' back of it it did n't ...
— Susan Clegg and Her Neighbors' Affairs • Anne Warner
... office. But if his father and benefactor would permit him to study, under his instructions, the noble art in which he himself enjoyed such a deserved reputation, the mere hope that he might by-and-by be of some use to Mr. Gray in his business, would greatly overbalance every other consideration. Such a course of education, and such a use of professional knowledge when he had acquired it, would be a greater spur to his industry than the prospect even of becoming Town-clerk of Middlemas in his ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott
... to draw his councillors from all directions, and his naturally moderate spirit approved a policy of judicious selection. But the noteworthy feature in the line of action which he ultimately followed was that he allowed his diplomatic instincts to overbalance the advice imposed on him by the British ministry. {144} In selecting individuals for his councils, he almost unconsciously followed the wishes of Baldwin and his party, until, at the end, he found himself in the hands of resolute advocates of responsible ...
— British Supremacy & Canadian Self-Government - 1839-1854 • J. L. Morison
... brother's aimless footsteps stray thitherward, and he but bend, one moment, over the deep, black tide, would he not bethink himself that here was the sure refuge within his reach, and that, with a single step, or the slightest overbalance of his body, he might be forever beyond his kinsman's gripe? Oh, the temptation! To make of his ponderous sorrow a security! To sink, with its leaden weight upon him, and ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... may think of the credulity of these two ecclesiastics, there can be no ground for charging them with acting otherwise than conscientiously, and they had claims on the gratitude of their countrymen sufficient to overbalance their error of judgment on this occasion. Their books relating to the terrible witchcraft delusion at Salem have now become very rare in the original editions, and their interest, as remarkable monuments of the history of superstition, ...
— The Wonders of the Invisible World • Cotton Mather
... eventually arrive when the unnatural social position the Humanists adopted must overbalance itself; hence they prepared for the ...
— The Sequel - What the Great War will mean to Australia • George A. Taylor
... change:—'Debate on Sir R. Walpole: Hallam, Gaskell, Pickering, and Doyle spoke. Voted for him. Last time, when I was almost entirely ignorant of the subject, against him. There were sundry considerable blots, but nothing to overbalance or to spoil the great merit of being the bulwark of the protestant succession, his commercial measures, and in general his ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... grown in orchard form long enough so that regularity of bearing, size of crops, resistance to disease, etc., have been determined to a considerable extent. These are of such importance to the practical pecan grower as to overbalance to quite an extent the merits of the nut itself which are the only qualities that can be considered in ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Sixth Annual Meeting. Rochester, New York, September 1 and 2, 1915 • Various
... the evil. Our mistake is in supposing that some men are 'good' and others 'bad,' and that a sharp line can be drawn between them. The truth is, that every man has both qualities in him and in very few does the evil overbalance the good. I marvel at the goodness I find in humanity, when I see the temptation and opportunity there is ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford
... conflicting opinion and the attrition of acrid debate, the covenant of grace steadily hardened into a covenant of barren works, in which an air of sanctimony became an easy substitute for the sense of sanctification, and the tithe of mint and cummin was allowed to overbalance the weightier ...
— Beginnings of the American People • Carl Lotus Becker
... sensuality. His life is on the point of being wrecked, and his splendid powers are dissipated by his inability to restrain his passions. The tragic fate which hovers over him from the moment of his birth is admirably hinted at, but not emphasized, in the sketch of his parents. The carnal overbalance, supplied by the blood of the Kurts, wellnigh neutralizes the mechanical genius which is hereditary in ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... less perfect in the same conditions; and so it is quite conceivable, and not incredible, that such a current may be gradually established and thenceforward permanently maintained by a small motor flame barely more than enough to overbalance the minimized friction. This is not a supposed or theoretically inferred fact, like the facts of ventilation sometimes alleged by theorists. On the contrary, the theory I have offered is merely an attempt to explain facts that I have witnessed and ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XV., No. 388, June 9, 1883 • Various
... may find compensations for betraying their trust, which, to any but minds animated and guided by superior virtue, may appear to exceed the proportion of interest they have in the common stock, and to overbalance the obligations of duty. Hence it is that history furnishes us with so many mortifying examples of the prevalency of foreign corruption in republican governments. How much this contributed to the ruin of the ancient commonwealths has been already delineated. ...
— The Federalist Papers
... deepest fountains of the heart, he at the same time kindles the highest energies of the head. Nay, with such consummate art does he manage the fiercest tempests of our being, that in a healthy mind the witnessing of them is always attended by an overbalance of pleasure. With the very whirlwinds of passion he so blends the softening and assuaging influences of poetry, that they relish of nothing but sweetness and health; as in case of "the gentle Desdemona," where pathos is indeed ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... as faithfully as we can, for they may be a step in another's progress. But the thought of interfering with the design of God will be impious, insupportable. Our only method will be a perfect sincerity, which will indeed lead us to refrain from any attempt to overbalance or to divert ingenuous minds from their own chosen path. To accuse our fellow-men of stupidity or of prejudice is but ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... the station to Radchurch. She was there to meet me. It was the first time that we had been reunited since I had put all my heart and my soul upon her. I cannot enlarge upon these matters, gentlemen. You will either be able to sympathize with and understand the emotions which overbalance a man at such a time, or you will not. If you have imagination, you will. If you have not, I can never hope to make you see more than the bare fact. That bare fact, placed in the baldest language, is that during this drive from Radchurch Junction ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle
... aware that something important was taking place in his soul; that his inner life was on a wavering scale, which could by the slightest effort be made to overbalance to one side or the other. And he made that effort, calling on that God whom the other day he felt in his soul, and God immediately came to his aid. He resolved to tell ...
— The Awakening - The Resurrection • Leo Nikoleyevich Tolstoy
... of Spiritualism would seem to indicate that the source from which it springs is far from good; but it is based upon a church dogma, firmly established through all Christendom, which in many minds is of sufficient weight to overbalance considerations that would otherwise be considered ample grounds for shunning or renouncing it. It is therefore the more necessary that the reader, in examining this question, should let the bonds ...
— Modern Spiritualism • Uriah Smith
... another hour of darkness. The little strength, just born of higher principles, was to be sorely tried. Gold was in one scale, and the heavenly riches that are without wings in the other. Which was to overbalance? ...
— True Riches - Or, Wealth Without Wings • T.S. Arthur
... hypostyle hall, and again at Medinet Habu, the faults of the original design were not noticed till the sculptor had finished his part of the work. The figures of Seti I. and Rameses III. were thrown too far back, and threatened to overbalance themselves; so they were smoothed over with cement and cut anew. Now, the cement has flaked off, and the work of the first chisel is exposed to view. Seti I. and Rameses III. have each two profiles, the one very lightly marked, the other boldly cut into ...
— Manual Of Egyptian Archaeology And Guide To The Study Of Antiquities In Egypt • Gaston Camille Charles Maspero
... twisted iron-work to stand beside Lidgerwood on the main-line embankment. Then to the men who were making the snatch-hitch for the next pull: "A little farther back, boys; farther yet, so she won't overbalance on you; that's about ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... merit of obedience; and told me, that if it were my desire that my Norton should be present at the ceremony, it would be complied with: that the pleasure I should receive from reconciling al my friends to me, and in their congratulations upon it, must needs overbalance, with such a one as me, the difference of persons, however preferable I might think the one man to the other: that love was a fleeting thing, little better than a name, where mortality and virtue did ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... many, that expulsion is only a dismission of the representative to his constituents, with such a testimony against him, as his sentence may comprise; and that, if his constituents, notwithstanding the censure of the house, thinking his case hard, his fault trifling, or his excellencies such as overbalance it, should again choose him, as still worthy of their trust, the house cannot refuse him, for his punishment has purged his fault, and the right of electors ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson |
